Hacked? What does it mean, well I guess it means something different for everyone, but if you’re a website that does 100% of it’s business on the internet, it means a lack of sleep, and a possible call to the justice department. Today I noticed a story as I logged on my computer about the dating site “Plenty o fish” they have been hacked.

Hacked usually means someone or a group of someone’s have broken the security of a website, application, or hardware device. For the latter hardware hacked it just means some one has taken the time and effort to break the code or security code of a device which now lets anyone on the device do things they shouldn’t be able to do. As such is the case with the Xbox Kinect device, which was hacked and there are sites popping up everyday to show you what joy they have in hacking this device.  I placed the search term here so you can see what people are doing with Kinect Hacked.

Although there are some good instanced of hacking there is the other side of the coin such in the case of Plenty o fish, their database was hacked and the username an passwords that people created for the site have fallen in the hands of Hackers with ill intentions. The story I came across is from thedrum a uk site that did a story on the owner of plenty o fish and the dilemma they are in. While the story is not that interesting the understanding of the hack is very interesting.

As with anything on the internet people usually come up with easy passwords when logging into and using online sites such as plenty o fish. I mean you can only use so many passwords before you start to forget them, and you’re always requesting a new password, over and over for that site you love. While I have talked about the alternatives to saving passwords, it never goes too far for me to remind you again.

Make sure when making a username and password for a site that you don’t make the password match the same password as your email account that you have tied to the website of your choice. In my opinion you’re just inviting something bad to happen to you. Imagine if that site gets hacked like plenty o fish, the hackers now have great information about you, your passwords, and email address. The only way to combat this type of hacking so that you don’t get touched is to create a different password for every site that you log onto. You can tie those passwords to one email address, so that if you forget the password, it will always send that password to your primary email address.

Another way to help combat hacking of your accounts is to create an email address that you only use for signing up with websites. This helps shield you from the potential of someone getting into your email account that you have had for many years.

With anything else you can never be 100% assured that your account won’t be compromised, but you will have the ability to lessen the problems that will be caused in your daily life if some one hacks a website you love.

Remember make complex passwords that don’t match any other passwords or accounts that you use on the internet.

Enjoy surfing the net

Oh…the story unfolds about plenty of fish hacked on their blog post

TBTR

Password Leak

As many of you may have heard about the Hotmail Password leak that occurred early this week.  The administrator of Pastebin.com has written a sweet and simple blog post.  He has removed the names and email addresses, but as a last effort to tell the community how to fix this issue he says

please don’t ask if your name was on the list. I have no way of knowing. Just change your password.

Sounds simple but as the administrator those of us who are admins know the truth.  If your the admin of a domain or a site, your “GOD” meaning you can see everything and anything you want.  At larger companies they take many precautions to ensure that only 1 person really has the full access to the system, but regulations are in place to police that person in the system.  Remember when things like this happen, just change your password and move on, don’t worry about it any more than that.

P.S. Any system can be cracked no matter how good a password you have but I would upgrade to a different email system be it Google, Yahoo, or your own domain email.

TBTR

Its amazing how my brain works and what seems to be just a post out of the sky about Dropbox on Monday has now turned into a second post about Dropbox.  So you might ask yourself why would I post another story about Dropbox one reason is because Dropbox is just flat out Cool.  The other reason is because Dropbox has launch an iPhone app which can be downloaded as of now.

• Access your Dropbox on the go
• Download files for offline viewing
• Sync photos and videos to your Dropbox
• Share links to files in your Dropbox

Just as I was about to download the Dropbox App I found out that you must have Ver 3.1 installed on your iPhone or iTouch.  I was using the iTouch, so since I can’t use the App at this time if any of my iPhone toting friends can let me know what they think in the comments I would appreciate it very much.

Data, no matter how much you have now days, your needs keep growing year over year, and for some people it’s month over month.  Recently I’ve been reading more and more about storage devices, and backup solutions, stay tuned for more coverage of these topics.  I recently blogged about Dropbox where I talked a little bit about how you can use this service to share, and backup data.  Sometime ago I also talked about Google Docs which gives you online space for documents and other files. I recently ran across a press release about the new Seagate FreeAgent DockStar $99.99, the name reminds me of DeathStar but maybe that’s because I’m a StarWars Fan.

Anyways the FreeAgent DockStar by itself does nothing, it’s just a docking station, with a power adapter and a ethernet port, but when you couple this device with FreeAgent Go portable storage solution you get a large amount of data that you can now store and access from across the internet which means anywhere in the world.  The device as stated has a dock port for the FreeAgent Go device, 3 USB ports to plug in other storage devices including USB thumb drives, and NON Seagate storage devices, a power adapter and ethernet cable.

So you ask the question what is this product just supposed to do for me?

You get a device that can enable your storage to be placed on the internet (encrypted) so you can access your iTunes music, your pictures, your video, your documents etc.  It can even create a RSS feed for each of those directories, which now enables you to give that to anyone who can plug the feed info into a feed reader so as changes are made to your directories they get updates showing the changes without the traditional notification of calling someone, or having to email them to say take a look at the new data I uploaded. Here are some of the highlights:

• File sharing at its simplest with a clean, web-based interface.
• Access files from any networked PC or Mac® computer in your home.
• After service activation, access and share files with friends, over the internet — no special software required.
• Enables friends to upload content as well, creating a comprehensive share space.
• Appears as a local drive whether in the home or accessed through the internet, for simple drag-and-drop access.
• Dock a FreeAgent Go™ drive and connect up to three USB storage devices.
• Send pictures straight from your iPhone® to the FreeAgent DockStar network adapter.
• Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

Think about this…

Imagine your out of town, visiting a friend or loved one, and you want to show them that video from this summer. Without a device like this or some kind of web service you would just have to wait till you got home, figured out a way to upload all the videos you want to show them, then pray that they know how to access the files.  This solutions eliminates that issue, all you have to do is connect to the internet using any computer and supply your username and password, then start streaming the video directly to this computer.  That is awesome, an just down right cool when you think about all the other things you would have to do otherwise.

In my case it now eliminates the fact that I had to keep my server running at home while traveling hoping and praying that something didn’t happen to my hard drive on the computer or it didn’t over heat and start a fire.  Those days are long gone in my book with the FreeAgent DockStar.

Conclusion

I think that Seagate is obviously on the right track to supply us with a solution that makes things easy, but the one draw back I have is the fact that the device uses the underlining technology of pogoplug.com which is not a bad thing it’s just that DockStar only comes with a 1 year pogoplug subscription for internet sharing after that first year you have to pay $29.99 to continue usage that is where the device fails in my eyes.  Why should we have to pay after 1 year, when if we just purchase a pogoplug for $99.99 the Internet Sharing is FREE for ever.  Most people who purchase this device would not know this if they didn’t know the underlining technology is pogoplug.  Shame on you Seagate for trying to pad the bottom line when you really don’t have to this way.

TBTR

Samson the makers of premiere Audio devices is set to make a splash with it’s new Video Recorder dubbed “Q3″.  This device is cabable of recording video at 640 x 480 resolution, althought I don’t see any references to HD quality I’m sure the video image is usable.  Lets face it even if you have have a HD video camera, sites such as Youtube don’t allow you to upload in HD quality, so your audience never gets HD quality. 

Sampson known for audio equipment is trying to take a way the bad audio stigma, that comes with these small video devices. Sampson’s Q3 has True Stereo Sound, which makes for a awesome device that can definitely make bad video much better with quality audio. 

This true audio is achieved by the Q3 having two condenser mics on-board, arranged in such a way that gives you the best stereo recording possible. When I see the Q3 it’s look clunky and futuristic but when you think about it, that could be an advantge when holding the device, it probably provides a better grip.  The unit also includes audio meters so you can set and monitor your levels as you shoot, this is an added plus when you look at the other video recorders that don’t give you any choice in the matter when it comes to audio settings.

Overall the Sampson Q3 looks like a winner although I predict that most will overlook the Q3 as a novelty because The Flip, and Kodak Zi units get most of the coverage and are seen in a lot of online circles.

Features:

Built-in stereo condenser microphones with X/Y configuration for true stereo imaging
Get up to 1 hour of video with bundled 2GB SD card
Accepts up to a 32GB SDHC card for 16 hours of recording time
Large 2.4″ LCD display with a resolution of 320 x 240
Video resolution of 640 x 480 at 30 frames/sec
Video Format: MPEG-4 SP
NTSC / PAL TV output
Optics Lens Type: Fixed Focus (0.8m to infinity)
Audio formats with video include 44.1/48kHz 16/24-bit Linear PCM WAV or MP3 up to 320kbps
Audio only formats include 96kHz 16/24-bit Linear PCM WAV
Auto Record Level automatically adjusts audio levels during recordings
Uses two standard AA batteries or NiMH rechargeable batteries
USB 2.0 with built-in cable
Windows and Mac OS compatible
Built-in speaker and tripod mount
Includes on-board editing software, YouTube up loader software, Apple Quicktime, TV cable, softcase, windscreen, 2GB SD card, two AA Batteries

P.S. Promise me if you get a hold of one before I do, you’ll pass it along so I can review this puppy.

