friends

As you may have noticed, I’ve been out and about a lot more recently. I’ve discovered that there are times when going outside, seeing people and doing things isn’t always such a bad thing. I’m still my Geeky self. I still prefer solitude sometimes. I still prefer the company of my dogs and my computers to humans much of the time. However, having been dragged to several local events and attractions by various friends lately has actually been fun. I’ve managed to do and see some things that I’ve said for years now I’d “get around to one day”.

Read more on Getting Out is a Good Thing…

This is Finlay Craig’s submission for the HP Magic Giveaway. Feel free to leave comments for this article as you see fit – your feedback is certainly welcomed! If you’d like to submit your own how-to, what-is, or top-five list, you can send it to me. Views and opinions of this writer are not necessarily my own:

Read more on Five Ways to Be a Better Friend…

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Whether you celebrate the actual “Thanksgiving” holiday or not where you live, we all have things we are thankful for. I’d like to share with you the top 5 things I am grateful for.

Read more on Thankful for Thanksgiving, Thanks!…

The PeopleAggregator is a feature rich, personal publishing oriented system. This is the hub social network you’ve been waiting for. Find out what its all about, what standards we support and how [they] can help you mesh yourself into the distributed Live Web. At the center of all great Live Web software will be one’s digital identity. Each end-user will control who has access to their personal data, who can use it and how. Each end-user needs to be able to move their data to other systems – whether it be their personal profile record, list of friends, groups, their photos, MP3s, links, bookmarks or events.

Read more on What is a People Aggregator?…

Lockergnome subscriber Sean Norton asks:

Are you aware of any open source web social networking software out there that is similar to myspace and user friendly for all levels of computer skills. I’ve been working on getting the alumni association for my chapter of TKE fraternity online and interactive. I’d considered using a standard static website model with just some mailing list options for group mailings, mainly to save on snail mail postage for newsletters and avoid maintaining a list of e-mail addresses myself. I’d love to have a customizable bulletin board with individual personal profile options like Myspace offers. Many of us already use myspace, but that’s just the younger computer oriented guys, and I’d like something even the octagenarians of the group could successfuly master or at least futz their way through without barraging me with questions. I checked out a freeware app called Joomla but it wasn’t quite what I wanted.

Read more on Open Source Social Networking…

I asked all of my twittersheep: “What was the coolest link you’ve found today?” Within minutes, here’s who played along. I would have missed all but one of their picks:

http://www.engadget.com/200…

Read more on Links from my Twitter Followers…

MySpace just got a little bit weirder for me:

don’t ask me why…but i wrote a song about you…i didn’t even know you were real… it’s just that some blogger was ranting about you and i thought it was funny. I hope you don’t mind, but when I saw you on myspace i had to at least say Hi. so “Hi” – steve aka sisthek

Read more on My Own MySpace Music…

Ponzi and I flew down to SF for the weekend to hang with the Scobles – Robert and Maryam. We just went out for sushi in Half Moon Bay (although I contend that Seattle sushi is infinitely better than Bay Area sushi). Right now, we’re enjoying Maryam’s coffee and sitting around the living room – each on our respective laptops. We’re not saying a single word to one another, although every other minute someone will pipe up with “Hey, so-and-so is doing this.” I’m peeking over Robert’s keyboard and watching him populate his linkblog. So, I guess this kind of silent friendship activity is called scobleizing? Ponzi just sent me an IM a few seconds ago. This is… quite… an exciting Friday night.

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Okay, I understand the need to make it easier for your visitors to bookmark sites on their favorite Web service(s), but enough is enough. I keep finding Digg and del.icio.us icons on sites and pages where they just… don’t… belong! Seriously, Answers.com has deployed a set on every single page. Yeah, because Answers.com“>Answers.com answers are just so digg’able. Whatever.

Read more on Social Bookmarking Button Madness…

Sean Carver is a rock star. No, seriously – he’s one of the guys at Microsoft who has always listened to my feedback. Not sure he’s always able to push my suggestions through the pipeline, but he really does listen (and I wish I could say that about more people I kenw). Microsoft just launched v8 of their Messenger product. It’s good, and I’d recommend it over previous versions of Microsoft’s IM client, but there are a few things that are holding it back from being great:

Read more on Is Windows Live Messenger Your Friend?…