Category: Tech Stuff

Stuff dealing with the site or anything else technical

MySpace – I’ve Had Enough

Here’s what I just posted on MySpace:

I have had enough of MySpace. I’m giving it up soon. I know I’ve built a small life on here, but it’s not real. I already have my own place on the web – http://www.kunefke.us/blog – where I can share my life with anyone interested. I devote too much time to MySpace, where I probably see 1/3 of the ads I’m exposed to on a daily basis. I’ve got too much going on to devote so much time to this.
I enjoy keeping up with those in my friends list that I know in real life, but I’d rather do it in person, on the phone, or even by email, rather than the completely informal and not a lot of effort needed approach that comes with MySpace. Just being in someone’s email list is better than that. At least they have to think about whether they want you in on the conversation.
No acts have prompted this. I have not had any “bad” experiences with anyone on my friends list. I simply need to free up some time. I am going to stop doing so much on here and plan to close my account by the end of November.
If you are truly interested in keeping up with me, I will start sending out a monthly or bi-monthly email to a special list of people (who want to be included) with a short summary of how things are going and a link to remind you where I am on the web. If you want to be on that list, please send me a message with your email address so I can add you to the list. I would leave my email address on here, but closing my account would also close this blog, so that would be pointless. As long as you can read this blog, you can just send me a message with your email address… wow, I think I was rambling.
I haven’t posted much to my real blog in a week or two, but that would probably be different, if I hadn’t been spending so much time here. Please check out my blog by clicking on the link in the first paragraph of this post, and please don’t use THIS LINK.

I think I made myself clear.  I like having real friends.  I don’t like the fact that I have 51 friends on my MySpace account, but really only have a relationship with so few of them.  I want real relationships, not superficial ones.

My Perspective of iTunes 7

I’ve seen some people upset about their recent “upgrade” (they’d call it something else) to iTunes 7.  There have been problems with iTunes purchased music not making it’s way over, music not playing correctly, and other stuff like that.  I’ve also read that Apple is granting a one time allowance to re-download lost content that was lost due to the upgrade.  In my opinion, that means that Apple can easily recognize and admit it’s mistake and make it right all in a short amount of time.  We know it’s a short amount of time because this version was just released on Tuesday.
I have seen a number of features that I really like about the new version 7.

  1. You can force iTunes to update album art to the iTunes version, even if you didn’t purchase the album through iTunes.  It takes a while to do it the first time, but I added a Peter Frampton mp3 album this afternoon,  and iTunes went out and got the album art immediately.  I am highly impressed by this as I have gone through a lot of trouble in previous versions updating each album by going out to Google, searching for the album cover and picking the best one before adding it.  Streamlining my own process without even having to ask for it… “cool”!
  2. I like the visual representation of how much space I’m using on the hard drive.  It shows how much is music, video, etc.  Part of the presentation also includes tabs for the iPod preferences that used to require a right-click to access.  Again, making things easier is tremendous.
  3. Built-in ability to back-up entire library (excluding Audible purchases) to CD or DVD easily and restore that library later on, if necessary.  I’m always concerned that I don’t have a duplicate copy of my music just in case of hard drive crashes.  I used to work in hard drive data recovery, if you didn’t know that already.  Data recovery is expensive.
  4. It’s pretty.  The previous version was pretty, too, but looking at this makes me feel all fuzzy inside.  I almost feel the need to get a mac to enjoy the entire Apple experience.
  5. Download progress page.  It consolidates all downloads on one page, so you can see how far along each is and also pauses downloads when the connection drops.  I’ve tested it, and it seems to work flawlessly.  You can also pause a download purposely as well.  In previous versions you could only see progress of downloads in the top area, and even then, I couldn’t figure out how to switch progress bars between two things that were being downloaded.
  6. Skip Count allows you to see how many times you’ve skipped a song.  This is helpful if your library is larger than you iPod, and could potentially make it easier to determine which songs you want on it.  I have a video now, but had a Nano before, and this feature would have been great back then.

I have seen some people complain about iTunes using up way too much memory on their system, but that hasn’t been as widespread as the music complaints.  I’ve played quite a few things that I got from the iTunes store, as well as stuff from my personal library and haven’t had the sketchy audio quality others have complained about.
My personal experience leads me to the conclusion that iTunes 7 is better than it’s predecessor.

