I’ve Joined the Bird Ranks (not really)

Actually, I just joined Twitter.com.   Get the bird reference?  (No, not  that bird reference, honestly!)

I’m currently unable to search on Twitter so all I have to go on are the “suggested” users, which smells a bit like “featured advertisements” with a few randoms thrown in for good measure, but that’s okay.  It’s a good place to start.

If you want to find me, I’m here:  http://twitter.com/melissabianco

Hopefully I’ll remember to update on a regular basis!  I think I should stop with Twitter and Facebook. 

I tried MySpace, but the ads and the flashing blinkies and the loud music and the black text on black backgrounds and stuff really gave my eyes a headache.  I’m huge fan of clean easy-to-read apps and unless they make me uber sad, I’m pretty loyal.  I’m sure there are other social networking sites, but I haven’t found any I can really sink my teeth into.

If anyone has a suggestion, I’m always up for hearing it!

~Melissa

Facebook Makes Me Sad (Lately)

It was bound to happen, of course.  You can’t absolutely adore a program and not have it start to disappoint eventually.

I was a recent victim of the whole “Flash Update” Facebook malicious virus.  I had a friend (whom I trusted on Facebook) send me a link that I thought was to YouTube and got the “You need to update your Flash player” message.  Unthinking, I clicked.

And then my world at work fell apart.

Suddenly, this nasty little virus took hold of my machine and immediately sent the same email I received to 20 of my Facebook friends, thus making THEM susceptible to the same virus.  As soon as I managed to get control of my computer again (trying to CLOSE Facebook simply prompted it to open more copies and then more copies…it was CRAZY!) I sent out a Facebook mail saying:

“Learn from my idiocy.  Don’t open that message from me.”

Luckily, a Facebook friend recognized the issue for what it was and sent out a message via reply-all to everyone sent that message and said it was malicious. 

I ended up having to restore back to the previous week and now I have to get a replacement computer, which means a whole lot of re-installing programs and headaches.  So, lesson learned.  I guess social programs like Facebook and MySpace are the perfect breeding ground for nasty malicious programs perpetrated by people who…I don’t know why they do these things.  I can’t fathom why – quite honestly.  Bragging rights, to me, isn’t enough of a reason — but since I’m not walking a mile in the shoes of a miscreant, I guess I don’t know.

Anyway, so that was ONE reason Facebook has made me sad lately.

The other two reasons are far more minor (though no less irritating!):

  • It takes forever to load!
  • I am not super wow’d by the new layout

Okay, I’m done nit-picking.

Oh, and the yuotube instead of youtube  — really should have been a give-away for me.  I saw that AFTER I clicked that dang video link.

Live and learn.

~peace