k*spot: Computers and Internet

Polyvore - it's like clueless!

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 06:54:34 GMT

Does anyone remember the movie Clueless? When Cher is picking her outfit and has a computer program to help her do it?

(Uhm, I do. I may or may not own the movie on DVD)

Anyway, check out Polyvore - this site that lets you put together outfits and share them on the web. I love that you can search and insert items from the web (from basically ANY website) and its library of images, your own images, and that you can save/share/browse outfits. The experience is really simple and easy to use (not the most elegant, but hey, its beta) and kinda fun to create your own outfits...

Patent infringment: Apple iPhone

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:34:34 GMT

Everyone's talking about how hot the Apple iPhone is and how innovative and groundbreaking it is.

Well, hate to break it to you, but I had that idea years ago, circa 1980.

Here I am kickin' it with my cousins:

Upon further inspection - yup. the first apple iphone ever.

ha ha, bad joke, i know. ny mom sent me this picture the other day and it made me smile to see me and my cousins (and my bro beside me) as kids.

cell towers

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 22:23:04 GMT

yesterday I had lunch with Dave, and somehow we got on the topic of cellphone towers and how I don't think I've ever actually noticed one before. do you know what a cell tower looks like?

Dave said that sometimes they mask cell towers as fake trees, but they're often on the top of buildings like normal antenna-type things. Is the tree thing true or am I truly guillable?

I want to see a cell phone tower masquerading as a fake tree (or a flamingo!). I found this site that maps them - (view seattle) - there seems to be one not too far away from where I work and some a couple blocks from my place.

another month of dodgeballing

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 20:57:04 GMT

after last month's dodgeball digest came out, i wanted to see what the effects of it would be on usage patterns amongst my friends. Dens and the rest of the dodgeball folks would know the real metrics on sign ups and usage (its hard to tell from the content on the splash page since it seems static/stale sometimes), but from my personal observations, the digest (and moreso the explicit exposure and competition) brought out some interesting patterns.

Personally, I'm not sure if using dodgeball has changed any of my general habits - I've always been a documenter ((mo)blogging, photo taker) and inviter (text messaging fiend) so the extra step of sending in a blanket SMS has actually been easier than sending out individual ones. I like that my check ins are available via RSS so one fine day I can easily add them to my space. I did get over my 'dodgeball is creepy' phase about 2 weeks after my entry about it since my blog has far more revealing information. I do say that I am a little embarassed to show up within the top ten of seattle, the digest gets passed around work and now I look like a party girl. I'm a homebody, I swear.

As for my friends, there was some friendly rivalry between those who made the top ten (i think more than half of them are my friends) and friendly jabbing about 'i'll beat you next month'. There was some complaining 'who are these guys checking in at each others' houses? thats not fair'. And lots of 'damn, dodgeball didn't find my location (or didnt get it at all) and so it won't count on my numbers. New rules of 'the pre-check in' popped up (dodgeball ettiquite?) and I also know people who lied about being places.

On the whole there defintely was a lot more checking in, a lot more aggregation at places and a lot of new faces and friend requests and tons more FoF messages. I also got more people responding to check ins (texting hi, asking questions) and even some random drop ins from friends from different crowds.

The flip side, the digest did put a couple people off - a friend of mine got recognized on the bus! And that its nothing but an attempt to make you feel very unpopular; Or, that you're now too cool to use dodgeball.

Either way, the digest must be doing something good, I think I got over 20 dodgeball messages last night from friends that were out.

I stayed home, of course, because I'm a homebody.

dodgeball digest - my social experiment for the next month

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 22:21:54 GMT

Talk about work meets personal life - this is the second technology related entry in a row!

Dodgeball is sending out digests now with tons of information - the top ten people checking in your city, your friends' top check ins, top places, and other fun stats from your history page. I think this is a pretty cool viral way to get people who haven't been using the service back into using it (or using encouraging them to check in the next time they're out).

