Site Saver!

Ah, memories!

Cute as a button, sweet as can be, this is Isabella, or Izzy, as she likes to be called. She's the creative artist who blogs out of Asia as "Sarong Party Girl." - 2005

Despite being vanquished by blogger, my old blog was preserved, after all! At least some is here, and the rest I have saved on my harddrive. Muchos Gracias, Alexa, for helping me find CRP!

636-925-1746

If you ever signed up for a trial subscription to the Albany Times-Union (or whatever the major newspaper is in your particular area) your cell phone will get hammered by relentless daily calls from The Pisa Group. Pisa is a clearing-house for all local dailies; once you're in their data base you will be subject to continuous harrassment.

Put your number on the do-not-call list and make a complaint to the newspaper, the BBB and the state Attorney General. Keep doing this EVERY time you get called; eventually (maybe) they'll get the message!
[MAYBE NOT - They've been doing this for YEARS!]

Entrecard! Drop 'til your wrist locks! (Remix/Sample)

You might call this a "best of" Entrecard-related posts. It's a keeper!

Fledgling Blogger just couldn't take it anymore! Once one of the most popular and expensive blogs on the EC network, push came to shove and June Zach dropped --- dropped OUT! Among the comments came one from Marzie, who has three blogs in the EC network: " Mariuca says: October 9, 2010 at 10:08 pm ~ Hey June, yeah I noticed the 404 error and I am not surprised they deleted u without warning. I was deleted once too, cause I had a music player that was on auto and some “friend” reported me and I was immediately deleted without warning… despite the fact that I was totally unaware that having music box on ur blog (on auto) is not allowed. I wrote to them immediately and got my acct reinstated but yeah… no matter how popular or loved ur blogs are on EC, the admin doesn’t seem to appreciate the loyalty of such members.. "

EC POWER-DROP ON DIAL-UP!!! This is so simple! If you're on dial-up and avoid certain blogs because the load time is unbearable, use a friend's broadband computer or a public computer to "save entire webpage" onto a CD. There are two ways you can do this. If you care about content, save the main page of each blog, then burn them all to a single CD. If you are one of those netizens who like to "Hop and Drop," save just one page that you know contains a short post. When you call up the blogs from your CD, everything will load onto your browser (current widget data will likely be refreshed: keep an eye on your toolbar so you can track what's loading) and depending on the individual blog your load time will be cut anywhere between half and 90%!

Is Entrecard really worth the time and trouble? Despite a slight hike in the old bounce rate, I've stuck with the network, and overall, I'm satisfied! But that's me! Tj thinks differently: "It's been a long time since I removed Entrecard from my widgets here in this site, but I doubt their system changed significantly. Don't consider this post as biting the hand that fed me. Let's look at it from a past user's first hand perspective. Here we go: [...]"

Pink Splotch Blog LIKES the EC system: "very simple - yet amazingly effective. Not to mention FREE and easy to use" [...]

Fast-loading websites where the EC widget is located ABOVE THE FOLD in the right-hand column. NO NEED TO SCROLL! (Each link opens in a new window, so you can go, drop, ctrl+W or X out and land right back here!)

..::AdGitizeR::..

All the BS

Beyond My Quiet Zone

Business Plan

Business Solutions

Danielle

Life's Sweets & Spices

Mom's check nyo...

Priority Things

Sandy Petals

Scrink

SyriaAlaan

Wedding Photography

Tags: drop EC, Entrecard

The Cup of Life

"Merlin" must go down in my personal TV history as one of my favourite shows: maybe THE most favourite of all. I've been watching ever since NBC ran season 1 a couple of summers ago. Now, I watch via BBC on satellite. In the screen capture below, Morgana watches out her tower window as Arthur and Merlin set off in search of the Cup...