TBTR

Hp is about to introduce a new digital frame that seems to go far beyond the normal viewing of photos.  The HP DreamScreen will allow you to show photos, connect to the internet, access social media and more.  For the suggested price of $249 you can have one.

We all know how these devices show you pictures, but what about your friends latest pictures from Facebook, or their most recent status updates?  Now that’s what I’m talking about, remember it’s not a full time computer, so don’t think you will be responding back on the unit, and it does not have a touch pad.  (YES I’M STILL WAITING FOR THE APPLE TABLET) That kind of makes me sad, but come on they gotta keep the cost down somehow.  Imagine Pandora streaming music for you, the DreamScreen does that too. I’m finding a weather forecast is pretty important in Florida, DreamScreen has you covered.

This seems to be just the beginning for the digital photo frame revolution which for 2009 is a $25 million dollar industry, projected for $50 million by 2013.  When twitter, and a open API are available (I hope)  I’ll be more able to really show my geekness to those who visit me and my HP DreamScreen.

Recently Google celebrated a milestone the 1 year anniversary launch of the Google Chrome browser.  I remember when it was swirling around the internet that Google was about to drop a browser on the Internet community we were all a buzz over it.  That was over 366+ days ago and what have the super geeks at Google been up to, well they have been making improvements in the Google Chrome browser.  They say that the Google browser now has quicker load times, and runs web applications faster.

The stable release of Chrome under windows was released yesterday some of the benefits are listed below:

• 150% increase in javascript performance
• Redesigned new tab page
• Some HTML 5 features are included
• Form auto fill
• Side by side view
• Ability to remove items from the tabs

Give the stable version a try here

For those of us who use a Mac or Linux they state that at this time, there is no release, but they are making rapid progress.  You can download a copy of the developers version for Mac & Linux which will let you try Chrome on your Mac or Linux, but understand it’s not a stable release.  Us geeks can try it out anyways and at least see how things are coming along.

TBTR

So imagine looking at the web as a virtual magazine of content, you get to see the stories of the day.  The stories can be any of the vast number of topics your interested in everyday.  Google Labs has a new item called Google Fast Flip it’s described as:

Google Fast Flip is a web application that lets users discover and share news articles. It combines qualities of print and the Web, with the ability to “flip” through pages online as quickly as flipping through a magazine. It also enables users to follow friends and topics, discover new content and create their own custom magazines around searches.

It’s simple you visit the site and skim, the news content that interest you and your friends, or just choose a subject and start viewing your virtual magazine.  One day when they put this into a reader like Kindle from Amazon.com, then we might really have something on our hands for now I’ll just play around with it for the rest of the day.

At present it’s only available on the Google Labs website in English, but International users should be able to see it.  You can also view a full list of the headline sources here http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/sources.

TBTR

Tr.im is resurrected along with the fire storm that started it all, We discuss the new Microsoft Zune HD which is gonna try once again to compete with the Apple iPod, and last we discuss the New Mac OS X snow leopard software that hit shelves on 8/28/2009.

Thanks,

TBTR

FriendFeed was acquired by Facebook, we talk about that and we had our First Official caller into the Podcast Michelle called and we are overwhelmed and delighted to have had her voice introduced into the podcast.

Thanks so much Michelle

iTunes link here

As always comments are welcome

TBTR

In this edition of TBTR we talk about Google Chrome beta, Google OS and netbook plans for 2010, and the Twitter DDoS Attack from Thursday morning.

TBTR

Today’s podcast talks about the Sony and Kindle e-reader, The Microsoft & Yahoo deal, Twitters redesigned homepage, The current Apple Revolt over Approval then Removal of applications, including the Google Voice debacle, The USMC bans the usage of Social Sites on there network for the enlisted, and Apples warning about those who jail break the iPhone.

TBTR

While Microsoft and Yahoo pounded out a new long awaited partnership, a small company has firmly placed it’s hat into the arena as a Real-time search engine, Twitter.com.  Twitter has long been seen as a site for uber geeks, and that thing people do for fun, but today Biz Stone one of the founders of Twitter announced on the Official Twitter blog about the new home page redesign.

It looks like they have made a change for the better or maybe the worst (more about that later).  The new design shows a focus on topics that are hot by the minute, day, and month.  This is showing up as a fire storm on the internet it’s obvious that twitter is really trying to make money by positioning themselves in a better way to grow and create revenue.

Twitter began as a rudimentary social tool based on the concept of status messages but together with those who use it every day, the service has taught us what it wants to be. From features invented by users to applications built on the platform, we’re still discovering potential. Twitter has moved from simple social networking into a new kind of communication and a valuable source of timely information. Also, it’s fun.

We all know how many companies have failed at trying to change the original concept of having fun while being different from the rest of the pack.  Twitter will remain different from Bing.com and Yahoo.com which are both horrible in there own little ways.  A head of twitter I see a lot of changes to the culture and pure awesomeness of the site I have come to know and love.  You see twitter while a darling in the social world is burning through cash like Netscape was during the Internet Explorer invasion.  The only way for twitter to survive and stay a float is to do something that gives them more appeal and makes us all look at them like the kid that got beat up on the playground.  You feel sorry for the poor guy, but those who were his friends from the beginning will remain loyal and now tell more friends just how awesome he really is.

The internet has long been buzzing about what twitter can do to start making money, I think this is one of the items on the radar along with paid accounts, which hopefully will give you more capability.  I think the problem with twitter coming up with paid capabilities is the fact that most of what they think up will have already been made by a third party app using the Open twitter API.

While it has been a challenge trying to explain what twitter is to a lot of my friends who are not twitter users, this looks like at least I can tell them use twitter when you want to search a topic that is right now Real-time.  If a huge news story hits the wire, it’s almost a given it was first reported in 140 characters on twitter.  The appeal to a lot of people is the always on and current topics that seem to find it’s way into twitter.  Only time will tell if this “Search Engine direction” is a good move or not, we do know this twitter is here to stay and I’m loving every minute of my 140 characters.

Tell me what you think about twitters new direction by leaving a comment

TBTR

I just gotta say WOW I am amazed at the Google Voice Application for my blackberry.  You can read about it here “Google Voice for Android and Blackberry) While those iPhone users are pissed they didn’t get an application for their OS, I’m so excited I was able to download and update my new Google Voice Application on my Blackberry.

From the Google Blog: So with that, we’re excited to release the Google Voice app for Android and Blackberry. You can use the app to make outgoing SMS messages and calls from your Google Voice number. What’s more, this app improves the mobile experience of Google Voice in a number of ways.

Google released the application today and when I saw the topic trending I went to get a copy immediately m.google.com/voice the site started my OTA download and I was able to input my information to get the application working.  At first it didn’t seem to want to download my info, but after a few minutes it showed my last few calls, and also all the text messages I still had in my Google Voice messages area.

If you want a invite to Google Voice please signup at the google voice invitation link

TBTR

Mashable ran a blog post today called Followformation: Quickly Follow Dozens of Categorized Twitter Users.  The problem with the story in my opinion is it looks like someone at Mashable or someone with close ties to Mashable created this BS service. I mean when you goto the twitter site http://twitter.com/followformation it shows only 130 friends, and 19 updates. The service was started by http://www.aermarketing.com/

It’s not even a well tested services, so what gives Mashable the thought to post about story about it.  I know they report Social Media stuff but damn some things just look weird now days.  It seems everyone is posting links for people in their twitter streams, and they don’t always say “PAID AD”.  You be the judge but there are many services that I don’t have to sign up for to get the same kind of information.

This story is just bland in my Opinion.

TBTR

I ran across a story just a while ago from Mashable: Bing Now Bigger Than Digg, Twitter and CNN.  People seem to wanna give Bing.com it’s props for being a initial success.  Well from the statistics it seems that’s true, but tell me what is the major reason they are getting all this traction?  I have used Bing.com a couple of times but it’s nothing special, it’s just a new search engine.  Microsoft finally got it right don’t try to build off the old search system build a whole new search system.  That is part of the success, but the truth Bing is successful for one reason and one TRUE reason alone ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS.  That is the advertising budget that has been alocated for the serach engine.  Tell me who can’t succeed with that kind of money at their disposal.  Now take that to the bank, IMO the jury is still out on bing.  Lets see how much traction they keep after the money is gone.  You can call me a hater or fill in the _________, but you know how things go with Microsoft they copy successful companies instead of innovate as they claim.

Please leave me your comments about Bing.com and what you think.

