Twitter, Facebook, Status Updates & Blog Traffic

There hasn’t been a lot of blog activity this past month - and much has contributed to it, mainly illness and other commitments (What other commitments? - Those close to me may ask) but the past few days, with the latest iPhone OS 3 being announced and me becoming more immersed into the actual workings and potential of Twitter (Installed TweetDeck today and found out via Twitter that actor Ron Silver has died, rest his soul) - I have come to wonder about the purposes of Twitter v. Facebook status updates, particularly since the new Facebook layout was announced (‘What is on your mind’ seems a bit more Twitterrific). What’s more, I too, have wondered given the success of my blog in recent times whether this would impact on my Blog Traffic.

I am not going to get into a debate about the delicate nature of what status updates are meant for on Twitter, or on Facebook - but be a part of either and you will soon get the idea. That is not the point of my little ‘wonder-ment’ here. Instead, I am going to take these little thoughts in my mind and as of today, my Twitter-syncs with Facebook will be suspended until ‘come what May’. (I get the feeling that isn’t the right idiom/description to use here but whatever!). Indeed, come May, I will write back, maybe, just maybe get into a little talk about what my feelings are on both (status updates-wise) and whether there is indeed a place for Twitter and Facebook statuses being together, in one place, rather than apart. It will be interesting to see in the meantime, whether this will impact on my blog traffic.

If you don’t have Twitter but ‘fear’ for my Facebook statuses probably never really, if ever, changing; you can see my ‘Tweets’, or Twitter updates at the LucasWeatherby.com homepage - www.lucasweatherby.com - or on my Twitter - www.twitter.com/lucasweatherby

This bit of contemplation is all striking me as a little bit weird now - its strange what your mind can do to you sometimes when you really, really should be doing something else - Like University essays and research. That, is something you can be rest assured I will be doing if you see little blog action at www.lucasweatherby.com, but at least, still you will be kept entertained by my Twitter updates…

iPhone 3.0 Conference, Summary and Thoughts

Features:

1. Applications : Subscriptions, sell new levels within app, new content

2.P2P Gaming/Applications (Peer to Peer) - Automatic Discovery, Bluetooth, Devices are not paired, use of the Bonjour technology, used for applications too.

3. Custom Apps will now be able to interact with 3rd party hardware. EG. FM transmitter.- Dock Connector, Bluetooth functionality.

4. Google Maps can now be used within applications (Not just the Maps app!) = Now with TURN BY TURN DIRECTIONS!

5. Push Notification - but NO background processing. :(

6. The Sims, Meebo to come to the iPhone... Also fitness apps and hardware accessories for the diabetics! Also TouchPets (a bit like the Sims...) and LiveFire, a FPS (with wifi, global play). Dr Wang of Smule unveil 'Leaf Trombone', a multiplayer music app.

7. Cut, Copy and Paste. (finally...) With Undo support, and works across apps!

8. Landscape mode in Notes, Mail and SMS...

9. SMS has forwarding and deleting texts! (yay!)

10. MMS support.

11. Contacts with photos/audio alerts per contact (pretty cool...)

12. Voice Memos.

13. Overhaul of that crap Stocks app - now with news stories and details...

14. Search/Spotlight capability in all applications.

15. Notes Sync too!



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Details:

16. OS 3.0 will be free, backwards compatible to 1st Gen iPhone, and at a cost of $9.95 for iPod Touch....

17. Q&A - Copy and Paste took long because of security issues, Flash not yet announced (but HDTV streams now possible).
Peer to Peer is Bonjour only.
Tethering support is being built in, but not yet in as a function.
Can't move files over Bluetooth, but the Q&A guys were a bit stumped!

----

My thoughts?

Nothing on possible skinning the phone screen, background and such.
No news on editing the sounds for texts/alert sounds.
Can't manage screens on the iPhone via iTunes?
Tethering and Flash not there yet.....
Can't record video (only with a 3rd party app)
People are still going to jailbreak for reasons I've just mentioned (and probably more, but I'm not the best informed)....

Looking forward to the next iPhone model to be announced!

See the conference in all its glory - here. - No Steve Jobs though....

iPhone = iVibrator?

After jokingly texting my friend and telling him that while my iPhone might not have brilliant signal, at least it doubles up as a vibrator, I decided being to see if it actually can.

