So I'm checking up on MySpace this weekend and I get a new friend request from someone I don't know. My first instinct is to Mark It As Spam. But sometimes I check out the profile to see if it's a real person or if it's the usual "Come see my pornographic pictures on another site" request.

Turns out it's some 15 14*-year old girl living somewhere in California Georgia**. Usually most friend requests that come from people I don't know and aren't spam are usually musicians that want to promote themselves through me or random people who find some interest in me, usually by finding a blog entry of mine. So I figured this girl was the latter.

So I added this girl because I figured, "What's the harm?" Whatever. It's one more friend. Most people on MySpace just collect friends. Most people they don't actually know, so whatever. I've seen people with 1,000 friends. I feel like a loser because I only have 70.

I see this girl post a couple of bulletins shortly after. One of which is the exact same survey that I forwarded on from ?uestLove, Songs In The Key Of Life (Childhood-Adulthood). I read it and most of the answers are the exact same as mine. HAH! I mean verbatim.

That's awesome! My very first MySpace groupie. Hahaha!

It's awesome to know that I'm corrupting 15 14*-year old minds in small towns in California Georgia**.

So come on and be my friend because I'm a loser and I need the attention. Hahaha!



RETRACTIONS:
*-OK, so she was 14, not 15. Woot. ;)
**-And she was from Covington, Georgia not California. Easy mistake to make when you're drunk; CA for GA. Hah!

Labels: Blogging, MySpace

Just the simple fact that the blogs in MySpace can't be cross-posted or imported.

If I write a blog post on this site, I can let Facebook import my XML Feed and blammo, instant cross-post into their Notes feature.

With MySpace, I literally have to manually copy and paste every blog post I write and re-post it in MySpace. For someone who posts regularly, this is an incredible pain in the ass. On top of that, MySpace's wysiwyg editor is complete crap. If I post markup that for example, has a <table> tag in it, MySpace thinks they're clever and scrubs it out and replaces it with bad markup. Their scrubbed markup is not even close to XHTML-compliant (or even HTML-compliant), so I'm limited in what I can actually post to MySpace.

Labels: Blogger, Blogging, Facebook, MySpace, Pop Culture, Technology

Y'all aint even heard from my ass in the 08.

I been busy as a sumummabitch through the New Year. Working on the new release of YellowBook.com, but I promise I've got posts in the queue, ready to back date.

So stay tuned, campers. There's a whole bunch coming.

Labels: Blogging, Life, Website, Work

You know, Facebook kicks so much ass over MySpace.

MySpace is good for a public identity. Like if you're a band or a comic or a celebrity or something and you need a web presence, MySpace is the way to do it. It's a quick way to get a feature-laden web site up for free with built-in publicity. Easy. Simple. Done.

Facebook on the other hand is much better for the personal level of social networking. In stark contrast to MySpace, you're not riddled with random friend requests, otherwise known as MySpace Spam. Friends on Facebook are grouped by their affiliation with you (high school, college, job, etc.) making them much easier to find because they are targeted searches. you will actually have a network of your friends. MySpace is kind of a free-for-all. Any random schmuck will try to be your friend.

Facebook is MUCH cleaner, prettier, more functional than MySpace. MySpace offers its users the ability to customize their layout, but that usually leads to someone putting as much garbage as they can in a layout, which then makes the layout slower, offensive, or non-functional to the casual viewer. When I just want to add you as a friend, I don't want to sit and wait for your layout to load, with your f***ed up graphics and your music player blasting Omarion at me. I just want to add you ass a friend. Some of m best friends on MySpace have the poorest choices in layouts.

Facebook has the ability to add and or design fun web applications which can be installed like plug-ins to a user's profile. This alone creates business/developer/strategic partnerships with Facebook, something MySpace is currently unable to capitalize on.

Facebook is geared much more to Web 2.0. If you don't know or understand what Web 2.0 is, then don't bother reading this section. Rather than having pages laden with large blocky advertisements and javascript errors like MySpace does, Facebook is slick, easy to use, easy to navigate, and takes advantage of those things that should be used when designing in Web 2.0, like AJAX. The bottom line is that Web 2.0 is supposed to be all about the user experience (usability). MySpace is clunky kludgy, hard to use, riddled with errors, and undergoes maintenance nearly every other week, which usually doesn't fix some of its major issues. Facebook on the other hand is clean, cutting edge, feature rich, functional, and very rarely (although I have spotted a few, no question) has errors. Or at least has significantly fewer errors than MySpace.