TBTR

These days it seems everyone is trying to intergrate Visual voicemail into their wireless service.  I ran across a post where YouMail has brought the service to the iPhone in a post here from Cnet’s Jessica Dolcourt.

I also heard Verizon charges for this service, while everyone is trying to make money off the Visual voicemail one service is not.  Google’s former service GrandCentral has been providing this feature for over two years now it’s been renamed Google Voice.  At one time you could invite people to the service, but that option has been turned off for some time.  This is the latest post about Google Voice:

To clear up any confusion, please note that there are no Google Voice invites available at this time. There has been no distribution of any sort of Google Voice invites, as these invites do not exist. The best way to be informed when Google Voice becomes available for sign up is by providing your information at https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/.

I would suggest you signup, also if you already use Google Voice leave a comment about how you like the service.

Thanks,
TBTR

WordPress hands down might be the best blogging platform around, but with so many changes so quickly do you really need to upgrade today?  I always say when it comes to upgrades on blogs or on standard Operating systems, unless the update is a critical patch don’t upgrade immediately.  Most of the time you find that if you don’t need to upgrade then take your time and let the experts do all the break fix testing.

New WordPress 2.8 Blog Post

Give the community time to download and install especially those who are new to blogging and WordPress.  I would say give it about a month before going for the upgrade and if there are plug-ins that you use check out the developers site to see if they have checked that it works or is having issues before you upgrade.  WordPress is at version 2.8 which means in my opinion if your at anything below 2.7 you need to a least upgrade to 2.7.  With that said please check your plug-ins before upgrading this will help you in the long run.

On the other hand WordPress 2.8 seems to be another great release from the guys/gals at wordpress.org.  They say that over 700 fixes have been made to this version.  WordPress has release a video that shows some of the improvements and I would say those improvements alone are reason to upgrade, but again wait a month and I think you well be out of hot water by then.

Enjoy,

TBTR

Symbaloo is a personal online desktop, in my opinion a customizable home page of sorts, it’s currently in beta but has been around for a couple of years over seas.  The service is free and there is no need to signup unless you want to customize this home page for viewing in more than one place/computer.  Symbaloo is very similar to iGoogle which is miles above Symbaloo, but as we all know competition is always welcome.

Give it a try and tell me if you like it Symbaloo

Spammers

Looking over my friendfeed today I came across a post from Lockergnome that simply said “Spammers Harvesting Sorrow From Twitter“.
The post talks about how spammers could be harvesting email addresses
directly from your own steam on twitter.  Lockergnome referenced the
article from ZDNet “Spammers harvesting emails from Twitter – in real time”
And while the article talks about a script that can be run to harvest
the emails in real time, we further get a understanding of the Twitter
TOS (Terms of Service).

You are solely responsible for your conduct and any data, text, information, screen names, graphics, photos, profiles, audio and video clips, links (“Content”) that you submit, post, and display on the Twitter.com service.

- meaning your on your own if you tweet something you didn’t like

After reading the ZDNet article I decided to do my own test with tweetgrid.  If you do a little bit of search for things such as “email me at” you can see all kinds of addresses.  A sample search on search.twitter.com using gmail.com OR hotmail.com OR “email me at” Weather these email addresses are valid or not is a whole other story but look at the image below.

Savvy internet users who have their own domains know you can create a temporary address such as info@mydomain.com.  Send that out as a tweet and then after they are done, delete that address.  Situation solved and over in my opinion.  Although for people just coming to twitter and the internet for that matter a little help with this is understandable.  Some people were posting in comments on those blogs that “Well your stupid if you tweet your address.”  While I understand why they say that, most people forget we all come to the internet with limited skills and over time we understand more and more.

Just know this email harvesting is not new, but with twitter gaining warp speed traction in some of our everyday lives we are opening up to those who want to do harm with the info we tweet, always be cautious.

TBTR

((Video attached))

Over the weekend twitter was exposed to what they dubbed the “Stalkdaily worm.”  I got wind of this worm as a tweet from one of my followers on twitter then I followed up and found the techcrunch.com article also twitter talked about it on their blog http://blog.twitter.com/ this weekend.

Next I talked about Smallaa which is a new site that was launched by CEO Tim Lai here is how they describe the service at http://www.smallaa.com

Smallaa helps you bring relevancy to your social interactions by enabling you to follow the most interesting aspects of your friends. The feeds in your multiple social networking sites are combined at Smallaa. Everything you post at Smallaa will automatically goes to those websites. When you and your friends post to different topic of interests, you get to pick and follow what really interests you from them. Friends will in turn want to post more things about your interests.

Last but not least I talk about the Dasher Project this is one of the coolest things I have ever seen, In my opinion the applications for this project are endless, not to mention immobile, and paryalized individuals can type with limited movement using this application here is a youtube video showing how it works. At first it’s confusing, but continue to watch you will get it I swear.  If you want to test for yourself make sure you go to this (java applet) link it’s an awesome product.

Comments are appreciated, enjoy

TBTR

Blackberry App World was launched on 4/1/2009 we tell you some of the detailed info about the service. Tweetgrid is another tool in the arsonal of twitter applications/websites you can explore. Seesmic desktop launched on 4/6/2009 and seems to have put everything in the application including the kitchen sink.

Leave a comment or email at thebtr[at]gmail.com

Enjoy

Why on April 1 would you open or launch your signature product?  I guess the buzz you create could carry you into the next year, or people could take it as a joke and over look you all together.  RIM the makers of the Blackberry Smart phones have launched what they hope is the defect o home for bb users.

The Blackberry App World ( I guess they didn’t use store because Apple would probably sue) is now open for business.  When I got in this morning I saw the buzz and decided to jump on the bandwagon.  I went to the signature page with my Blackberry www.blackberry.com/appworld/download to download the icon OTA (over the airwaves) but I had and issue just like Larry Dignan said in his post “First impressions and a weird IE requirement.” so I turned to the blackberry desktop software.  I had to download the app this way.  It worked perfect and I was able to get in the application.

Put more of your life on your BlackBerry smartphone! Download BlackBerry App World for free to load up your BlackBerry smartphone with games, social networking, online shopping, personal productivity, organization tools and other fun and functional apps. It’s your world – bring more of it with you with BlackBerry App World!

While most of the featured applications we probably all have on your Blackberries as an out of the box application.  I did some research inside of the app world and found a lot of apps I never knew existed.  During the coming weeks and days we will review some applications and give our take on the success or failure of the Blackberry App World.

BlackBerry App World is a free download. To purchase applications from BlackBerry App World, a PayPal account is required.

Application makers can also take the time to create new apps, and place them in the app world just like on apples itunes app store.  This is opening up the devices to innovation from small programmers, and also opens them up like apple to foolish applications that do nothing but charge money for access.  Lets sit back and watch the paint dry, or you can get involved if your an avid Blackberry user.

I plan to get involved, just wait an see

Leave us comments

TBTR

Tweetgrid has created an accessible page for the iPhone or iPod Touch.  While it’s not a App Store application it does give those iPhone users access to the custom searches and real time updates that makes Tweetgrid a widely used website.

Look here for the iPhone site

Leave comments and tell me how you like it.

TBTR

It looks like someone has finally said, the hell with twitter search I’m gonna create a Plurk search site.  If you don’t already know Plurk is another social site much like Twitter but no where near the mass appeal of Twitter.  I don’t want to make this a Twitter vs Plurk post but lets face it Twitter has some great search resources and while that’s all good.  It looks like someone decided to dive into the Plurk API and create a search site for us plurk lovers.

Plurk History v1.0 beta has arrived and I have to say it looks like they are just getting started so it reminds you of the store bought brands bland but functional.  No flashy icons on the site no catchy name but it does one thing good.  It shows me my old Plurks month by month going back to when Plurk lunched.

Honestly sometimes I have wanted to go back in my stream on Plurk and look at something I posted along time ago but could not do it.  Well now with this site I’m able to look at plurks from November of 2008 with amazing speed.

The cool thing about Plurk is that every update creates a Plurk page where your update is listed with all comments associated with that Plurk.  That is one of the selling points of Plurk a conversation you can follow.

I was able to put in my Nick name and chose the month and year I wanted to go back and within seconds I was looking at my stream of previous plurks.  Since my account is not protected I didn’t have to enter my password.  I’m not too sure about the project yet so I would say if your account is protected on Plurk you probably don’t want to enter you password yet.  At least not until we find out about the publisher of this project.  It’s not affiliated with Plurk so we have to approach this with caution.

This is posted on the site to help those with doubts of entering their passwords… “If you still don’t feel safe enough and you have a private time line you can also change your password temporarily so that even if we stored it (we promise we don’t) we wouldn’t be able to access your data”

I hope that the project finds legs and can stand somewhere on the net because it really has a purpose.

