Facebook, Twitter and Last.FM on Xbox 360 – Why?

On 11.19.09, In Music, Technology, Video Games, By AC Slater

Microsoft rolled out the latest little update to the Xbox 360/Xbox Live service this week in the form of a couple applications. You can now access your Facebook, Twitter and Last.FM accounts via the Xbox 360 dashboard. Now I understand that Microsoft is trying to bring all aspects of social media onto their platform and make them easily accessible by it’s users, but why? The only one that makes any sense to have the Xbox 360 is last.FM and I think it’s great that they’ve added support for it, but what am I going to do with Facebook and Twitter on my Xbox?

To be perfectly honest I have not tried out the Last.FM application yet, but just in theory alone it sounds like a perfect match for the 360. It gives you the ability to stream all sorts of music through your TV. Last.FM is a great service that I use on my computer all the time and I think people will use it quite a bit when entertaining guests, etc. However, Facebook and Twitter seem absolutely pointless to use on the 360. Both applications are extremely basic and I can’t see myself ever using them again. I installed them the other day just to test out and see what sort of features they were offering, maybe Twitter would tweet out what game I was playing or what achievement I just received or maybe Facebook would update my status with the same information, but as far as I can tell they don’t do anything really.

The Twitter application is about as basic as you can get, picture what the Twitter.com homepage was when it first started out. It’s basically the updates from all of the people you are following and then a box where you can enter what you are doing, oh and you can access the Twitter trends. That’s it. I don’t know about most people, but I follow a lot of random people that I don’t always want to read about which is why I like TweetDeck and it’s ability to separate people into different groups for easier reading, not so much here. It’s just one long list of updates from all of the people you follow and it only fits about 10 updates per screen. I don’t know, maybe there was a demand for this, but I personally think it’s pointless and will never take the time to log back into it ever again.

Now let’s talk about Facebook. Again, why on the Xbox 360? It makes no sense! The interface is clumsy, it uses the same tile structure that the dashboard itself uses and it barely displays anything on the screen at one time. Maybe I didn’t dive into it enough, but from what I gathered in the few minutes I played around with it, I will never be logging in to it again unless it can do something like show me my Facebook friends that also have Xbox Live and what their gamertag is or something. I know it asked me when I logged in for the first time if I wanted to display my gamertag somewhere within Facebook, I said yes, but I have no idea where it’s displaying it. Maybe this is a feature and I just didn’t take the time to find it, or maybe my friends have the same feelings as me and find Facebook on the Xbox pointless and didn’t even bother logging in.

So are people actually using the Xbox 360 for Facebook and Twitter? I don’t know how many people have a keyboard or the chatpad hooked up to their 360 (not me), but it takes a damn long time to type anything using the on screen keyboard even if it is only 140 characters. So I don’t know, are you guys using this? Did you try it out at least? Am I missing the point of all this? Do the apps have the ability to update my Twitter with games I’m playing? Someone please tell me what I’m missing here, why would Microsoft waste their time doing this?

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Facebook Status Annoyances

On 10.07.09, In Uncategorized, By AC Slater

Facebook as become an integral way to communicate and keep in touch with friends and family, but there are some things that your Facebook Status is just not meant for. I understand that it’s a way to broadcast to your friends how you feel or what you’re doing, but I don’t want to hear your political banter or an entire verse from a shitty emo song that describes how shitty you’re feeling that day, everyone’s got problems, deal with it. Stop trying to feed your attention whoring ass by making people feel they need to respond to your status. Let’s jump into a few of the Facebook status topics that I can’t stand.

1. Political issues – There is one person in particular that I went to high school with that is a “friend” of mine on Facebook that constantly posts shit about politics. I honestly don’t even know why I’m friends with her on Facebook considering I never talked to her in high school, but anyways. She constantly posts status updates as well as notes and links regarding politics and how Obama is running this country into the ground and that McCain would have been a much better choice, blah blah blah. It’s especially bad because now she’s all about shooting down universal healthcare and she just comes off sounding like an idiot. I’m surprised she didn’t jump on the bandwagon about Obama not being a US citizen, ugh. I want so badly to post a comment on her status and just tell her to shut up, but I’m not that type of person. So instead I’ll just bash her here, anonymously. The funny thing is I really don’t even care about politics, I’m not even registered to vote, but I do know when people are making themselves sound like idiots. I don’t care if you post about politics, but just know all the facts before you post.

