Posts Tagged ‘facebook’
Making It In A Technologically Frustrated World
I’m working on getting rid of the clutter in my life. It’s a hard process but the first step is to be utterly ruthless with throwing things away that you aren’t going to use or haven’t used in a year. In an electronic world, this is getting harder to do because it’s just a file, right? It’s time as well.
I’ve got 6 pages of apps on my iPhone because you never know when you’re going to want to know the name of that actor in that abstract film or how to say “I can’t see how this could possibly go wrong” in Pig Latin.
But I’ve figured some things out.
First, I’m done with Facebook. Yes, I still have an account and my updates will be updated (from the department of redundancy and repetitive department) but through Twitter. With the ‘respond to a comment via email’ feature now, I don’t ever have to get on their ridiculous cluttered site. Except when someone DM’s me and it takes me days to respond.
The truth is this – and I’m sorry if this hurts your feelings – but I don’t care about your farm, mafia hits, bejeweled scores, treasure hunts, movie quizzes or which character on LOST you are most like. Really…I don’t. I’m guessing most other people don’t either, they are just too scared to tell you. And since Facebook chooses to change the layout every 6 hours and I can’t or won’t take the time to figure out how to filter all the junk off my feed – it got punted.
Twitter — you are becoming a favorite. It’s simple. It’s clean. It’s fast. It works awesome on my iPhone. I can set up a list as to who I want to keep updated with. However, the whole following thing is intriguing to me. It is baffling to me who chooses to follow me. For instance, Dave Matthews Blog is following me. I’m honored and humbled. One of my favorite artists in the world. I reciprocated.
PETAnews and WiiGameCheats are also following me. I’m not as honored. In fact, I’m fairly confused as I’ve never posted anything about PETA…perhaps the Wii but the only cheating I do is take steroids before playing Guitar Hero. And while I’m not for the torture of any animal that isn’t a cat, I’ve enjoyed my fair share of animals with a side of potatoes and a nice Chianti.
Email – Handle it once. File it, respond to it, delete it, or keep it unread. Pretty straightforward, right? It is but the email inbox can get cluttered…very quickly. One solution I’ve come up with is that anything marked with FW and has like 50 other people on the recipient list gets spammed. Amazing how much that clears up the inbox.
There is one thing that is happening in my ministry circle that I don’t understand – signing other pastors/ministers up for email updates. It’s happened a couple of times. Some well meaning person signs me up for prayer updates across the globe and all of a sudden, my inbox is slammed. I’ve tried having one conversation about this and I quickly learned there is no way to NOT look like a jerk when you are asking to be unsubscribed from Johnny’s kidney replacement prayer update. Spam filters are wonderful things though.
I grew up using a computer, using email. If I want to sign up for an email update, I am perfectly able to do just that. I don’t need help. If you do that for me…you just lost your right to be in my inbox. (By the way, Danny P…I’m sorry for the Britney Spears Fan Club Update Newsletter I signed you up for last year. I’ve since repented. I hope you’ve forgiven me.)
iPhone — “I haven’t opened my Bible all week.” That is literally true for me thanks to the YouVersion.com app on my phone. Daily bible reading plans are right there, bookmarks. With Kindle and the web, I’m almost close to having my whole library accessible on my iPhone. And I love my iPhone. Can’t wait for 4.0.
I’m pretty sure that this culture’s golden calf is the iPhone. Or at least the technology behind it. To be able to put a web browser, pda, gps, email, camera, and phone in one device astounding. The problem is that we think it creates more time and more space to make life easier. That isn’t always true. Here’s to less clutter.
Facebook To Own Stuff Forever…What To Do?
With the new user agreement at Facebook, my attention was drawn to this line…
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
What implications does this have for my blog and me feeding my blog into Facebook? I wasn’t sure so I started clicking around. This post seems to have the latest info but it still doesn’t really answer (at least in language that I can understand) if I post an article, artwork, or song that is originally mine – can Facebook take it and use it for their profit?
I’ve asked the Facebook blog/owner guru people with no answer yet. Until they do…I’m not importing my posts here into Facebook anymore.
UPDATE: Rob Williams wrote this to help clear the mud.
The Greatest Facebook Status Comment
My good friend David Baumgartner‘s status: David is getting ready to head to Cub Scouts.
Grant’s response: I never made it past there either but I quit when I reached high school.
Aim and Facebook
Aim has an annoying habit of correcting my grammar when it comes to my status on Facebook. She’s obsessive compulsive about it. In fact, whenever anybody messes up their status line – I hear it from Amy.
Alright, maybe not every time but it does bug her when people don’t erase the “is” on their status line and it reads something like this…
“Grant English is went to the store.”
or
“Suzanne Davidson is likes to sleep when the kids are playing in the kitchen with sharp knives.”
(Suzanne does NOT let her kids play with sharp knives. Nor does she sleep when they do…if they did…at least to my knowledge.)
Anyway, I’ve had a couple of status reports that weren’t exactly up to her grammatical standards the last few days. As a result I’m going to have to start doing it on purpose now and I need some ideas.
“Grant is likes the new movie of James Bond.”
“Grant is thinks the Broncos will beat the snot out of Atlanta.”
“Grant is the downstairs couch is very comfortable.”
Cool New Feature
I’ve been trying to figure out how in the world to get the comments from Facebook to my blog. Anytime I post something here – I’ve got it automatically going to Facebook.
Some of my friends comment on Facebook, some here. How to bring the two together?
This plugin by James Low. (In the process, James has a pretty cool little blog. Click over there and check it out.)
It’s running like a dream so far.