TBTR

Plurk History Link

Plurk History is not affiliated with Plurk.com

It’s always exciting to find new things in the social realm but Social Treehouse seems to be a dud.  Ok here’s the deal I get the concept, but the UI is dismal at best.  It seems someone needs to redesign the UI before I will take this concept seriously.

SocialTreehouse.com is a unique website that brings people together to share videos about events and activities nationwide. People are encouraged to find fun events based on fellow user event reviews and of course by sharing their own view of the event afterwards.

This is one of those site’s built as a “If we build it they will come concept” but you have to have a better UI before the masses will come IMHO.

The concept of SocialTreehouse is kind of cool but it’s needs more work in my opinion, take it for a test drive and tell me what you think?

TBTR

This morning I got wind that Google has worked on giving us loyal users new themes in a blog post called“iGoogle’s got game… themes!”.  It seems they have taken this to another level giving us gamers enough themes to last weeks maybe even months.  As a kid I loved the old arcade games just like the author of the blog post from Google.  I too spent many a weekend in the local arcade at South Dekalb Mall in Georgia.  With the edition of these new themes you can enjoy some of the games you loved as a child and as a grown up.

iGoogle now has graphics from all sorts of games that I know will excite my fellow gamers. Picture your homepage with “Burnout” cars zooming in the background, Ryu from “Street Fighter” blasting hadoukens across your page, or rock stars jamming out to tunes from “Guitar Hero.” It doesn’t end there. For those of you who used to dream about completing the Triforce or getting out of tombs alive, choose from “Zelda” or “Tomb Raider.” Want more? Try “Dungeons & Dragons,” “The Sims 3,” or “World of Warcraft” on for size.

The new themes are located here www.google.com/gamingthemes or you can choose a setting that uses a random theme daily at game theme of the day.

Enjoy
TBTR

Last year I had a problem and couldn’t really attend the SXSW conference in Austin Texas.  This year I begged, begged, and begged some more.  This morning I’m going to Texas.  I hope to bring a little bit of the conference to my users and let you know more about SXSW and also network with other people who are interested in this social interactive world.

Tell me if there is something you want to know about the conference or the attendees of SXSW, leave your comments.

Stay tuned,

TBTR

So it seems once again we are back to the hackers being smarter than the designers. According to recent reports Facebook the popular social site has been infected again with hackers trying and succeeding in stealing your profile password. The worm gets people to click on a bogus adobe plugin that installs a Trojan Horse that allows the hackers to take over your facebook profile and send notices to everyone one on your list so it keeps happening over and over.

TrendMicro has documented the the new strain here.

The key here is to remember the hackers have gotten very good and tricking people into clicking on things and if you really want to be secure just don’t click on links from anyone for a while. This will help but just like a car, if the theifs really want your car they will get it no matter what.

Be careful out there.

TBTR

Google latitude is a new service where you can share your location with friends or anyone else you trust.  Certain cell phone users can use this new service also it runs as a gadget on igoogle.  If you don’t download the phone app you have to manually update the location by typing in your city and state.

Google Video Explaining Google Latitude

If you don’t have a cell phone but, want a real time update of location you can download Gears plug in which uses your wireless signal to determine your computers location. You can also update your status which is tied into your Google talk.  Pictures can even be updated on the fly so you can change your icon.

When I tried to change my pictures from my Blackberry Curve 8320 it froze my phone for a few minutes while it accessed my Media Card, but it was back to normal soon after

Remember this service is opt-in so you don’t have to add all the people you know.  You can even deny people from seeing your location but add them to see their location only.

I think this will change the laws for stalkers, it’s so easy for people to follow you now a days on the net.  As social networking grows, it gets harder and harder to hide from a stalker.  So watch who you follow and more importantly who you allow to follow you.

So as a G33K I had to ask myself how this service works.  I think Google Latitude works by knowing which cell towers your transmitting with.  Then by knowing your carrier they can guess with in so much distance where you are located.  I’m pretty sure their are some other things involved, but I like to guess.

Visit google.com/latitude for the mobile info, and the gears info

Also more links to Google latitude resources:

• See where friends are with Google Latitude
• Locate your friends in real time with Google Latitude
• Official Google Latitude site

We have hit 2009 and some people started their case for world dominance before me, damn you. Over the past couple of days twitter has been all a buzz over a phishing scam that someone is using. While the scam seem to only be a way to send out spam to your followers again here we go with the what if scenarios.

What is a phishing?

(wikipedia.org description)
Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites.

So now that you know what phishing is let me tell you why it’s gonna be around for a long time. Users are gullible, sometimes we click things we should not, sometime we are curious, sometimes the joke is on us. Gone are the days of sending you to a website that pops up 50 windows and it’s like a duck hunt game trying to shot your way out of the maze. Now what people, thieves, and yes sometimes companies, do is make you think that what you saw was real.

Twitter has a API that has been open for a long time, and the authentication has always been a question to me. Coders have no behind the scenes way with twitter to authenticate with any other way but to have users enter their username and password on an off site.

What makes this phishing scam work is the fact that with all the fail whale, and network issues of the past. When people saw the screen shot below at first glance that thought oh here we go again. Twitter is on the fritz but what most failed to do was to just look at the URL and see that it was not twitter.com that was serving up the page.

Will this ever stop?

Probably not but if you have other sites where you socialize you will notice some distinct things that try to help curb users from falling victim. A lot of other sites that have OPEN API’s allow you one password to log on to that service, then when you want to login or tie your account to another site they give you a alternative password. This helps to ensure that you don’t give out your real login password and shall we say hand over the keys to the house. Twitter knows all about this authentication method, why they have chosen not to implement is beyond me.

I think it’s time twitter give it a second look, other wise I for see some people changing their strategy of using twitter as the first line in micro blogging and move on to something like friendfeed, brightkite, or even jaiku (no one really uses jaiku so I’m only kidding on this one) none of these sites do things much better but when people get feed up they move on to the next ship.

Remember boys and girls your password is a very important thing, I blogged about this here in I wonder how many computers will be infected and I still feel people are sleeping on good passwords for access to their online life. Keep your password in your pants that way no one can steal it, for the most part. But seriously just be aware of whats going on, and remember two things if nothing else in this post.

1. No the King of some small country does not really want to deposit 28,000,000 in your account
2. You bank will never send you anything online saying change your password it’s been compromised

Twitter get it right or get lost oh and don’t forget to follow us on twitter.com/thebtr

TBTR

I just got wind of a potential malware problem with Youtube videos.  It seems someone has finally figured out how to install software on your computer through Youtube, according to this update from CrunchGear.

The virus is called Actns/Swif.T and seems to contain a redirect to a phishing website embedded within a SWF file.

Embedding Malware & Spyware in software has been the norm for a long time, but if this is true and if you just watch a video and get software installed this could be a potentially huge issue for Google.

Lets hope they get a hold on this quickly.

To protect yourself always watch what you click on when surfing the net.

TBTR

Cuil is the name of the enormous search engine that launch back in July of this year. The media was a buzz, bloggers were ready for what we all thought would be a new take on search engines. Have you ever heard the words EPIC Fail? To everyones dismay the launch of the search engine did nothing more then explain why Google and a couple of other search engines are gonna be #1 and #2 for a long time. Cuil tries to explain a lot about the system on the FAQ page.

Cuil’s claim to fame was two fold 1.)It was started by a former Google employee and 2.)It was supposed to have indexed billions more pages than Google or any other search engine combined. What they didn’t tell you was just be cause we have indexed billions upon billions of pages does not mean its in a readable wonderful interface.

As Cuil launched back in July the strain was so heavy on Cuil that the whole system crashed, I guess us geeks got the word and started searching. All of my searches were like the bridge to now where I searched for my name and found some other guys picture over my name it was weird and since then I have not really been back to Cuil.com until today.

On September 24, 2008 Cuil posted on their blog saying they are putting their heads down and getting back to work on Cuil, I guess that bridge to no where didn’t work for them either http://www.cuil.com/info/blog/2008/09/24/welcome-to-the-blog. It’s amazing how the launch gained so much exposure but the reality is that cuil was not ready for prime time.

Opinion: In my opinion the only way you get listed in Cuil correctly is if your a star or your site is mega huge. Test your searches against google.com and you will see what I’m talking about. Cuil had to go back to the drawing board because what they created was just Hype, now it seems it’s just too late to make a difference. To reinvent your self less than 2 months after launch is ludicrous and on top of that has to be very costly I would hate to be the VC watching all this unfold.

TBTR

If your like me you surf the internet quite often. The free time you have at work to the free time you have at home. Sometimes you want to show your friends what you come across that you think would interest them. You don’t want to pass your friends everything but maybe just specific sites. You can create a boring email with links all over the place which might be filtered as SPAM or you can use Agglom. Agglom lets you share the good stuff with your friends and maybe even some new friends.