The next-to-last installment of Season 3 of BBC's Merlin demonstrates an ages-old lesson: betrayal. I really enjoy the series because it is "progressive" as opposed to "static." What do I mean by that? Well, if you watch the series "Seinfeld" you'll see that over its many seasons-run not too much changed. In the end, the characters were the same characters they began as in Season 1. On the other hand, if you watch "Gossip Girl" or "Stargate" you'll see that there is a progression of events and character changes. Best example: The Harry Potter movie series. THAT is progression!

Everyone has at least heard of the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Wikipedia states "The historical basis for the King Arthur legend has long been debated by scholars. The first datable mention of King Arthur is in a 9th century Latin text." Merlin Ambrosius, or Myrddin Emrys was Arthur's personal assistant, and, court wizard. Quoting Wikipedia again: "Merlin's traditional biography casts him as a cambion; born of a mortal woman, sired by an incubus, the non-human wellspring from whom he inherits his supernatural powers and abilities."

The creative forces behind Merlin go beyond mythology to not only explore the younger days of then-Prince Arthur and his wizard pal: they develop, define and refine the story and the characters with each new episode. The last turning point in the series came when Merlin set the dragon free. This time it is when Morgana receives the Crown.

In Se03e12 one of King Uther's knights is miraculously saved by the druids and a goblet called the Cup of Life, a powerful magical artifact that carries the gift of immortality. .... Upon hearing of it Uther orders Arthur to find the cup, and the adventure begins! The writers do an incredible job of weaving the episodes together like a fine tapestry.

Embedded in each episode is a lesson. It could be about life, about choices, about diplomacy, about people. While some TV series have certain "turning point" or other episodes that are cutting edge, every ep of Merlin is as good as or better than the last. ATV reports that the BBC recently ordered a fourth series of the 7:40pm Saturday drama which will run to 10 episodes long.

Past TV shows I've enjoyed include gems like "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." - "Superman" (the original with George Reeves, where the creators did the best they could using early 1950s technology), "Charmed" and "Dark Angel." There are just two "Charmed" eps that are classics: one features David Carradine as the timekeeper and the other is about the character Leo dying after being shot by a magical arrow. My fave "Dark Angel" is the one wher Joshua gets to go "trick or treating" as himself. And the entire first season of "Superman" represents the small-screen version of Film Noir at its best.

Movies I've enjoyed (series movies, that is) are "Charlie Chan," "Star Trek" and "Harry Potter." And that's it. For now.

Tags: Merlin, Merlin

Around The Blogosphere 29 November 2010

xiaxue.blogspot.com

Rapunzel Press Junket - Ok this is my favourite song from the *Rapunzel: A Tangled Tale* soundtrack - sang by Mandy Moore! I embedded it so that you can play the song while you ...

The Africa They Never show You is a Facebook group with over 210,000 members. It goes by this description - ”You’ve seen the images on tv about africa: the huts, the famine, disease, wars and suffering but they never show you that Africa is beautiful, has happy people and that not every part and person in Africa is poor…..”.

Michelle Malkin

Latest Global Warming Denier: David Letterman’s Mother - Face of the enemy

011001010011101101110101

Is society becoming a "network collective," where perception is selective? Selective, in that digital technology is rendering a version of reality that may not exactly be what that reality truly is.

Douglas Rushkoff, in his masterpiece "Program Or Be Programmed: Ten Commands For A Digital Age." alludes to this when he contrasts the CD with an analog recording. He writes "...music played back on a CD format...showed that digitally recorded sound moved the air in a room significantly differently than analog recordings played through the same speakers."

People have always remarked how analog sound transmits some sort of undefinable "warmth" that can only be appreciated when you hear it.

The new connections we have include blogs and microblogs, supplemented by our "smart phones" which at least still are capable of carrying one human voice to another. Rushkoff also mentions that CONTACT not CONTENT, is the king that rules the digital frontier.

