Ben McDonald › Likes

gmail eats the friendfeed frameset when I get there :( - Toby Graham

If I may make a request a hellotxt tab would be awesome! Update everything from friendfeed as well as view everything. Would be perfect. Otherwise love the scripts. Making life much easier. Thank you. - Brian Bufalo

Brian, I looked at doing a AIR app based on their mobile version, but it was very buggy. I'll keep it mind - Duncan Riley

These are great. Thanks Duncan! - Patrick Jordan

Now if only I could get any Greasemonkey scripts to *install* in FF3 on my MacBook. This doesn't ever get any less frustrating. - Ryan MF

Agree Plurk could end up with more users than both twitter and FriendFeed. Twitter because of uptime and FriendFeed is too complex/powerful for mass adoption in its current UX. - Christian Anderson

Do you guys think that Plurk's Karma system will start being emulated in other sites looking for mass appeal? The whole concept rubs me the wrong way. - Frankie Warren

Personally I hate the Karma system, but I don't think the whole thing is targeted at me either. It's viral, encourages participation, and seems to be working. - Duncan Riley

I can't bring myself to create a Plurk account, but I think it'll appeal to the MySpace crowd... once it breaks out of the early adopter trenches, I could see it doing well. See you there when they cross the 5 million user mark.. at that point I don't think I could keep ignoring it. ;) - Eric Hamilton

@Frankie: the karma system has its benefits and its disadvantages. Sure when you are on like you normally are its fine, but if you go on vacation sans internet say goodbye to karma. And as far as users I've become active over on plurk along with several others but many signed up did a few posts and quit, so its a little bit of both, people who are sticking with it, and dead profiles - BCK

i've whined about the karma system and think the tech early-adopters will all hate it, but Plurk was designed with teenaged girls as a key target and it seems to be doing well attracting more of a diverse, mass (albeit still small, but growing) audience, versus the ubergeeks on friendfeed. Karma will only get aped if Plurk becomes a certified hit and Plurk is not in danger of that just yet. - Christian Anderson

even if teen girls were the main target, it does stuff right conversions are easy to follow, sharing is much better than twitter... - BCK from twhirl

Right right. But do you think the karma system is being recognized as something that is driving usage of the site and will therefore be increasingly used by start ups trying to break into the mainstream? - Frankie Warren

And this is after dozens of people said "fail" when they first heard about it and they had downtime issues. Just goes to show what persistence is worth in the face of critics. I still haven't found a liking for it myself, but I respect their efforts. - Ray Grieselhuber

I have an account, but... I just don't know if it's really worth it yet? - l0ckergn0me

the only real interactions i've had there were with Duncan. Mainly because we happened to both be trying to figure it out at the same time. Plurk is a bit myspacey for me. I think it has real potential, but its not there yet. - Christian Anderson

the one thing I'll add (and I dont think it was in the post) is that it's my non-techy friends that have taken to Plurk the most. I'm seriously thinking consumer play in the Mahalo space. Still, it's not too bad, at least its up more than twitter :-) - Duncan Riley

plurk last a week with me, thread conversation good. Not always conversing with your friends in bad. Gone back to Twiiter and using FF more - Nick Cowie from twhirl

I was on it for about the same time frame Nick, it just didn't seem engaging to me! - Joe Dawson

Plurk is only as 'myspacey' as your friends are 'myspacey' - there are plenty of grown-ups on Plurk having great threaded conversations all day long. Sure, the initial sign-up page and the public timeline appear a bit teeny, but then I thought for a long time that twitter looked dumb because of its home page and public timeline before I fully engaged with it too. To each their own, but I think Plurk's uptime (yes, with a far smaller user base currently than Twitter) & threaded conversations are major pluses - Matt Hooper

So I guess that means that those of us that managed to download it already will not count towards the record. Oh well. - Andy Roth

People are finding ways to download http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/ - Bwana ☠

But if you download from somewhere other than Mozilla, does it count toward the record? - Stephen Pierzchala

According to Moz blog "Download day will officially commence once the site goes live. The 24 hours period will be clocked from that moment. " - Andy Roth

Guinness is pretty strict with their standards, sounds like a big grey area - Bwana ☠

I say they get some record for quickest user induced "DDOS" - BCK from twhirl

Seems to be up now: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US... - Andy Roth

Yeah, http://getfirefox.com works for me now. MD5 matches the earlier links I posted. - Bwana ☠

downloading now... - Alejandro

Just downloaded beautifully. Going to log off and install shortly. - ha3rvey (wants confit)

Just to make sure, I am re-downloading it. Sure, my 3 votes count. - mark

The official tally started at 2:16 p.m. Eastern and goes through the same time tomorrow. They're making pretty good progress so far, too! - JR R.