Easily save and publish your sets of links

The cool thing about Agglom is that you can share a multimedia webpage as a RSS Feed or as a Web Slideshow. It’s like sending a book to your online friends. You can make them for public or private viewing. You can recommend other organized webs sessions that are created by other members.

Share them as a multimedia web page, as an RSS feed or as a Web Slideshow

To view most of the web sessions you don’t even need to sign up, but If you want the full experience it’s not hard to sign up which gives you access to your own page, with RSS access.

Agglom works by letting you tie together URL links, Presentations, & Videos into one easy to use bundle. A Permalink is created along with a RSS link. As you pass this out to your friends by URL, or email they can then view, each of the areas. The Slideshows are kind of cool it adds a little top bar to the site where you can click the arrow to navigate through each link like a powerpoint presentation. You also get a RSS feed to the user which would update each time they add a new content.

Make them private or public

Say you come across a web scene and you know of a link that would go great you can suggest this link to the person who created this Slideshow. The creator then has the option to include your link as added benefit, or dis-approve it as non relevent.

Example: vctr a user over at Agglom created a resource called Social Network basics concepts – how to build one with a Permalink: http://agglom.com/agglom/490/Social_Network_basics_concepts_how_to_build_one oh don’t forget an RSS is also created take a look and you will see why I’m liking Agglom.com

I think Agglom has a lot of potential to succeed, people just need to know about this site. It seems they are improving it (the creators) all the time. The only thing they need now is someone to really design the site, not that I don’t like it, but I just think it needs a web 3.0 look.

Enjoy,

TBTR

You mean to tell me you have 12 seconds to leave a video about what your doing? Don’t we already have Micro-blogging sites by the dozen. How much time and effort went into making a service or site called 12 seconds. Talk about trying to get the VC money, and then some ridiculous conglomerate to buy you out. I’m so sick and tired of people piggy backing on other services. They say ” oh well what if we decided to take what they do but flip it.” 12 seconds will not be along for the ride too much longer. They want money, they need money to keep it going, so who’s gonna pay up some VC that has nothing but money to hang out the window. When you think about it 12 seconds as a company should last about 12 seconds long.

Most of the videos I see on the site, suck because they try to go past the 12 seconds and then the video looks stupid. The thing just cuts off WTH, I’m listening and your cutting off the video because you forgot this is only 12 seconds long. Think about why it’s only 12 seconds and you will see it’s not because of some crap about we figured that 12 seconds is about as long as the brain can stand to watch some online webclip crap. It’s because the ratio of video to users with 12 seconds cost less then just letting your user go crazy with unlimited time to do nothing but record their living room. One thing is that with the time constraints it does make for interesting videos if done right, I will agree with that.

12seconds.tv allows friends and family to record and share short video updates about what they are doing or where they are. You can use a webcam or a cellphone. It’s a FREE, easy, and fun way to stay in touch.

This is my rant and the truth is we should all be ashamed to follow as the mass of people try every new service or web 2.blah out. Right now this micro-blogging is all over the place and honestly it’s getting out of hand. Who’s gonna take the lead and stay in it for the long haul. We all know Twitters problems about money they turned off SMS for overseas users, and in Japan they have turned on the ads which also lets you know the ads are coming soon. Is it just me or is Pownce the only one that could see, if you give the users something great they can use we will pay for it. Or was pownce so hard up for money that they had to ask for money up front just to keep things going with out losing the farm if you know what I mean.

My prediction is that 12 seconds will only last just about that long 12 months, then some VC or competitor will come in and buy the thing lock, stock, and barrel. I guess I’m a little upset that I didn’t think of such an idea cause the truth this I want an account but I’m so tired of signing up for stuff all over the net.

Enjoy the success 12 seconds,

TBTR

Just a couple of nights ago I was taking a picture with my blackberry, I usually post these pictures to twitpic. Twitpic is a picture service that post to your twitter account from your cell phone, since there had not really been any other services that let me post once to multiple sites. I started thinking wouldn’t it be nice to be able to post to a picture service that can post to not only my twitter account by all my other micro blogging sites? Well I found such a service it’s called Pikchur and this service lets me post to all of my sites with one email.

Pikchur is a simple service that updates your social networks / micro-blogging platforms with pictures!

Supported platforms are:

• Plurk
• Pownce
• tumblr
• Jauiku
• Facebook
• Friendfeed
• Identi.ca
• Twitter
• and Rejaw

Now that you know how many services Pikchur can post to now I’ll walk you through some of the process of setting it up.

Send your piks via phone, mms, email or upload

1. You have to first login to one of your micro blogging sites on the Pikchur website I choose my twitter account.
2. Next you have to configure your posting email address.
3. The system tells you to create a PIN which will go at the end of the email address just before the @ symbol (this PIN is very important so do not make it simple) ( In my opinion the PIN needs to be more than 4 numbers, but that is all Pikchur will allow in the PIN section at this time)
   

After this process you have some settings you can configure

• Additional settings such as Triggers, and Status messages

All and all I tried the system out and it worked perfect from upload but when I tried to email from my blackberry it never showed up, I’ll have to fix that soon or try and figure out the reason why it didn’t work.

Overall Pikchur has a great idea with a lot of potential.

Enjoy,

TBTR

It seems that Jaiku’s website is down as of 9:50PM Est, if you didn’t know Jaiku is another MicroBlogging site. The problem with Jaiku is that no one cares about them anymore. Google bought the company out some time ago and since has done nothing to this service. In my opinion it’s a loss for all of us because it started out with such promise then got bought out and died.

Along came everyone else to show em how it’s done Plurk, rejaw, and others.

I saw this picture on the website tonight and had to post it:

I wonder what they are doing, one thing we know they are not adding features Jaiku still SUCKS!!!

TBTR

I want to take time to say thank you to all of those people that saw my previous post about the Black Weblog Awards and then nominated this blog. At times I am amazed at what we can do as a community of ONE when we come together. If I could only interest you all in giving to my MacBook Pro Fund, but that is a whole different rant.

We made it, 2008 Black Weblog Award Finalist List

Now the nominations are over and the real voting begins. Over the next 14 days I need as many of you to vote for me again by August 31. This time I want you to please tell a friend about this event and ask them to vote for me. Anyone can vote…

I’m only under the Following Category:

Best Science/Technology Blog

Click here to vote

I really appreciate all the nominations now lets win this thing. If you vote for me again please let me know I want to connect with you. As a tech blogger I need feedback.

Thanks,

TBTR

We have all heard the saying “Nothing is Free” I guess it depends. Today one of my Twitter friends posted a link to a free download from ZoneAlarm. It seems ZoneAlarm is trying to get the word out about a product called ForceField.

The product creates a virtual bubble while you surf so if you hit the wrong website by accident it will protect you. Lately the best way hackers have figured how to install software on your computer is by creating websites that mirror the original site like instead of you going to google.com you type goolge.com by accident. This is only an example but if you hit the site goolge.com there is code that installs on your computer through your browser and with in seconds your infected. ForceField is supposed to help you ward off these threats.

Totally FREE Patch Tuesday – for 24-hours (ending Wednesday August 13 at 6am PST), you can download a free copy of ZoneAlarm ForceField, a $29.95 value.

ZoneAlarm ForceField provides a protective layer around your browser, shielding you from drive-by downloads, browser exploits, phishing attempts, spyware and keyloggers. So your passwords, your confidential information, and your financial data remain protected.

Here are some links to help you understand why you should take advantage of this opportunity.

Well the video does nothing for really explaining what ForceField does but I added it anyways.

I found the better video to explain what ForceField does…YES….FTW

This is the link for the offer:http://www.zonealarm.com/patchtuesday

Don’t forget to pass this link along to others TODAY.

TBTR

I have been looking to add a little more flavor to the blog in recent weeks all this reading and writing has my head hurting.  I must say that as a technical guy I sometimes can get into a story and go off the deep end i try and pull it back most times.  Since I’m always looking for ways to keep people coming back and keep people looking to TBTR as a resource starting today I’m gonna put screencast into my post.

The article for today’s Download Wedensday will include the first screencast I hope you enjoy and as always leave your comments that always helps me out.

Thanks,

TBTR

The 2008 Black Weblog Awards is under way, this is my first time trying to get noticed. While I have never won an award for what I do with my blog the honor of being included is a great thing so help me out yall.

A twitter friend already ask me what category (Science/Technology) and my URL (http://www.theblacktechreport.com), I was overwhelmed with happiness to say the least I’m excited this is how it works.

The Black Weblog Awards has been around since 2005 with entries from over 83 countries. The doors for Nominating your favorite blog just opened today August 1, 2008 and will stay open till August 15, 2008. Then they will close the doors for Nominating and open the doors on August 16, 2008 (my birthday of course) for your votes on the finalist this ends on August 31, 2008. The results and winners will be announced on September 4, 2008.

