DevTopics » Web

Facebook News Feed vs. Live Feed

timm — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:46:01 +0000

Today the world’s most popular social network Facebook introduced its biggest interface change since the complete revamp in March.

Gone is the Highlights section at the top of the right column of the Home page. Facebook designers learned that users were often overlooking the most important information because it was tucked away in the corner. This also makes birthdays and events more visible in the right column.

The biggest change is there are now two alternating views in the center column of the Home page: News Feed and Live Feed. The bold title at the top indicates the current view, and you can click on the link next to the title to see the other view.

News Feed

When you first log into Facebook, you’ll see the the News Feed. The News Feed automatically picks the stories it thinks are most important to you based on how many friends have liked and commented on them and various other factors. Events that used to appear in the Highlights section are now back in the News Feed. This includes when friends are tagged in photos, make friends, become fans, join a group, and RSVP to events.

Live Feed

Once you’ve caught up on the important stories in the News Feed, you can switch to the Live Feed to see what’s happening now. The Live Feed is not filtered and shows all the posts. The cool thing is it will continue to update in real-time while you are logged in, so you get a sense of hanging out at a digital party where everybody knows your name.

Like all interface changes, the new features take a little while to get used to, but I’m already liking it better. See the Facebook blog for more information.

BugSpy.net Database of Open Source Bugs

timm — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:43:44 +0000

BugSpy crawls the web in search of the latest bug reports in open source software. It tries to display only open bugs. You can search by tag or product name.

NFL Bans Twitter Before, During and After Football Games

timm — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:46:56 +0000

The NFL has punted the popular social network Twitter.

On Monday, the National Football League announced that players, coaches, and other team personnel can use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook during the season. However, they are prohibited from using social networks starting 90 minutes before a game, through the game, and until post-game interviews are complete.

The rules extend to people representing a player or coach, such as agents, friends and family, and even include the media covering the games.

“Longstanding policies prohibiting play-by-play descriptions of NFL games in progress apply fully to Twitter and other social media platforms,” the NFL said in a statement. “Internet sites may not post detailed information that approximates play-by-play during a game. While a game is in progress, any forms of accounts of the game must be sufficiently time-delayed and limited in amount.”

Several teams already had similar rules, but rumor has it the NFL felt compelled to create a league-wide rule after controversial Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco said recently that he plans to Tweet while playing.

This is not a surprising rule given that the NFL has always tightly controlled its product, from broadcast to merchandising to reporting. The NFL has strict regulations on who can report what from its games. Social networks like Twitter turn players and average citizens into mini-reporters who could potentially broadcast unique news about football games. You can bet that the NFL wants to control and perhaps eventually monetize that news. It’s not hard to imagine football in the year 2020 with in-helmet quarterback Tweets.

World’s Longest Poem: Written by Humans, Compiled by Software

timm — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:16:03 +0000

"The Longest Poem in the World" is composed by aggregating real-time public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme. It grows at a rate of about 4,000 verses each day. This novel site was created by Andrei Gheorghe, a web developer from Bucharest, Romania.

Here is the most recent start of the poem when it had 370,866 verses:

If life were easy and not so fast, I wouldn’t think about the past
and all the sudden, life is changing and its changing so fast.
is watching Ren and Stimpy. It’s becoming a nightly habit.
I had a dream that I had a sidekick and a rabbit.
Pride pride pride and now more harry potter!
and its only going to get hotter…
and learning again…
and then….
Tired and going to bed. Good night everyone.
cup of tea and a caramel slice anyone?
and you know this working on a new song
Second day of school and still going strong
College just gets worse and worse.
Gift and the curse!
super bored and tired. cant sleep tho
And away we go…
oh no, are the bad word police after me and my potty mouth again?
Just done something a bit mad and creative. Lets see what happens then!
The Internet; where courtesy and reason go to die.
Yup im at school and i passed up a fine ass guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, it isn’t Shakespeare, but it is a pretty cool idea. This may also go down in history as the greatest collaborative work ever.

Internet Explorer 6: It’s Time to Die

timm — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:00:07 +0000

Web designers worldwide are staging an online revolt against the Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 web browser. The designers claim that “IE6,” which was released 8 years ago but is still used by 20% of users, is “crippling the Internet’s potential and slowing down the online experience.”