One of the more worthwhile blogs I've been reading a lot more lately is Orient Lodge, where blogger Aldon Hynes types "To me, technology and media are not bad in and of themselves. They are neutral. They can be used for good, or they can be used for bad. As I try to determine what makes for the good or bad use of technology or media, I come back to three key ideas. Engagement, connectivity, and creativity. Technology and media that encourages engagement, connectivity and creativity are, in my mind, technology and media that is being used for good. Technology and media that discourages engagement, connectivity and creativity are, for the most part, being used badly." ~ Aldon Hynes

This whole social networking concept has its roots in the original "blogger" platform! Thank goodness it has prevailed, despite many "experts" proclaiming constant crap, predicting the demise of the blog, first to the podcast (which thankfully never happened), then to the vlog (or video blog, which double-thankfully never happened), and most recently to the "lifestream," a concept that has also pretty much fizzled out. You might also toss Google "Wave" in there for good measure! Which brings us to the "niche" argument.

Is your blog or website all things to some people or some things to all people? I'd rather be in the latter category. There a few - very few - niche blogs that really take off. You have to know your stuff above and beyond the call of knowing your stuff to create and maintain a successful niche blog.

I left this as a comment on a Kansas City newspaper's review of Rushkoff's book:

The Kinks old mantra "everybody's in showbiz" and of course the infamous "15 minutes of fame" have been extended to include everyone. The revolution has already been televised, blogged and tweeted. Mr. Rushkoff sums up our current state of affairs as an intelligent people somewhere in his book where he writes "Without the search engine we are lost." Programming? Nyet! Google? Our nipple! Mercy Me, Technology!

You might also want to check out "Constraints Inspire Creativity," elsewhere on this blog.

* * *

December is on the way in, it's a very special time of year for me, both personally and digitally. My favorite months are September through early January. My birthday falls in October, and school traditionally begins in September. I started my first blog in November, and the time from Thanksgiving Day through January 1 I open my blog to guest posters, do a lot of reflective posting and publish my traditional "Hottest Blogging Babes" article, which originally began as a kind of joke, but has grown to acknowledge the talents and efforts of some of the blogosphere's more vocal ladybloggers.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBMIT A GUEST BLOG POST please get in touch! It's an easy way to get a link back to your own blog, twitter and facebook accounts!

THANK-YOU, faithful readers and followers! Despite the hoopla surrounding twitter followers, facebook friends and Google connect, I know from my stat counter data there are about 55 of you who visit this humble weblog at least once a day (sometimes more). It's you guys that make up the backbone of my audience. I appreciate your regular visits, referrals and bookmarks!

To others visiting today, thank-you too! You are always welcome here!

Tags: media, Digital Frontier, social networking

Around The Blogosphere 28 November 10

Famous Bloggers

Should You Buy Web Site Design or Get it for Free ?

TechCrunch

Phone SIM Locks: Why Do Carriers Even Bother? - We've been down this road before: a new iOS version is released that undoes all of the nasty stuff hackers did to the previous version.

chinaSMACK

North Korean Anchorwoman Ri Chun Hee Becomes Famous - North Korea's female news broadcaster Ri Chun Hee has recently become famous online amongst Chinese netizens amused by her overly dramatic and thunderous voice.

Divabloggen

May Lene Torsen (18) - norges hotteste kickboxer?

lost in London cold winter....

posted by Bai Ling at Naked Seduction 永恒的诱惑 - you will find a lovely holiday gift 4U and your friend shopping@ http://www.cafepress.com/bailing for Movie and songs@ youtube.com/user/88babybling1 I experienced the real London today so much crazy fun!!...

Remember, It's 9:11 Twice Every Day...

Face of Terrorism ::: Federal agents in a sting operation arrested a Somali-born teenager just as he tried blowing up a van he believed was loaded with explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, where authorities say the teen knew that small children would be present.



How do YOU feel right NOW? Safe or scared? Who do you trust? Whenever you get too content, mouseover and click on the picture above! (And see what Michelle Malkin has to say about Mohamed Osman Mohamud).