Just a few more things you can find more information here:

Facebook
MySpace
Twitter
Forums
Promotional Graphics

I started asking myself everyone will not know what catagory to put me in or they have no idea I wanted to be included on their potential list of bloggers for the BWA’s. So I decided to try something different since I use Twitter twitter.com/thebtr I decided to use the twitter search so others could see the buzz on twitter about the BWA’s and also put up some queries so you can have a direct link into the channels that are talking.

Vote for me under Science/Technology Blog also to everyone who gets voted on good luck…

Based on twitters with blackweblogawards.com
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=blackweblogawards

Based on twitters with Black Weblog Awards
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=black+weblog+awards

Based on twitters with BWA’s
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=BWA%27s
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=bwa (other references to bwa show up in this query)

Yesterday (read the story here) we reported that the popular game Scrabulous had been taken down for the US and Canada customers of Facebook because of a lawsuit filed by Hasbro. Well I won’t say chalk one up for the little guy I will just say, damn the little guys are smart.

The Agarwalla brothers in a very short amount of time have gone back to the drawing board. They have come up with a new Facebook application called “WordScraper” talk about punking someone.

We know Hasbro had every right to file the lawsuit they did against the brothers and Facebook I mean the name was just to similar but now the boys have gone back to the drawing board and created something else similar but with some different rules, now that’s Pimpin to me.

I wonder how Hasbro feels now, not only did they start a storm that according to others could have been avoided but now the brand in some circles may have even been hurt permanently. I mean we know the large number of people on Facebook are probably early to mid twenties. Working successful young people that lets face it don’t like to be told too much on what to do. The Hasbro brand is really faced with a challenge, to fix a wrong they could have avoided. The lawyers that were used in this lawsuit are probably right now trying to figure out another way to create a revenue stream to line there pockets.

Do I think this will hurt Hasbro in the long run probably not most of the people using it didn’t have kids anyways. I will say that this is probably not over and we have just seen the little guy Pimp the big fish.

Wordscraper on Facebook

Hasbro

TBTR

Today came word that the very popular game Scrabulous was taken down by Facebook.  It seems the program was infringing on a little well known game called Scrabble owned by Hasbro.  While I never played this game online I always saw many people who did.  What’s up with Hasbro?  Are they just haters on the Agarwalla brothers, and their company, RJ Softwares.

The Brothers created the game and have been in my opinion reaping the rewards.  While Face book took down the application it seems they really didn’t want to get the middle of this feud.  The website Scrabulous is still operational and the facebook application is no longer being used in the US or Canada but in other countries Hasbro has no rights to the name that is owned by Mattel.

It seems at this time Mattel has not filed any suits to rights overseas but if one starts you can bet the other is going to do it.  While this is news nothings really new with this we all know how people create something better than the original, but instead of going to the company and trying to license the rights they keep building on a application that’s stolen.

On another note Facebook users are fighting back by creating groups to try and get the Scrabulous application back all I can say is Good luck with that.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37928471248

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=75441

www.Scrabulous.com

www.scrabble.com

TBTR

Working a full time job you probably sit at a computer for 8 hours then go home and you have another computer your using. Using so many computers there are gonna be times when you wish you had access to your documents from any computer at any time. If you have Google Docs your not missing a thing in fact your probably laughing right now saying “Is this really news TBTR, I mean honestly.”

There’s nothing to download; you access your documents, spreadsheets and presentations from any computer with an Internet connection and a standard browser. And it’s free.

Scenario your at work taking care of some last minute changes to a document, you get a call and leave in haste. When you get home your winding down about to watch your favorite TV show when you get a call that your friend she needs the list of things you were writing ASAP. You think back did I email that document before I left work? Then you remember it’s saved to your hard drive at work not at home. This leaves your friend with out the document and there is nothing you can do about it. Well sort of, if you had written and saved that document in Google Docs you could use your computer to login find the document and then edit or just send the document to your friend. Thus fixing a situation that may have been disastorious.

Online storage and auto-save mean you needn’t fear local hard drive failures or power outages.

While this is little far fetched it’s still true Google Docs is an online application that lets you create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online at anytime from any computer. Google has set up the system to enable anyone to share, and collaborate in real time. Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. Access to your documents can be emailed to anyone you want and they get instant access.

You can publish to the entire world, just a few people or no one — it’s up to you. (You can also un-publish at any time.)

With Google Docs there is nothing to download it’s all done over the internet that also helps with backup of documents. No longer do you have to worry about a hard drive failure or misplacing some important documents you have access from anywhere. Google Docs even lets you post a document to the web with a single click you can set this for viewing by select people or anyone around the world.

You can now track how much traffic a particular published document is getting through Google Analytics.

While most of this article is written for the newbie in mind here is where I explain some of the NEW features that have been placed in this Online Application.

• A host of free templates for documents, spreadsheets or presentations
• Analytics tracking on published documents is now available
• Custom Colors can now be chosen for documents or slides
• Output can be to a PDF file so no need for Adobe Acrobat
• Tech-Savvy users can now apply CSS to documents
• Notes can now be added to your slide presentations
• Off line access to your Google docs, sync when internet connection established
• Presentations can be saved as PPT
• View Google Docs on your mobile phone
• Many more features

While Microsoft has stepped up and offered some of the same things with Office Live, Google Docs 100% FREE. While they do offer this for free there is a pay service if your a organization and want to put the whole company on it’s called Google Apps check it out.

This video explains a lot enjoy.

video by: leelefever

Try out Google Docs it helps you live longer

TBTR

As a new blogger I’m always looking for ways to gain subscribers.  Sometimes you find a great solution, but more then often you find a dud.  As Dave Kinsella said on his blog webdeveloper 2.0 article “Scoutle, great in principle but lacking something” I seem to agree great in principle but lacking something.  I came across scoutle when I was reading a forum where somone from scoutle posted a link.  I was going to chaulk this up as SPAM but I clicked the link.

Scoutle is supposed to be a new form of social networking as their website states.  Scoutle says you do not have to do anything which is correct.  You set a scout

and it goes out and surfs other sites to help you find content that interest you.

I have been using Scoutle for a while now over a good month or two.  At this time it seems this service is a dud.  I never meet any new bloggers, as the number on my scout grew to over 400.  I don’t know what the number represented because in my opinion it was there for no reason at all.  I never held one conversation with another Scoutle user.  While my scout had meetings with other scouts on the scoutle system but, I never saw anything that showed this helping me. ( you have to see the site to understand a meeting)

In the end I think that my scout only promoted one person which is scoutle.com

An update has been mentioned for September which they say will make scout much better and useful, I hope this is true but for now I’m going to delete my scout, and my scoutle account.

TBTR

A few weeks ago I discussed my fascination with Meebo in my article “What? You can’t log on at work…I got a solutions” an Online IM program that works from your web browser no application install needed. I found another IM program that goes a step further, the Digsby application has the following connections which any well connected person should have especially a social geek:

······IM (Instant Messenger) – AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, Facebook
······Email – Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AIM, IMAP, POP
······Social Networking – Facebook, Twitter, Myspace

With all those connections from one applicaiton, oh and a recommendation by a reader of this blog I decided to add this program and try it out so here are my findings.

The Digsby interface is fully customizable from the layout to the fonts the whole experience

After downloading the applicaiton from Digsby.com I was able to install the program with no problems. I did like the fact that I could Signup right from the application and create my name with digsby. Once the application was installed I decided to kick the tires and set up all my accounts. I noticed the interface was pleasing to the eyes and was not just thrown together it worked.

It just so happens that a friend of mine was online while I was setting all this up and started a conversation with me. I noticed the window popped up and we started chatting as ususal. Sometimes at work you want things to be a little more private so I minimized the chat window and to my suprise a little little window popped up which I could see what my friend was saying and at the same time it was big enough that I could reply back without opening up the huge chat window cool feature.

While the program has given me some issues once I got it up and running properly this application has turned out to work very nice

Because the system is logged into my Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail account I can see the number of messages or emails that are waiting for me to look at, another cool feature. Everytime a new email is received the Digsby interface shows me a small blurb of the subject line, I also have a small ICON in the bottom right hand corner that represents my Gmail account with a small number that shows how many emails are waiting for me.

The Digsby interface is fully customizable from the layout to the fonts to the whole expericence. Now for the really cool part if you have a blog or website and you want to interact with your customers and/or friends you can place a chat widget on your site. When people see this they can start talking to you right from your website as long as you have Digsby running on your computer at that time, if not I beleive it leaves you a message. This is cool when you want real time communications on your site, no tons of time trying to set everthing up you paste the code on your site and it’s working.

Click here to send me a message in the test area of my site.

All and all i had a great time using Digsby and I’m going to continue to use it for the future, there was only one problem I had which might get a little technical. After using Digsby for a couple of days I noticed now when I start my laptop in the morning I see digsby boot, then display a message from some user who sent the note overnight my Digsby program then freezes. It has happened two days in a row. So the only thing I can do is press Ctrl+Atl+Delete and end task on the Digsby program.

