iGoogle

If you're a regular reader - *insert disbelief here* - you might have noticed the changes to the site.  Among these changes is the new subheading: A (hopefully) daily tech news blog.

Yeah.  I haven't been keeping up well on that, have I?

So, I thought that I would try out iGoogle last week.  For those of you who don't know what iGoogle is, it's Google's alternate homepage.  Of course, you all know about the clean-cut homepage that Google usually sports, designed to load really fast.  iGoogle is an optional build-up of that.

What?  I'm not gonna let you look at my Facebook.  Creeper.

The Twitter and Facebook gadget alone is reason enough to go to the site.  In my opinion, it's much better than those sites that make their whole business off of putting Twitter and Facebook together.  The only downside is that you don't get FB chat on iGoogle.  Another really nice feature is the weather centre.  As you can see, it's matching the extension I have next to the address bar (although I don't know why I have two weather centers now.)  It also has news feeds in there, which you can customize. Other features that I don't have on my page include comics, games, and a TV guide.

The best feature, though, would have to be the Google Calendar feature.  I started my own calendar up recently so that I can keep track of what I'm doing next year when I'm attending university.  Having the gadget there really helps.  I can get my Twitter and Facebook feeds, as well as my schedule, on one site.  I highly recommend iGoogle for anyone who doesn't already have something like this.

1b1t

I suppose you're wondering about the cryptic title. Well, I stumbled upon this a few days ago. For those too lazy to click and read, let me sum it up for you. Jeff Howe, a writer for Wired magazine, has proposed a sort of Twitter book-club. The idea is that Howe is going to try and get as many people on Twitter to read the same book as possible. They'll discuss it on Twitter, and present arguments, like a book club you'd see in a library or some sort of Desperate Housewives-esque setting.

I know what some of you are doing. You're scoffing, and saying "Me, read? HAH!" Well, I would like to point out that you're reading right now. You're also arguing about this text with me by saying that you don't read. All you'd have to do is write it out in 140 characters or less.

Now, beyond the somewhat advertising nature of this post, I genuinely think this is a great idea, and I want to say that I will be participating in this. Twitter is well known for its ability to communicate news at lightning speed in vast quantities (an example from my experience: while I was watching the Canada-USA men's hockey finals, I managed to find out about Crosby's goal on Twitter before I saw it - live). Some examples of this are the Haitian earthquake and the election dispute in Iran. For months, neither topic would come off of the trending topics. What Howe is trying to do is transplant that unity on Twitter that I'm calling "Twinity" (I want a copyright on that, Twitter) from the area of news topics to books. And books, last time I checked, are an endangered species.

Also, if proven successful, this might become a practice in some schools. I know in my school, we've already integrated the blog. Why not the microblog?

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Twitter

Questions that make you go "Huh?"

Have you ever played Antbuster? The plot is nonsense. The humans who left the cake out there never once tried to get the cake in the half hour I played it for. Why am I trying to protect a cake that nobody wants?

If the update to this "Facebook Gold" thing is actually free, why don't they just offer it to everybody?

How can Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers? If they were pickled, wouldn't they already need to be picked?

Why is it that the only place north of Florida that doesn't have snow is the one holding the Winter Olympics?

Why was the movie called "Mission: Impossible" if Tom Cruise actually accomplished the mission?

What's the deal with Justin Bieber being a trending topic on Twitter? Isn't it because people are just Tweeting about how they hate him?

Why is it that the main demographic that the Jonas brothers appeal to are under 13? Seems a bit weird...

And finally, why is it that so many people are dramatic on Facebook, but hate people that are dramatic on Facebook?

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Twitter

Twitter, please fix your s**t

Twitter, please fix your s**t.

I assume that you aren't under yet another hacker attack, but even then, you need to start thinking about some upgrades to your network. I really dislike seeing this when I go onto Twitter:

(Image brought to you by the Fail Whale)

Because it usually means that you haven't bothered to upgrade your servers. If you want to have a future as what you are now, I would put some serious thought into upgrading your server, security, whatever you need to so that people stop seeing the Fail Whale when they go onto Twitter.

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My Twitter (assuming that you can get on there now)