Thanks Duncan. I didn't realize all these tab scripts existed, namely the plurk one. - Bwana ☠

Bwana, unless I'm mistaken Duncan is the one who's written them. - Mike Bogle

Nice. Gonna try this. - David Risley

You're a brilliant man Mr. Riley; love GReader tab! Thank you. - JA Castillo

What a lovely monkey world :-D - Ben Borges from fftogo

Great stuff Duncan - Charlie Anzman

Great work. Looks great. - Baard @ Pixum

Awesome job... - Mitchell Tsai

The mouse-over text isn't right though... - Laurence Gonsalves

Yeah, that's one of xkcd's "things", You should click thru to the site to see the mouseover. I only discovered them after I'd been reading xkcd for a few weeks (how slow am I, lol) and it brought a whole new level of understanding to the whole thing for me. - Slappy Line

WOoOW! - Maryam Ardakani

always loved xkcd! - Selma

Love XKCD. Hate FF breaking the mouseover. - James Polley

... breaking the mouseover makes you click through to xkcd though... right... I mean otherwise you'd miss the hidden message! - Ross Miller

بچه‌هاي فرندفيد: اقايون/خانوما. بياين حال اين خارجكيها رو بگيريم و تو اين كامنتدوني شروع كنيم در مورد اين تصوير كامنت بگذاريم.لطفا نظرتون رو در مورد اين تصوير بگين - mhmazidi

ترجمه کامنت قبلیم: واو! سمایلی مگه ما سادیسم داریم؟! :دی - Maryam Ardakani

@mhmazidi اتفاقا این وب سایت رو خیلی وقته که دنبال می کنم...کمیک های خیلی خیلی جالبی داره...فقط یک کمی سنگینه و گیکیه به قول خودمون ...چیز جالبیه بهش سر بزنید گاهی ... (اسمایلی این هم سهم من در کامنت فارسی) ه - Selma

it would be nice if friendfreed could perform some basic translation if the user set it that way ;) - Hernan Garcia from twhirl

Ich "mag" Hernans Kommentar. [Translation: I "like" Hernan's comment.] - Philipp Lenssen

hehe ...i think we have managed to provoke some curiosity :D - Selma

haha, you're totally right @Selma - Hernan Garcia from twhirl

new methods in cooking - atalmatal

Is there any decent automated Farsi <-> English translation system available on the web? - Jim Norris

I believe that's Farsi, not Arabic? - ⓞnor

Yes it is Farsi (Persian) language ...and no ...as a professional translator I have not seen any efficient automated translation system for it yet (some students here are working on that), especially since the lines here are written in a broken informal style which makes it even more difficult to convert. - Selma

Selma, care to comment on the general jist of the conversation that took place in this thread? - Mark Trapp

Oh lol…definitely... sorry! Dr. Mazidi just commented there to share the picture with the Persian Friendfeed users as well as letting the English users know we do need a translating system ;) … I commented on the fact that I have been regularly following xkcd (I'm not a geek…it's just a phase that I'm going through :D) and advised others to do so as well… Navid was wondering why we were... more... - Selma

I love this!! Thanks Bret!! who created this? too cool! - Susan Beebe

down with xkcd - niniane

I see what you did there, niniane. - Slappy Line

Haha, thaks Selma. I was wondering what was going on :) - Mark Trapp

Am I the only one who finds it annoying that this story is constantly being pushed up due to comments? I understand the point, but I've seen this on my FriendFeed every day for the past week and a half - Bartek Ciszkowski

bart: my subconscious had the exact same reaction. I love xkcd but I was getting sick of this one. I guess it's time to start using the hide function. - Alex von Halem

Bart, hide feature, I believe you two haven't met. I'll leave you two to get acquainted. - Mark Trapp

I can't wait to get a DSLR - but how do you manage to carry around something so big? What are the better compact ones? - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I carry around a Canon SD100 with me all the time--I can't carry my DSLR around with me, but I can carry my little camera. It takes fabulous photos for such a tiny camera. - Kris Millering

I carry a Canon XTi almost everywhere. Once you're used to it, it's not a big deal. If you want something smaller to carry everywhere, check out the Canon G9. It's not an SLR, but it can shoot RAW and has manual controls. - Jeremy Brooks

I'm using a Powershot S80 right now, and while I have a lot of manual controls, I'm still missing out on a lot of great DSLR capabilities. I just shudder at the thought of having to lug around a big camera everywhere I go. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I carry a Canon S5 IS, but I might need a smaller one for my belt clip. My small one broke a screen on "Year 2 Day 2", just out of warranty. - Mitchell Tsai

I carry my Canon G9 everywhere now. I love my 5D and those L lenses but I just can't carry them around all the time. - Michael Hocter