I've even heard multiple companies (including the one I work for) including Facebook applications as part of their overall product base. How often does that happen? Although, granted a lot of media (TV/Film/Radio/Music/Comedy) includes MySpace as part of publicity campaigns, so I will give them credit for that.

It seems like you could break down your major social networking sites like this:
Professional: LinkedIn
Media/Entertainment: MySpace
Personal: Facebook

Facebook just seems like more of a personal touch to me. Although yes, I will continue to use both, I'm going to begin gravitating more toward Facebook.

Labels: Blogging, Facebook, Games, iTunes, Javascript, MySpace, Pop Culture, Programming, Rants, Scams, Technology, Web Development

Some of you may be wondering why I've been up since 7:30 AM blogging.





















Oh, were you waiting for an answer?



















I got nothing.

Labels: Blogging

Blogger Just started including the ability to have podcast enclosures for each post. Well done, Blogger. Now you've caught up to what even MySpace has had for over a year. ;-)

Labels: Blogger, Blogging, MySpace

You know blogging has been good for me. It keeps me from writing the book I've always wanted to, I'm OK, You're OK, but that mother fucker...

If I were to write that it would be a cynical, incessant rant on the stupidity and gullibility of the American public. Truly a jaded view of the world. I would have so many pseudo-psychological theories as to why people are the way they are and how to deal with them.

At least with blogging, I get to vent in small increments. Im' a very take no prisoners kind of guy.

Oh well. Maybe someday I'll still write the book. I would probably make a mint from it. But for now, I'll just stick to this.

Labels: Blogging, Rants

This is fun to do. It was just passed around MySpace. Just read the "offense" and if you've done it, you owe that fine. Keep going until you've read each "offense" and added up your total fine. Title your bulletin "My Bar Tab is $........" You don't have to confess your answers, just the amount of your fine.

Smoked pot -- $10
Fo' shizzle, my nizzle. The stickiest of the icky, baby.

Did acid -- $5
Only once in Valley Forge Park. I swear I thought that bear was talking to me. He had some profound shit to say.

Ever had sex at church -- $25
Um, No. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to hell.

Woke up in the morning and did not know the person who was next to you -- $40
One day I'll tell you about the time I woke up in Voorhies, NJ.

Had sex with someone on My Space -- $25
Have never gotten the MySpace lay.

Had sex for money -- $100
Sadly I'm not a whore. Oh, who am I kidding? If you've got the money, honey...

Ever had sex with the a Puerto Rican -- $20
She was half Puerto Rican. Does that count? Do I only add $10?

Vandalized something -- $20
You know how it says 'AEON' on that overpass on 202 N around Devon? Yet, despite what people think, I was NOT the one tagging BPT all over town and I did NOT spray paint "Kiss my Black Ass!" on the side of the High School building.

Had sex on your parents' bed -- $10
Ewww! No.

Beat up someone -- $20
Stomped the ever-lovin monkey shit out of someone.

Been jumped -- $10
Been jumped for so many reasons. Mistaken identity, random drunken beating...

Crossed dressed -- $10
Hey, it was powder puff football. Everybody did it. The football team, the cheerleaders, and the marching band. ;-)

Given money to stripper -- $25
Everything I had and more. Damn you.

Been in love with a stripper -- $20
Yeah. What was I thinking?

Kissed some one who's name you didn't know --$10
Yeah that's happened. ...And what's your name?

Hit on someone of the same sex while at work-- $15
Sorry, don't swing that way. Whether it's at work or not.

Ever drive drunk -- $20
Not too drunk. Sure after I've had a few, I've noticed my judgement's impaired. I'm a little more careful. Never pissy drunk, though.

Ever got drunk at work, or went to work while still drunk -- $50
Used to do that every Friday. Still would If I still worked there.

Used toys while having sex -- $30
No ass clowns, please.

Got drunk, passed out and don't remember the night before -- $20
I refer back to the Voorhies, NJ story.

Went skinny dipping -- $5
Nah, no pools (at the time)

Had sex in a pool -- $20
Splish splash, baby. ;-)

Kissed someone of the same sex -- $10
Alright once, but only to mess with his mind. Yecch!