It appears the iPhone can do just that, and there is an application called Vibrating Massager on the App store available to download. Much to my amusement, one "Simon Smartie" commented it is great as a sexual tool, and there was another person bitterly dissapointed. Being so strange and funny I thought this was all worth sharing.








I of course found this hilarious. It's available for just 59p too:







If it's true what Simon says, it must be the cheapest sex toy known to man. There's definitely the question of whether it works in quite the same way though!



Still, just makes me wonder whether if there's a lot of claims on people's iPhone insurance for breakage from sexual misuse? I can't imagine the phone working after a while!






-- Post From My iPhone

Blast from the past - Visual Voicemail on iPhone gone crazy!

Can somebody tell me how this is at all possible? My visual voicemail is exploding with the following:





To make it even more strange, these voicemail are dated 1st January, 1970!:





How on earth is this possible?

Is it Dr Who?

Someone messaging me through time? Across the space-time continuum?
From an alternate reality?

The funny thing is these messages don't play either.

I wonder what it is?!

-- Post From My iPhone

Tru. that...

Why is Truphone better than Fring?


I've been using Fring for quite some time on my mobile because it lets me connect to MSN. Yahoo and Skype all at once. It's good for that, but all too often lately I've been getting crashes.

So I looked for alternatives - obviously still w anting to use Skype - but then I found a better alternative: Truphone. It's cheaper than Skype and you don't need to be in a Wifi zone to make a call through it, as they trick the phone networks into routing it through a local number.

Altogether as well, the interface looks much nicer and Truphone is even adding Skype capabaility and other instant messaging networks soon as well.

Fring has now been relegated to the last home screen on my phone, my "useless apps" page. I could just 'delete it' but it might come in handy. So far I've not had a single problem with Truphone, and the voice connection is much, much better than Skype as well.

Unholy Urine?

Having downloaded a great app on my iPhone - ukPolitics - I have gained access to as handy set of political news items by party and blogs on the bologsphere.

One such blog, from Liberal Conspiracy attacks the Vatican statement that women's urine is unholy and contributes to male infertility.




"The contraceptive pill was polluting the environment and was in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said on Saturday.

The president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, said the pill ''has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature'' through female urine.

''We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill,'' he said, without elaborating further."

Laurie Penny, a feminist liberal blogger at LiberalConspiracy.org, attacks the Vatican on grounds of being sexist, and being incorrect in their assertions:

"I don’t see the Pope asking us to stop eating so much junk in order to protect some sacred ideation of male potency. I don’t see that increasingly unfunny former Hitler Youth member and his friends asking blokes everywhere to wear looser trousers and stop smoking. Why would they, when they’ve already decided that by daring to decide for ourselves whether we want to have kids, we’ve symbolically castrated men?The contraceptive pill is one of the most important inventions of the last three centuries, and doesn’t damage the environment so much as the status quo. I’m not a Christian, but if I were I’d get down on my knees every night to thank Ratzinger’s God for the miracle of contraception."

"Oestrogens are present in drinking water from a host of sources, most notably from the by-products of plastics production, and studies have shown that most oestrogens in drinking water are natural – not the synthetic oestrogens present in oral contraception."

You can read Laurie's blog here.


My personal opinion is not something I am going to argue here (just yet)... but I would argue that Laurie is missing crucial points of the Vatican's statement. Short of reading the actual statement (I can't read Italian, I will assume she can't either), I would like to suggest that she took the Australian article at face value and believed every word of it.

What is more likely, is that the Vatican are not disputing the science that there are natural oestrogens in various water sources, but are merely making the logical point that the substances contained in the contraceptive pill may constitute, in part, of women's urine.

It is not a sexist attack, and I'm sure the Pope would also argue that it is best that men do not smoke either - though I am sure he is not so conservative as to outlaw smoking and drinking.

Smoking may damage the sperm given consistent usage and abuse, but it does not interfere with the direct act of sexual intercourse with marriage, as does a contraceptive pill or a condom.

This here is the crucial difference I see. It is not sexist of the Pope, the media spin has twisted it that way and Laurie has obviously been unduly offended. She says she is not Catholic, so I'm wondering why she bothers to take note of supposed Vatican directives if they have no bearing on her life. People will consider the facts for themselves, I believe that we can reach through reason the right decisions on whether to use contraceptives or not, irrespective of religious doctrine or scientific evidence that increased usage of the morning after pill or the use of Thalidomide can be harmful (certainly in the case of Thalidomide, anyway).

