The best suggestions are simple ones that make you kick yourself for not thinking of them sooner (or before someone else does) - Michael W. May via twhirl
Wouldn't it be great if there were a Dos device name like clip: that you could pipe output to, like LPT: ... - Danny Thorpe
@Danny: Indeed. I guess it would be easy to write a little tool that takes arguments that it then runs and its output is copied to the clipboard (e.g., send2clip dir /b /s *.*). I might even code this up today as I agree it would be useful to have. It wouldn't be as useful as it being a device that can be piped to but close enough to still be useful. - Gus Perez
I think people must be more paranoid of public photography in the UK due to all of the recent government propaganda. I've shot photos of my kids in public parks tons of times and have shot in locations with tons of people and kids running around here in Silicon Valley and not once has anyone raised an eyebrow. Often a majority of the other parents in the vicinity are also taking photos of their kids. - Jeff P. Henderson
It's not you, every day I read another story about photographers rights being diminished even if they are not breaking the law. - Bob
I'm like to hear if anyone here in the US has had a similar experience to the one outlined in the article. - Jeff P. Henderson
Check out the search engine. It's like Summize, except it searches ALL data types, not just Twitter messages. - Robert Scoble
Click on the "me" tab. That shows YOU what YOU posted. But then click on the "comments" and "like" links over on the right. That shows you what you commented on, or liked. Well, unless you're looking at the me tab on MY account! - Robert Scoble
what are the best apps? just installed MySocial 24x7 the FF3 sidebar, also playing aroung with Feedalizr and Alert Thingy - Tomas Nihlen
hello Robert, Im a big fan of your FC show. Well done and keep it going. - Michael Sheehan
Don't miss the "Show best of." These will show you the most popular FF items of the day, week, or month. Great way to get up to speed on what gets discussed here (and to find some new people to subscribe to). - Robert Scoble
only thing is: (and like to emphasize that: I simply miss Twitter!) Come to think of it; can we, as long as Twitter's down, do a Miss Twitter Election? - pixites
One day you like Twitter, the other day you hate it huh? ;-) - Rutger Blom
Comment often. Like often. These are signals to other people that you found an item engaging and important. Soon you'll find that we're also engaging on YOUR items. - Robert Scoble
Make sure you add all your feeds. Flickr photos. Upcoming events. Twitter (so we'll know when it's back up and be able to discuss your best tweets). Your Digg and Del.icio.us accounts. And lots more. The more you put into FriendFeed the more people will engage with you. - Robert Scoble
Is this planned maintenance or more of the same? I am trying to come up with reasons why FF should continue to take second place and I still can't work it out. What am I missing? Twitter's simplicity? I just don't see Twitter as an effective conversation tool. It seems more appropriate as a one way communication tool. - Paul Jacobson via twhirl
Don't miss the "more" menu under each cluster. It does a lot. It also lets you delete comments if you start a cluster, link to a cluster, and, well, more. - Robert Scoble
Click the icons off to the left. Click a Flickr one, for instance, and you'll see all the Flickr photos from everyone you're following. Hint: if you want to see ALL Flickr photos from EVERYONE, click on the "everyone" tab first, then click the icons. - Robert Scoble
I've been resistant to this. I like the simplicity of twitter. However, I also like being on a network that actually works, so maybe it's time to go ff full time. - Adam Christie
This is a good, short intro for FF newbies. Wish someone had posted a similar note when I first joined. FF is a bit murkier than Twitter for new users. I also found http://frienderati.alltop.com/ to be very helpful. - sage brennan
When you get tired of seeing a particular FriendFeed item, just click "hide." Don't worry, that just hides it from your view. You can see hidden items at the bottom of the page. - Robert Scoble
The squeaky friends get the grease ;-) - Paul Short
Click on "Friend Settings." There's some cool stuff in there. This is where you can see who is subscribed to you, who you are subscribed to, some cool stats (useful after you like and comment on a bunch of stuff to learn who you like the best) and some ways to find new friends to subscribe to. Just don't subscribe to that Scoble guy, he's very noisy! - Robert Scoble
Once in a while you'll see a jerk in here. Here's how to deal with them: visit their page, then at the top you'll see a link titled "Block." Don't be afraid to block jerks. That helps keep the community clean of drama for everyone. Heck, don't be afraid to block me if you don't want to see me anymore. You define yourself by who you follow and who you allow into your life. One thing: you can still see people you blocked in the "Everyone" tab. They will still show up in searches you do there. - Robert Scoble
