BKaF – Brad Kovach and Friends

In Part 1 of The Demise of Facebook, I looked at several facets of Facebook that have helped it become popular. People have always been pleased with Facebook’s simple interface layout and easy navigation, but there are some flaws in Facebook that will haunt its future.

Applications are ruining Facebook. Photo: I Started Something

Platform

In the beginning, when Facebook was limited, it provided simple features: messaging, friend lists, event management, etc. As Facebook grew, so did it’s vision. Facebook has grown from simple networking/messaging to an online social operating system. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even voiced in his F8 (ironically spells fate) Keynote that the new vision of Facebook is to become an operating system.

Facebook Platform, a mesh of extensive APIs and programming malarkey, allows developers to build on to Facebook. Developers can create applications that hook their applications into Facebook, and vice-versa.

These applications are getting a mixed reception. Some people hate them. Many like them. But all are plagued by the spam-like social nature of the applications. Some applications, such as the Picasa application, provide useful conduit to another service on the Internet. The Picasa application, for example, allows you to upload photos, using the Picasa desktop program, straight to Facebook. Other applications have missed the mark entirely.

Applications are getting out of hand. People loved the mature Facebook. It was messaging/friend-making/event-planning bliss. Facebook is locked in a gradual, deadly decline.

When I log on to Facebook, dozens of “application invites” plug up my notification area. People want to know if I want to play “Pirates vs. Ninjas”… Hell no. “Grow a plant on my profile?”… Like weed? Punch someone?… Yeah, in real life.

Application developers are loving the gigantic social graph they tap into with their applications. For example, a Stanford course on Facebook Applications was collectively able to obtain 10 million users in 10 weeks. People are raking it in, too. A do-what-you-want policy lets application developers maintain applications for no fees, and serve advertisements without penalty. This win-win model allows some application developers earn upwards of $4,000 a day.

Facebook, has been deemed the number 1 persuasive technology¹. This clout, coupled with the power of the social graph, greedy developers and a juicy API have rocketed Facebook into the online operating system world. Although capable, Facebook will never be taken seriously as an online operating system due to the fact that “Pirates vs. Ninjas” has nothing to do with productivity or networking. At all.

Citations

1. Learning to Create Engaging Apps for Facebook: What Works and What Does Not – http://www.baychi.org/calendar/20071211/#1
2. Facebook Developers | Videos – http://developers.facebook.com/videos.php

Everyone has seen the Facebook train-wreck a-coming. I’ve been doing a lot of research on Facebook and will now throw my hat into the ring: Facebook needs to shape up, or they’ll lose users with dumb mistakes, just like MySpace.

Facebook started as a social networking website with a clean interface that helped its users navigate efficiently³. Headed by college-dropout² Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook blossomed into the monstrosity that it is today. Facebook is the host of nearly 58 million profiles, with an expected beyond-60-million-member milestone set for the end of 2007¹.

Mark Zuckerberg
Photo: Facebook.com

Facebook’s beginning started in February 2004³ when Zuckerberg created it to host profiles for Harvard University, where he was then attending. Soon, Zuckerberg opened Facebook to allow any college student with a collegiate email address.

Facebook slowly opened membership to younger audiences. On September 2, 2005, high schools, also subject to exclusivity restrictions, began appearing on Facebook². No big deal. By February 27, 2007, high-school members were allowed to network with college members¹.

Facebook has slowly been opening to more demographics. Now, if you’re alive, older than 13, in school ⁴ and able to read, you can join Facebook. This greatly enriches the so-called “social graph” a term used by Zuckerberg and Facebook to illustrate the vast amount of connections people make with each other using Facebook³.

Facebook’s success shadowed that of networking behemoth MySpace. Watching MySpace’s failures, especially the “pedophile era” that everyone remembers, was beneficial for Facebook. They quickly learned that privacy, most of all, was the priority, in fact, Facebook’s homepage still touts privacy as a “top 6″ feature.

The Facebook Signup Spiel – Screen captured from Facebook.com

Facebook has had a blessed history. They had a successful beginning, a great run so far, but it’s coming to an end. Part 2 of my three-part series will focus on the social graph’s potential, and how the greed associated with a gigantic community drove Facebook to create Facebook Platform, a way for developers to connect their own application development into Facebook’s gigantic “social graph.”

And so the fun begins.

Citations

1. Facebook – From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
2. Mark Zuckerberg – From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
3. Facebook | Factsheet – From Facebook Press Page
4. Terms of Use – From Facebook

I am a fairly sensitive guy. Not like cry during Old Yeller sensitive, but cry during Schindler’s List sensitive. I’ve taken my share of smooshings of my masculinity, but hey, who hasn’t?