The Pope is merely making the point as part of traditional Catholic doctrine that it is wrong to use any artificial means to interfere with the natural act of procreation. Always the Catholic church has been against contraceptives and this has caused controversy in AIDs-stricken countries. Thus I do not believe the statement is saying that women's urine is unholy (or at least the ones that take contraceptives, anyhow), but is merely adding the Catholic church's medical findings (correct or otherwise) into the scientific sphere.

That is how I see the other side of the coin anyway and I value the arguments on both sides over the issue of contraception. Sex is a loving act, and should, where possible be open to the possibility of pregnancy. But there are so many variables, unforseen circumstances where contraception is necessary (in cases to prevent STIs), or where the entire Catholic doctrine, I feel should be called into question when it opposes procedures such as IVF which allow women to fulfill their natural biological instinct to procreate. That, however is another story. But women's wee as unholy? I doubt that is the Catholic position. And even if it were, I would like to ask what Laurie is supposing by highlighting the Pope's Hitler Youth past. What does this have to do with the price of bacon?

Woolworths

In the news a lot lately, the financial credit crisis has affected UK retailer Woolworths forcing massive store closures.





Picture: Woolworths in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent

A sad state for a company in trading for over 100 years. I hear other Woolworths are doing ok however, but still sad to see. Apparently there's news circulating on BBC and other news outlets that Tesco or some other big company may buy out most of the failing stores.

I would post links but it's not so easy on the iPhone...

This store in particular though might be bought out by Iceland, who would be particularly interested considering the city's redevelopment scheme.

-- Post From My iPhone

iPhone Tip: Get SMS Delivery Reports

Tip!:

Every wanted to know if someone's got your text message on your iPhone?

It drives me mental when I text people and they don't text back after ages cause I never know if they get the message anymore.

Well now I found out how you can get SMS delivery reports.

For O2UK users, simply start your text message with *0#

ie. *0# Hello.

See this website here for the iPhone and other networks for SMS Delivery Reports.

This is really something that will make ME feel better. :)

"Remember when I said...

I loved you? Well der-der I take it back! I was just a Stupid Kid back then!"


In the Sugarmill.

I'd have taken a picture if the iPhone had a torch light for dark environments.

Class Alkaline Trio song, too!


-- Post From My iPhone

iPhone ringtones in 17 steps - no downloads required!

I was looking for ways to get ringtones after a Facebook friend had asked me how it is done. As it turns out, very easily - with no downloads, at all (though you can get applications for your Windows and Mac that do this for you).

To find out how, it was as easy as a google search, credit goes to e-How.

Once you have done it once, I would say its easy enough to keep doing it. So here we go:

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• iPhone
• iTunes
• Mac or Windows Computer
• Non-DRM song (i.e. one not bought from the iTunes Store)

Step1

Open iTunes.

Step2

Find the song that you want to make into a ringtone.

Step3

Listen to the song and find the part of it you want to use. The chorus may be a good place to start.

Step4

Write down the start and stop times of the clip.

Step5

Right-click the song and select "Get Info."

Step6

Click the "Options" tab.

Step7

Type in the start time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Start Time" in the minutes:seconds (i.e. 2:01) format.

Step8

Type in the end time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Stop Time." Make sure the ringtone is no more than 40 seconds long.

Step9

Click "OK".

Step10

Right-click your song again and select "Convert Selection to AAC". Wait for iTunes to convert your song. It will create a duplicate version.

Step11

Right-click the ringtone and select "Delete".

Step12

Click on the "Keep Files" button.

Step13

Find the file. It's usually in your User folder under Music > iTunes > iTunes Music and under the band's name. It will have an extension of "m4a."

Step14

Replace the "m4a" extension of your ringtone with "m4r". You can either double-click slowly to re-name your file, or right-click and select "Get Info" on a Mac or "Rename" on a Windows PC.

Step15

Click "Use .m4r" or the PC equivalent when the system warns you that the change may affect the use of your file.

Step16

Double-click the ringtone file. ITunes will automatically add it to your ringtones folder in your iTunes Music Library.

Step17

Connect your iPhone and sync your ringtones.

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Easy as pie. I've gone and put the guitar riff from Scary Kids Scaring Kids cover of Losing my Religion as my ringtone. Brilliant.