Sep 24 2017

Keeping up

Rosemary

Given that I don’t post here on my blog in any kind of a formalized schedule, how can you make sure you never miss a post?

Because, every now and then someone out in the offline world will mention to me that… well, that they sort of check on my blog every now and again to see if I’ve posted lately.  Whenever they happen to think of it… if they do happen to think of it.

To which my general reaction tends to be something along the lines of: “Dude! Why make it hard on yourself?”

It’s pretty easy to be automatically informed when there’s a new post here.  Several ways to do it, in fact, some more nerdly than others.

Simplest way?  Are you on Facebook?  I am, and whenever I write a post here, I immediately write a post on Facebook that has a link right back here.  Actually, that’s pretty much the only stuff I post on Facebook.  Just  a link to my latest blog post.   Look for “Rosemary Kirstein — writer.”  It’s  a “page”,  not a personal account, so it’s open to all, and if you hit “like” or “follow,” any new entries of mine will show up on your regular Facebook feed.  Then, just click the link to get here.  Easy!

(I do have another account, a personal one  that’s just for family and pals.  I have to do that, out of courtesy to my family and pals.  Otherwise, all their baby pictures, political griping, and complaints about their cousin’s alcohol intake might be promulgated out to total strangers every time I hit a “like” or “angry” button.  And that would be unkind.)

Next easiest?  Twitter.  When I post a new blog post, I tweet a link.  (And some sort of accompanying wisecrack.  Because it’s Twitter.  That’s what you do.)  I am @rkirstein.  I rarely tweet, other than the blog link — but I do retweet, so if it’s interesting to you to see what’s caught my eye, there’s that.    And by the way, if you scroll down on this very page, you can see a little widget in the second column that will show you, right here, whatever I’ve tweeted or retweeted recently.

Nerdier choice: A news aggregator. I use Feedly myself, to track the blogs that I like.  You can use it online in your browser, or download an app for your phone or tablet.  It’s free — and there are others that do the job just as well. 

There are other ways, as well, including “live” bookmarks in Firefox (and similar in whatever browser you’re using), well known to the more techno-nerdy among you, I’m sure.

So, there you go.

In other news: Progress made on Book 5.  Yes.  I don’t want to jinx it, but I seem to have successfully excised the loads o’ crap that intrenched themselves into the previous iterations.  The story is making sense.

Feeling very good about this right now.

 

Fresh air helps.

 

(PS: If you read my blog on your computer, and not a tablet or smartphone, remember to hover your mouse over any photograph; very often, there’s an extra message hidden in the “tool tips” hovertext.)


May 14 2010

Will the insults never cease?

Rosemary

So, got a little email from “The Facebook Team”, saying that a facebook friend suggested I would like a page called “Is this Real!?!” They named the friend, by first and last name (I won’t name him myself – let’s call him BL), so I figured, might be legit…

When I got to the page [I forgot to include the fact that I had to log into Facebook and that it was a Facebook page], it told me “I’m about to show you the craziest thing! Is it real? Decide for yourself…. to see what I’m talking about, click the code in the following box copy and paste it into your browser’s URL box and hit enter…”

And I’m already getting suspicious, because if they have something to show me, why isn’t it on the page? Plus: the quoted comments by other viewers have that whiff of insincerity, the way a moderately skilled ad-writer sounds when faking the enthusiasm of several ostensibly different persons. Also: the one photo displayed, of a previous “crazy thing” example, was a cross between a pig and a human being… And although I don’t know BL so well as to entirely rule out the possibility that he might have a weakness for National Enquirer-style sensationalist photojournalism, it strikes me as unlikely that a man of his intelligence, wit, breadth of knowledge and social responsibility would wish to share faked pictures of pig-babies with me.

But here’s the kicker: Above the box it said: “Note: please be patient, it might take a few moments if you have a lot of friends.”

Wait, what?

If I have a lot of friends? How could my number of friends affect the loading time of a web page? And remember, we are inside Facebook at this point…

Well, there you are, you see. That’s not a web page URL they want you to copy and paste. It’s a Java script. And although I do not know enough about Java to be able to tell what a script is going to do just by looking at it, I can’t help but notice that it does refer to a “SocialGraphManager”.

Yep. They’re just trying to capture my Friends list. Which probably already happened to some friend of BL. And they’re using BL’s friends list to try get access to his friends, all the way down the line.

I have no curiosity about what photo they would show me, should I foolishly decide to actually put that script into my browser. Probably involves extremely large breasts.

All this thanks to Facebook sharing your personal connections with the whole world — unless you search out and click on that “Do Not Abuse Me and My Friends” box.

End of rant.


May 12 2010

Why there’s no new post

Rosemary

I just spent two hours this morning, and an hour yesterday dealing with the repercussions of Pandora adopting Facebook’s sleazeball marketing tactics. I had to go through layer after layer of “opt outs” in both Facebook and Pandora. In the end, nothing worked and I had to get Pandora customer service to handle it on their end.

One should not need to locate and click a “DO NOT ABUSE ME AND MY FRIENDS” option box.

Then, of course, posting complaints on Pandora’s blog…

I want my three hours back. I had plans for them.


Mar 27 2010

Because it had to be done

Rosemary

Okay, it was inevitable.   Someone was going to do this, eventually.

Apparently, that Someone has turned out to be me.

(this makes more sense if you’ve read the original)

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT FACEBOOK.

I
Your farm does not exist.
You puzzle me.

II
I was of three minds,
Facebook, Twitter, and blog.
But it was only one post,
Like a blackbird
Sitting in three trees at once.

III
Sixth grade lunch hour
Cafeteria.
Decibel level = 110.
All my friends are talking at once,
But not to me.

IV
Twenty years ago, you dumped me for no good reason.
IGNORE

V
Hello, my new friend.
I see you have become a fan of XX==>DDD.
Now, what page is that?
click
I see.
Yes, those breasts are quite large.
REMOVE CONNECTION

VI.
Eighteen years ago I dumped you
For very good reasons.
IGNORE

VI
My Fan Page is ready
One click away from Live.
click
Oh, look, I have a fan, huzzah!
No, wait, that’s me.

VII
My personal account has 32 friends.
My fan page has 7 fans.
I now understand my royalty statements.

VIII
I do not believe these are the End Times,
Nor that God has a plan for me.
I do not care that you are in an open relationship.
But my fan page is open to everyone,
And you may stay.

IX.
I commented.
I saw my comment on three pages.
Three circles of which I am the edge.

X
I’ve known you all your life
But I never knew you liked that song,
that singer.
And you never knew that I sing.

XI
They are all here
The mountebanks and preachers,
The grade-school crushes and bullies.
We find, and we are found.
But do you see the distance I have run,
or my shadow?

XII
We speak, addressing no one in particular
and wait for comments.
Where is this river going?
Where does the blackbird fly?

XIII
It was 3AM all night.
I was writing
and I was going to write.
I used a pen
And I was alone.