I'm really interested to see what the social implications are with blast digest like this - both within the network of people you already know, and external to the group of people you know. Unfortunately this is not really a scientific study but I'm hoping to observe over the next month:

will people be more likely to check in so they can be top?
will this encourage people to ‘fake’ check ins
will this encourage other ‘top’ people to meet other ‘top’ people, or will these people get more friend requests?
will this make any of the top places even more popular (or have the opposite effect because people want to be unique and not go to the mainstream places?)
will this make me check in less because it makes me look like an lush? ;) Probably not, I think the solution is that I need to stop documenting my evenings out with photos.

anyway, comment #5 above was because I'm the #6 user in seattle this month. Though I feel better though that Vaughn, Walter and Martha are bigger lushes than me.

the awkwardness of dodgeball

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 21:23:25 GMT

So, as I've posted before on my work related space, I've been using dodgeball, a service that allows you to share your location and connect with your friends. It's pretty fun because you always know what is going on around town with your friends.

Anyway, today I got an email from the service saying that someone has a crush on me. Now, I'm sure its just one of my dorky friends being funny, but the idea of it kind of creeps me out. Yes, yes, I know already have a public space, and there is lots of info on the internet about me, but I don't like the idea that someone I don't know has explicitly called out that they're watching me (since I didn't turn off the 'dont show up on the recent check in page' they theoretically can figure out where I am if they never decide to check in), and that the service doesn't tell me who they are.

This whole thing makes me want to stop using the service. It reminds me too much of last year when I got those creepy flowers from someone and after calling the florist and having them call the sender, they still couldn't reveal the sender.

Here's their description on how it works:

Dodgeball is all about bringing people together... we'll tell your friends where you are, we'll let you know if friends-of-friends are nearby, but what about that cute girl or guy that you have nothing in common with? How are we going to hook you up?

Simple... crush lists. Whenever you check in, we'll check to see if any of your crushes are nearby. If so, we'll send a message to your phone letting you know that someone on your crush list (we won't tell you who!) is somewhere within 10 blocks (we won't tell you where!).

At the same time we'll ping your crush with a message letting them know where you are... and if they have a camera phone, we'll send your picture along, too. Who knows - if they think you're cute, maybe your crush will stop by.

Oh yeah, 5 crushes per person please. This isn't a brothel.

Hey there - someone has a crush on you. (Though we can't tell you who.)

summer camp

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 17:59:39 GMT

I've been at etech for the last couple of days listening to some pretty cool talks and meeting some interesting people in the industry. That's workie talk so I'll save that for the work blog for another day.

The e-tech experience itself has been really interesting. It's a huge contrast from the audience at the last industry related event that I went to a couple of weeks ago. E-tech has literally been like summer camp. But geekier. Getting up super early and attending all day sessions, learning about technology and playing nice with the other kids, and then evenings at a big table and then the campfire (Literally, the beach bar at the W). Little cliques forming here and there, hangers-on (the dude), trying to lose the hangers-on (we're taking a cab. and there is no room for you), event coordination over SMS, torres getting shot by a girl with a marshmallow gun. All in all, a great learning experience and a good opportunity to meet a ton of people - both from other parts of microsoft and other companies.

I'm glad to be home though - living in a hotel really isn't all that fun, even if it is the w (aka Jane's dream come true)

sandy eggroll

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 18:45:32 GMT

I'm chillin' in San Diego at the O'Reilly emerging technology conference for the next couple of days. It's a pretty interesting conference (much better than the one me and allison went to in SF). There are some definitely interesting characters here - interesting to talk to and hear their opinions, and then interesting as in 'what the?!'. There is a flikr feed for photos at the conference - though it doesn't encapsulate some of the tags that Jane and I might choose for some of the people we have seen/met here so far.

workie vs. life

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 19:18:11 GMT

I have finally decided to start posting to my work space. I definitely think it's going to be a challenge for me to post to that space regularly since I tend to not blog about work-type things.

I'll still continue to post here on a regular basis because I KNOW (haha) you all just love to hear about my oh-so-exciting life.

only YOU can save toby

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 17:58:45 GMT

This is kind of sick but oddly amusing - Save Toby. I should have done the same for Shavey Davey.