The word on webfetti

January 31, 2008 | 5 Responses

A liitle while ago, I made a sponsored post on this website about something called Webfetti. For one reason or another, it generated a huge amount of traffic. This lead me to look at what some people thought of the toolbar and how it was working for them.

Although it seems to have generated a serious amount of buzz, it doesn’t all seem to be positive. As a matter of fact, most of the incoming visitors were looking to uninstall webfetti.

As you might have guessed, I didn’t test the software myself. I didn’t really see a need to as I have no problem customizing my profiles manually. For others it isn’t that simple. I would definitely recommend doing a little research before installing software to customize your myspace. There are hundreds of online Myspace profile editors that will do it for you. As I mentioned in the other post, most of these sites will try to nab a backlink out of you for supplying the code to edit your profile. If this is the case, I have a quickfix for you below.

How to uninstall WebFetti

Some programs provide an uninstall; The ones that don’t can be uninstalled by going to:
Start Menu>
Control Panel>
Add/Remove Programs>
Wait for the program list to load and select the one to remove.

Then hopefully most of the program is removed, but the registry can sometimes contain leftovers.
Start>
All Programs>
Accessories>
System Tools>
Restore>

Restore to as recent a date as possible before you installed the program causing the problems. You may still need to reset some of your IE or Firefox options as this is a toolbar (and they ARE usually naughty like that).

Another option is to run REGEDIT and look for anything suspicious that starts when Windows starts.

Removing Links from your recently edited profile

Most Myspace profile editors will supply you with a large and confusing code. It will usually start with a tag that looks like this:< style type= “text/css” >< /style >
This is the part you need to keep your profile looking as it did in the editor. In order to remove the the link to the profile editor website, all you have to do is find the tag that looks like this: < a href=”http://www.pimpmyprofile.com” > Of coarse the text in between the quotations is going to be whatever site you got the script from, but you get the idea. What you need to do is highlight from the beginning tag < a href=”sitename” > to the end tag, which will look like < /a >. It may be a capitol or lowercase a, but these are anchor tags, which are what makes links.

So now you have a safer way to edit your profiles, without installing any spyware or malware carrying toolbars. A good place to start is with Thomas’ Myspace Editor. Very simple to use and can be found with a simple Google search.

Google Docs VS. MS Word

January 16, 2008 | 12 Responses

I was talking to some friends about how we all hate that the school uses Microsoft Word. After trying to find a Microsoft Word compatible word processor, many of them had given in and made the jump to actually buy microsoft software to use at home.

“WHAT?!?!” I replied in horror. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Some students use a free alternative to MS Word called Open Office. OpenOffice does everything you can do with MS Word and then some. It is probably the best open source word processor. However theres still the matter of physically transferring the document by email, usb key or whatever mobile device and then hoping it will look the same when it is printed out at school (cuz you know you don’t have any ink at home and you might as well use the school’s ink for all the college tuition your paying).

I prefer to work on and store my files in the same place with Google Docs. That way I always know I can access them on any computer anywhere. I don’t have to open my text files in any other program to read and print the documents, but if I wanted to Google exports in several useful formats such as PDF, .txt file, Word, OpenOffice format and even HTML.
I’ve also used Docs and Spreadsheets to work on group projects because we don’t have to be in the same place or even working at the same time and we can communicate and collaborate.

Apart from the collaborative features and optimum accessibility offered from Docs is the fact that you will save space on your PC and you can create and edit different types of documents all in one place. MS Word is part of Microsoft Office, a suite that installs several programs to do different types of things. Powerpoint for presentations, Word for word processing,   Outlook for emailing, Excel, Access,  and so on and so on. These are all things you can do from your Google account, most of them right inside Docs and you don’t need to install any software to do it.

If you haven’t tried Google Docs and Spreadsheets for yourself you don’t know what you’re missing. You can save yourself dozens of headaches and all you need is a Google Account.

Ruff PC the spillproof notebook

November 27, 2007 | 7 Responses

The slogan is “This May Scare Ordinary computers” and the front page of website has photos of the RuffPC literally being dragged through the mud. The new “spillproof notebook” claims to be shock resistant, mudproof, dustproof and readable in the sunlight.

The photos on the website are absolutely stellar. Its truly an exciting product and I would love to try one out for myself one day. Some of the notebooks even boast backlit keyboards. It looks like they’ve pretty much thought of everything.

The Ruff PC is built with magnesium alloy to military standards to withstand extreme environmental conditions and common causes of damage.

The Thinking Blog is holding a free laptop giveaway where all you have to to enter is write about the contest and the water resistant laptop. These things are sure to be generating a lot of buzz. I couldn’t resist putting in an entry of my own.

JustSayHi … a little clarification please?

November 27, 2007 | 1 Response

JustSayHi.com, is an enigma wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in the internet. its hard to figure out what they are getting at. The site is listed as a dating site, and from the top level of the domain, it appears to be nothing else.

The confusing part about it is the pages from within this site that turn up on StumbleUpon. Several blog related quizzes and even an entire gallery of “silly & clever” blog badges bearing slogans like “This blog will self destruct” and such really seem to throw the visitor alternate impressions.

Is it blog love?

Well, I’m not signing up to any dating community, so I guess my research isn’t exactly thorough, but is it possible they are here to drum up cases of blog boy meets blog girl? If this is the case, they aren’t quite making it clear enough what they are there for. It comes across at first as nothing more than just another online hook up spot. Besides, who else but bloggers need to look up online dating sites?

Is it just a V thang?

There is the possibility that they were just attempting some viral publicity. Perhaps these blog related pages are just meant to draw in bloggers who can’t resist posting their surveys and generating a backlink to the site’s main page. If this is the case, its pretty clever marketing. Not exactly the most ethical, but it is likely effective.

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