the wei

Twitter enhancers . . .

Tiago Doria tipped me off about The Wall Tweet Journal, giving up to the minute news about the microblogging portal. Tiago also likes to play with TweetLater. Lets him archive his tweets for delivery later. Is that fun, or what?

So, which are the Twitteratii that you follow who also follow you? Just as importantly, who isn’t following? My friend Dossy Shiobara created an app calledTwitter Karma just to give a simple answer this question. Give it a whack.

Want to see photographs turned into mosaics using fotos representing Twitter users? Sure you do. Twittermosaic.com.

While I was looking around on Dave Winer’s site I found out that he didn’t leave Twitter because he wants to take part in this social media experiment, and that Hugh MacLeod is making internet headlines because he resigned from Twitter. Me, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I enjoy what I learn through Twitter plus it ranks high on my Fun Factor scale by keeping me in touch with friends.

Read Dave’s post Why I didn’t delete my Twitter account

How’s this for cool?

Send an email or sms with a phone call:

First, register as a user on the Jott website. Make a phone call to (866) JOTT-123 [(866) 568-8123].

Select a recipient. If you want to send a message to yourself, say, “Me.” Speak words, wait for next prompt, hang up.

To send a message to someone else, enter that person’s email address in your Jott contacts area. You can also upload your entire contact database. If your recipient has an email address on file in your contact list she’ll get an email. If you entered a phone number instead she’ll get an sms message.

Get Reminders!

Call Jott. Say, “Reminder,” as soon as the system answers your call. Give your message. When you stop speaking you’ll be asked for the time. Then given a confirmation. 15 minutes before your event, you’ll get an email reminding you to do what you wanted to be reminded of.

Make a to-do-list

Make a list by clicking the Add List button on the inbox page. Name it work, for example. Make sure you give a list a different name than any recipient! Then, call Jott, send a message to work. What you speak will be added to your work list. Manage your lists from the Jott website. Jott lets you drag list items, cross them off and give items a checkmark when they’re completed! You also have sort functionality and can print your lists. Is this too cool for words?

OK, so you don’t want to pick up the phone. How do you Jott from the web? From the Jott website, you can send an email out to a contact or send add an item to a list you’ve created.

My sensitive ear tells me that Jott uses Tellme for its voice engine. Maybe Jott’s a new product of the Tellme people. If it is, or even if it’s not, this is a good one.

Thanks, Thomas Beckett, for pointing me to Jott.

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

Get your Gravatar here.

Referring to the cover of New York magazine’s 25 February issue:

At play . . . is a commercialism that is . . . creepier and more compelling: a picture of a nude Lindsay Lohan, less than a year out of her third go at rehab.

The image is causing a ruckus in the blogosphere, and not because her nipples can be ogled through the thin triangle of pink chiffon she clasps with her mouth like a schnauzer. The photo and eight more inside the magazine mimic, frame for frame, a handful of the fabled and ubiquitous pictures known as “The Last Sitting” that the photographer Bert Stern took of Marilyn Monroe in 1962, six weeks before she died of an overdose.

To make the echo that much more macabre, Stern has taken these pictures as well. As an editor’s note explains, he volunteered for the duty.

Jump to full International Herald Tribune article.

An acquaintance is asking how to transfer files from MS Outlook on PC to MS Entourage on Mac.

The point is that Outlook .pst files can’t be read by Entourage, which uses .mbox files. Somewhere along the line the files need to be fed through a separate filter which will convert them. Instead of spend a couple of hours figuring out which option for doing this manually is best, I might just pay $10.00 for O2M. Aside from its low cost, it seems this app will save a lot of time. It’s also recommended by Apple.

Want a free alternative? O’Reilly Publishing offers a tutorial on moving files from Outlook to Entourage. Some of the best recommendations are in the comments. One guy recommends using Thunderbird to make the transition work.

I wanted to read a Salon article today that I bookmarked a while back, and was disappointed to find that there’s no more free lunch in the Salon.

Today, Salon allows me to choose to give one of 100 companies sponsoring its website, my personal contact information plus credit card information. And after a few days, I’ll qualify for premium membership, valued at $29.99.

In the mean time, my personal information will have been bought and sold between major retailers at least 100 times. I_couldn’t_bring_myself_to_do_it. Eventually, I’m going to have to think about shelling out the $29.99 fee. I know my privacy’s worth at least that much. I just need to figure out whether Salon is.

Overrides Internet Searches With Its Own Results

by Martin H. Bosworth, November 3, 2007

Subscribers to Verizon’s high-powered fiber-optic Internet service (FiOS) are reporting that when they mistype a Web site address, they get redirected to Verizon’s own search engine page — even if they don’t have Verizon’s search page set as their default.

“It was the very first thing I noticed when Verizon finally got FiOS installed here the other day. Very annoying and hardly in the spirit of net neutrality, eh?,” wrote one Webmaster World user, who originally had Google set as his default search engine.

Technology forums such as Broadband Reports and WebMasterWorld are reporting that Verizon has now extended its “Advanced Web Search” feature to FiOS subscribers in Maryland and Virginia as well.

If you don’t want to have your search results interfered with, Verizon has set up an “opt out” procedure to reset your DNS settings. Make sure to follow the directions carefully and run several test searches with mistyped addresses to make sure you get the right–or wrong, in this case–result.

In order to redirect the user to the search sites, the user’s Domain Name Service (DNS) settings are altered, which can interfere with previously set network security and safe Internet browsing features.

It also raises the question of whether or not an Internet provider that automatically redirects a user’s searches without telling them will also shape the results they do get, such as filtering their searches to get specific results.

Preferential results from Internet providers is a prime concern for supporters of “net neutrality,” the principle that all content on the Internet should be accessesd freely and equally. Supporters of net neutrality believe that Internet providers may redirect users from their preferred Web pages or content to content the provider favors–such as redirecting a user from Google’s search page to Verizon’s.

Although Verizon opposes net neutrality, it has also said repeatedly that it would not block content or favor its own offerings over rivals–although it now appears to be doing just that.

The telecom giant recently got into hot water over its blocking of text messages from abortion rights group NARAL, leading to a quick reversal.

Jump to full Consumer Affairs article

Try out Safari 3. It’s available for both Mac and Windows

http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

Posted a new tutorial on how to get an AOL screenname without registering an AOL email address and without giving them your entire life story at time of registration.

Instructions for Jabber registration are here as well.

Jump to tutorial