web 2.0

Weird 2.0

| Chris

For the longest time, I avoided social networking sites as much as I could. But out of curiosity, I would sometimes check one out, sign up and stay on for a few days, get tired and delete my profile. I just never got much into it. At least, blogging is productive and creative. But I just couldn’t see the point in flaunting a slideshow of someone’s drunken misadventures, for all the world to see.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine convinced me to sign up for a Facebook account. He said, people have been asking about me. And so finally, I gave in. Little did I know that almost every walking creature I have every known in my life was there! Geez, I must’ve gotten about 200 emails within the next 48 hours. I was overwhelmed. But it was a good kind of overwhelming. It was nice to say hi to people I haven’t seen or talked to in the last 25 years. And looking at everyone’s avatar, it became surprisingly apparent that my hair and weight have remained significantly intact, all these years. Whew! What a relief! But to be honest, I’m not sure how long I’m gonna last around here, as well. We’ll see.

Anyhow, about a week ago, I was flipping through pages at fastcompany.com and found a list of seriously whacked out websites that I just couldn’t believe actually existed. I mean, how weird have we become as a society! If I didn’t see the point to MySpace or Facebook, imagine my horror when checking out the following social networking sites.

  • Lost Zombies – If you believe in zombies or think you’re one, this is one heck of a graveyard summit.
  • My Free Implants – For women with big-balloon dreams and a flat-tire bank account. And for the crazy men willing to shoulder the expenses.
  • Beautiful People – Think you’re one of them? Go sign up. And if your account suddenly gets deleted, it only means you were in denial and are dead wrong, in the first place.
  • Spot a Potty – An exclusive club for people obsessed with toilets. Toilets!!! By the way, if you ever find yourself in the middle of nowhere and needing to go badly, have no fear, Miz Pee is here!
  • Don’t Date Him, Girl – Girl meets boy. Boy asks for a date. Girl says yes. Girl logs in to her Don’t Date Him, Girl page and starts a background check. Girl reads all about other girls’ horrific experience with said boy. Girl cancels date. Repeat process.

Actually, there was a few more, but these guys take the cake for me. Besides, I couldn’t take anymore. Can you?

Reload already!

| Chris

Normally, I don’t enjoy ranting about technology. But when my patience gets affected in any way, I know it’s time to let off the steam a bit.

Okay. Reloading the browser. This technology is soooo last week! And, that’s my beef.

When you’re on a website that updates content by the minute, or second in fact, it gets annoying when you have to hit the reload button just to see what’s new. Imagine doing it when on a chat or IM…

Hmm, I wonder if I got a response yet. After all, it’s been, what… 2 seconds already! (hits reload button)

Maybe it’s just me, but I get lazy when I know I’ve already been pampered to death for years by AJAX-driven sites like, Netvibes, or the Google apps (Reader, Gmail, Gtalk, Notebook, etc.). So, why should I have to regularly hit a button on, say, Twitter, just to get the latest updates. Sites like this generate updates faster than you could switch tabs back and forth on your browser.

Also, I shouldn’t have to ask an email client whether or not I have new mail at the moment. Just let me know when friggin’ mail arrives, dagnabit! Fart, or something! I don’t know! Sheesh! How hard could it be? Can’t I just leave the window open all day and have it ring me up whenever something new arrives? Yeah, instead of having to visit every one of them every other minute… because I’m worried I might’ve missed something… already. After all, in this day and age (or at least, in Web 2.0 standards), a 10 minute-old news is called Archive! He! Care to view the microfiche?

K, I’m done.

Change is good

| Chris

I’m a pretty big fan of web 2.0 even though some of it is still kind of cryptic to me. I like the idea of “people first, machines second.”
And this technological mantra has definitely been the highlight of this new generation of the web. You may have heard of web 2.0 by now. It’s been an ever growing
buzzword since 2004, as far as I can recall. Yep, it’s not exactly a new kid on the block. If you’ve utilized websites like windows live, youtube, flickr, digg,
del.icio.us, technorati and my favorite web portal, netvibes (I have a lame version of it right here), among many many others,
then you have already been baptized in the waters of web 2.0 without even knowing it. It is so revolutionary though that by the time the rest of the world
catches up (if it ever does), a lot of us will have been wallowing on the 3.0 playground already.

I’ve barely scratched its surface here on my website. In this new version, I really just wanted to increase its usefullness and useability. And relevance, of course.
But there’s a whole lot more to it than just blogs, feeds, tags, CSS and all the obvious ones! Hey, didn’t you get enough buzzwords yet?

buzzwords

The cool thing about web 2.0 is that, at least for my own purposes, it’s not as much a new technology as it is a new attitude. A new way of thinking and
doing things perhaps. The technologies behind it, in fact, have been around awhile. But the combination of these make up a whole new world of web usage.

