Intarwebz
March 12, 2008 / Wednesday
Google Notebook
Moved my various text file to-do lists into Google Notebook today to protect them from disk failure (it's not practical to back up every time I shut down) and make them accessible from my phone. I'd been resisting online management of these lists because I didn't want to need internet access to see them, but then I realized I don't bother with offline computers anyhow. So far, I'm liking it better than the old method; Google Notebook provides just enough extra functionality to be more useful than a text file without being heavy like Docs. I should have done this sooner!
12:04 AM | Intarwebz| Comments (0)
November 30, 2007 / Friday
Aaarrrgyle
In honor of today's Woot Shirt design, I shall talk like a pirate for the rest of the year.
Not that that's any different from what I've been doing.
01:26 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (2)
October 23, 2007 / Tuesday
Tricksy Tricksy TwitterIM
- TwitterIM window -
TwitterIM: gadgetgrrl: whoa, vivo's blog showed up in my web clips!
SoopahViv: WHAT?
- gadgetgrrl AIM window -
SoopahViv: woops
SoopahViv: i mean
SoopahViv: WHAT?
SoopahViv: i think i just shouted at all my twitterfriends
- TwitterIM window -
TwitterIM: gadgetgrrl: haha, you did!
- gadgetgrrl AIM window -
gadgetgrrl: ACK!
04:54 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (0)
The Internet Knows Too Much
Yesterday, while putzing around on LinkedIn, I noticed a little box on the side that read, "People you may know: Patling*" Indeed, I know Patling, but how did LinkedIn know that? Seriously, I can't figure it out. We share no contacts, he lives on the other side of the country, and we've never worked at the same company. We went to the same university, but we had vastly different majors and overlapped for only two years. I'm pretty sure LinkedIn is not hurting for Cal grads, so what's up? How did it link us? Spooky.
* Name changed, but I'm sure you figured that.
04:28 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (2)
October 18, 2007 / Thursday
Where Did My Cart Go?
Dear Amazon,
If I log in on my phone and add items to my cart, I want to see them still in my cart when I log in on my computer later. This would make my life easier, and me a whole lot more likely to buy from you. Please implement. Nowww.
Thanks,
Viv
11:19 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (1)
October 10, 2007 / Wednesday
Goodbye, Bloglines
Hello, Google Reader!
Bloglines has been making me frown as of late. It's been unable to properly display certain feeds (HTML tags should be processed as such!) and displays blank lines in lieu of embedded video. When I caught wind of the fact that Google Reader has emerged from Labs mode, I decided to give it another go. The verdict? I diggit! Not only does it display everything properly, it has a much richer set of keyboard shortcuts, with behavior similar to my beloved Greasemonkey Gmail Macros. That, and I can see old posts without having to make a special request for them (and really, that Bloglines functionality seemed to work only a fraction of the time).
The mobile interface is better, too. I'm sold.
[ Update: I also like that Google Reader doesn't mark a post new every time an edit rolls in. Bloglines was annoying in that respect, and it made my hypersensitive about editing posts and spamming people's RSS readers. If you feel that this post update resulted in an annoyance on your to-read list, then perhaps you should consider switching readers... ]
11:32 AM | Intarwebz| Comments (1)
October 05, 2007 / Friday
Shhhuunnnn-ah!
I've discovered that way too many of you don't know who Charlie the Unicorn is. I shall now enrich your life.
You're welcome.
11:33 AM | Intarwebz| Comments (6)
October 04, 2007 / Thursday
MCB LOL
A chuckle for those of you who are familiar with life as an MCB major at Cal, which may be none of you, so perhaps this is really just a chuckle for me.
A list of the top four Facebook group hits for "MCB", for posterity:
1. MCB Students Demanding Their Own College and a B.S. Degree
2. MCB/IB Majors Who Think Other MCB/IB Majors Need To Chill the Fuck Out
3. MCB Does Not Deserve its Own College
4. MCB/IB (or Other Sci Majors) Who are Not Pre-med
So lessee, 1 and 3 are butting heads, the pre-meds in 2 hate each other, and the science geeks in 4 want to get away from the pre-meds in 2. Here's my solution to the situation: (1) Give the unchill pre-meds their own major so MCB can focus on science, research, and conferring B.S. degrees. (2) Retroactively grant me a B.S. degree. You can have my B.A. back, okay?