Had sex with someone of the same sex -- $20
HEEEELLLLLLLs NO!

Cheated on your significant other -- $10
I never cheat.

Masturbated -- $10
Come on. I'm masturbating right now.

Cheated on your significant other with their relative or close friend --$20
Again, I've never cheated.

Done oral -- $5
I eat pussy with chopsticks.

Got oral -- $5
Hells yes.

Done / got oral in a car while it was moving -- $25
Wow. That would be hard to give oral in a moving car. Unless it wasn't the driver.

Stole something -- $10
I used to be a master thief. Only ever got caught a handful of times. And on the stupidest stuff, though. $150 fine for a bottle of Yoohoo.

Had sex with someone in jail -- $25
No man-bitch prison he-sex. I hear there's no cuddling after. Just a lot of tears.

Made a nasty home video -- $15
Never got freaky with a camera.

Had a threesome -- $50
In my youth.

Had sex in the wild -- $20
The wild? I guess Valley Forge Park counts. With the deer onlooking.

Been in the same room while someone was having sex -- $25
Sadly, yes.

Stole something worth over more than a hundred dollars -- $20
Damn straight.

Had sex with someone 10 years older -- $20
No Mrs. Robinsons in my past.

Had sex with someone under 21 and you are over 27 -- $25
No Woody Allen moments, either.

Been in love with two people or more at the same time -- $50
I'm pretty monagymous

Said you love someone but didn't mean it -- $25
Yes. See above (stripper). Also didn't say I loved someone when I did.

Went streaking -- $5
I don't think you're ready for this jelly.

Went streaking in broad daylight -- $15
Never exactly had that particular urge.

Been arrested -- $5
Yes, fuckers.

Spent time in jail -- $15
Yes. Jail is not prison. There IS a difference.

Peed in the pool -- $0.50
Welcome to our OOL. You'll notice that there is no 'P' in it. Please keep it that way.

Played spin the bottle -- $5
I remember the first time I played that. In the parking lot behing the Denny's in King of Prussia. I got to kiss Kelly Blaugh. Damn she was hot. Fuck I'm a good kisser. Made my millennium.

Done something you regret -- $20
Falling in love with a stripper.

Had sex with your best friend -- $20
An interesting quandary. I think your lover should be your best friend. So yes.

Had sex with someone you work with at work -- $25
Never dip my pen in the company ink. Thought about it. But never did it.

Had anal sex -- $80
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Lied to your mate -- $5
Only the standard little lies. You know. No, that dress doesn't make you look fat.

Lied to your mate about the sex being good -- $25
It's never bad! (That's not necessarily true)


O. K , now tally up your answers, then, click forward to send to the all of the people you want to take the test...... In the subject of you forward put your "My Bar Tab Is... (your total) Now send to all your friends and back to the person who sent it to you.

Labels: Blogging, Comedy, Games, Hot Bitches, MySpace, Strip clubs

So I decided to have a little more fun with the facial recognition software on MyHeritage.com.

Yet again, not one brother.

This time, it came up with Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ricky Martin, and Darren Hayes. Well, at least it's one Puerto Rican. It's not entirely a snow white cast.

BTW, who the hell is Darren Hayes?

http://www.myheritage.com

Labels: Blogging, MySpace, Technology

This was an interesting little diversion.

I see more and more of these popping up all over MySpace, so I decided to give them a try.

MyHeritage.com uses facial recognition software to take a photo of you and match it up with photots they have of celebrities. I took a stock photo of myself and gave it a whirl.

The funny thing is that there's not a single brother in the bunch. None of these guys even look remotely like me :o)

But whatever. It was fun. Give it a try. All you need is an E-Mail address.

Labels: Blogging, MySpace, Technology

I had been spending a lot of time working on my website. I can remember a good portion of time went into writing an HttpModule to identify pages generated by Blogger and apply an HttpFilter to produce server generated content based on static markup in those pages.

A brief explanation...

Blogger (the way I have it configured) generates HTML pages for each post, organized by date, an index HTML page for the home page, archive pages, etc. All of them static HTML, generated from a template. Then Blogger FTP's them up to my site. Simple for static content, right?

My HttpModule knows, through its own configurations, which folders on my site contain blog HTML files. If one is requested, it attaches an HttpFilter which scours the content using Regular Expressions, looking for markup that I designate. When it finds that markup, it replaces it with dynamic content, such as UserControls containing menus, Ad rotators, links, etc. It added a little overhead to the processing time of rendering a static page, but for the dynamic content, it was worth it for me.