But I think I’ll skip the gruesome details. Now, going back to version 3.0. What could it be like, I wonder? Delivery pizza straight out of your CD drive?
One slice at a time? Sweet! You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for that one. We’ll see…

buzzwords

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the humor…

But on a more serious note… yes, change is sometimes hard. But change is good. Just like web 2.0, our lives go from one version to another. Sometimes, even without our permission or our blessings!
Good grief! Pray that it’s at least an upgrade! It’s like warming a new bench all over again. Like upgrading software, if you will. There’s always a new learning curve
involved. Some are steep, some are cake. It can be a nuisance sometimes. Or an interruption of sorts. But it can be exciting as well. If you can only look at it that way.
There are possibilities, opportunities and a chance to further enhance life with new experiences. Bad or good. Do you like surprises? I don’t. Well, not necessarily.
But sometimes, after a surprise, you’re glad, thankful, and you feel good.

Sometimes.

But that’s life. Change involves taking chances as well. By the way, that reminds me how funny it is that I, almost all the time, mistype “change”
with “chance.” (Yep, see, I did it again, just now.) And vice versa. It almost seems like these words are interchangeable in a peculiar way. Anyhow,
I know I took a lot of chances to get where I am today. Not that where I am now is ultra peachy.
No, not by a long shot, unfortunately. But I appreciate it nonetheless. It’s not shabby at all, in fact. For most of my life though, I feel like a nomad. Yeah,
Bohemian Rhapsody could very well be my theme song! 😉 (But no, mama, didn’t kill the man!) It seems I’ve been moving a lot the past seven years. I wish I could be
settled and be done with moving. But I can’t control it. The wind blows and I’m swayed. But I tell you, it doesn’t hurt when you don’t go against what feels natural.
It may in the beginning but the pain doesn’t linger too long. That’s the beauty of contentment. I don’t know about you, but I hate being miserable in any way,
shape or form. Actually, I don’t remember ever being bored for any reason. I find that there’s always something to do, or I can do… like say, write a blog? Ha!
That’s an acceptable excuse, I believe.

Anyhow, enough of my going on tangents! Where was I? Oh… when you’re content, no matter what, you learn to be less critical and cynical. And you learn to
appreciate and accept, whether or not you understand. Because to me, understanding something, in many ways, is irrelevant. There’s a lot of things we don’t understand.
And we struggle to understand but to no avail at times. I find that when I let go, life gets a lot easier to handle. It becomes more pleasant. There’s not much
to think about, wonder about, struggle about. You just enjoy it in whatever capacity you can.

Whew! talk about a rant! Can you see my passion here, folks? Yeah, I’m just a little politically incorrect sometimes, but at least it’s the real me. I’m not
going to jump into any bandwagon. No thanks, I’ll ride my own. But again… I appreciate all kinds of bandwagons passing by. Hey, let ’em roll from one place to another.
And just like web 2.0, let ’em roll from one version to another. I’ll be right behind trekkin’ along. Hey, it’s all change to me. And change is good.

I think.

Information Overload

| Chris

Have you ever heard someone say – I’m a slave to technology. I can’t live without my cell phone, iPod, laptop… whatever? Sure… whatever!!!

Information Technology I recently came back from a web design conference in Seattle. It was a new learning experience for me. I appreciate its real world, right here/right now kind of training experience. The problem, though, was that there was so much to chew. Too much information, not enough time. But maybe, it’s just me. An important feature of the event wasn’t as much creating and using technology in itself but more on wrapping everything that we do (as web designers/developers) around user-experience. People first, technology second. But this is a deep topic that might be better off being posted on another blog another day.

Though, one thing that became clear to me was the fact that, in this day and age, there’s just way too much information flooding our brain all at once. And a lot of times, we’re left to deal with it. Sink or swim. I remember the joke about the VCR’s clock blinking all the time. It may have been funny back then, but when you think about it now, that may have started the global shift of culture that is now in itself… our culture as we know it. The joke made it obvious that we’re unable to catch up with the times. I mean, it’s not rocket science or anything, right? Just RTFM and set the effing clock already! How hard is that? But no, it wasn’t a matter of whether or not it was difficult, people just did not want to waste their precious time with having to listen to and figure out what and how others want them to do stuff. They would rather go out and jump in the pool with the kids. More fun, less thinking. A no-brainer!!!

And yes, I totally agree! It is a no-brainer that I’d rather enjoy my life the way I want to and not how others might tell me so. If I need something, I shouldn’t have to go through a step-process to get it, or at least not through way too many steps. Technology should be a tool, a helper… not your boss, or worse… your evil master!!!

And so, back to the conference. What did I bring back home with me? Well, a sense of change, for one. A desire to infuse more of that human element into my craft. Sometimes I feel like everything I did in the past was wrong. But I realized, it is good to see the past for what it was today… that, yeah, it could’ve been better. And it could! And should! I could at least do my part, right?

That said, I better get to work already… for tomorrow might not be as forgiving.