But now, an unstoppable force has come to power. And it is making me seriously question who I am.

My email.

Is marshaling its forces and preparing for the attack. The evil robot-invasion-destroy-humanity-attack.

You know, that one.

When I first got the emails telling me to “Prescriptions man Rx”, I was nonplussed. I laughed when I received the “If your warrior of love is too small, you may lose this war” email. I thought, “Oh, forget about it, it’s just innocent spam. No harm can come of it.”

I was wrong.

December 7, 2007. I recieved this email, from a Dr. Dominick Wolfe:

Become a real man. You Do not like your machine size. Chicks joke at you. You have good chance to solve this problem. Try our aggregate enlargement and Women will adore you sure enough. I changed my sexual life. Now it is your turn.”

At the time, I was sure that Dr. Wolfe must be the foremost scientist in his field. Though I could not remember entering my “machine” into any study. But, as Dr. Wolfe said, “become a real man”. He being an expert in such matters, I figured I had better trust his judgment. So, I sent this reply:

Dearest Dr. Wolfe,
I have the greatest interest in finding out more about aggregating enlargement. What arethe potential side effects? How many women will I be dealing with, should I undergo this procedure? Are you a native of Puerto Rico?
Most sincerely yours,
Thomas Wells

Unfortunately, I received no reply, even when I sent my credit card and social security numbers. And once again I was thwarted, because Dr. Wolfe’s research was not published on the internet as of yet.

So, it appeared that I would remain an inadequate man for the rest of my days. But then, a light in the darkness.

December 15, 2007. Dr. Augustine Pate.

Your girl does not want to jazz it with you because of your machine size. Don’t miss this perfect change to solve the trouble. All you have to do is just put to use our male organ enlargement. You will forget about problem and your woman will be happy.”

I was overwhelmed with joy. Just when I thought I had been abandoned, Dr. Pate had come to my rescue. I eagerly followed the link. I was confronted with this.

Hal 9000¹. He has taken control of my email. I was doomed. How could I have been so stupid? Magical doctors emailing me out of the blue, telling me that they would solve my man-problems. Have I learned nothing from I, Robot. Computers know everything. He could have easily read my mind through my emails.

I shut down my computer. I know it will do no good. Hal has made it self aware. It’s only a matter of time before it hacks into my house, takes control of my vacuums, my electric shavers, my iPod.
I’m doomed.

1. Hal 9000 is an evil sentient robot from 2001, A Space Odyssey. It’s a crappy movie. Don’t ever see it. I’m serious. Hal can get into your mind. (By the way, Hal is the copyright of so and so, not me, just using him for fun.)

-Tom

One Horse Shy

Bad Grammar Makes me [sic]
($20 to $30 depending on style)

Ron Paul is my homeboy
($20 to $30 depending on style)

XKCD Shirts

Stand back… I’m going to try science!
($17 unisex | $19 girl’s babydoll)

Just Shy, not anti-social. (You can talk to me)
($17 unisex | $19 girl’s babydoll)

Maybe if this shirt is witty enough, someone will finally love me
($17 unisex | $19 girl’s babydoll)

DespairWear

Made in USA… By Robots.
(Holiday Price: $13.95)

Irony
(Holiday Price: $13.95)

Hello!

Hello, my name is Thomas Wells.

I am 6′2″, have red hair, and have a terrible sense of humor.

That was a joke. Never mind.

Mr. Kovach has graciously given me the opportunity to “blog” on his website. I hope to take advantage of this—if you know what I mean.

Geez. Tough crowd.

So, without further ado, I’m going to talk about something.

I lead a pathetic, boring life.

No, really, I do. Seriously, without high school, I would totally be that guy who lives in his parent’s basement, eating Oreos with cheese, and cultivating a large beard. My daily schedule is about as exciting as a bowl of Grits.

Think I’m exaggerating? I’ll give you an example of a typical day.

1. Wake up in the morning. Cry. Take shower. Put on clothes. Eat cheerios. Drive to school.
2. Have a wild day of partying at SVHS.
3. If I don’t have drama or dance or speech, I come home.
4. At home, I engage in not-so-witty banter with my father.
5. Either play video games, eat, read, or sit and watch 24. Occasionally I go play racquetball or hockey.
6. Go to sleep.
7. (optional bonus step) A so-called friend comes to my house and plays a prank on me, causing me to cry or pee my pants.

This continues till the weekend, which is typically steps 4-7.

Well, after reading the list I just typed, I realized that my life was even more pathetic than I thought it was.

But, why am happy? Why am I not totally depressed, groping for the Häagen-Dazs or comfort?

Hold on. Dad’s calling me. He wants me to come watch 24.

