RIP FriendFeed - Time To Return To The Blog

  It was announced yesterday that FriendFeed has been acquired by Facebook.  What that means for the long term is not quite clear, but it probably means the end to FriendFeed as we know it.

  I use and like both FriendFeed and Facebook.  However, their purposes were different.  I use Facebook for personal contacts.  I have a self imposed rule that I only "friend" people on Facebook at I actually know in person.  FriendFeed on the other hand is "open."  You can go to http://friendfeed.com/jbluther right now and see what I've been up to.  Because it posts my "likes" and "favorites" from other websites, there was no need to maintain this blog.  My FriendFeed page did that automatically.  In the meantime, new friends were able to find me and I was able to find them.  As jcunwired on FriendFeed said so well "FF connected me with new friends that I would never have known. FB connects me with old friends I could have done without. :("

  I had been thinking about getting back into this blog.  I want to share my thoughts in things I can't in a simple tweet or comment burried within a forest of other comments.  Start watching here again.  More to come.

Does Comcast Sell Your Email Address?

I haven't posted here in ages, but I needed a place to share this.

My father has recently signed up for Comcast cable TV service.  No phone or internet, just TV.  I help him keep track and pay his bills.  I paid his first bill last night with an alternative version of my Google Mail address.  Gmail ignores periods in your email address.  So it considers "hpotter@gmail.com" and "h.potter@gmail.com" the same thing.  Then you can create filters based on the actual "To:" address used.  Within less than 12 hours of creating the new Comcast account, I received two spam emails sent to this alternate spelled address.  I have never used this spelling before.  The only place this email address could have come from is Comcast.

Now, I understand spammers offten use name generators or the like to guess email addresses.  This might be the case.  Because of my new email filter, the spam messages are labeled when the alternate address spelling is used.  Could this have happened in the past?  Perhaps, but the timing and swiftness of recieving the spam is curious to say the least.

The End of This Blog; Blogging Altogether?

Wired had a fascinating thought this month. I agree. Personal blogging is dead or rapidly dying. To that end, I'm going to discontinue this blog for the time being. However, I still plan on having a presence on the web, just through more current technologies.

If you have enjoyed my posts here, PLEASE follow me on Twitter or Friendfeed. I will update far more often and will share my thoughts on "cool tech" and "geek sites" as I find them!

Blip.fm API

Many already know about Blip.fm. Fun little website. Check it out if you haven't already. They recently announced they are beta testing an API so you can integrate Blip's functions into your own websites. Keep an eye out on what people come up to do with it.

Related, I discovered that Blip.fm and Skreemr.com produce the same search results. Barrowing some JavaScript functions, I created a page that creates a list of URLs to the mp3 files themselves here. Follow the usage statement and edit the URL in your browser with your search string.

Swoopo

I always love a good deal (hence my favorites eBay and craigslist), especially on electronics and gadgets.  Swoopo then intrigued me when I saw the likes of Nintendo Wii systems being sold for under $100 and other amazing deals.

Swoopo is more like a real auction than eBay.  Each bid raises the price by a set amount (usually about 15 cents) and the auction is extended by 10, 15, or 20 seconds with each bid.  Here's the catch, it costs you $1 for each bid you place and you must purchase bids ahead of time.  That also adds an element of risk.  You might try 5, 10, 20, 100 bids to win an item and get... nothing!  The payoff is tempting though.  A $125 Wii that you bid on 50 times still only costs $175 total.  Pretty good considering it's hard to find a Wii system on the shelves for the retail $250.  There are also some gimmik auctions were the final price is waived or the final price is set and the final bid amount doesn't matter.  How does that work?  Keep reading.

What an ingenious way for Swoopo to make money.  Consider the previous example of a Wii for $125.  Assuming a start price of $10. There had to be 767 bids at .15 increments to get the price to $125.  That means Swoopo raked in $767 ($1 per bid placed x 767) + $125 final price = $892 for a $250 video game console!

Swoopo is NOT a place to find a random deal.  However, if you are specifically looking to purchase one of the items offered on the site, it might be worth a look.

Amateur (or Ham) Radio

Not one post in August. The dog days of Summer didn't produce any "Gee, that's cool" tech or websites to share. Maybe I'm just lazy.

After upgrading to a "General" license class and getting my vanity call sign, I've been working on building a "radio shack" (no not the store) in the basement of my home. I've temporarily installed a 2-meter antenna in the attic and have my old Icom mobile radio hooked up to it. I'm in the midst of buying an HF rig from an "Elmer" in Florida. I've also been having fun setting up a dedicated computer for APRS and Packet communications.

If that last paragraph basically made you think "Huh?", you can get started here.

End of July Links

It's been a busy summer. Lots of things going on in the tech/web community. Instead of getting into each one, I'll let the sites speak for themselves:

News from the past few months:
Sony announces the MAG: Massive Action Game up to 256 players!
There is a new version of this cell phone this little computer company put out.
CBS bought out CNET. The model "new media" company?

Google:
Knol The Wikipedia killer?
Secure Gmail Set Gmail to always use https.

Twitter: (BTW, I'm sticking with Twitter. Plurk just didn't do it for me.)
Tweenky AJAX enabled Twitter site.
Twitter Search After Twitter acquired a search company.

Other sites:
Revision3 The best (first?) Internet Television station out there. Because it's tech related of course.
Animoto An awesome online slideshow creator.
Instructables A very cool DIY project site.
TrackYourGasMileage Handy little site that will calculate MPG your vehicle(s) is getting and even depress you by showing the total amount you have spent on fuel.
Golden Shellback Coming soon, a way to totally water proof your electronic devices. Be sure to check out the videos.