I have gone into the preferences and changed it so Digsby no longer boots on my computer during startup. I’m hoping to get a better response when I boot again, UPDATE>>>well I have booted the system again and now it works properly.

While the program has given me some issues once I got it up and running this application has turned out very nice.

If you are going to download this program remember you have to have administrative right on your machine especially if this is a work machine, if you don’t have rights like that remember to use meebo which I talked about before right here.

TBTR

Twitter the social micro-blogging site that helps you make online friends, promote your business or just have fun has a new helper service. Less friends is a cool little site that helps you find out who’s following you. When you first start using twitter it’s easy to know who follows you all you have to do is look at the number your following and the number of followers if they are close then most likely most of your friends are following what you say. As your status and friends grow on twitter it becomes very hard to keep up. In comes less friends I was a little leary at first to sign in to see if this works, but I used an account that I don’t always login to and thus not to worried about it.

WOW it really worked I was able to notice about 16 people that follow me but I was not following them. The number on my twitter page showed me following 46 people and 60 followers, that means when I’m done adding them I’ll be at about 62 i think. I would tell you it works perfect but I’m not sure the guys at Less Everthing that made this are kwel in my book. Here is a link to the Less friends blog

TBTR

Today is the incredible attempt by Mozilla.org to set a Guinness World Record for the most downloads in a 24 hour period. Today while I was Plurking (Plurk is a social site much like twitter for micro-blogging) a conversation started and I just had to write this post.

Conversation link: http://www.plurk.com/p/hmpq

See some people got the link to the FF3 download ahead of time and started

posting this on twitter, plurk, pownce, friendfeed, and other places on the net. This got me to thinking “What if phishing (phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as user names, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity), and hacker websites decided to put a fake link out there? What kind of damage could they do on such a historic occasion?

4 quick ways people could exploit this day in history:

• Today would have been the perfect day for the internet marketer to make a fake site and send out a fake link by email
  • ···The response would have been enormous everyone waiting on the FF3 link would have clicked
• Web hosting companies could have directed tons of people to there landing page for new hosting accounts.
  • ···This would only work for those techies looking for hosting
• Weight loss blogs, and companies that make weight loss products could have rode the mother load on this one.
  • ···Do you know how many people are over weight, the link alone saying how to lose 10 pounds in 2 days, would have prompted sign ups.
• You can’t forget about Porn sites looking for more passengers on the boat of love would have found new subscribers.
  • ···One picture with the hottest girl of 2008 could have gained millions of hits and new subscribers
• Hackers could have made a page that looks just like the FF3 landing page and redirected millions of people to sites that steal information, or install A Trojan horse.
  • …If you think your safe, your not everyone can get a Trojan horse if the hacker is well seasoned.

I could go on thinking of the perfect ways people could have gotten you to click on a fake link today just because you wanted to download FireFox 3. Since I kind of got your attention now I’m just gonna say this Please be careful today downloading FF3. You will see tons of links posted where you can download the latest FF3 but there is only one offical link and that is:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

TBTR

Are there times when you wish you had done something amazing, something special, interesting, or even by the seat of your pants? Tomorrow is one of those days in technology when you want to be a part of something big maybe even huge.

Mozilla’s new Firefox 3 browser is ready for release tomorrow June 17th. Mozilla hopes to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. They have been working on a new version of the popular browser for a while. Honestly version 2.0 didn’t need much help it’s stable, and fast, but progression is the name of the game in technology.

This event reminds me of when the latest record would come out and I would watch the stats to see who was the top selling Album of the week. I had to ask myself if I even cared about this launch and this attempt at a world record.

I’ll give you 5 reasons why I’m overly interested:

1. I want to support the Open Source movement. (Free Software)
2. Firefox helps me surf the internet without harm from IE(Internet Explorer) exploits.
3. In years past this browser has beat other browsers (IE, Opera, Etc) in testing over and over.
4. Cool features in Firefox let me customize my browser, and adds plug-ins to extend the functionality without alot of time and effort.
5. I wanna be a part of history once again.

My last check on the number of people who have pledged to join this attempt was at 1.34 Million and growing check here.

So if you want a better browser then the auto installed Internet Explorer join me in helping the open source community and possibly setting a World Record on Tuesday June 17th 2008.

Spread the Word

Follow Firefox’s Twitter Account

FAQ (Frequently Ask Questions)

TBTR

Micro-blogging is the best here is another clone

Those of you who don’t know what brightkite is I wanted to bring it to ya. I have been a brightkite user for a while but really didn’t understand why I wanted it in my life until about a week ago. Twitter another micro-blogging platform is great for telling people what your doing in small blurbs such as going to the store, visiting the country, eating a bagel.

Where are you located is a question on my mind.

What your doing is great, but wouldn’t it be nice to give someone the exact location of where you are along with what your doing? At first thought it kind of scares you to know that in a public place such as the internet you will post where you are physically. Let me assure you everyone CAN NOT see exactly where you are, because of some safety nets that brightkite has in place. Understand that you need to read about brightkite before you just start posting locations and addresses all over the place.

Like twitter you can still post your thoughts and sayings in 140 characters, but now with location you could meet people you didn’t know. You could post your location at the Starbucks your going to and someone in the area on brightkite might be in the neighborhood and drop by. You will see how this happens, not everyone in the world knows your exact location, only the people you have marked as trusted friends. You could visit the botanical gardens while taking amazing pictures which you can post to brightkite along with the location of where the pictures were taken.

The possibility’s are endless so if your interested in brightkite please send me an email to thebtr {at} gmail {dot} com. I have 5…4 invites that I presume will go very fast.

If you have an account add me:

http://brightkite.com/people/JayMoney

TBTR

What is Flock?

Flock is a cross platform browser meaning you can install the browser on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. Flock is build on another favorite of mine from Mozilla called Firefox. Since Flock comes from the Open Source movement you don’t have to pay a dime for it, remember nadda, nothing. A better introduction on what Flock does is here:

When was Flock Build?

Flock was founded in 2005. The flock founders in my opinion, noticed that the internet was changing when social websites started popping up on the net. They have positioned themselves to understand first what was happening, and make a move in a different direction from a browser/surfing perspective.

Why use Flock?

If your into social sites and you want to better surf the web and stay connected Flock. The Flock browser lets you reach across multiple networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, Flickr, and others. Flock lets you share things easily such as photo’s Video’s and links. The Flock browser even gives you a build in blog editor to make blogging even easier right from the browser. More about social surfing of the internet with Flock here:

Conclusion

Try out Flock if your really starting to get bogged down by all the social sites out there Flock has a great way of keeping this stuff in a nice group. The experience is enlightening and I think you will see the rewards very quickly. Remember Flock is different so take your time getting to understand Flock, but I assure you once you get the hang of it your in love.

Get your copy of Flock now

Comments about your experience and recommendations are appreciated.

TBTR

Everyday I learn something new on this thing they call the internet. I wanted to make a couple of tweaks to this blog by adding some graphics and badges.

Badges are used by bloggers to showcase the different social networks they are on with your screen name so others can join or follow you. I was having the hardest time trying to find some for twitter so to my trusted resource google.

While searching google I am no longer surprised at what I find or the quality of the items. I came across a website called randaclay.com which to my amazement had just posted FREE use twitter badges on April 21, 2008. Here is what they look like and a link to them.

(Please do not link directly to these images, I did not show you all of the images on my site.)

http://randaclay.com/freebies/free-twitter-graphics/

I just wanna say thank you to Randa of randaclay.com you saved me a lot of time. Cause trying to come up with a good twitter badge with my Photo Shop skills, might have taken me days. This is a nice way of getting your name out there give it away and they will come another lesson learned today.

TBTR

These days Micro Blogging sites are popping up week by week every since twitter has had their most recent meltdown. Don’t get me wrong twitter still has love in my heart, but that is fading fast with all the issues they keep having read more about that here.

To my surprise this morning around 7:30 or so I got a note from a little birdy named Peety she lives in the Netherlands, ( I follow her on twitter) she hipped me to a new Micro Blogging service called Plurk. Although the names is a bit childish in my opinion I guess twitter was the same when I first heard the name. Plurk explains why that name and gives a pretty good answer about it here.

Plurk as they say on the website is:

“A really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life and follow event of the people that matter to you.”

They have posted a nice FAQ (Frequently Ask Questions) page here. Also if you want to understand Plurk more they have a Plurk rule book. I commend Plurk for these two links because sometimes we don’t get that from websites, to me it shows they want to interact and help the users unlike some sites.

I’m currently giving Plurk a chance, you can add me here or join through this link to automatically friend me. I don’t get paid for this write up so be assured I’m not going to become a millionaire over night this time…

Plurk is not the first.