The "IE 6 No More" website seems to be the hub of online dissent against IE6. The site includes code that developers can insert into their websites to encourage IE6 users to upgrade. Some websites already provide hurdles or roadblocks to IE6. For example, YouTube sends a message to IE6 users, asking them to upgrade to another browser like Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. However, YouTube will continue to function in basic mode for IE6 and other outdated browsers.

Microsoft also wants its users to upgrade to the new IE8. “Microsoft has consistently recommended that consumers upgrade to the latest version of our browser,” the company said. “Internet Explorer 8 offers improvements in speed, security and reliability as well as new features designed for the way people use the Web.”

Web developers especially hate IE6 because they have to write special “hacks” into their code to accommodate the outmoded browser. “As any Web developer will tell you, working with IE 6 is one of the most difficult and frustrating things they have to deal with on a daily basis, taking up a disproportionate amount of their time,” says the IE6 No More site. “Beyond that, IE6’s support for modern Web standards is very lacking, restricting what developers can create and holding the Web back.”

IE6 will face an even bigger challenge when the HTML 5 language is adopted by websites. HTML 5 enables websites to deliver flashier video and act more like traditional desktop applications, but it won’t run on IE6.

Story at CNN

How to Unhide a Facebook Friend

timm — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:36:09 +0000

Follow these steps to unhide a Facebook Friend that you have hidden:

Step 1. In Facebook, click the News Feed link, which is usually on the top-left corner of the window:

Step 2. Scroll the window down to the bottom of the webpage. Click the Edit Options link:

Step 3. The “Hidden from News Feed” window will appear. Click the Add to News Feed button to the right of the Facebook Friend you want to unhide:

More PC & Web Tips

Woman Sued for Her Tweet

timm — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:01:31 +0000

Beware all bloggers and tweeters: What you write may get you sued!

Chicago woman Amanda Bonnen discovered this lesson the hard way. Her 117-character rant on Twitter may cost her more than $50,000 as the result of a defamation lawsuit filed by the target of her ire. That’s $427 a letter!

Bonnen was having trouble with her landlord and complained of alleged mold in her apartment. So like many of us, she ranted about her frustration on Twitter:

But instead of addressing her complaints, Horizon Group Management filed a lawsuit against Bonnen, alleging that her statement damaged the company’s reputation. According to the complaint filed in Cook County court, Bonnen “maliciously and wrongfully published the false and defamatory Tweet on Twitter, thereby allowing the Tweet to be distributed throughout the world.”

What Horizon didn’t recognize is that Bonnen had only 20 followers on Twitter. If Horizon had simply ignored her tweet, or better yet, worked with Bonnen to resolve the matter, then likely nothing would have happened, and Horizon’s reputation would not have been affected.

Instead, by filing this lawsuit, Horizon has generated a wave of negative publicity for itself on a global scale, making headlines from CNN and Fox News TV, to the Chicago Sun-Times and Wall Street Journal, and thousands of blogs in between. Horizon has ensured the very thing they were trying to stop: millions of people around the globe viewing Bonnen’s tweet.

Horizon then took a bad situation and made it worse when Jeffrey Michael, whose family has run Horizon for more than 25 years, said to the Sun-Times: “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.” Oops! I doubt “litigious” is the reputation that Horizon is trying to project. Rather, it’s likely the same reputation that most landlords seek: “Caring landlord that provides a safe, clean living environment for its tenants at a reasonable price.”

Every business and individual has the right to defend themselves against false or malicious statements. But if Horizon’s top priority was to preserve its reputation, it appears to have overestimated the reach of a single person on a social network, and underestimated what happens when a large corporation attacks a private citizen “David vs. Goliath-style” on matters of free speech.

This incident has the potential to turn into a public relations disaster like Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch and ruining his stellar career.

But now that the world is watching, hopefully Horizon will do the right thing and take all that money and effort to sue Bonnen and instead use it to address her concerns. As Hugh Grant famously demonstrated, one can make a PR blunder and still turn it around to their advantage.