Feel free to use the hide button as you read items, even if it is a topic your interested in. Don't worry, if more conversation occurs on the topic, it will pop back up in your feed again. I like to use this to "clear" the screen, so it isn't so cluttered and I am not re-reading something I have already seen. - Tim Hoeck via NoiseRiver
I like Twitter and will go back as soon as it's up. I used to look at it as FriendFeed vs. Twitter. It's not. They both work great together. FriendFeed is much nicer place to have a conversation. - Robert Scoble
The best thing I ever did was to add a few greasemonkey plugins like the one that removes viewed links and filter by service. It's OK now. - Calley Nye
FriendFeed's worst attribute is that it rewards people who visit often. Click "F5" to refresh your browser's page. This is especially important if you're following lots of people, or are watching the "Everyone" page (it changes every few seconds). - Robert Scoble
Is someone posting too much information? You can "filter" content by service for a user, or by a service for all users. Click the hide button, then click 'See options for hiding other items like this' - Tim Hoeck via NoiseRiver
Do a search under the Everyone tab for your city name to find FFs and topics from your local area. This ain't just a San Fran Soical party! - John Worthington
I agree with Robert - FriendFeed has almost become the "home" page in my browser. Invariably it's sat in my browser most of the day... sure, it could be improved (grouping of contacts into channels), but it's very, very good... - Jonathan Beckett
Oh one more thing....what's the deal with rooms? Do you have to make your own or can you find existing ones? - Calley Nye
@scoble but doesnt FF refresh automatically? whats the interval on the auto refresh? - Sebastian Keil
Even if you don't have an iPhone (I have a KU990), try fftogo.com. It works on most java enabled phone browsers and is a great way to fill in time when in lines - John Worthington
Friendfeed defaults to showing not only the content of those who you are subscribed to, but items that were found interesting by your friends by other people. This is called 'Friend of a Friend' - If you would rather not see these entries, click 'Hide' on one of them, then use 'See more options for hiding items like this' - there will be an option to hide items from Friends of your Friend. - Tim Hoeck via NoiseRiver
Sebastian: FF does refresh automatically, but not fast enough for me. So I manually refresh it every few seconds. - Robert Scoble
Calley: I'm subscribed to a bunch of rooms (mostly cause people invite me in). They haven't become very useful to me yet, although I'm noticing a few are getting more active lately. You can see the ones I'm subscribed to by visiting my FF at http://friendfeed.com/scobleiz... and clicking over on the right side. - Robert Scoble
FF is more than a aggrigator site, it's the true social. Just don't find links and publish photos, discuss them and share in the collective power of community. - John Worthington
@Calley Nye (siliconcalley): You can make your own rooms if you want, or you can join others. Currently, its not immediately apparent where to find existing rooms, but there is a number of sites that have friendfeed room listings. You can also search google with something like: twitter site:friendfeed.com/rooms - I also recommend joining this room: http://friendfeed.com/rooms/fr... - Tim Hoeck via NoiseRiver
if Twitter was micro-blogging, would FF be classed as macro-blogging? - John Worthington
@scobleizer Terrific overview/ welcome message regarding FriendFeed, is it possible to move this into it's own room? You are imparting some great information here, don't want to see it turn to vapor. - Nice Fish Films
So basically you have to know the cool people to get invited to the dance. I like it... - Calley Nye
Welcome everyone! Robert pretty much summed it up beautifully. I bring a little Gizmodo-ness into a more Engadget-esque Friend Feed ;) I'm Mona, nice to meet you all! This link will take you to the bookmarklet, which enables sharing links, images, and videos. It goes right on your browser toolbar. Extremely useful :) : http://friendfeed.com/share/bo... - Mona N
Confused? Ask questions. Very few of us bite. Welcome. - Chris Baskind
A big +1 for Mona's link to the bookmarklet, that's a really sticky way of getting involved with FF - share stuff, then share again, then share some more! - Iain Baker
The reason I'm actually using FriendFeed right now (besides because Twitter is down) is that I was researching for a post. A really cool tool called Moopz - just posted http://www.techcrunch.com/2008... - Calley Nye
Whoa please don't tell me this conversation ended because Twitter went back up. LOL - Calley Nye
...I think it was because you said you're only using FF since Twitter is down ;) -but on a serious note, after a certain number of comments the post no longer gets 'bumped' so I don't think people are aware there are new comments added on the thread - Mona N