"...this case is frightening because it makes us wonder how many others are out there, like Mohamud, wanting to cause the same kind of harm, who could be lurking at the holiday parades and gatherings and shopping malls as we go about this holiday season." [...]

"... a few paragraphs in this New York Times story add strange complications..."

Video: Bomb plot foiled at Portland tree lighting KOBTV4
FBI successfully thwarts its own Terrorist plot‎ - Salon
A terrorist plot or an FBI propaganda stunt?‎ - Capitol Hill Blue

Entrecard With a Wall Street Skin... (or is that 'spin'?)

For today's post, I'm re-blogging something called "The Entrecard INDEX" - where the system is analyzed by a few day traders! Let me know what you think in the comments section! ~ Dave

Entrecard INDEX Nov. 29-30 2010
Here's a new feature you'll see on select blogs only! A report on the status of the Entrecard program, along with buying and selling tips. We're looking to build our network! Instructions on how to include this report on your blog are listed at the end of this article.

By RaeJean Palmer

Pick of the day:
---------------------------------------
Not John Chow (sat am 16):(sun am 64)

http://entrecard.com/details/132479
---------------------------------------
US-based blogs lead the market, continuing a rise that began following the Thanksgiving holiday. Blogs that stumbled and were available at "bargain rates" mid-day Friday are now back up in four figures. Many caught up on dropping late Friday evening after ignoring EC during the holiday and the "black friday" shopping day.

Overnight Results
(FriAM - SatAM - SunAM)
Posted prices come with no guarantee: they are what they are as of the moment this article was written!

-AdMaster 2048/8192/4096
-Beaded Tail 1024/1536/1024
BUY ALERT! East Coast Life 1024/1024/768
NEW! Entrecard Dropper Blog 256
BUY ALERT!Fitness Diva 1024/1024/768
-Orient Lodge 1024/2048/1536

Additional BUY ALERT! for Small Town Mommy
http://entrecard.com/details/110447

Where else to buy adspace today? Southeast Asian blogs remain strong but flat. European and Australian blogs are all selling at reasonable rates! This may be your day to "shop around!"

An analysis shows your best value for credits today is Not John Chow, currently selling at 64 - we think this one will go into four figures by this time next week!

Our next report will be issued mid-week.

(c)2010 MindMuscleSoftware and Alternative Connections.

Want to run the EC INDEX on your blog? Permission granted! It's as easy as mouseover, highlight, cut, paste! Just don't leave anything out, and be sure to include my byline and copyright data, and leave a link to your post in the comments section on the Adgitizer blog!

BONUS! Drop Entrecard Directory

Tags: entrecard, Entrecard Index

Weekend Plans...

Here's what I'm up to today & tomorrow:

(1) Reflections on another year of blogging...

(2) Working on the end-of-year "Blogging Babes" post

(3) Introducing EntreTweets - Whenever a popular blog in the Entrecard network is selling adspace at an unusually low number of ECs for that particular blog, I'll tweet the info and the price I paid. If you're an EC member and are quick enough, you can probably manage a frugal purchase as well!

(4) Catching up on Metroland and The New York Times

(5) Listening to my new CD "Vice" by Taeko

(6) Continue reading "Program Or BE Programmed" by Douglas Rushkoff

(7) Wrap a book I bought for someone as a Christmas Gift (of course I'll skim thru it first - I can't resist!)

What's YOUR weekend agenda?

Around The Blogosphere 26 November 2010

Rabbit Crushing Video Girl Comes Forth, Apologizes, Explains

posted by Fauna at chinaSMACK - ...the latest updates to the recent internet controversy surrounding a “crush fetish” video, in which the young beautiful girl pictured above sits on a plate of glass crushing a little rabbit underneath...

TechCrunch

Using Video Games to Burn all that Fat Caused by Playing Video Games (TCTV) - HopeLab is a nonprofit video game lab founded by Pam Omidyar, wife of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. That's right, I said *non-profit video game lab*.

