The Social Interweb and its effects on the Ego

So we have all seen it, all these fancy new social networking sites that have been ravaging their way through the internet, almost in the same way that a plague would ravage its way across a countryside. So now some of you might be wondering "What's with this kid's hostility toward social networking??" and I would have to answer by saying that I truly do believe that these sites are wonderful things, there are many things that i do see that are problems with them though.
I will start by saying what i find great about these sites. First, I see great potential for people to express themselves to a certain extent. By this i mean that self expression is a great thing, and these sites do allow for self expression in many ways. The one fault in this aspect is not the fault of the programmers who create these sites, the fault is universal, you can not truly express yourself in terms of just text alone. People's personalities are a product of intrapersonal interaction as well as what your likes and dislikes are. Second, the whole networking aspect of these sites that deam them the name of "social NETWORKING" sites. This is the part of the industry that is the most bastardized (yes, I love this word, I use it to describe many things, ranging from holidays to politics to industries). The way that these sites create a huge network out of all of its users, two of the greatest examples of this is Last.fm and Facebook. First, with Last.fm, the network is created by the listeners, all you have to do is run a program and listen to music, that it. Of course you can do more by editing artist's biographies in their wiki-style editor. And second, facebook, it has been getting a little heat in recent years because of some of the upgrades to their software and the decisions made by these upgrades. The one thing good about it though is that you can decide to not use these updates. But back to the networking aspect, with Facebook, you are grouped based on your college, or your hometown, or your workplace. With this, you can meet other people who could potentially live right next door to you who have some of the same interests as you. And as a very introverted college student, this is a good thing.
So now here is where I go with my issues I find with some social networking sites. First is that it almost feeds the ego, sometimes to the point where its not healthy. People whore themselves out for "friends" or bitch and complain cause someone didnt go read and comment their blog. This is one of the many reasons why I left myspace, I would sometimes find myself checking it many times a day only to find nothing, and then I would get frustrated about it. It's never a good thing.
My second issue with social networking sites is a problem that has been taken into account by the many wonderful programmers who create these sites, and that is the problem with spam and obnoxios advertising. Upon getting a secondlife account (which I plan on deleting as soon as I can figure out) I recieve an email in my gmail inbox notifying me of a friend request or something like that. I take a look at it, and from the first sentance I know it is spam. It is very much the same with myspace, there was a period over the summer where I would get about 5 friend invites a day from people who all have the same information in their profile but they all have different pictures. Its getting pathetic, if you are really that desparate for money and are a programmer, please, put your talent toward the good of the internet, not toward being a pervert who just annoys the fuck out of everyone.
So in summation, I think that the social network phenominon is a great thing, people come together thanks to the hard work of many programmers and good things can come of it. There is however the downsides which are caused mainly by the ignorant masses of people on the internet, but given enough patience, it is something that can be overcome in order to truly enjoy the perks of the social internet.

You know you're a computer nerd when...

...you spend your weekend helping your friend install Linux.

Yea, thats right, that would make me a computer nerd. Does this worry me? No, that's who i am.
But i do feel it is necessary that people understand how to use computers. Maybe it is the nerd within me that is saying this, or maybe it is the truth.
I have been working in jobs in one form of tech support or another. I had my job at my high school where my responsibility was to fix just about any sort of problem with people's computers. The thing about this job was that it was quite easy now that i look back on it. The reason for this is because i always had something to fall back on, I could always just re-image a computer and that would be the magic solution, but, the problem with that was that more people were saving their personal stuff on the local drive of the computer. This caused me to have to look for different ways to fix problems. This is where i learned the most. At least, until my job at RCC.
My job at RCC is just wonderful, I get to go and fix people's computers, and they love me for it. It does have its downside thought. There are the times where people have such a bad problem that they need to have Windows reinstalled, or a hard drive crashes and they lose some big important project that they didnt back up. I really do hate when i have to tell people that they just lost everything due to the imperfect nature of some computers.
But this brings me to my main point. The fact that i think that more poeple should at least try to learn more than they know about computers.
Computers have been around for the past 30 years or so, and since then, they have rapidly advanced to the point where they can simplify a large majority of people's lives, but only if they knew how to do it.
This is how I use computers to my advantage.
I no longer need any form of newspaper thanks to both my rss reader and digg.com. These are the two ways I can get the news that I am interested in, and filter out what i dont care about.
In order to keep in touch with people, i of course have an aim screen name, who doesn't? But who uses AOL's shitty aim program to use their aim? Thanks to the world of open-source development, i am able to enjoy the social benefits of aim, but i am also able to stay away from all the shit that is packaged with the AOL software. This is the beauty of Pidgin (and Adium on my mac). If i am making plans for the future, such as a possible party, or something i need to do, i use the power of the almighty Google to keep track of my daily events including my work schedule, and my classes as well. This gives me a visual representation of what i am doing during the day, and it can even send me a text message to remind me to go do something.
Now that i am on the subject of text messaging, I wonder how many people know how amazing and powerful Google SMS is. Check it out, it has saved me in times of hunger.
How why do people not actively look for these types of technological time savers? I havent figured that out yet. It could possibly be from the lack of motivation, or just the ability to be able to make due with what you have without a computer. But, what i see living on a college campus, (just about) everyone has a computer and all those services are out there for the discovering.
I dont know, it just seems strange to me when i go on appointments and people tell me that all they use their computer for is aim, facebook, word, and the internet. There is so much more to discover.
So i shall try to make a good list of links of stuff that i use to help use technology to make life more productive.

• Digg - a great social news site, by making an account, you can vote on news stories that you like and possibly make them popular
• Last.fm - a wonderful music networking site, think of it as a mix of facebook with music, you use their software to keep track of the music you listen to, and then you can make friends online based on your musical compatibility (which is calculated for you). And dont forget to add me as a friend!!
  
• Google Calendar - the online calendar program i use, very nice clean interface, some alternatives to this are Sunbird, the Mozilla Calendar Project, and iCal for those mac users
• Google SMS - I covered this earlier, its great to get quick results when you arent by a computer
• Google Reader - subscribe to online feeds with this, you can stay up to date on blogs (like mine!) and other news sites.
• Lifehacker - a great site that has a slew of great tricks and techniques to use technology to make your life more productive

There, i hope that maybe someone will come across this and use it to some sort of benifit in making the world more technological. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you realize that it is not your entire world. Computers are a convenience, not something to be completely reliant on.