CodePaste.NET Public Code Pasting Site

timm — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:05:54 +0000

CodePaste.NET is a new public code pasting site that allows you to paste and link code from social network sites like Twitter and Facebook, or chat and IM applications like Skype or Messenger. The idea is that these social networks or chat clients work well for interactive discussion, but they don’t allow enough space to post even the shortest snippets of code for all participants to see.

A lot of Twitter traffic deals with discussions about code or code concepts, so a place to share and view code is very useful. So rather than squeezing code snippets into these clients, you can post it on the the CodePaste.NET site and then link to the snippet. As opposed to other code pasting sites, CodePaste.NET is more specific to .NET developers, providing syntax highlighting and the ability to apply comments on snippets.

CodePaste.NET
More .NET News

Do Your Facebook Friends Really Care That You’re Heading to Bed?

timm — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:08:20 +0000

I have a friend who announces when she’s going to bed every night on Facebook. It’s the 21st century equivalent of “Good night, John Boy.” But does anyone really care?

Facebook, MySpace and especially Twitter provide a global platform to the narcissist in each of us. We tweet the minutia of detail in our normally normal lives, hoping that somebody in cyberspace actually cares.

I’m not throwing stones in a glass house; I’m actually throwing them at the mirror. I, too, am guilty of sharing my life ad nauseum on Facebook. Even this blog is an electronic indictment of my narcissism, as if anyone truly cares about my rants.

But like many things in life, you may occasionally find a diamond in the rough, or a pony in this seemingly endless pile of poo.

Facebook et al. allow you to peek into the lives of your friends and family. You see all the little mundane details that you would never hear or otherwise care about in your occasional encounters with these people in real life. And every so often, something pops up in their account of their lives that interests and captivates you, bringing you closer to them in the process.

For example, I have an old friend from high school as a Facebook friend. Last week was her 10th wedding anniversary, and she discovered her engagement and wedding rings were missing after her morning workout. She was crushed and frantic, and suddenly her story was very interesting to me and her many other friends. We watched all day on Facebook as she hunted for her rings and fretted on what her husband would say about her missing rings at their planned romantic dinner that night. Not only was there sentimental value to the rings, of course, and the irony of losing them on that special day, but there was also serious money involved.

This unfolding story had all the aspects that make a movie great: drama, intrigue and romance for a character we care about. And of course, suspense, because none of us knew how this tale would end. We gave her encouragement and some offered suggestions in Facebook on where to look, and she would frequently update us on her search.

As luck would have it, she found her rings just before dinner in the trunk of her car. They had somehow worked their way out of the special pouch in her gym bag and fortunately fell harmlessly into the bottom of her trunk. It was one of life’s little adventures that I would never hear about otherwise in the short span of a class reunion, but Facebook allowed us to peer into her life and share this experience with her.

So in spite of downsides to social networking — which include a loss of privacy and an increasingly self-centered world — Facebook and Twitter have brought me closer to many friends and relatives in my life, both past and present. Social networks allow me to stay close and experience the lives of loved ones in way that would never be possible in today’s busy and dispersed modern world.

Reprinted with permission from Now I Don’t Want to Get Off on a Rant Here

Microsoft Popfly Has Been Swatted

timm — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:59:52 +0000

Microsoft Popfly is a set of online visual tools for novice programmers and end-users to build Web pages, applications and games. This was Microsoft’s attempt to bring programming to the masses, similar to Hypercard on the Macintosh, or the original Visual Basic on Windows before it became a real (complicated) object-oriented language under .NET.

But this fly lived for only two years. Microsoft has just announced that on August 24, 2009, the Popfly service will be discontinued and all sites, references, and resources will be taken down. At that time, access to your Popfly account, including any games and mashups that you have created, will be discontinued.

However, Microsoft says it is “still very much dedicated to helping you express your creativity and pursuing a path to software development” and thus offers you some alternatives. If you’re interested in refining your skills in Web applications, visit Microsoft Web Platform Installer. For those interested in programming on the Xbox, then visit Microsoft XNA or Microsoft Kodu. And for those who are interested in Windows programming, visit Microsoft Express.

Unfortunately, any investment you have made in the Microsoft Popfly development platform has been a waste of time. The lesson here is that proprietary development environments are a risky bet, even when backed by a major company such as Microsoft.

Popfly Website

P.S. – Speaking of flies, did you see Ninja President Obama kill a fly during a national TV interview?