2. Fuck My Life (FML) – Those people that write something dumb and then put “FML” after it. These statuses aren’t even creative, “Stepped in a big puddle, FML”, “Got caught rubbing one out at work, FML”, “My dog took a shit on the floor and I stepped in it after just getting out of the shower, FML”. If those are the worst things in your life then you have nothing to complain about. If you’re status starts reading “Not enough money to buy food this week” or “Just diagnosed with AIDS and Herpes” then you have my permission to put FML after it, but if you’re not dying or starving to death, then you have nothing to complain about. The whole FML fad is the new Emo. Yeah, if you put FML after your status or after anything at all you are now new Emo, get over it.

3. Complaining about people/situations in your life – This could have gone in with the “FML” status, but it’s a little different. These statuses are the ones like “I’m just trying to make my life better, why are these people always bringing me down” or “I’m done with people like that in my life, if you can’t be a man then fuck off, I’m done”. Shit like that is just a cry for attention whether you know it or not. All you’re looking for when you post a status update like that is someone to comment and ask you what’s wrong. Get over yourself, nobody cares that you’re “done with the bullshit”, we all deal with bullshit everyday, but we’re not out there posting it to get sympathy. Call a close friend and complain, don’t take to the internet to vent your frustration like that. Don’t get me wrong, there are some things that are ok to vent about on the internet (like shitty facebook statuses) but deliberately posting a status just to get someone to ask if you’re ok is pathetic. Which leads me into the next one…

4. One word – there are some one word statuses that I’m sure are ok, but again these are just attention seeking statuses. You’re venting your frustrations in hope that someone will comment. I mean what else would you gain by posting “Ouch” or “Fuck” or “Seriously?” as a status. You know someone is going to comment and be like “What’s wrong?”, which is exactly what you want. If you really need to vent about something post something like “Ouch, I just got caught beating meat at work” or “Seriously? Why would someone piss on the seat in the bathroom” at least with those you’re venting and telling us why. Now we have a little more information to go on when choosing whether or not to comment on the fact that either you’re rubbing one out at work or you got a new job at a meat packing plant.

5. Song lyrics pertaining to how you feel – I was guilty of this when it came to AIM away messages when I was like 15 and just broke up with my girlfriend, but to do it on Facebook today is just pathetic. If you’re having a bad day just say “Having a bad day, can’t wait till it’s over” instead of quoting “Comfortably Numb” to describe how you’re feeling. Just be straight forward otherwise it sounds like another cry for attention. If you really have to quote a song, quote something like Baby Got Back “I like big butts and I cannot lie…” at least then we know what you’re saying, you like big butts and you’re telling the truth. See, it’s not cryptic and it’s to the point, and this then allows us to decide if we like big butts also and want to comment on that fact.

I’m sure there are tons of other Facebook status categories that annoy me when people post them, but I’m getting annoyed with writing this article so I have to stop. I think I’ll go post about it on Facebook though just so everyone can know how I’m feeling.

What are your pet peeves when it comes to Facebook Statuses?

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Facebook Fan Check Virus

On 09.14.09, In Technology, By AC Slater

Some people are quite gullible when it comes to this kind of stuff. Fan Check is a very stupid, very annoying Facebook fad going around for the past couple weeks that people are now claiming is a virus. Well I hate to burst your bubble, but the app isn’t a virus and nor does it work like people think it does.

People installing this app (and others like it) think that it’s going to track people that view their profile and basically let them know who the top 20 stalkers of their profile are. Sorry, but that’s not how it works and there are no apps out there that still work to see who’s visiting your profile. There used to be pixel tracking methods to do this on MySpace, but they have since plugged all the holes that allowed that and Facebook has done the same thing.

Well then how does this app work you ask? Well it was pretty obvious to me as soon as I saw who’s “Fan Check Top 20″ I was on how it worked. It basically just takes into account your interactions with different people. Things like wall posts, comments, “liking” things, tagging, etc, anything that publicly links you to another person is taken into account and probably scored in some sort of system and then ranked. I can tell you that I don’t ever go to one of my friends profile page on Facebook and really barely even talk to the guy, but I ended up in his top 20 because I recently tagged an few old pictures of him and we had quite the comment conversation going on a couple of them.