Harajuku Hairstyles

posted by Orica at Orica Diary -Harajuku hairstyles, are called urban hairstyles that have become a cult following, not only in the Harajuku shopping district in Tokyo, where did this fashion, but also worldwide. These hairstyles are the...

Miss Info

Video: Fabolous, Lloyd Banks, Juelz Santana & Vado perform at Hot 97 Thanksgiving Concert - Nicki Minaj’s star studded set wasn’t the only thing going down at the Hammerstein Ballroom last night.

Windows Live Writer Makes Beautiful Blogs...Even When You're Offline Write, design, and publish your innermost thoughts with full-featured, free 'blog processor' Windows Live Writer.(Windows 7 only)

Send and Receive Faxes Without a Machine With PamFax The inexpensive PamFax services let you stay in touch with fax die-hards--without devoting money and space to a fax machine.

There was an error while fetching stats. Please reload page.

First of all, you can "reload" 'til the cows come home. You'll get the same message!

Stats have not been working for a week. DO NOT bother clearing your cache or deleting cookies. It won't help! If you use Google Analytics, you'll still be able to access stats, but not in real time.

This is why I always always always recommend a "back-up" to ANY service you really find critical to your blog! I have a couple of sitemeters I can use to access the blog's vitals! Hopefully whatever is interfering with the stats display will soon be fixed.

Meantime, don't go off on Blog*Spot or Google ::: it's a known issue for blogger/blog*spot blogs!

Entrecardery

Is Entrecard really worth the time and trouble? Despite a slight hike in the old bounce rate, I've stuck with the network, and overall, I'm satisfied! But that's me! Tj thinks differently: "It's been a long time since I removed Entrecard from my widgets here in this site, but I doubt their system changed significantly. Don't consider this post as biting the hand that fed me. Let's look at it from a past user's first hand perspective. Here we go: [...]"

Pink Splotch Blog LIKES the EC system: "very simple - yet amazingly effective. Not to mention FREE and easy to use" [...]

Although the folks who run EC have done a lot to keep things running smoothly, there are those jackasses that come in and try (and sometimes succeed) in ruining it for others: "This morning while doing my drops yet again another hack site, and then one with a redirect to a virus download. This is the same virus that nearly wiped out my computer before, and I am not dealing with it again. I use several other traffic exchange sites, and I don't know what they do differently for security but whatever it is Entrecard needs to do it too. They can not protect their members from these sites and that is obvious."

IF YOU ENCOUNTER A SUSPICIOUS SITE, REPORT IT TO EC IMMEDIATELY!

DO NOT DROP ON ANY BLOGS THAT APPEAR ON YOUR DASHBOARD UNLESS YOU ARE 100% CERTAIN THEY ARE LEGIT!

Something new has appeared on the scene. I don't plan on incorporating it as a regular feature here on my weblog (I may not incorporate it at all), but I may refer to it from time to time. It's called Entrecard INDEX

Tags: entrecard, EC

Constraints Inspire Creativity

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

It has been said that "Constraint inspires creativity," and I certainly agree. Case in point: the constraint of working through dial-up internet can in itself present a great challenge!

I'll take this opportunity to direct you to one of the most-read posts on this humble weblog:
"The Personal Blog 2010" is a treasure-trove of links and information!

I've pared back and re-adjusted so I'm back at my target number 300 people I follow on twitter!

And don't forget your fix of afternoon drive news, around 4:45pm NYTime (in North America) -or- wake-up news, around 5:45am HKTime (Asia) on The Dave Lucas Daily Internet Newspaper.

One Baker's Dozen ::: Super Quick EC Drops To Go!

Fast-loading websites where the EC widget is located ABOVE THE FOLD in the right-hand column. NO NEED TO SCROLL! (Each link opens in a new window, so you can go, drop, ctrl+W or X out and land right back here!)

..::AdGitizeR::..