12:06 AM | Intarwebz| Comments (2)
October 03, 2007 / Wednesday
Okay Facebook, You Win
After receiving yet another Facebook friend request from a random corner of my universe, I gave in and finally spent some time playing with the site. Once I got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad. I still don't like keeping content in several locations (blog, Twitter, and now Facebook), but at least Facebook's blog post notes import and Twitter application allow me to glom the three together.
I'm still not happy with how my profile page looks (feels messy, yuck!), but I'm finally willing to give Facebook the nod; I added it to my external profiles icon bar just now. That makes it real. :)
11:33 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (0)
September 12, 2007 / Wednesday
Basebrawl
If they fought like that in MLB maybe I'd watch!
• • •
I'd like to see us adopt this as a decider in hockey when we don't have time for OT. Last team standing wins!
03:00 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (3)
July 14, 2007 / Saturday
I Don't Get It
Friendster, Orkut, MySpace, Facebook. Check, check, check, check.
I have accounts on all these sites, but I don't understand what the all hype (former, in some cases) is about. I tried giving Facebook a chance today, but that idea got old after about five minutes. The same thing happened with all the social networking sites that came before it.
Some people lump LinkedIn with those sites since it's also a social networking application. It is, but I use it because its focus is on career networking. Similarly, Flickr is really heavy on social networking, but I enjoy it because its focus is on pictures; the networking is just a bonus.
I guess I don't see the point of social networking simply for its own sake.
Does that make me asocial?
03:43 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (3)
July 13, 2007 / Friday
It's A Shopping Site?
One of my favorite recipe blogs just referred to Woot as "the Woot shopping site". My first thought was, "It's a what?" Huh, I guess it is. I've always just thought of Woot as its own thing. Woot is Woot. It's that simple.
09:31 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (0)
June 11, 2007 / Monday
Vimeo
Finally, a video hosting/sharing service that doesn't screw up or unsync the audio in my files!
Now I can post videos of exciting stuff like airport tram rides.
08:18 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (1)
May 22, 2007 / Tuesday
Date Format Boo
Why, Twitter? Why did you just go and change your api date format out of the blue and break my parser? Now all my Twitter badge updates read "Date undefined, undefined @ undefined". That, after all the cross-browser work I did to parse your last nonstandard date format. I boo at you. Boo, Twitter, boo!
I have to say, though, the "undefined undefined, undefined @ undefined" in IE makes me chuckle.
07:36 AM | Blog/Website:Intarwebz| Comments (2)
May 15, 2007 / Tuesday
Twitter Badge
I just replaced the way too manual no history sidebar status check with a customized Twitter badge. I had to write some browser specific JavaScript for date parsing, and since it's been tested only on Firefox, IE, and Epiphany, I would very much appreciate if you could tell me if the date appears in a format NOT like "May 15, 2007 @ 19:45:22" on your browser. OS, browser, browser version, and a copy of what you see in lieu of the desired date format would be really helpful.
Also, I currently don't have anything special to handle Twitter timeouts. If their service continues to be as flaky as it has been, I'll either write something to handle it or remove the badge until reliability improves. Again, please let me know if it's hanging a lot and bugging you. Otherwise, I'll just assume everything's fine.
I'm finding this Twitter thing more addictive than blogging. Whoa.
10:59 PM | Blog/Website:Intarwebz| Comments (2)
May 12, 2007 / Saturday
StickyC pointed out last night that I'm old and unhip.
stickyc: http://twitter.com/soopahviv
stickyc: darn
soopahviv: okay FINE
So, in an effort to stave of Internet dinosaurhood, I now Twitter. Do you? Will you be my friend?
12:14 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (0)
May 03, 2007 / Thursday
Oh, This Is Funny
Remember my post about how I was pissed that all the vivlastname accounts were taken? I discovered tonight that I own vivlastname on AIM. Along with this discovery came a true understanding of LOL. Upon realizing what I didn't know I had all these years I sat on my couch and laughed ... and laughed ... and laughed.