Steve is a super nice guy met him at the MIX08 conference in Vegas King of Kong was brilliant - adolfo foronda
The documentary was actually surprisingly engaging and Steve definitely seems to be an easy guy to root for. I guess he also lives in the same neighborhood I do as lots of footage in the movie was from around here (Redmond Ridge). - Gus Perez
Wireless communications always seems to me to be very easy to corrupt, I'm surprised we don't see or hear more about security breaches or terroristic acts involving cellphones. - James
you can always ask him how easy is it to enter twitter, FB etc. and play with online identity.. well.. maybe not a good idea - Naor
Security is so easy to break. We hired a guy for head of security for one of our companies....who had broken into umpteen major companies. When you hang out at security conferences to see demonstrations of tools, it's pretty cool. It's pretty amazing to watch over someone's shoulder at a website that takes tons of attacks. So many, so many.... - Mitchell Tsai
If he actually SHOWING you he can do it, or is he just talking? Because, you know, anyone can talk. - Josh Bancroft
Any particular recommended reading he/she might suggest? Anything along the lines of Jonathan Zittrain (but focused on phone/wireless rather than internet security (or lack thereof))? Thanks! - Casey
like a plumber telling you how to stop up your pipes- malicious contractor scheme. 1) not everyone is a security expert 2) if s/he was good at their job they wouldn't be sellign it in such a way that promotes fear... just my soapbox, hate this technique - anna
This was not a sales job. He didn't know I was Twittering. He didn't come on camera, doesn't want to be quoted. He's working with the companies to fix their problems. But the stuff he told me about how hard it is to get holes fixed made my head spin (think about a single brand of phone, they might have 162 different cell phone companies that they have to distribute through, and test on). Don't know what we can do, but it's good to be aware your cell phone isn't exactly the most secure thing out there. - Robert Scoble
And thanks to Congress neither is the internet, your landline, your mail, etc. Our only recourse is encryption and who knows how secure that still is. - Adam Turetzky
well we all knew the cost of community and web2.0 was security.. but is it really important to be secure? I mean, what do we do that's so precious? - anna
Anna: this guy is able to break into phones, listen in, make phone calls, and do other malicious stuff. How about send all your friends SMS spam? There's a lot more behind security than just keeping you out of my boring emails. - Robert Scoble
"what do we do that's so precious?" nada.. whats precious is your identity ! - Peter Dawson
Security experts freak people out. It's what they do. - Dave Moyer
dave , I''l like to add the network admin gy too to the freaky list :)- "San Francisco's network held hostage by network admin" - http://spylogic.net/item/322 - Peter Dawson
someone wants ot listen in to my conversation with my sister in which we mostly just overheard her reprimand her 4 year old.... sorry, I think this security stuff is important for some but not for all - anna
ok how's this: if security guy tells you how easy it is to decrypt the apple keychain on macbooks, *that* would freak me out. - anna
@anna Apple's Keychain is only as good as the technologies underlying it - Prolific Programmer
@Robert. Pick up a copy of No Place To Hide by WaPo reporter O'Harrow - scary - Dave Martin
@robert- agree, we should know our phones aren't that secure, and with growing uses of iPhones as portable computers, does make it riskier. I researched breaking into keychains for a novel (plug: http://www.banane.com/2006/09/...) but yeah, I kinda things everything is possible in the world of computers- great but also scary - anna
International criminal syndicates and intelligence agencies can exploit these security weaknesses in high-impact ways. Few infotech topics are hotter. - Sean McBride
@Anna, everything is about IE (industrial Espionage ) - most of the time the hacks one reads about is just ordinary hacks. I'll leave the rest upto your own imagination as to which groups are active in IE :) <Edit> you may also want to check out "pod-slurpin" - Peter Dawson
I actually held a meeting about security today. Jaws still drop when I show WEP cracking - Rob Fuller
security experts are scary...ever listened to the "security now" podcast? makes me want to hide under my bed - Sarah Perez
@anna That's the blase attitude that has allowed the government to implement almost limitless wiretapping with minimal pushback. Sure your conversation with your sister may be uninteresting but it does not mean it is okay to not have a right to privacy. - Trebor Elbocs
we used to call that phreaking. nothing is totally secure. - clarke thomas