I spent a couple of weeks building this very slick solution. It ostensively converted static content to dynamic.

A couple of days ago, while working on another section of the site using a Master Page, it hit me. Blogger lets me configure the names of files that it generates. It doesn't HAVE to be .html. Why couldn't it be .aspx, inherit a generic BlogPage class, and use a Master Page?

Holy crap what a great idea! Why hadn't that come to me in like a year? That would save me so much time and effort in updating my blog template.

I used to use a Master Page (several, actually) for the rest of the site, fish out the static content for a page once it was rendered, then apply it to my blog template so that my posts could look and behave like the rest of the site. This meant that any change to my Master Page, or to configurable dynamic content would mean that I would have to update the template and republish my entire blog. This also meant keeping a huge amount of static markup in my template which made diagnosing problems that much more difficult.

So I'm sure the question all of you want answered is, "So how do I use Master Pages and blogger content together?"

Well, I'm glad you asked.

1. Start by creating a BlogPage base class in your App_Code directory.
   
   Public MustInherit Class BlogPage
       Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
   
       Protected WithEvents TitleContent As System.Web.UI.WebControls.Literal
   
       Private Sub Page_Init(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Init
           ' Apply the TitleContent's inner Text to the title, overriding the Title
           ' property defined at the page-level
           If ((Not Me.TitleContent Is Nothing) AndAlso (String.IsNullOrEmpty(Me.TitleContent.Text.Trim()) = False)) Then
               Me.Title = Me.TitleContent.Text.Trim()
               Me.TitleContent.Visible = False
           End If
       End Sub
   
   End Class


2. Then create a Master page for your blog content.
   
   <%@ Master Language="VB" Inherits="MyBlogMaster" CodeFile="MyBlogMaster.master.vb" %>
   <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
   <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
   <head runat="server" id="head">
       <title>My Blog Master Page</title>
   </head>
   <body>
       <form id="aspNetForm" runat="server">
           <!-- BEGIN BODY CONTENT -->
           <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="BodyContent" runat="server">
               INSERT BLOG CONTENT HERE!
           </asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
           <!-- END BODY CONTENT -->
       </form>
   </body>
   </html>


3. Update your Blogger settings to generate .aspx pages, rather than .html pages
   
   


4. Update your Blogger Template to generate ASPX pages (Web Forms with no codebehind) that will inherit from your base page and consume your Master Page.
   
   <%@ Page Language="VB" MasterPageFile="MyBlogMaster.master" AutoEventWireup="false" Inherits="BlogPage" title="My Blog Page" %>
   
   <asp:Content ID="BodyContent1" ContentPlaceHolderID="BodyContent" runat="server">
   <asp:Literal id="TitleContent" runat="server" Visible="false"><$BlogPageTitle$></asp:Literal>
   
   <Blogger>
   
   <BlogDateHeader>
   <p class="dateheader"><$BlogDateHeaderDate$></p>
   </BlogDateHeader>
   
   <a id="<$BlogItemNumber$>" />
   <BlogItemTitle>
   <p class="posttitle" id="BlogItemTitle<$BlogItemNumber$>">
   <BlogItemUrl><a href="<$BlogItemURL$>" title="<$BlogItemURL$>"></BlogItemUrl>
   <$BlogItemTitle$>
   <BlogItemUrl></a></BlogItemUrl>
   </p>
   
   </BlogItemTitle>
   
   
   
   <div class="post-body">
   <p>
   <$BlogItemBody$>
   </p>
   </div>
   
   </Blogger>
   </asp:Content>

Oh my god! How much smaller is my template now? I don't have to port all that static markup in the template. If I ever need to change something, I can just change the Master Page and have it propogate all the way through every blog item page. Yay! How long did it take to implement? Well, let's put it this way, It took longer for me to write this post than it did to implement this entire solution.

Now of course I now have the problem of search engines having defunct links. Simple fix. I changed the behavior of my existing HttpModule to send 301 (Permanently Moved) HTTP statuses for any requests to the old .html pages to the new .aspx pages, rather than applying the HttpFilter to convert the static content to dynamic. Sweet!

Labels: ASP.Net, Blogger, Blogging, Programming, Technology, VB.Net, Web Development