How did I come to own vivlastname and not know it? Because after I failed to get a vivlastname account on Yahoo! and Hotmail I settled for one on the only remaining major site - Netscape. Netscape and AOL then merged, and with them, my account. Somehow, I never became aware of this.
Almost a decade later, on a Thursday night in May, I was sitting at home curating logins and passwords for transfer from my Palm to my BlackBerry. I came across an entry for a vivlastname Netscape e-mail address. I was about to delete it, but out of curiosity decided to see if the login still worked. I visited the Netscape Mail page and saw ... AIM Mail?! The login still worked.
I fired up AIM and logged in there, too. WahoO!
I don't know which is better, this, or getting the dot. Either way, screw you, other Vivs!
Now if you'll excuse me I have some more laughing to do.
10:08 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (2)
April 17, 2007 / Tuesday
Flickr Collections
I've wanted this for so long! Why did it take me an entire month to notice?
06:34 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (0)
March 28, 2007 / Wednesday
Stupid Internet Fairies
aaron: mmm berry pie
SoopahViv: iwantiwantiwant
SoopahViv: ahhhhh
aaron: i have a piece here just for you
aaron: but it might be gone soon so you better come get it
SoopahViv: intarwebz it
*** aaron is trying to send you "berry pie.zip".
*** You have received C:\downloads\berry pie.zip.
* SoopahViv opens berry pie.zip
SoopahViv: omg the internet fairies ate the contents!
SoopahViv: 
aaron: oh no
aaron: i guess it's too good to intarwebz
SoopahViv: 
11:31 PM | Food:Intarwebz| Comments (0)
March 23, 2007 / Friday
I Got The Dot!
Back in the days of Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, I bemoaned the fact that one or more other Vivs with my last name had beat me to the vivlastname and vivianlastname accounts. When Gmail started trickling account invitations out through their employees back in April 2004, I was stoked. I immediately grabbed the vivlastname account. Screw you, other Vivs! I then grabbed the vivianlastname account. Screw you, other Vivs who happen to be Vivians! I also grabbed a bunch of other account names to match the ones I held with other providers. I was a happy camper (or squatter, perhaps?), to say the least.
As Gmail caught on, so did the firstname.lastname e-mail naming convention. When I realized this, I tried to register for vivian.lastname, but was told that it wasn't available. viv.lastname wasn't available, either. Oh no! One of those other Vivs got the jump on me! I was sad. I felt that I'd somehow failed in my attempt to piss off the other Vivs.
Then, last week, I read Andrea's post about dots in Gmail usernames. Cool, I thought, at least I have viv.lastname. I'd forgotten that I had registered for vivianlastname three years prior.
Today, I composed a test message to myself for I-don't-remember-what. When it came time to choose a recipient, I typed "viv" and noticed a vivianlastname Gmail address on the list. Could it be? Have I owned vivian.lastname this entire time? A test login and message confirmed that I did.
Woohoo, I got the dot! That is so awesome. Thanks Andrea for the post, and screw you again, other Vivs!
03:30 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (2)
March 13, 2007 / Tuesday
xkcd Epiphany
All these MWFs, and I only *just* discovered that there's a caption in the "title" attribute of the comic image. Now I want to reread all the old ones.
09:46 PM | Intarwebz| Comments (2)
March 21, 2006 / Tuesday
New Tunes
Good way to explore new music: Pandora
Even better way to explore new music: Log into Pandora using a username/password from Bugmenot. If you can't find one that works, make your own and submit it.
03:09 PM | Intarwebz:Music| Comments (0)
November 27, 2004 / Saturday
Ooh, More Music To Buy!
Amazon's musical related searches feature ain't bad. I searched for Duran Duran just now, and they offered me additional links to Depeche Mode, Tears For Fears, and U2. How did they know?!
10:26 PM | Intarwebz:Music| Comments (0)
August 31, 2002 / Saturday
Free downloadable music. Good stuff.
Free downloadable music. Good stuff. Legal too. Make your own. Looks like fun. acidplanet.com. They should pay me for posting this.
