For those of you who are either luddites or live under a rock there is a new phenomenon in the online social networking world called Plurk.

What pre-tell, you ask, is Plurk? Well it’s along the same line as Twitter where you can post short “status” like updates that are 140 characters. Some people refer to this type of service as microblogging but unlike Twitter, Plurk groups the threads together ,thus making it extremely easy to read and follow. The other great feature is the time line which scrolls from left to right rather than reads up and down like Twitter.

I could talk all day about the cool features of Plurk but what you need to know is that it’s cool, fun, and there are lots of good people there. Here are some examples of some really great folks on Plurk: miketempleton, ruggsymuggs, bikeman, nethead, MikeonTV. I know I missed some excellent people but these are the ones fresh in my head as I have been chatting with them over the past few minutes.

One thing that Plurk has taught me is how to express myself in very short messages. Sure you can keep posting replies to your own Plurks (that’s what a post is called in the Plurktionary) but that looks pretty silly. I know that, if I were to meet these Plurkers in real life, I would be friends with them as most Plurkville residents I’ve met share common interests and a similar sense of humour.

If you are new to Plurk and/or want someone to help you get started, feel free to add me (TheNerd) as one of your friends. I’ll make sure you get well acquainted with the Plurk Universe (Pluniverse, Plurkville, Plurktown, etc).

Cheers!
~TheNerd

I’ve been plugging away at my business plan over the past few days and have made some decent progress. I’ve been trying to write it as professionally as possible so it’s taking a some extra time to make sure I have all the wording all nice and pretty.

The worst part about the whole thing is the market research.  It’s hard enough to find decent numbers for places like Toronto and Vancouver never mind Halifax or maybe even a smaller town where I grew up. I guess it might not be that the numbers are hard to find, it might just be hard to find for a non-numbers person such as myself. Regardless it will come eventually.

Aside from that I am working with someone (sort of) on a new project that hopes to be launched into beta  sometime in the not too distant future. I don’t want to say much about it right now because I am not sure what exactly my involvement in this project will be and the details aren’t all worked out as to what the final product is actually going to look like.

I am also working on an eComStation related website project that, as soon as some bugs are worked out, will be launched. I hope that will happen within the next week or two before I return to my regular day job but I am not 100% sure yet.

~TheNerd

As most of you already know I am a super huge fan of TWiT and Leo Laporte. Someday I hope to be a guest on the show but that is not what this article is about (some may have wondered because of the title).

Geoff Smith of www.ringtonefeeder.com wrote a very cool song called “I am a TWiT” and posted it on YouTube. It’s pretty clever if I do say so myself. I think everyone should take a listed. Just remember, if you aren’t a TWiT fan then you won’t get it or find it amusing. See below for the video but I encourage you to go to the YouTube page and leave a comment.

I’ve recently started listing items on eBay again and it got me thinking about the changes I’ve seen in the past 10 years.

When I first signed up on eBay, a little over 10 years ago, you didn’t need a credit card and there was no such thing as “Buy it now”. eBay was still full of Beanie Babies and Pez dispensers. At that time your user ID was your email address and it was publicly displayed, there wasn’t much worry of your inbox being harvested for spam.

At one time you could sell firearms, animals, and human body parts. Most of those categories were short lived because eBay soon found out there was lots of liability associated with them. Then there was eBay Motors, a separate place to sell your used cars and parts. There was no such thing as Half.com, Paypal, or Skype. You had to sit around and wait for a cheque or money order to show up in the mail and then hope it didn’t bounce.

When I first signed up, people used to actually take care when they left feedback. Buyers didn’t leave negative feedback on whim just because there was a speck of dirt on the box. Buyers and sellers actually communicated and solved their problems, what a strange concept. I remember when Safe Harbor was put into place, what a relief it was to have a way to solve those extra difficult problems.

So many things have changed over the years, some good and some bad came of it. The one thing I really do miss about eBay is the true sense of community. Now they have communities (forums and such) but you don’t make the personal connections you once did. I’ve made many friends over the years on the site but that happened mostly in the past.

~TheNerd

In my previous post “If I were a TWiT who would I want to be?” I said I would like to be like Steve Gibson. While is is who I would like to be, I’ve been told that I am already like one of the regular TWiTs. Can you guess who? For those that know me the answer would be John C Dvorak.

Yes that’s right, I’m a cranky geek! (sorry for the trademark infringement).

~TheNerd

1. Everyone knows what I am up to - Does “John the Janitor” at my old elementary school really need to know what I’m doing?
2. All the notifications are annoying - I know you can turn them off but that’s not the point.
3. People upload and tag photos of you - then you have to approve or deny them (takes too long)
4. It’s the only way to communicate with some people - What happened to email or the telephone?
5. It’s ugly as hell! - enough of the blue already!
6. Too many applications that are useless yet people still spam you with them
7. Beacon - the Facebook boogyman
8. People get angry when you don’t accept their friend request
9. Everyone assumes I log in to Facebook as much as they do and think it’s the only way to contact you. If you have notifications turned off you may never know you were invited to “Joe and Betty’s Super Cool and Totally Rad House Party”.
10. Last but not least… Zuckerberg. It bothers me when he speaks, he should stay behind the keyboard.

…but for some strange reason, I keep logging in. It’s beyond me. I guess that’s why it’s been nicknamed Crackbook.

~TheNerd

Joe Stewart wrote a short article about BitTorrent and the legitimate use of P2P networks. It was written back in 2004 but I believe it still speaks of things that are relevant today.

It seems that some people still think that BitTorrent is evil but do not understand that BitTorrent is simply a protocol and nothing more. It allows developers to create clients that can download pirated software, movies, and music. Ultimately, it’s the people using these BitTorrent clients (like uTorrent) that download the pirated software.

As explained in the article there are many ways to use the BitTorrent protocol legitimately. If you don’t believe me just check out LinuxTracker.org, it provides a central location to download open source software such as Linux and BSD distributions.

Cheers!
~TheNerd

“Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, today announced that Google accounted for 67.25 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending March 29, 2008.” (Source)

Here is a breakdown of the top search providers.

1. Google - 67.25%
2. Yahoo! - 20.29%
3. MSN - 6.65%
4. ASK - 4.09%

It doesn’t appear that Google’s momentum is ready to slow down anytime and this goes to show that maybe all these Google nuts aren’t crazy after all

~TheNerd

This week I launched my latest project. It’s called Tech Alpha and it’s a tech/computer forum site with the goal of becoming a place for newbies as well as the experienced.

I need all the new members I can get so feel free to go to http://www.techalpha.net and sign up.

Cheers!
~TheNerd

I’ve decided it’s time to move on so I’ve decided to put saveload.org up for sale.

Why am I selling it? I don’t really have time to update it each and every day like it needs to be and I’ve got a couple other ventures in the making that will be better for the pocket book :).

I’ve started a thread on digitalpoint for the sale. If you have any questions or comments feel free to post them here or contact me via a digitalpoint PM.

Cheers!
~TheNerd