All the BS

Beyond My Quiet Zone

Business Plan

Business Solutions

Danielle

Life's Sweets & Spices

Mom's check nyo...

Priority Things

Sandy Petals

Scrink

SyriaAlaan

Wedding Photography

Tags: drop EC, Entrecard

Zogby ::: American Dream Wounded, But Endures

With Thanksgiving being tomorrow, it's not too early to take a moment and think about all of the things we each can be thankful for. I know when there is a perceived lack it can take on a life all it's own. So, dismiss the crap. We all go through bad times. Just learn the lesson and press on... Here's a little "food for thanksgiving thought" from pollster John Zogby.

You forget most things you learn in college, but some of it sticks for life and shapes how you think about it. So it is with something Father John Cantillon SJ at LeMoyne College said to me about Jesuit philosophy: "God writes straight with crooked lines."

That thought struck me as I compared our Zogby Interactive data about belief in the American Dream from polls taken just after the 2008 and 2010 elections. The percentage of people who believe we can no longer achieve either a material or spiritual American Dream has jumped by nine and now comprises one in five likely voters. Yet, despite what may become the new normal of 10% unemployment, two-thirds still believe they can achieve it. The American Dream remains resilient (and changing), but we are in a very rough patch.

Read all of John Zogby's column at Forbes.com

Around The Blogosphere 24 November 2010

Watch it, bub! She's only 12! If fashion model Hoang Bao Tran Le looks this old at 12, what is she going look like when she’s 40? (Mouseover and click on her pic for more, more, more!)

Who will speak up for the gobblers this Thanksgiving day? Aldon Hynes will! A Thanksgiving Q poll finds New Yorkers aren’t interested in sitting down to a turkey dinner with NYC Mayor Bloomberg. Making a "Butterball Turkey" soon? One bird offers a recipe for another...

And when you're done with dinner... Water dipper or toilet paper? Is how you clean yourself after the #2 really a culture thing? Georyl reports, you decide!

'My TSA Horror Story' blogs your airport nightmares

Michelle Malkin

Rifles vs. Nail Clippers: The Airport Security Story of the Week -

Beyoncé: It’s Time to Show Fans My “Private Moments”

'Sizzling Stalwart' Andrew Cuomo Makes People's Sexiest Men List

(NewsCore) - Facebook is one step closer to trademarking the word “Face,” TechCrunch reported Tuesday.

Up to 1,000 Israeli women who tried to avoid military service by pretending to be religious have been caught out through their Facebook accounts!

On November 20, 2010 Facebook suspended Mikhail Khodorkovsky's private account allegedly due to usage violations. It took four days to convince the social network to un-ban it. Anton Nossik once again noticed [RUS] how anonymous reporting and suspension of the opposition accounts becomes a new censorship technique, even more efficient than DDoS and hacking.

And if you really like aggregators, check out The Dave Lucas Daily, a compilation of the wonderful tweets posted by the people I follow on twitter!

$tate of the Economy, Approaching the Holiday $hopping $eason

Back in '09 I interviewed Zambian-born conservative economist Dambisa Moyo, who recently spoke at the Daily Beast's "Reboot America" conference about how to kickstart America's economic growth.



Earlier this month I filed a news report detailing the importance of Unemployment Insurance programs to the fragile American economy. In it I pointed out that Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist with the Empire Policy Institute in Washington-DC, says extending unemployment benefits will actually benefit the US economy by creating upwards of 488-thousand jobs. NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman writes "Right now, in particular, Republicans are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits — an action that will both cause immense hardship and drain purchasing power from an already sputtering economy."

We have the critical Christmas Shopping Season at hand, starting this week with "Black Friday" --- unfortunately, we're seeing gasoline prices rising. I walked by a Mobil station this morning where the lowest grade was retailing at $3.14.

Although the electric cars, like Nissan's Leaf, are due to arrive in showrooms soon, I wonder if it's "too much, too late." Will these vehicles be too costly for the general citizenry to bother purchasing? Once again, we have General Motors' coroporate greed to thank for this upsetting situation.

