I don’t know what it is about people on Twitter. There seem to be two camps: those who you wish would tweet more often and those who just can’t shut the hell up. There are very few in-betweeners who are doing it right. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had to unfollow (which is like de-friending) several previously enjoyable people for the offense of tweet barrage. I’ve had my finger on the trigger for a few others that are still under suspicion.
I figure that I have a small, but pretty active group that I follow, and the entire first column of tweets has come from a single tweeter, that’s too much.
Mood:
Annoyed
I just finished S3 of Robin Hood, and though there are rumors that it will continue, I’m not so sure. The spirit of Robin Hood, as seen in the chant, “We are Robin Hood!” will perhaps always live on, but with so many changes, it will scarcely feel like the same show. I don’t want to give away too much of what happens, but WOW.
I am able to watch such excellent shows in pure luxury thanks to my new DVD player. I contemplated buying a Blu-Ray player, but really, now. Do I need a Blu-Ray when the last DVD I bought was, um, uh, RotK maybe? Hell no. So I went for the Philips 5590. I had read that it has a USB input that can read flash drives–no more burning discs. Awesome! I, however, wanted to be able to take it even further, so I kept reading. Sure enough, I was able to format the external HD my dad gave me so that it reads like a flash drive. I am now able to plug my pocket-sized 250GB external HD into my Divx loving DVD player and watch entire seasons of all my favorite shows with no waiting. I can also watch all our fanvids on the plasma. Niiiice. They hold up well in the conversion. I may never leave the house again.
Mood:
Surprised
I have spent hours upon hours trying to find the “perfect” startpage. I have come to the conclusion that there is none; at least for me. I want a way to include feeds, mail, pictures of Hob and Istar, my Vimeo vids, my calendar, and more. All of the startpages pretty much offer these things, but in different ways.
I, like many others, started with igoogle, which was fun for about 15 minutes. Not too long after I designed my page to my satisfaction, they forced a lot of dead space on users by moving the tabbar to the left. That, and the fact that theming is so very limited meant that I needed an alternative, which led me to Netvibes. Netvibes is one of the best presented options I’ve used, but the lack of true customization leaves me a little unsatisfied (for instance, there is only one theme that does not have glaringly white widget backgrounds and the “extra” customizations, such as tabs, look cheap). Do not let their claim to have 1000s of widgets woo you…most are third party widgets, which always look tacky and include links to the widget’s “home”. Blech.
Pageflakes was my next trial, and I really like the flexibility it offers, but the native design looks very 1995, and not in a good way. It is by far the worst looking option, but has some really great flakes. Shame, really.
While searching for ways to overcome the issues I have with the above-mentioned sites, I found a link to Protopage. This is my preferred page, and I love it up to 95%. The lack of love is for an (apparently) outdated feed reader that can’t even find half the feeds I give the exact address for. I can circumvent this problem by using Feedburner feeds, which seem to work 100% of the time, but it’s still a gripe. Another gripe I had was that my thumbnail images weren’t showing up in my own feeds, but they were in everyone else’s feeds. I solved that problem by not using the “singlepic” function of the Nextgen Gallery plugin. Again, this is a non-issue with other readers, so I’m not sure why Protopage can’t handle them. Since there is no real calendar option beyond the most basic, I’m able to use my ics calendar from Netvibes, and include it as a widget on Protopage by use of the “webpage” widget. Niiiice. Widgets can be free positioned and resized, colored any way you want, and choosing a background is much easier than in other services. There are basic ads at the top of the screen, but you can close them forever (or until you reload) with one click, then they collapse. Not too bad.
The latest, and definitely most fun, option I found this weekend is Schmedley. Since Schmedley is so new, there is very little to choose from, but given a few more “schmidgets” and the option to resize the schmidgets (they are HUGE), this will become my favorite. The Gmail reader is wonky as hell, as it pulls emails from archived and trashed mail and never from my inbox, but the POP Mail seems to work a little better. The retro design of the logo and amazingly cool backgrounds make this a top contender for me. I just hope development continues!
If you try any of these out, let me know what you think!
Mood:
Nerdy
This New Year’s Eve, I may actually stay up; not to watch the ball drop, not to see in the new year, and sadly, definitely not to have a midnight kiss.
I may stay up to see if HobStar comes out of its coma. If you saw the news today, you probably saw something about all first gen Zunes (in teh wurld) freezing simultaneously. Yes, HobStar was affected. It is thought that the internal workings of the device were not set to handle the extra day we received this year due to it being a leap year. The hope is that once the new day hits, they’ll all come out of their freeze and work again. We don’t know if they will make it, or if they’ll face memory loss, or anything, but I’m holding out hope. The official word is that we won’t know until noon GMT, but it won’t hurt to try sooner. Wish us luck!
Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! 
Mood:
Cheerful
There are a few things I like about it:
It is fast
Switching tabs is smooth as buttah
Having the tabs on top was actually comfortable.
There are more things I don’t like about it:
It’s not a one-stop shop like FF (no extensions, ads everywhere, etc.)
It’s hideous
No right-click reload!!! For obsessive freaks like me, that’s a deal breaker.
Did I mention ads….everywhere?!? With Adblock Plus and Firefox, I didn’t realize there were so many sites displaying ads. Blech.
The “Most Visited” page is a curse. I want my site to be the first box listed, so now I have to reload my site repeatedly, thus driving up the cost of bandwidth usage (only not really, since I have a readership of, like, 2…maybe 3).
Bottom line: I though about using it as a quick browser, but why get out of sync with FF, which I love and will have to rely on when uploading, editing, designing, etc.? NOT SWITCHING.
Mood:
Blah
I am mourning the loss of my best friend, Hewly. Hewly had been more like a part of me than a computer. In honor of Hewly, I have purchased his bastard cousin, Gateship1.
Gateship1 is a low-level laptop that I can kick around and do all the things I need to do without worrying about the monetary loss should horrible things happen. Don’t get me wrong; I’m very glad to have him, and I’ll be good to him, but if he dies prematurely, I don’t think I’ll be as torn up about it as I am with Hewly.
Mood:
Busy
I know my friends list is small (and beloved), but I need a little help. I know I’ve been away from LJ for quite a bit, but I come asking for help anyway. Hee!
Every fandom community I join becomes overrun with ICONZ! Look at my 450 ICONZ! Look at my 78 ICONZ (DO NOT ALTER!!!1!!). I joined many fandom communities because they claim to have graphics (i.e. wallpapers, posters, etc.) only to find that it’s more like: 162 ICONZ, 200 ICONZ in unrelated fandom, and 1 wallpaper. Arrgh.
My question: Can you recommend any nice, graphics-based fandom communities (with moderate amounts of iconage)? I’m not that particular as to which fandoms are represented, and the only fandoms that I wouldn’t be interested in are LOST and BSG.
Mood:
Aggravated
