Archive for the 'Facebook, Twitter and Social Media' Category

I have been away from my computer for a while. The kids were home for the Chinese New Year holidays and hubby took a long leave too. So I have been really out of touch about online activities. So out of touch that I didn’t even know that my good friend had launched her first book yesterday. Its called “Oh, I Thought I Was The Only One”.

I’m really proud of her achievement. It just goes to show that sometimes dreams do come true if you follow your dreams.

I’ve known this friend for 20 years.  At the time, we were both 16 and we wore pigtails or sometimes pony tails to school. We used to talk about our dreams. She dreamed about counselling people and becoming a psychologist. Well she now has a Masters in Psychology, Specializing in Marriage, Family and Child Counseling and she has just written a book to help people to cope with the downturns in their life. I think it helps anyone going through a difficult time to know that they are not alone, that they are not the only one.

Congratulations kopi soh for following your dream of helping people and for achieving this through a book. My friend is now planning her second book. Its called “Secrets Behind Blog Doors”. How intriguing. I can’t wait to see the launching of that one.

Technology has made me lazy, not only lazy but confused too. My new toy, my Samsung Galaxy Ace has a Swype technology keyboard. This means, I don’t even have to type. I just use my finger to swype the words, sometimes it even finishes or guesses the words that I want, even if I swype erroneously.

We used to call up friends to chat, but now we sms or write updates on our facebook walls or twitter which limits our words. We don’t have to say much anymore and we can send greeting cards to many in a click.

Then we have the ipads and many other tablet computers and eBook readers. Life has become simpler, paperless and it has made me lazy and confused.

Sometimes, I look at a device and I am not sure whether to tap it, swype it, tilt it or type on it! It takes a momentary moment, a short lapse of time for my brain to figure out how the device is supposed to work. Maybe its just me. My memory is getting worse and worse. I read in a recent research article that onset of memory loss or dementia may start as early as 45 or something to that effect. Perhaps that explains my confusion over the devices that is supposed to make life simpler but is making me lazy and confused instead.

I am coming out of hibernation today. It sure has been a long time. I’ve missed my blogs. Well, not really come to think of it. I haven’t had much time to think about it.

With the kids at home during the school holidays and the spouse on year end leave, I’ve had almost no free time to myself. That is the part I miss the most. Sure, I love my family lots but everyone needs a little time to themselves every now and then.

Now, its the beginning of a new year and back to school, back to work and back to routine. So, I’m going to have to wake all my blogs up. I have lots to write about but they are mostly in my head. Perhaps I will let some of them stay in there.

Well, its time to wake some of the other blogs now but before I do, a few quick New Year’s Resolutions.

1. Remember to exercise in the mornings
2. No going anywhere near the computer from afternoon onwards. PC time is only in the mornings and that includes blogs, squidoo lenses, facebook, twitter etc. (Phew! That’s a tough one)
3. Cook some new dishes for the family
4. That’s it! Lets not keep it too long or it’ll be hard to keep up

Time to go. After all, I’ve only got the morning to exercise and blog and make lenses and I must go wake up the other blogs now. That’s not a lot of time but since I can blog in 10 minutes its not so bad. Its only the squidoo lenses, they take at least half a day or more each but in terms of personal satisfaction, blogging is better but squidoo beats blogging in monetary terms so I guess the time spent is justified.

The other day I passed by a man trying to take a photo of a restaurant. Intent on getting the best shot, he was oblivious to me or any other passer by.

Some time ago, I had to walk up an escalator which had come to a halt because of a crocs shoe that had somehow got stuck at the top of the escalator. Everyone was staring at the shoe and several cameras were zipped out from pockets and handbags.

At a car park, it is quite common these days to see someone take out his camera phone to take a photo of his parking lot to help him or her remember where he or she had parked.

With digital cameras and now cameras within mobile phones, everyone seems to be taking photos of anything and everything and sending them round. With these online college classes you can take your love of photography from a hobby to a career.

Whenever, I see someone taking a photo of his food, I would automatically think to myself that this person must be a blogger but it is no longer true. That may be the case previously, but now everyone wants to send photos of what he ate to his friend or to the world and update it on his social media page.

So far, I have not gotten into the habit of taking pictures of things around me. That is because I don’t have a phone with a camera. Perhaps if I had one, I too would be taking pictures of my food, my surroundings, the restaurant and that shoe stuck on the elevator.

Google+ is now open to public and everyone can sign up for a Google+ account now. I love everything Google (accept my fluctuating Google Page ranks) however I do wonder whether Google+ is too late now that everyone has their feet firmly tied up to the Facebook boat. Will they jump ship? Only time will tell.

At the moment, it doesn’t look that way because Google+ does not appear to offer many extras to ordinary users like me. It will really need to be extra special for people to abandon the FB ship. Twitter and FB is different but Google+ and FB is too similar, so its either one or the other.

I have both because it simply means another extra outlet to post my links and improve my traffic and get backlinks for my sites but if you are using it for networking with friends and family, you won’t need 2 similar social network platforms! Are you really going to migrate all your posts, photos, etc? Why should you? Unless Google+ really offers extra pluses.

Will Google+ give Facebook a run for its money? Will it outdo Facebook the way Facebook almost killed MySpace and Blogs? Only time will tell. In the meantime, if you want to give Google+ a try and yet remain on FB, you can marry the two either by adding Google+ into  your facebook or add your Facebook into your Google+.

It is rather quiet over at Google+ at the moment. Its only been 2 weeks since Google+ is open to everyone so lets give it a little time. Hopefully it won’t fizzle out the way Google Buzz did almost without a Buzz.

You can follow me on Facebook or Google+.