Monday, November 10, 2008

Facebook Diversion

I know that I'm often critical of much of what originates here on the Planet Fannit, but tonight even I'm unable to summon up the bile necessary to whine about what's right and wrong, so with my mind wandering for something to bitch about, I stumble on to my facebook page with the intention of seeing what new invitations and requests had gone unanswered for the last week or two.

There's usually something from Matthew Brown of Thanet Star fame, which I never quite understand then there's other request something called "half man half biscuit" again something I've not got the faintest idea about.

I sometimes look at the bottom of the page to the friends online section, which generally empties as I look at whose available to chat, still one unfortunate friend tonight was top local (local as in went to school in these parts) journalist and author Iain Aitch (former Thanet resident), whose book "Were British, Innit" seems to be doing well, I judge this by the fact that copies were prominently displayed in Margate WH Smiths, last time I visited.

Anyhow since I don't have anything to say myself tonight I might suggest you take a gander at Iain's blog site, which I will do now cheers.

PS whilst on local authors etc I am still reading Plain Jane's book "Wannabe a writer" which despite the fact I haven't finished reading is a surprisingly good read and I will finish it soon when I have the time, which reminds me its about time I commented on the european working time directive, particularly haveing recently heard some Tory tosser go on about how the plucky British worker loves working 60-70-80 hours a week. Bankers like him ought to try working outside in the for ten hours of wind rain and cold, I can assure you that few are that keen on it!

PPS A quick one for Matthew Brown why doesn't facebook have a Skype type gizmo instead of text chat?

5 comments:

  1. Hi Uncle Tony, for the skype if you go into a friends profile under their info, if they have a contact number you should be able to skype, mine only shows US numbers to skype!!
    or look under your list of friends and at the top is phonebook any of your friends with contact numbers will be listed, brilliant, I discovered this 1 minute after I requested friends from someone in the US and he rang me, freaky talking to someone after 15 years,
    Also typically people wiz in and out of facebook its a bit like checking your e-mails or answer machine, and then replying to those that need doing or uploading stuff or comments so they may only be on for a couple of minutes, or they see its you and log off :o)
    for any other inquiries regarding face book please contact someone else...I know more than is possible good for me about it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Tony, I see you are having fun with "social media". The limit with the text chat on facebook is that it is realy just a clever hack using nothing more than HTML and some javascript. Skype on the other hand isn't so limited.

    If I look into my magic future prediction device I can see that one day someone will develop a voice chat application in flash and facebook type sites will do likewise.

    Actually I'm surprised this has not been done already (aside from the cost of network traffic which is quite incredible compared to text).

    I hope that has answered your question without getting needless geeky (I'm well aware that the average person is not as fascinated by technical details as I am).

    Keep going - I know you have the required abilities to get a handle on all these technologies. The secret, I feel, is to just play with them and have some fun there is very little that can actually be broken.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tony, there used to be a group called "half man half biscuit", one of their songs was "I left my heart in Papworth general". I dont know if this help you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. From the Half man half biscuit 2002 CD "She's In Broadstairs"

    ReplyDelete
  5. Update: it seems that Google have rolled out an on page voice and video chat (plugin required). http://tinyurl.com/5qlsr8 so there is no reason why facebook can't (except they don't have that sort of money available).

    ReplyDelete