See also: The Coming $econd Dip in the Global Economy - where I published this: "You won't see this on your regular evening news or read it in your newspapers! If you notice the price of a gallon of gas in the U.S. rises above $3, that's a BIG warning sign that things are gonna get rough. I wrote about this two years ago, and still, no one seems to "get it." IF GAS RISES ABOVE APPROX $3.11 PER GALLON FOR REGULAR, SEVERE ECONOMIC TURMOIL IS ONLY WEEKS AWAY. The "second dip" of that much-anticipated "doube dip" of the recession will be far more cutting and unforgiving than "dip one." REMEMBER THAT!"

Owch! Such a dire prediction! I hope we DON'T ecounter "severe economic toil" at least until January, after the holidays!

Tags: Dambisa Moyo, retail shopping season, economy, U.S. economy

Pop Clips » 23 Nov10

Have you any thoughts on cultural phenom 'Black Friday' - any thoughts at all? CBS MoneyWatch says "avoid it."

TechCrunch

WITN: Do American Investors Care about Chinese Human Rights? And Should They? - ER, perhaps the better question is do the Chinese care about animal rights? Check this out ::: Rabbit Crush Fetish Video, Chinese Netizens Investigate - From Mop: “Rabbit abusing girl” uses videos of abusing and killing animals to make money.

Ah, the lonely life of a 'scanner'!

Here's the story of one Capital Region blogger's claim-to-fame ::: The Biggest Fish in Albany? Liz Benjamin’s multimedia rise...

Michelle Malkin

Illegal alien sex offender convicted in Chandra Levy case - I first wrote about illegal alien murder suspect Ingmar Guandique’s possible role in the Chandra Levy case in 2002. Justice has been long delayed...

Dunbar's Number, Aldon's Question

This is in response to a comment posted by Aldon Hynes ::: where he asks "Concerning your number of 300 people to follow, I'm curious about how you came up with that number. Are you acquainted with Dunbar's Number? You should check it out..." And so I did! To bring us up to speed:

Anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s recently published book, “How Many Friends Does One Person Need?” offers a theory proposing that the most people you can maintain stable social relationships with is 150. With many of us following people well in excess of 150, does social media allow us to maintain reciprocal relationships with more people, and ultimately “beat” Dunbar’s number? [PSFK]

Altimeter Group analyst Jeremiah Owyang said people are increasingly interested in making some of their updates more private on social networks. But, he said, those people can use existing filtering features to do that. He also noted that, on average, Facebook users have fewer than 150 Facebook friends - still within Dunbar's number. [azcentral]

I came up with my "300" target number as representing the maximum number of twitterers I could handle, allowing for the fact that many of them would be infrequent twitterers. The number has proven effective for me personally. If you look at the partial screen capture, every tweet listed represents a person or topic I am REALLY interested in following!

I would reckon that the actual number probably falls within range of Dunbar! I just don't think you can effectively follow more than 300 twitterers at any given time. Well, maybe YOU can, but I can't!

Tags: Dunbar's Number, Dunbar 300

Around the Mugglesphere 22 Nov 2010

How many of you saw the Harry Potter picture over the weekend? This mudblood did, at Colonie Center (amazing new theatre) in DIGITAL! The best movie experience I've had in years, since seeing an imax movie around 2005. Check out this: Half a Harry Potter Movie Takes Almost the Whole Box Office from NYmag!

So while Harry may be good for the "entertainment economy" and movies offer us an avenue of escape, Al-Qaeda is alos going for the pursestrings, promising the U.S. Death By A 'Thousand Cuts' - Terror Group Boasts That Printer Bomb Cost Only $4200, Meant To Bleed U.S. Economy.