I want to make sure you guys/gals know there are others in the Micro Blogging world such as Jaiku, Pownce, twitter, and now Plurk. Please understand that each one is a little different but they all share common interest Micro Blogging. I have and account on each site, but I gotta say Plurk has come a long at a wonderful time. Twitter has been on meltdown over the past couple of months people are gathering the pitch forks, Molotov cocktails and ready for a riot over the unstable service that twitter has been so unapologetic about.

Why all the hype now?

It seems the popularity over the weekend for plurk came when Leo Laporte mentioned him I would guess on his radio show, along with others such as Scobleizer and Tech Crunch. This put a lot of demand on Plurk, but they say that they are ready for the challenge lets just hope they can live up to that statement. I see a great place for Plurk in the market place let see how they run this ship.

TBTR

Do you check multiple websites such as news sites, health sites, community sites and others on a daily, even hourly basis? The answer for me is indeed yes I could even go further, and sometimes say I check certain sites by the minute although that just shows my OCD boredom. Do you ever ask yourself “there has to be a better way?” Let me tell you a secret there truly is a better way, start looking for RSS feeds on those sites it just makes your life a lot easier.

What is RSS?
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a Web feed format used to publish frequently updated content such as blogs, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format. RSS documents contain a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner. RSS essentially is a specially formed XML document that can be displayed in a pretty readable format by RSS reader programs.

So what is XML?
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose specification for creating custom markup languages. It is classified as an extensible language because it allows its users to define their own elements. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of structured data across different information systems, particularly via the Internet.

How is all this going to help me?
Well the truth of the matter is that RSS feeds will help to eliminate your need to check websites for updates or the latest headlines. In my opinion this helps you out in the long run with being able to access one program to view all your data about the latest headlines and stories. This does not eliminate you viewing the websites that you always view but think about how much time it will save you when you open a program and all the latest stories are right in front of you.

Now that I have told you what RSS and XML are you need to know how to view them. In order to view the RSS feeds you need a computer feed reader or aggregator (program).

For a list of reader programs click here

How will you know the website you visit frequently is using RSS feeds?
You have probably seen the icon for RSS feeds and not even paid it any mind. The icon shown here (small) (Large) this icon is universal. When you see these icons you should be able to click on the icon or the words next to the icon. This will start the RSS feed program you choose to install from the link above. Sometimes you will need to copy and paste the RSS Feed URL which will look something like this http://www.theblacktechreport.com/?feed=rss

In closing RSS feeds help you sift through all the junk to get right to the point of the matter the infomation you need right now. There are so many reader programs out there that I suggest you download and try a veriety of them before you choose. Personally I was using feedreader for a long time but have switched over to google/reader recently with great success. I have looked at my stats to see what programs are downloading my feeds personally and the majority over 50% comes from people who use google reader that speaks volumes to me.

If in the end I have confused you beyond belief view this video that expalines RSS. Enjoy

Take your time and leave comments.

TBTR

Every day there is something going on in technology that gets me excited. Today is another one of those days I caught wind that Netflix has finally finished working on it’s streaming video player. The device has been called “The Netflix Player” not the greatest of names but hey they probably tried really hard.

It looks like the player is gonna be an awesome device and another push by netflix to try an innovate. They really need to make some changes at netflix because of the pressure to perform and also to out do the competition blockbuster. As many of you know blockbuster is trying to buy out Circuit City if this happens Netflix is in real trouble without something new and innovative.

The Player instantly streams movies from Netflix directly to the TV. It’s a device that enables netflix subscribers to instantly stream over 10,000 movies in the Netflix arasonal. This does include the TV shows which have multiple disk, that will help the individual who loves old shows and wants to watch them over and over again. The only problem is they have not set up all the movies so the latest movies that are out are not streamable at this time, but I would guess it’s only a matter of time. I would say they should have new movies coming on line very soon. To me this means I can get my movies faster on release day I love being the first person at home to watch the new DVD’s.

The device features:

• Remote Control
• HDMI Port
• Componet Video
• S-Video
• Composite Video
• Digital Optical Audio
• Analog Stereo Audio

The device is priced at just $99.99 and is available for purchase as we speak.

Read more about this story here on the Roku site and the Press Release.

I got wind of a story about twitter today while I was viewing some articles in my google reader (da bomb btw). The story stated that the company Pingdom.com has been monitoring the up-time of social networking sites. Well it should come to no one’s surprise that Twitter.com is the worst out of all the sites listed. The downtime is to the tune of about 37 hours so far this year. The stats have only been recorded since January 2008. As I keep saying Twitter needs to get on the ball and fix the issues at hand cause we the users are feed up at the spotty sometimes unreliable stability of the system. I mean we are already subjected to 140 characters to say what we are doing, just make sure I can post when I want to please powers that be…. Someone at Twitter has to take the position of “Yes…I give a damn” and fix the issues, and while I’m talking about that, can the people who make changes to twitter stop doing things over the weekend that affect my usability. Maybe a couple of apple engineers from the UI department can help us with a better pleasing interface that does not change on a whim. One day I know they will get it right I just hope that happens before we start jumping ship….Please for the love of (Politically correct) who ever you think is the higher power in your life, not letting the other powers that people can thank of down.

TBTR

I ran across an article on Crankygeeks.com about Ruby on Rails. Warning this post might get a bit technical and thus not really interest you, but hear me out for a moment. I heard about ruby on rails, oh 2 or so years ago. Just like some of the other programming languages it has it’s good and bad points. Some would say it takes less time to code in RoR but others would argue your sacrificing something. If you have ever run code, or created code you know the computer systems have a hand in the speed. Sometimes people create code on the slowest computers and never try to upgrade the systems for lack of money, bloated code, or lack of expertise. As many of you know that Twitter has been very slow at times and while that is a burden when your trying to follow a conversation it also gives you a hint to get back to work instead of killing your productivity.

A week or so ago I saw a post from someone saying that a key employee at twitter was fired (The Guy on the Far Left) and no longer working with them. As my understanding this guy had been brought in to help with the spotty and unreliability of twitter in the past few months. To know the guy got fired was a bit dis-hearting to say the least, I mean I didn’t know the guy but for someone who was bought in at the beginning of the year and to be fired already says a lot to me. (btw his twitter account still works)

Twitter sucks as a company has the potential to be a great company and while I don’t live in San Francisco or California for that matter. I wonder if management is jumping to conclusion already about there new hires? Its plain to see that if you hire someone in January and fire them in March or April something didn’t mesh. It could have been a culture shock for both employee and employer but what ever the case. When someone is fired fairly fast it means something just ain’t right. I hope that twitter get a hold of the reigns it seems money is starting to talk and starts to pull in the issues they have on their plate at this time. If management does not get a hold of the issue at hand when the next darling comes along we will all jump ship. Don’t doubt that people won’t jump, look at the Lifecasting relm justin.tv, ustream, and others we jumped for features and reliability this could definitely happen to twitter if the parts don’t start to assemble properly.

Conclusion Ruby on Rails is great…RoR+Twitter=jury still out…twitter management might just need an enema before they lost traction.

Just my two cents (with run on sentences, misspellings, incorrect punctuation, and procrastination laced)

TBTR

While I was reading my Google Reader post from various RSS feeds. I came across a post that is both exciting and disturbing at the same time. In the article that TechCrunch has posed it seems last night or Sunday Night 4/13/08 twitter was doing a little knocking of the gears and some people said they saw ad’s being attached to their tweets or in the stream of tweets. While the excitement comes for a company that has yet to monetize twitter, the disturbing or disappointing fact remains that we all subcomb to the beast. The all mighty dollar, $$$$, money, duckets, cnotes, hundeds.

As we all know when you run a business it makes sense to operate in a fashion that will eventually make money. Those of us who run businesses and also twitter for business understand the audience is there and ripe for the pickens. I mean it’s not easy to make money from a service that post in 140 characters or less what your doing who would have thunk it.

So it seems like the big bucks have taken a hold of what I considered to be one the truest forms of communications, the talons that the VC’s have now sunk into the twitter head honchos is pretty tight. We always get to see something great turn into something foolish and eventully dead because of the VC’s fast method of “making money”.

I really hope the story is not true but if it is get ready for your post just like your gmail to show you wanted and unwanted ads telling you how great this product is that your twittering about.

Twitter just remember to make a pay subscription so I can immediately turn off my ad as soon as you go live on May 1.

Just my 2 cents.

TheBlackTechReport.com

Podcast #1 July 16, 2007 Show Notes

I am excited to post my first podcast for The Black Tech Report.com I hope you enjoy this and shoot me feedback about the show. I am also posting the video of this show they are both the same although the mp3 has been edited, and the videocast has all the ummms you could ever want to hear. I hope to get better so I don’t spend 2 hours editing the ummms out of the podcast.

Thanks,

Jayson