I actually find my conversations with my sister interesting - I don't think others do. But if I did, they wouldn't have the *right* to listen, we're not talking about that. it's the consumer's expectation of security that I'm addressing. - anna
wait until mobile payment takes off... someone will use ur smartphone to pay for parking... :) - W. Seto
And I've just gone thru and evened that distribution out quite a bit - that will teach me to use an "import my twitter contacts" app blindly. Didn't even know who some of those people were... - Lucretia Pruitt
I love this tool. I just subscribed to like 50 people I never knew were subscribed to me, and found a few dozen people that unsubscribed from me. Very cool. - Mark Trapp
Glad it helps out! Let me know if you run into any problems, I think I fixed one that was hitting folks with more than 300 on either side. :) - felix
Felix: I double checked as I was checking out the list, and it picked up all (~500 total) my subscriptions and followers with 100% accuracy. Very nice work. - Mark Trapp
@Lucretia thanks so much for posting this! - Marco
I found people who I thought I was subscribed to, but wasn't. Nice tool. - Ian May
I've been wanting to go there for a while but not sure how nice of me it would be to go with a two year old given it's a library and all. Just feels strange to get a babysitter to go to the library. :) - Gus Perez
yes, its great. i recently started working across the street and have only begun exploring it. The "red floor" was really fun to photo. i'm going to need to carry a little gorilla pod to go with my p&s though, or start bringing the big D to work! - rick gordon
Gus, definitely bring the two year old. I saw lots of kids in there and it's a beautiful place for kids to explore. While there are some areas that are very quiet, there are other areas where a little noise from a 2 year old wouldn't be out of line. - Thomas Hawk
Looks like a very stunning building. Next time I'm in Seattle I'll make it a point to go there. Glad to hear that you were not hassled at all during your photo shoot. - Jeff P. Henderson
yes! I also loved that building. cannot recall where I heard this... but apparently, Koolhaas designed the outside to resemble a stack of books. - Neil Bernhart
Thanks Thomas, I think I'll give it a shot then soon. - Gus Perez
Great set on the library. I hope to visit there next time in Seattle. Question on high ISO shots. With my 5D and a 24-105 anything 800 or above has considerably more noise than your 1600 shots. Do you think that is your prime lenses (I have 24-105 & 70-200 F4 L lenses) or post processing that makes your images look noise free? - Johnny Sewell
Johnny I think it's probably the fact that I'm shooting with faster lenses. My 135 is an f/2, my 50 an f/1.2 and my 24 f/1.4. I'm addicted to prime L series lenses. - Thomas Hawk
Hm, lens speed (or lens quality, for that matter) shouldn't have influence on noise. Faster lenses offer more leeway for lower ISO but if you both shoot at ISO 1600, noise will be the same at f/2 and f/4. Do you shoot RAW, Johnny? That can have a major influence. Also, never underexpose high ISO shots. The noise will be very prominent in the shadows if you lift them in postprocessing. - Ole Begemann
Ole, good point on that, you are probably right, and yes, I only shoot in RAW. - Thomas Hawk
Thanks Thomas, and Ole. Yes, I always shoot raw and import directly to Lightroom. I understand and envy your lens addiction!!! Maybe underexposure was the problem. I'll go back and look at some. Thomas, can you and Robert do a video on your cleaning process, assuming you get some trash inside the camera during many lens changes in a day. - Johnny Sewell
I got to go to Dubai a couple of years ago and it was amazing--a bit over the top though. This is an example. I'm not really afraid of heights but just looking at that picture gives me a not-so-comfortable feeling. - Gus Perez
“Friendfeed should watch for duplicate shares both to suppress the duplicates in the feed, and to automatically suggest friends with similar interests.”
Great article, but in some way I think anonymity still has some benefits in terms of finding out how some people truly feel about a topic they're not comfortable stating publicly. I've often thought that it would be useful to have validated identities (like PayPal) which can be used as a badge of honor to those individuals who want to disclose who they truly are. This would also help stop trolls who abscond popular names on the internet. Loic (from Seesmic) was a victim of this last week where someone posted antisemitic comments on a blog. Thankfully Loic quickly responded in video to demonstrate his true feelings on the matter. - Jim McCusker
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It goes without saying that learning how to create compelling content is a part of one’s success as an online publisher. Reading widely and deeply while consistently honing your writing skills helps a great deal in bettering your prose. Sometimes, it doesn’t hurt to read a few stylebooks/essays on writing by professional teachers or authors." - Clay Newton via Bookmarklet
