7 Reason Why I Won’t Follow You on Twitter
Twitter is a great tool when used properly. One of the biggest problems with Twitter is that everyone and their mother is trying to use it, and unfortunately I’m not going to follow everyone and their mother. Here are the seven reasons why I won’t follow you on Twitter: You post nothing but links. I’m not interested in your dozens of links about a topic I’m already not interested in. Twitter isn’t a link mill. Do something else. You use Twitter only to promote yourself and refuse to be a part of the community. I don’t follow people I know I’m not going to be able to chat with. I want conversations, sharing, and cooperation, not a one-sided borefest. There are exceptions, of course, for publishers. You type in textspeak or are otherwise incapable of using even basic English spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I know you only get 140 characters, but if I need a chatspeak dictionary to decipher what you’re writing, then you’re a waste of my time. You follow ten times more people than follow you. Unless I already know you, I’m likely not going to follow you if it’s clear to me that you’re on Twitter to spam. You try to force me to buy your product. Chances are, I don’t want it, even if it is something up my alley. Tell me about it, and then shut up. You’re just another of those self-proclaimed SEO masters or whatever other nonsense Web 2.0 titles are out there. Honestly, I don’t really care. I’m not on Twitter to find out how to make my blog the next Boing Boing or whatever. That, and, there are about ten trillion of you people out there, and none of you offer anything new. I can Google most everything you say. You’re interested in subjects that I’m not interested in or you don’t have a bio. With rare exception, I am not going to follow you if your bio indicates that you are into something that, quite frankly, I could care less about. I don’t care about horse racing or bingo or how to sell dresses. My bio indicates what I am interested in, and unless I know you or somehow find you interesting, I’m not going to bother following you if your Twitter account will be dominated by subjects I find exceptionally boring or inappropriate. What about you? What reasons do you have for not following people on Twitter? Let me know in the comments, and if you like this post, consider stumbling or digging it. Thanks!
eReaders: Comparison Study
I’ve been looking extensively into all the various eReaders to see which one would be most useful to me and thought I would post the data here as a comparison study. The readers I’ve looked into the most have been the iRex iLiad, Sony eReader 505, Cybook ePaper, and the Amazon Kindle. There are some technical specs for each (they represent the best data I could find and I left out a few things that I didn’t think were important, such as some support formats that really won’t be of much use for eBook readers anyway). Here goes: iRex iLiad Battery Life — 15 hours. Charger — AC wall charger. Formats — PDF / HTML / TXT / JPG / BMP / PNG / PRC (other formats later) Wireless — Yes / Ethernet Disk Space — 128 MB Flash / Expandable w/ USB / MMC / CF Screen Size — 8.1 in. 768 x 1024 Processor — 400 Mhz. Memory — 64 MB Weight — 15.3 oz. Price — $699.00 Pros: What sets the iLiad apart from the others for me is the fact that it is easy to upload different formats. You are not limited to loading DRM only books and from what I’ve read you can put PDFs on this and they’ll work. It’s battery life isn’t really all that bad, although in comparison to others it’s not very good. It also has wireless for updates and you’re not limited to a specific network. If there’s wireless Internet where you are, you can get online. It also can automatically update your RSS feeds for newspapers, etc. It’s also bigger than the others, which is good and bad, depending on your perspective on that.It uses a stylus like a PDA and also allows you to take written notes that can later be turned into printed text, which make the iLiad ideal for students. Additionally, because the iLiad isn’t limited by its hardware in the same way that other eReaders are, updates to it could very well open the door to the use of other formats, such as Word documents. But, then again, it might not matter because it can do stuff online (blogs and newspapers) and that big screen makes it rather easy. Interestingly enough, to turn the page on this thing you actually have to turn a little “dial” of sorts, which might help simulate the reading experience. Cons: It’s freaking expensive. For something that doesn’t even come close to doing what a laptop of the same price could do, you’re paying quite a big chunk of change. True, the iLiad is more “open” than the others (especially over the eReader and Kindle), but depending on what you’re using it for, it might not matter. If you’re okay with using Sony’s ebook format or Amazon’s, then skip the iLiad. However, if you want a lot more freedom to bring all your written content with you, whether they be books, newspapers, blog feeds, etc., then perhaps the iLiad is for you. The iLiad is also a little slower