Matt’s Journal

Help Mozilla Set A World Record

Posted by Matt under Internet, Tech

Mozilla is aiming to mobilize it’s userbase to break a World Record. They are coinciding the release of their newest browser upgrade; Firefox 3 with a push to break the record for the most downloads on the internet in one day. The day of release and the record push is actually tomorrow and when I have actually known about it, I haven’t tried to push it until today.

Mozilla has the following on their site:

I am hoping that Mozilla get enough people to download their software to break the record. I have put up a little Firefox image on my sidebar so that you can pledge and do your bit

Twitter Plays It Tough

Posted by Matt under Social Media, Tech

Having just signed up at Plurk and getting into the swing of things, I can safely say that I will not be needing my Twitter account anymore. Conversation flows much easier on Plurk and most of the friends I had on Twitter are already present on it’s rival service.

This morning I tried to delete my account, Twitter did want any of it. I was presented with the following message:

I understand that they are having problems but disabling the ability to delete accounts? That’s not cricket. I have spoken to a few people who have tried to do the same but have had the same notice appear, are Twitter really that desperate to hold onto users?

Plurk: The New Twitter?

Posted by Matt under Angry, Social Media, Tech

Yesterday I was viewing my Twitter feed and catching up on any Tweets I had missed when I came across a few people mentioning a new service named Plurk. Thinking it was another social media aggregator, I scrolled on to read the rest of my feeds.

But then my curiosity got the better of me. Clicking into the search bar at the top of my browser, thinking that I was about to discover and online version of the board game “Kerplunk”, I typed in the name and swiftly hit enter.

Firstly Plurk’s meta-description of their site is as follows:

Plurk is a social journal that let’s you publish, share your thoughts, emo-ness, “!%#%”#” and loves. What is up, my friend? See what other people are doing …

OK, so it’s a social platform that can take the piss out of itself, I like that. Looking at the front page, it sells itself as a very similar service to Twitter, one that boasts a few extra features and a much nicer user interface. It also has a logo which is a Headless Dog…..The screenshot below demonstrates the layout:

Having befriended a few friends from Twitter on Plurk, I set to work trying out the service. First impressions are that the timeline is a very good idea, it shows you who posted and when and allows you to be able to reply to their message with a click to open a dropdown reply form (shown again below):

Word on the internet is that Plurk don’t want user’s developing third party applications for this service, although I have seen no official word on this. Twitter’s real plus is that it allows you to post and receive via SMS, browser, addon or client. So far only Gtalk is supported by Plurk.

There is however a clever sidebar addition for Firefox which utilises the mobile version of the site. You can download this addon by clicking here.

Have I sold Plurk and you think you want to try it? Sign up via this link and you will automatically be added to my friends list.

I Can Do That!

Posted by Matt under Tech, Videos, Wedding

Last week I went to see the videographer for our wedding and met him at his house. Expecting just to note down a few ideas in his front room, we were escorted into his “studio”, an impressively set out room at the back of his house. Upon taking a seat in his very lovely leather chair, he proceeded to show myself and Katie’s family what his previous wedding bookings he had recorded.

As I sat there watching his video in Final Cut Pro, I pondered about the logistics of setting up my own Video company, one where I would be available for Weddings and private events but go at it with a bit of a different slant.

When I say different, I would try and make the marriage ceremonies live on the internet for family who could not attend around the world, have a Youtube-esqe service that would allow the wedding goer’s to embed snippets of the day on their websites or even email. I could offer a service to other wedding videographers maybe?! Who knows! (OK, I’m running away with it now).

They would get DVD’s with personalised covers and disc printing, you name it.

It’s a serious thought, I will look into investing in some more equipment (a legit copy of Final Cut Pro comes in at near on £4000!) and see what happens. I run my own media company anyways, seems like a good area of business to be in.

Watch this space.

Feature Updates

Posted by Matt under Angry, Blogging, Happy, Tech, Update

You may have already noticed that I have rolled out a few feature updates. Let me tell you a bit about them.

1. OpenID Support

OpenID is an open standard that lets you sign in to other sites on the Web using little more than your personal URL. This means less usernames and passwords to remember and less time spent signing up for new sites. The plugin installed on m4tt.net allows commenters to use their OpenID to assure their identity as the author of the comment. It will also provide a framework for future OpenID-based services as OpenID functionality and it’s user base increases.

For example:

2. Post Rating

This plugin will allow users to vote for blog content on m4tt.net. It will allow me to gauge what readers of the blog are enjoying and also show in my sidebar what people are rating the highest for people like yourself to see. To use this feature, look at the bottom of any post on this blog and a rating bar should be visible for you to use.

Thanks to honest_ape for the inspiration.

3. RSS Updates

Some readers of this blog have had problems subscribing to my Feedburner RSS feeds. In order to allow people to syndicate with this blog and read my content in an RSS reader but not use the Feedburner URL, please bookmark or syndicate the following URL: http://www.m4tt.net/feed/atom/

Thats about it really! Any suggestions or comments, please do leave them using the forms provided.

Twitter

Posted by Matt under Blogging, Tech

I have been using the service for a little while now and I have been finding it more and more useful. As kids (I can’t really talk, I’m only 24) are texting quicker and quicker with their mobile phones, the geeks among us have taken this long established medium and turned it into an internet application, texting friends you have never met. Who knew that keeping the world and his dog updated on what you had for dinner, where you are flying to and your opinion on OpenID could be so fun?

One thing I have found is how useful it is to send “Tweets” to Social Media websites. I have sent questions and points to Mixx on their Twitter page and had responses in under an hour, something an email to technical support would result in an extra day of waiting for a response.

I messaged Disgby, notifying them that they didn’t advertise anywhere on their site that they supported Twitter in their application. A few minutes later:

It can be tedious documenting things on there, that’s a given. However, now there are so many ways to add Tweets to Twitter like FriendFeed, Digsby, Thwirl and of course via the web and txt message, you can stay updated and hear news faster than your usual channels of communication.

I’ll get bored and get rid of it soon no doubt but for now it’s all a bit of good harmless fun.