Digging PayPerPost

I found this Digg story by a fellow PayPerPoster. You can get to it HERE.
Dan is right about the fact that advertising dollars are more valuable if they are going to regular Joe’s like myself. Creating a buzz about new products is much more valuable because it lets people add usage ideas and collaborative strength to a product.

make money blogging

I really like the video he made… it’s really creative.

I Dugg it… Do you Digg it?

Hurricane Tracking

I may have posted about flhurricane.com last year when I was tracking Rita, but I had to post a link again. I was curious about where Ernesto was headed, and this one shows the average route from all of the routes predicted by several forcast models.

Check out this Map of Ernesto’s Path. I looked for a way to display the map here in my blog, but why reinvent the wheel, you know? So you’re just looking at a picture here.
One of the neat things to look at is tracking for an entire year, such as All of the Hurricanes in 2005.
What do you use to track hurricanes? I don’t know how anything could be more informative than this.

I Got Paid!

I posted a few weeks ago about PayPerPost.com and that post and a two others since then have been PayPerPost entries. I have been paid $20 for those posts combined!
I have received my money and was surprised to find that the site really is legitimate. I have used some other services in the past that were intended to make money easily online, and none have come to fruition. I will use this money to maintain the site. I will not post about anything that I don’t believe in, but I will post often enough to make enough money to keep this site up.

blog advertising

I’m going to make $10 for this post alone, just like I did in the original post. The reason I couldn’t post this earlier was because you have to keep the posts up for at least 30 days before you get paid. Hey, that’s a small price to pay for talking about a real money maker.

MySpace is Up

Ok, the site is back up, and I’ve had no glitches today since it started working again mid-morning.  I also heard on the radio about some power outtages in California because of the heat wave they’re experiencing.
I just got through working out… I mixed it up a bit, and it feels good right now.  I think I’m going to have to mix it up every few weeks so I don’t get into a rut.

MySpace is Down

Around 6:40PM last night, Tom posted a message on the homepage of MySpace.com stating that a power outage took out the MySpace servers.  They were hoping to have everything back up within an hour, but it took them a few more hours than they expected.
I browsed a few times during the day today and noticed that different parts were working better throughout the day.  Now there is nothing at MySpace.com.  All I get is a message from Firefox that says MySpace.com is taking too long to respond.  Is MySpace really having power issues, or is it more than that?

Daily Goal Tracking

I was doing my daily routine of browsing Digg, and came across this wonderfully simple tool.  Joe’s Goals helps keep track of how your days are going, based on how much positive and negative stuff happens throughout each day.  You can keep yourself in check by allowing friends to see your status. 

http://www.joesgoals.com/

The application is really easy to figure out.  You can see and interact with an example just by going to the main page.

New Yahoo Maps

I did a search on Google for an address in Nederland, TX this evening and Google Maps tried giving me a result that was miles from where I knew the address had to be.  Google’s results were almost in Groves.
I clicked the back button, and Google at least has the decency to link the map results to yahoo right after their own map link.  Okay, cool… we’ll see if this one is any closer… right on the dot… ok, I want to print directions for Christle, so I click on the directions link, and there is an option to try the new Yahoo Maps Beta.
Now I’m kinda excited when I type in our address and Yahoo finds my house precisely.  Google Maps has my house in the middle of an intersection 1/2 mile down the road, which isn’t far, but it’s kinda confusing.
Now, I know I live 50 miles east of Houston and 25 miles west of Beaumont, so there’s going to be some lag before all this mapping technology gets perfected, but how Yahoo Maps is more precise than Google is beyond me.  I thought Google’s name derived from the amount of money they had – Googillions… which led me to believe that Google would be the leader in this sort of technology.  Either having money doesn’t mean everything, or Yahoo knows how to keep their mouths shut about their finances, or they have some pretty brilliant people working for minimum wage.  Either way, if I had money to invest, I’d put it in Yahoo before they come out of Beta with their new maps.
The problem I have with their beta right now is the fact that anytime you move in a map, whether your panning or zooming, it creates an entry in your browser’s history.  I’d prefer the maps work within one page rather than create a new entry every time I move… hopefully they’re already working on the fix.

Sending Messages to the Unknown

There’s a site that allows you to submit your blog to be transmitted into space. It’s kinda neat to think about really.

http://www.bloginspace.com

Imagine that some alien species gets their first contact from earth, and it’s a blog entry talking about politics, or the world working together to end AIDS, or a rant about an argument someone heard on Big Brother 7.
I think it’d be kinda neat to see that the aliens recognized my last name, Kunefke, and thought my family was the leaders of Earth.