Life is good.

Some woman is going to be very happy someday.

-Tom

Cheese is so good. For me, it is difficult to describe how good cheese actually is. There is plenty of evidence that cheese improves the flavor of everything*. I’ve heard that cheese is high in fat, bad for the heart, and good for the spirit. Based on that evidence some cruel, heartless people abstain from consuming cheese, especially American cheese. Whatever. I invite you, in the comments section, to contribute your own cheese vice.

* I actually couldn’t find that it enhances EVERYTHING, I simply can’t think of anything it doesn’t enhance.

Although we know that Firefox has some issues, a large portion of the internet is starting to use Firefox. As a web developer, there are several methods that I have devised to show the Internet how I browse. Using a variety of CSS and HTML tricks, I can publicize Firefox. Since my website was designed with primarily Firefox in mind, my users would benefit from switching. I’m no dummy… I’ve made my website work in the Big Four: IE6, IE7, Firefox and Safari. Through this article you should be able to learn some techniques of making IE cooperate a little more.

Firefox is gaining, but it still isn’t catching IE.

Easy: reveal something in the page.

We could use some of the advanced facets of conditional comments but we are only interested in appealing to one group of IE users: all of them. This conditional comment should do the trick…

<!--[if IE]>HTML<![endif]-->

The “HTML” is where we’ll put the IE specific content.

To show your IE users a Firefox banner, you could use…

<!--[if IE]><div id="getfirefox" style="text-align:
center"><a href="http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=0&t=216"><img
border="0" alt="Firefox 2" title="Firefox 2" src="http://sfx-images.mozilla.org/affiliates/Buttons/ firefox2/468x60FF2_Orange.png" /></a></div><![endif]-->

Simple as that. Anything inside the conditional comment will be shown to your IE users!

Easy: Reveal something with server-side scripting

Using a variety of server-side languages, you can determine whether a user is using IE or not. I prefer PHP, since I’m a WordPress junkie.

<?php
if (eregi("MSIE",getenv("HTTP_USER_AGENT")) ||
eregi("Internet Explorer",getenv("HTTP_USER_AGENT"))) {
#insert IE specific code here.
}
?>

Method 3: CSS

You can easily assign classes to elements that will make a Firefox link look extra Firefoxy. This particular example will push over a link to make room for a little Firefox icon.

.firefox {
padding-left: 20px;
background: URL(firefox.png) no-repeat !important;
}

Now, in my web pages, I can assign this to anything I’d like, including links that would let you download Firefox. To make this link, I simply added the Firefox class to the link…

<a href="http://www.spreadfirefox.com" class="firefox">links that would let you download Firefox.</a>

Other uses for conditional comments

Aside from using conditional comments to evangelize Firefox, I’ve also used them to keep my valid CSS code hack-free. In some of my websites, such as ones I did for Lincoln County School District #2, it wasn’t appropriate to force an opinion on users. However, It is very appropriate to warn the users that they are using an old version of their browser.

In the case of IE7 being the latest and greatest breed if Internet Explorer, the following code will tell users that an upgrade is available for them. If you want the background as well, you’ll have to change the URL(ielogo.jpg) part to match a background image that you like.

<!--[if !IE 7]></p>
<div id="ieupgrade" style="background: URL(ielogo.jpg)
no-repeat; padding: 10px 15px 10px 200px; text-align: right;">
<h2>Uh-oh!</h2>
<p>Although we’ve taken every possible step to ensure our site
works well with your computer, your browser is out of date!</p>
<h3><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx"
target="_blank">update now »</a></h3>
</div>
<p><![endif]-->

Conclusions

Although good web developers shouldn’t be narrow-minded and develop for one browser, evangelism of a safer Internet is certainly worthwhile. Any action to help your users make a security-conscious decision is a good action. Do it.

Citations

• How to block MS Internet Explorer from your site… [http://www.devin.com/ieblock_howto.shtml]
• About Conditional Comments [http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537512.aspx]

From The Onion

271 are dead after an Onion News Network Special Investigative Report on airport security.

Reporters Expose Airport Security Lapses By Blowing Up Plane

I’d like to be the first to introduce the 7.0 redesign, aka Brad Kovach zen.0. It is designed to be a simple but elegant theme that facilitates the newer, mob-like mentality of the Internet.

It provides a visual refresh while enhancing usability. It’s built with design concepts in mind, such as a baseline grid, although it isn’t perfect.

For now, you should only enjoy it (if you like it). Everything works as it should. If something looks funny, the reason is that your browser is too old. If you enjoy Internet Explorer, try Firefox before upgrading to Internet Explorer 7. I have tested this site in Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Firefox and Safari.