The next-to-last Potter installment was a grown-up and real-worldly HP & Co. that actually was quite scarey, in fact, more scarey than the earlier counterparts (of which we went back and watched two DVDs on Sunday). SciFITV says "The Potter film does not stand by itself. You'll need to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (at least) to have an idea of what's going on, and you'll need to see Deathly Hallows Part 2 for a satisfying conclusion. If you do, we're pretty sure you'll get one."[...]

All in the family ::: you never know WHO you can or cannot TRUST!

The Muggles' world is not all bad ::: here are some pretty pictures!

Never say never! SMALL can be big!

Tags: Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows

Become INVISIBLE on twitter!

Secretly follow people on twitter, without them knowing! HOW? Here are two ways! You'll be cloaked like a Klingon starship in no time!

Are you depressed because people whose tweets you've tried to follow have banned or blocked you?

#1 - Unless the individual you want to keep tabs on has locked or protected his or her account, simply access them via twitter in your web browser! You don't have to worry about them knocking you off or blocking you! And they'll never know! Best part is, you have a direct, un-interrupted pipeline to their tweets! They cannot stop you unless they secure their twitter, which would likely result in them losing most of the following they've struggled so hard to build!

#2 - Go to the page of the person you want to stealthily follow, and you'll see the RSS feed symbol underneath those that they are following (firefox users simply click the blue RSS symbol in the nav bar). Just on that and you'll add their updates to your reader, just like any other blog's posts! Works in Google reader too!

Tags: invisible on twitter, secretly follow tweets

Seeds For Thought

I've picked up a lot of twitter followers within the last 8 weeks and I have NO IDEA why they would possibly want to be following me, unless they think that I'm going to auto-follow them back. Let me assure you, nothing could be farther from the truth! I don't want "junk followers!"

Once again, the list of people I follow on twitter is currently around 330. I believe 300 is a reasonable cut-off point, so I'm going to do a little pruning. Aldon Hynes recently posted "Unfollow Friday" - where he brought up several valid points. Hynes writes "The biggest overlap between people that I follow who do not follow me back and one of the Twitclean categories is followers that hardly follow anyone. None of them follow me. Most are news sources, corporate publicity sites and celebrities."

Celebrities who do not post often I tend to keep on following, because in the event that they DO post something, you know it is something special! Hynes identified who.unfollowed.me as a tool he uses, so, I'm off to inspect it! BRB!

+ who.unfollowed.me loaded up in seconds on dial-up
+ sign-in via twitter oauth
+ you must grant the program access
- re-direct back takes awhile... after two minutes the "welcome" screen appeared, greeting me:

welcome davelucas

Thanks for signing in to who.unfollowed.me. we have been hard at work making this website better for you, and everyone.
As a 'Lite' user you can...

* manually check for unfollowers every 15 minutes.
* callout your unfollowers for unfollowing you.
* view people you are following that are not following you back.
* view a 7 day unfollower history.


Upgrade to Pro!

We are offering the pro version for only $4.99 a year, that's less than 2 cents a day!

* manually check unfollowers anytime
* automatically check unfollowers daily
* organize your unfollowers
* unfollow those not following back
* 45 day unfollower history
I decided to check on "who's not following me back" - 216 twits! ALL OF YOU LITTLE ICONS WILL BE SORRY LATER! There's an accompanying button you can click to tell that to the world via twitter! Then, it was time to get back to writing this blog post! I was bid farewell:

This is your first time here, and we're happy you stopped by.

you have now benchmarked your followers and can begin checking who unfollows you from now on. just come back to this site and sign in like you just did.

please remember, we can't track anything from the past.... just future unfollows.

help us grow on twitter, please follow @whounfollowedme on twitter!

BY THE WAY ::: I have a twitter feed on my blog up in the right-hand column. Has anyone else noticed that sometimes if you go to your twitter page on the net, it won't be updated, and that your 'feed' version is more up-to-the-second? I noticed that happened several times last week. Just wondering! Leave any thoughts, answers or feedback in comments below!

Tags: who unfollowed me, twitter followers