Geeky Cat Miusings

I was so excited this morning when I checked my e-mail and found a letter from Santa Claus! He is very busy in his workshop at the North Pole managing the elves and helpers who are making toys, games and other fun things for kids from all over the planet. He did not mention if he makes computers or cell phones….is that too technically advanced for his workshop? Has Santa not upgraded yet? Maybe he needs help from some of the tech folks out there. We want our computers to look pretty so I think we should get the folks at Apple to get together with the little folks up North and collaborate to make highly desirable, good quality gifts.

Some of you folks are writing witty letters because Santa said he gets a good belly laugh from some of the notes he receives. I think Santa has also become very health conscious because he said the he picked some beautiful candy cane-striped tomatoes and green beans that taste like sugar cookies from his lovely garden. I think I am going to write another letter to Santa requesting clippings or seeds from these yummy plants. I want candy-striped tomatoes too because it would be so pretty to snack on!

Good ol’Santa asked me to write again next year and sends his love.
I love you too Santa ♥ ♥ ♥

Last night we wanted to order Chinese food from a local restaurant that has been operating for many years now. We weren’t positive about the name but knew what street it was on and the closest intersection. I tried to find the name and telephone number by Googling it but it did not show up. I tried a variety of restaurant finder sites but it did not show up. We picked up the telephone book and found it in under one minute. And that is without knowing the name of the restaurant! Go figure. If anyone knows a great site that is helpful in finding local restaurants, please let me know.

• According to surveys, 15% of Americans say they are addicted to email.
• Of those who use portable devices to check email, 12% have checked their email at church.
• Even though 89% of Americans say that texting while driving is dangerous, 57% admit to doing it.
• Anyone remember my blog entry where I commented that cellphones are the new cigarettes? Well this just reinforces the idea: Just 2 weeks after smoking was banned in public enclosed areas in the UK, text messaging increased by 7.5 million! The steep increase in texting is attributed to smokers who need something to do with their hands when they can’t light up.

Make your own design by dragging the boxes.

This is what I created … who is surprised really…lol.

For many people using Facebook is a way of life. We use it to keep in touch with friends through messages, wall posts, and status updates. We amuse one another with pictures, videos, graffiti, and music. We compare tastes by comparing our movie ratings, favorite music lists, and personality profiles. We check in with friends first thing in the morning and before going to bed. In short, we really like Facebook and the added dimension it adds to our life. Today I found out that there are 13 reasons your Facebook account will be disabled. You may want to read the article to make sure you aren’t breaking any rules and lose your account.

The powers that be at Facebook headquarters have decided that users cannot have more than 5,000 friends. I wonder if anyone has reached that quota. I know some people are trying!!!

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This morning, as I was on the bus travelling to work and listening to my iPod (they were talking endlessly about the iPhone — as they have been doing ever since the iPhone has come out) when I saw something very upsetting on the road. Even after I passed the scene of the accident, my mind was filled with the tragic image and I needed to play some uplifting music to ease my mind and calm my soul. After 15 minutes of listening to serene music I was ready to return to the podcast, but since the iPod does not have bookmarks, I could not easily return to the place I left off but had to scan through the hour long podcast to find my spot. My old Zen player had a bookmarking feature — I think it actually was able to store 10 bookmarks — something I used frequently and would really like to have on my mp3 player. If someone knows if there is bookmarking within the iPod, please let me know.

It is a very common occurence, in most people’s lives, that friendships drift apart causing people to find themselves in need of more friends to socialize and share interests with. I recently found myself in this sort of situation and I found a good solution: a women’s meetup group that gets people together doing activities they love and the potential of developing their relationship into a friendship.

My social group organizes such diverse activities as potlucks, movies, Brazilfest, book club, wine tasting, kayak lessons, and other kinds of outings. The group has over 500 members but each event is restricted to an appropriate number of women for the venue. Everyone is responsible for signing on to the event themselves, ensuring that only truly interested people will attend — they are all there with the same purpose in mind — to meet people and have fun.

There are different types of social groups available centering around various activities and interests, such as photography and hiking. If you are finding that you are in need of stimulation, look online for a social group near you.

What a Facebook platform developer feels like. The startup company where he works decided to allocate time and resources to developing an app for the great exposure - Facebook membership is rising exponentially and people love to add apps to personalize their space - I have added several apps and subsequently removed them because I did not find them useful or appealing. The developer is lamenting the fall of app users and explains why in this article.

Soundpedia is a legal Singapore based music sharing community that offers a music streaming service with Web 2.0 sharing functions. It helps you to discover new tunes and share them with friends. I have not spent a lot of time with it yet, but my initial experience was fabulous when I discovered I could listen to the entire When I Was Cruel Elvis Costello album. I have a collection of 100 CDs but I find that it is not enough and the radio is very repetitious, so I welcome the chance to listen to a wide variety of music.

There is a tremendous amount of work to be done on search products to improve people’s experience with the web: currently average information workers spend 25 percent of their time looking for information. Many ordinary folk are also having a tough time finding the information we need on the unwieldy Web and sometimes give up and try referencing a book. We know a few basic tricks like using quotes to search for an exact phrase or using the “-” to exclude the word from the search, but there are many more tricks available for narrowing a search. Have a look at 20 tips for more efficient google searches, you may want to commit a few useful ones to memory. I am trying to understand how Google determines similar terms to the user’s search keyword when the “~” symbol is used: I searched for [~dumb little man] and Google returns sites with funny and stupid in its results.