Justyn Smith | Blog » Website

Some reasons I quit Facebook

Justyn — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:35:18 +0000

Come Monday, I am going on hiatus from Facebook. I figured I was going to quit Facebook and never come back to it but at the last minute I decided to deactivate my account and not totally remove it for good.

I will see how the next week will go not having Facebook and checking it every couple hours. Now, onto some of the reasons I have gone on hiatus.

1. Friends

One of the things with facebook is the friends aspect. It happened with Bebo and MySpace. It is like it is cool to have 300 friends but realistically you need to ask yourself who your friends are.

For instance, in the past month how many of your friends have written on your wall, commented on a status update or even commented on a photo of you? That’s right, it is time to delete some friends.

2. Games

Okay so some of the social aspect of Facebook is games, I get it. If that is the case why not have a game of UNO or Scrabble against one of your friends. I don’t like seeing posts about adopting a pig for my farm 10 times per day (yes I have hidden most things from my wall).

At the end of the day you need to work out how much hours are wasted playing a game like Farmville or YoVille on Facebook and ask yourself what have you achieved from the amount of time playing that game, or what are you working towards?

3. Emo-ness

I guess the word emo-ness fits into this. There isn’t a day go by where I don’t see a status update consisting of scenarios that you would find on FML or MLIA. Really, you have to tell everyone how much the world is against you, and have a big cry about it? This is another reason to cull your friends list I believe.

4. Misinterpretation

I’m sure you have come across a post where your not sure to take it seriously or not. I have come across this a couple of times. You cannot hear the voice inflections when you are reading text so it is diffucult to tell if someone is being sarcastic or serious at times. This can cause friction between friends or family.

5. Embarrassment

Remember that naughty message your loved one wrote on your wall? So do all of your friends. Facebook can be one of the most embarrassing things around. You could have people write things on your wall, tag you in photos that you wish were burnt.

The upside of this is you do have control over who posts on your wall, but do you really want to block everyone from writing on your wall? I thought so.

At least with my blog I control what I put up, the comments, everything. Yes, someone may write an embarrassing comment on my blog but no one sees that comment until I approve it or deny it.

Increased hits from Appulous Troll Bridge

Justyn — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:02:58 +0000

As you probably were aware over the past ~~four~~ five days, kyek over at Hackulous had setup a Troll Bridge to slow people down from accessing Appulous during the server move.

I would like to extend my apologies to kyek (if you end up reading this) or if you let kyek know that I wasn’t trying to profit from this (as you may notice, there are no ads on my blog). I was simply seeing how demanding people were to get access to Appulous, which yielded over 12,000 hits in four days simply by posting the answers on my blog and Google crawling my site.

I would like to thank kyek for all the hard work that has gone into Appulous and hope it is just as a successful try before you buy site as it was prior to The Troll Bridge, keep up the good work!

What is blogging?

Justyn — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:52:54 +0000

I thought I might write an article about Blogs (or weblogs). A blog is a type of website (like this one) which allows the individual to update it with anything they like; be it information about a certain event or a video of their animal. Think of a blog as a personal online diary, or something used as a medium to post information about a certain subject.

Why do people blog?
The reason people blog is to be heard, share their thoughts and ideas or just to express themselves. We’ve all read those columns in magazines about opinions on things, well a blog is a way for someone to publish what they are thinking or feeling.

They can also use it to share photos or videos. Some people like to blog about a certain subject (for example someone might blog about technology).

Blog examples
There are blogs for every subject and here are some just to name a few of the ones online.

The Fashion File is fashion blog written by a fashion major named Bridget.
The Car Blog has rants and opinions about the world of automobiles.
News Blog has news in the media and current affairs.

This is just a small insight into the kinds of blogs out there. There are the more obscene trash-talk blogs like Perez Hilton which is a celebrity gossip blog.

Old version of flash? Firefox will let you know

Justyn — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:51:48 +0000

If you check out the latest blog post on the Mozilla Security Blog you will notice that John Nightingale announced that both Firefox 3.5.3 and Firefox 3.0.14 will inform you if you have an outdated version of Adobe Flash Player.

Once you have installed the new version, if you have an outdated version of Adobe Flash Player you will see this warning.

If you already have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player you will see the normal screen like this.

Parent’s know best when it comes to kids

Justyn — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:18:56 +0000

So there seems that people would like some discussion around the topic that parent’s know best. Simon Tofield has created a YouTube clip (Kids aren’t that smart -- Cat). What are your views on this, do parent’s really know best?

Here is a couple more YouTube clips to have a look at.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBR7DRAp-lQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7-WqydxrWk

Has reCaptcha been cracked?

Justyn — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:58:48 +0000

I’m not sure what to say here, I have ReCaptcha on my blog to fight spam comments, and my idea was it was to stop bots from spamming the comments. Lately I have been getting 20-30 comment’s waiting for approval, ones like these:

- Yeah … Here people used to say: ABC teach – in all hut shout:).
- I really like your blog and i respect your work. I’ll be a frequent visitor.
- Horoshaya infa!.
- Very interesting and amusing subject. I read with great pleasure.
- Purely my IMHO – you can not make the choice. Good luck, think about it..

They seem to be coming mainly from .ru domains. Has anyone else using ReCaptcha noticed this recently?

Posting from WordPress iPhone App

Justyn — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:14:25 +0000

I downloaded version 1.3 of the WordPress iPhone Application and thought I would see what it’s like.

It’s now iPhone OS 3.0 compatible and has landscape keyboard, an easy way to add links in your posts and upload photos. If you have a WordPress Blog and have an iPhone I would recommend downloading this application.

Comcen Usage Meter

Justyn — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:38:15 +0000

Since doing the Exetel and WestNet usage meters, Shane and I decided to create a Comcen Usage Meter. It’s written in PHP, and might be able to fix the code up a bit, so again if you have any recommendations please comment.

Now you can download it but iIt’s not as thorough as the Exetel one since thereC wasn’t as much data available to pull. It will automatically refresh every 15min.

Demo: Comcen Usage Meter
Download: Comcen Usage Meter

Exetel Usage Meter – Beta 2.2

Justyn — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:04:50 +0000

If you read my previous post you would see I recently released a Exetel Usage Meter.

I have recently updated it to Beta 2.2, the changes are:
- Auto refresh every 15min
- Convert limits into KB/MB/GB

View: Demo
Download: Exetel Usage Meter

WestNet Usage Meter

Justyn — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:31:59 +0000

Again I was bored, and much like my Exetel Usage Meter I decided to make a WestNet one.

Now you can download this and remember, it requires PHP5 and SimpleXML. It’s not as thorough as the Exetel one since there wasn’t as much data available to pull. It will automatically refresh every 15min, if the results are all 0 it means it’s been refreshed too quickly.