Hey Thomas, you mentioned that you had your first 5D stolen. How did that happen, and what do you do differently now? - Dave Roth

Dave, I had my 5D stolen in the Bahamas. I had it in my backpack and wrapped the backpack in a towel under a chair that I was sitting in at what I thought was a fairly safe resort with security. I was watching my kids at the pool and went in just for a second thinking I was keeping a pretty good eye on it. Later that night when I opened my backpack I realized it was gone. :( I'm even more careful now watching it. - Thomas Hawk

Thanks for the follow-up. I definitely don't want to become a victim. - Dave Roth

Shey: In a nice bag. I use a Crumpler messenger bag for day outings, and a Crumpler backpack for traveling. - Tom Harrison

Thomas: I had a compact camera pick-pocketed from me in Belgium. A Mediterranean guy pretended to do a martial arts move on me while shaking my right hand. His left hand pulled my camera out of my velcro case (I now use clip/zipper cases), and I didn't know for a few blocks. I checked my wallet & pockets for lost money immediately, but was new to carrying a camera. He was SMOOTH, very impressive... Our US thieves aren't so classy - just a knife or gun. ;-( - Mitchell Tsai

Unfortunately, if I forget my camera, I'll have to settle for my cameraphone. It's not too bad, actually, with the right lighting and some fixups in Photoshop. - Morton Fox

Thomas: you mentioned this before and this would be great for all of us to use. Do you have a link? - Alex von Halem

Picasa will Geotag photos using Google Earth as well, very simple, add a bunch of photos to your tray in Picasa and hit Tools>Geotag>Geotag w/Google Earth and it lets you "stamp" the photos with the exact location in Google Earth. - cmiper

TH beat me to it - I like using the Geotagger/Google Earth combination as well. East and fast. Geotagging and keywording at the file level are essential - anything else is a waste of time. - Tom Harrison

Alex: http://craig.stanton.net.nz/softwar... - Tom Harrison

Thanks, Tom! - Alex von Halem

"Geotagging and keywording at the file level are essential - anything else is a waste of time." Good way to say it. - Thomas Hawk

Brad: Don't know how I missed Geotagger, using it now. Terrific. Thanks! - Dion Hinchcliffe from twhirl

Geotagger rocks (Thanks Thomas) - TranceMist

Wow, that's clever. Never thought of that possibility before. - Meryn Stol

Brilliant! - Mohamed J

Although, if you do an "open link in new tab/window" that will, effectively, end the session, I believe. In many ways it is not as robust as cookie based options. Hmm... - felix

As the author points out at the end, this technique is insecure and subject to XSS attacks. This is because the value of window.name is available across domains. It's an interesting hack but I don't think you will find a lot of people using it for this reason alone. - Kevin D. White

@Kevin developers have done stupider things :) - Steven Hodson

Kevin, that's also part of what makes it interesting -- it's possible to do cross site sessions :) - Paul Buchheit

@Paul I agree the idea is intruiging. I just can't see most dev groups deciding that in this case the reward is greater than the risk. Afterall most groups that aren't terminally stupid are more concerned about not carrying data across domains. I don't want to belabor the point. It is a cool hack. I just think the utility of it is pretty low. - Kevin D. White

This is interesting for limited applications, but the security flaw is troubling. Perhaps it would be useful for "one-page" or "flash" session data where you have a multipage form and don't want to POST between pages. - Gary Burge

Server troubles. We're still investigating exactly what triggered it. No fires that I'm aware of :) - Paul Buchheit

Oh twitterverse, you done me wrong! Thanks for the update, Paul. - Mark Trapp

Thanks for getting it back up! Hope the troubles aren't serious. - felix

And I slept through the whole thing. Never down for me. :-) - Louis Gray

Welcome back FF :) - Mohamed J

The outage made me realize just how much I like FriendFeed...I missed it :) - Chris Rossini

Goes to show you, no service is invincible. - Shawn Farner from twhirl

It's a bit ridiculous the gaping hole I felt by this. I hadn't realized how addicted I was. We need to start a support group. - Carla Thompson

Does FriendFeed have a status report area? For example, Twitter has blog.twitter.com, which was used to report on an outage in late April (they reported 3 days after problems started, but that's another story). Does FriendFeed have a similar place to report on outages? - Ontario Emperor

Welcome back online guys. It's okay, I coped. I read a book and listened to some blues. - Slappy Line

The FriendFeed Blog seems like a good spot for status reports. - Chris Rossini

I still think it was Scoble's fault...somehow. ;) - Alejandro

Quick, someone register isfriendfeeddown.com. - Kevin D. White

Wow, FriendFeed really *is* the new Twitter. - ⓞnor

I know I checked blog.friendfeed.com about 10 times during the outage. Makes sense that status updates would go there. - EricaJoy