in some respects to the others. This is mostly in reference to the menus as it is faster at page turning than the Sony eReader. Sony eReader 505 Battery Life — 7,500 page turns (whatever that translates to in hours, I don’t know) Charger — AC wall charger or USB Formats — BBeB / JPG / GIF / PNG / BMP / TXT / RTF / PDF / DOC Wireless — No Disk Space — 20 MB / Expandable with USB Screen Size — 6 in. 170 pixels per in. Processor — 800 Mhz. Memory — 128 MB Weight — 9 oz. Price — $299.99 Pros: What the Sony has over the other eReaders is its price. It’s the cheapest of them all, including the Kindle, and yet it’s also not that different from it’s biggest competition (the Kindle again). It’s rumored to have an exceedingly long battery life and pretty much does what it’s supposed to. Cons: It’s biggest issues are what killed it for me. It functions almost exclusively with Sony’s ebook format, which limits your selection, and, while it can view other formats, everything I have read suggests it isn’t very good at these things. PDFs especially are said to be notoriously difficult, as are newspaper feeds, etc. It’s great with the Sony format, but it falls apart if you want to use it for anything else. It also lacks wireless, which means you have to have all the books you want to read on there beforehand and can’t pick something up off the airport wireless if your trip is delayed or something. This also means you have to wait until you can plug into your computer before you can get updates to the machine itself or whatever feeds you might be reading (or attempting to). I’m also told that Sony is pretty much PC specific and requires the use of an iTunes-like Sony platform. Lots of cons, but if you’re only going to read eBooks and aren’t too picky about selection, it’s the best one out there for the price. Cybook ePaper Battery Life — 8,000 screen refreshes (whatever that means) Charger — AC wall charger. Formats — PRC / PDB / HTML / TXT / PDF / JPG / GIF / PNG Wireless — No (update via USB) Disk Space — 512 MB / Expandable with SD Screen Size — 6 in. 600 x 800 Processor — 200 Mhz. Memory — 16 MB Weight — 6.13 oz. Price — $540 Pros: The Cybook has a lot of internal disk space for all your books. There isn’t a lot out there about the Cybook, and I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that, well, nobody even knows it exists. Unlike the Sony eReader or Amazon Kindle, the Cybook has been relegated to the land of obscurity. Because of that, I don’t know a whole lot about it or how well it works.
What do people think we’re listening to?
I was riding the bus today and an elderly gentlemen gave me a look. You know, one of those looks of disapproval, sort of how folks must have looked at teenagers in the 80s who had 80s hair or how people still look at folks with mohawks or weird piercings. He was giving me this look because I had my little ear-bud things for my mp3 player in their proper place and he must have been thinking I was listening to rap music or some such, because if he had actually known what I was listening to I doubt he would have given me that look.After being given this look it made me wonder whether iPods/mp3 players have started a new trend of disapproval just like 80s hair or mohawks or weird pierces did. Millions of us use our mp3 players, whatever brand they may be, on a daily basis. They’ve shaped the way our society (speaking in the U.S. here) in ways people probably never though possible. How many of us can honestly say we knew right from the start that the mp3 would replace the CD? It has, even though they’re still making CDs (which poses some serious problems for the future of the music industry when the mp3 officially takes over and CD stores go out of business).Getting back to the point, do we hold any sort of bias towards iPod/etc. users? Do we automatically think, upon seeing some teenage kid or college-age man with headphones and an iPod, that such a person is only listening to music, and most specifically poppy musical garbage that hasn’t technically done anything to advance music as an art? Or maybe we think they’re listening to their indie bands, sucking up all their silly folk music about saving the planet and what not?For the record, I wasn’t listening to music. I was actually listening to a podcast interview with a fantasy author, and a good one at that. In fact, I listen to a lot of podcasts and audio interviews, and other such things (even listened to a few lectures on there). Sure, a lot of folks probably only listen to music, but that’s not all of us. Some of us even listen to music that older folks might think is quite acceptible (classical music, for example).What do you think? Do you have this sort of bias when you see people with ear buds? Do you think this is a common thing among people in general? Do people scoff at the iPod/mp3 player fad in the same way people once scoffed at rock music?
LED Clock + Shelf = Awesome Product
I have no idea where to buy this thing in the U.S., but I want one.Have any of you seen one in your travels and how much they cost? I’m really curious! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)