And those of you that are worried that it’s a virus, first of all you have to add the application yourself in order for it to work on your profile anyways. You being tagged in a picture doesn’t do anything to your computer, but then again neither does adding the application. It doesn’t install any sort of software on your machine, it’s not coded using some malicious code that’s going to delete everything on your drives, it’s a stupid application that has spread like wildfire over the last week because people think it does something it doesn’t. The real threat from virus’ comes from searching the web for a fix for this so-called virus that doesn’t exist. Those sites out there claiming to have a fix are the ones you should be worried about as there is no virus so there is no fix, these sites are probably just going to try to get you to install some downloadable anti-virus software which in turn will make them a couple bucks, don’t fall for it. If you’re really worried just remove the application from your Facebook account and go about your business. It’s just another dumb application that’s leading to the demise of Facebook. The main reason that MySpace has died off in recent years is due to the clutter. Facebook was known as the clean, upscale version of MySpace which is why people started moving their accounts over, but with all these applications and notifications coming through every day Facebook is starting to go down the tubes. However, they did recently launch a Facebook Lite for those that don’t want to deal with the clutter, which is nice.

So long story short, Fan Check on Facebook is not a virus, there is no “fix”, don’t go to any site claiming to have one.

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It Finally Happened…

On 01.27.09, In Work, By AC Slater

Not that it’s a surprise to me, since they’ve been talking about it in meetings for months now, but my office has finally implemented a new method of blocking websites on the network. Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand the reason for doing it and I have no problem with it blocking sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc, but I’m a little annoyed that sites like Gizmodo, Apple Updates and a few other tech blogs are blocked for being “Online Communities”. I know people spend the first 30 minutes or so reading the newspaper at their desk and drinking their coffee, so why shouldn’t I be able to catch up on what’s going on in the tech world. It’s weird because I can access all the other sites on the Gawker network that I read and sites like Engadget and Cinematical, but Gizmodo doesn’t work. I’m also a little upset that Meebo doesn’t work, but I do understand the reasoning behind it and it’s not like I can’t just use my phone if I really need to chat it up with someone. But half of these sites are blocked because they are “Online Communities”, and then when I go to access an actual online forum that I frequent, it works just fine.

I think they are still testing the software from what I understood from a previous meeting so maybe they are gathering logs of what people access and then will go check to see if they fall into the blocked categories. So I guess I’ll be accessing some of those sites I know should be blocked, from my phone or even a proxy site. I’m not sure if they can figure out that I’m using a proxy site and then block that site also, so it may not be worth it. Good thing I have an iPhone with a full browser, but now I’ll need to charge it here all day since the battery sucks if you’re actually using the internet.

So for all those that needed to get a hold of me while I was at work it looks like you’ll either have to leave a comment here or just call/text my phone. I think my AIM screen name is setup for mobile, so I should still appear online. Oh well, almost 10 years of unrestricted internet access isn’t bad, at least my sites still aren’t blocked so I can continue to update them.

Oops looks like I spoke too soon, this website is now blocked at work because of “games”… Lame! Thank god for the iPhone so I can still write throughout the day.

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Facebook on iPhone Not Good For Stalkers

On 12.05.08, In Technology, By AC Slater

Not that I’m a “stalker”, but I have run into this problem twice now and had I actually been stalking people, my identity would have been given away. So when you view peoples pictures on the iPhone Facebook App, you can scroll through them by swiping your finger from side to side, depending on which way you want to browse. No problem there, except for the fact that if you hold your finger on a picture for too long it will think you want to “tag” that picture. So two times now I’ve tagged myself in random pictures that I was not in, only because I was trying to swipe to the next picture, but instead the app thought I wanted to tag it and since I thought it was being unresponsive I lifted my finger and put it on the screen again just as the list of names came up, thus tagging myself in a picture.

So be careful when browsing pictures of people on the iPhone Facebook App, you could wind up tagging yourself and thus giving away the fact that you’re looking through someone’s pictures.

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