14:02 by FoxTwo
Facebook Is A Stalker's Paradise
Facebook has this "feature" which all other networks do not have. Or, even if they did, not to this level of detail. The feature I'm talking about is the newsfeed. You know, when you log in, you are given a summary of what your other friends did, like "commenting on a photo" or "joined xyz group", or even "kissed, hugged, punched" someone etc in the various apps.
Again, let me relate a story. Again, I am not directly involved, and names have been changed to protect the guilty and innocent. App names have also been generalised - ie I will not make references to any specific app by name.
Stella is a very friendly and outgoing person. She also has a soft heart, she can't say "NO" because "it will hurt his feelings" type of person. Like everyone else, she installed many apps due to her friends inviting her to do so. One of these apps is a flirting/dating type app. How this app works is to show her picture rather anonymously, and show only her first name without her last name. Also, in this app, there's no direct link to her profile. Thus the only way for potential suitors to communicate is via this app itself.
So Stella got to know a guy through this app. Let's call him David. David was browsing profiles in this app and saw Stella. Thinking she looks hot, he initiated contact. Stella, being the friendly sort, always replies. At first things were cordial. They sort of "clicked", and more info about each other were exchanged. She gave him a link to her Facebook profile, and accepted his friend request.
Then he started to hint at something more.
Stella recognised the hints and started to back off, but yet still always replying, and never making any ambiguous remarks. She even came right out and reminded David that she's married (as shown in her profile) and that she's only looking for FRIENDS, nothing more.
David, being a resourceful kind of guy, some how managed to obtain her email address (never shown on Stella's profile). Let's not speculate how he got the info. The fact is he did. So he started to send her lovey-dovey messages to her personal email as well as doing all the "sexy" and "naughty" poke actions to her on Facebook.
Every time Stella sees those, she gets upset. At first she tried to ignore them, but when she did, David very angrily demanded to know why she was specifically "singling him out" yet she responds to her other male friends. He insisted she respond to his "pokes" and email, and says that he could see, via the newsfeeds, that she got his "pokes", why wasn't she responding? David kept harping on one point - if she wasn't interested in him, why did she tell him her profile address and accept his friend?
Stella was in a quandry - she confided in her friends, not knowing what to do as it was stressing her out. She didn't want her husband finding out, or else he would think she had been flirting with guys on Facebook (which she didn't). Her friends advised her to totally block David on Facebook, and to set up a filter in her email to automatically delete anything from David's email address.
Stella, the soft hearted girl, didn't want to do any of those. She didn't want to "hurt his feelings". Yet, she's the one being traumatised. Also, in a way, she was afraid of what David will do.
As of right now, this situation with Stella isn't resolved. She now avoids Facebook like a plague. She is afraid to open her email. In a sense, Stella the friendly and outgoing girl, became withdrawn and afraid. All because of one guy.
Stella isn't alone in this. I know of at least a couple more female friends who are in a similar situation - unwanted attention from guys, who won't take NO for an answer. They also are soft-hearted and "don't want to hurt his feelings".
Guys - when a girl says NO, it's not a "maybe" ok? Being "determined" makes women afraid of you, not admire you. There's a fine line between "determined" and "harrassing".
Girls - don't be soft-hearted. Block the irritating ones immediately. Once you block, no matter what kind of threats he issued, you won't even see it. Also when you block, the "newsfeed" no longer updates on the guys' end. Set up filters in your email to automatically DELETE email from these stalkers. In other words, cut him off totally.
If you don't, the only one suffering is YOU, not the guy. He's not soft-hearted towards you, why should you be nice to him?
Labels: facebook, internet, social networking
13:20 by FoxTwo
Digsby The Multi-Protocol Wonder
I'm sure you, like many people, have friends on IM platforms, be it MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ or whatever. And, I'm sure not all of them are (conveniently) on the same platform. You'd have some on MSN, some on AIM etc.
It wasn't till very recently that the 2 largest IM networks, MSN and Yahoo, decided to finally "work together" and allow their users to cross-talk to each other, using the latest versions of their client. Even so, there are some lazy or blissfully ignorant users out there who don't know they need to upgrade to the latest version of their respective choice of clients before they can talk to their friends on the other network. Or maybe they know but they don't want to upgrade.
What we could do to accommodate these type of users is to get a multi-protocol IM client, ie a piece of software that will log you onto the various networks that you may be on, all at the same time. This way, you can talk to all your friends from all the different networks. 2 examples of the more well-known multi-protocol clients would be Trillian and Miranda.
Now, gaze upon a relatively new entrant to this arena - Digsby, The Wonder Client! In my opinion, Digsby is THE client to have. It sports support for MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, Jabber and Googletalk protocols, for starters.
One pretty neat feature of Digsby as opposed to other multi-protocol clients out there is the ability to merge "duplicate" entries into one. You will definitely have friends who are like you - have an account in each of the networks. So, if you drag your friend's Yahoo account over to his MSN account, Digsby will merge these 2 into 1 entry on your buddy list! Don't worry, when your friend logs in on either network, you'll be notified like always. It doesn't stop at just 2, too. You can keep dragging his account from any of the supported networks, and it'll merge them all into just 1 entry.
The other usual features are skin support, avatars ("Display Picture" in MSN-speak), fonts etc. But, what takes cake, is support for SOCIAL NETWORKING! Yes, it checks Facebook, Myspace and Twitter! Now, I don't have Myspace, but it's ok. Digsby checks my Facebook and Twitter at regular intervals of about 10 mins. Unfortunately you can't control the interval right now. What is cool is that you can update your Twitter from inside Digsby itself!
Yes, I have been thinking of either getting a twitter client or installing a plug-in for MSN that allows Twitter. Now along comes Digsby and I am thinking I'm going to use this one long-term from now on.
Also, a nice bonus is that Winamp support apparently is built-in. As soon as you play a song on it, your "status" on Digsby changes to reflect the Artist-Title, just like on MSN or Yahoo.
Yes Digsby really works! It even allows you to chat with me via the "Chat With Me!" selection on the sidebar of this page. If you see a green man icon beside it now, it means I'm online in MSN Network.
Labels: facebook, internet, messaging, MSN, social networking, twitter
20:31 by FoxTwo
"Facebook" Is Now An Official Word In Dictionary
And, today, I found out my Facebook profile died. Well, I dunno, I can't see my own profile from any of my PCs here, and using both FireFox and IE6/IE7, my profile "can't be found". My friends however, say they see my profile fine.
Conversely, I see theirs fine. I just can't see mine. Bleh!
At the very least I can go to the "Facebook Homepage" and start Superpoking my friends.
Incidentally - yeah I haven't been updating my blog as often as I normally do, due to the fact that I'm now "on vacation" and thus, very lazy. I sleep till noon, I eat junk for lunch and then I play online games with Americans and British players till wee hours of the morning (which is just about afternoon time for them).
Ok I'm kidding about the junk food part. I'm STILL on my "diet" and I'm still working out. Oh yeah I also ordered the Bodylastics Home Gym, the Max Tension set, but that's a topic for my other blog :)
Labels: facebook, internet, social networking
