Nani huyu?

Tulsa Downtown Food

adam — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:55:00 +0000

It has come to my attention that people in Tulsa who work downtown are not aware of many of the great places to eat downtown for lunch. So I created a map of all the places I know about. Please let me know if I missed anything.

Tulsa Downtown Food Map

Facebook Thinks I’m Gay - Part 2

adam — Sun, 18 May 2008 15:02:33 +0000

In summation of an earlier post, advertisements for gay social networks appearing on my profile led me to believe that Facebook thinks I’m gay. But new information has arrived. In an article by techcrunch, it is reported that on Facebook,

If you click on an ad…then the same ad will be shown to all of your friends, who supposedly are two to ten times more likely to click on the ad than other people.

I therefore conclude that facebook does not think I’m gay, but rather facebook thinks all of you are gay.

Data Portablility

adam — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:24:30 +0000

When Facebook released the News Feed they didn’t decrease anyone’s privacy. They simply showed everyone exactly what they were revealing. Facebook made sharing data so easy that people didn’t realize what they were sharing. But micromanaging data online makes people less likely to share. So where’s the balance?

Flickr uses a term called ‘privacy through obscurity’ where they make data easy to share privately, but it’s not actually private. It’s the idea of emailing a random URL to a friend. That friend could, in turn, email the link to the world, but they probably won’t, cuz you wouldn’t have send them the link if you thought they would. And you can always change the URL.

Oauth kind of falls into this bucket. You can give a third party website a token to access to your data. In turn, they could share that token with the world. But they probably won’t, and you could always change the token.

But how do we define what data is shared? Let say I have some data, a photo for example. It has a static amount of value to me living on my computer. I add that photo to a social network and it accrues new value and new meaning as people comment on the photo. I can take my photo back, or move it to a new social network, but I can’t take the comments with me. And even if I could, should I be able to? Who owns those comments? Do I have the right to share those comments with the world?

Sync ALL your Google calendars to your iPhone

adam — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:52:10 +0000

Problem:

You can only sync your default Google calendar to Outlook calendar using Google Calendar Sync, but you want to sync ALL your calendars.

The Not-quite Solution:

The easiest way is to merge all your Google calendars into your default Google calendar, but then you lose the pretty colors and Google is likely to release an update in the future that will make this entire article moot. The goal here is a temporary solution that is completely reversible and merging your calendars is not reversible.

Solution:

The following steps assume your default Google calendar is labeled ‘Personal’ and you have additional calendars you would like to sync.

Configure Google Calendar
1. Rename your ‘Personal’ calendar ‘All’
2. Create a new calendar called ‘Personal’ and move all events from ‘All’ to ‘Personal’
3. Hide all calendars except ‘All’
Configure your PC
1. Install RemoteCalendars (Outlook plugin for iCal support)
2. For each Google calendar except ‘All’, copy the iCal private url from Google Calendar into RemoteCalendars in Outlook (Do not copy you default calendar, labeled ‘All’, or you’ll create a ton of duplicates)
3. Install Google Calendar Sync and set it to sync 2-way

When your done your sync flow should look like this:

iTunes will grab changes you made on your iPhone and add them to Outlook
Outlook will grab changes you made on Google Calendars
Google Calendar Sync will push all changes to Google Calendars
iTunes will push all changes to iPhone

The Catch:

If you add/edit an event in the ‘All’ calendar on Google Calendars, it won’t get synced. So you’ll need to remember to always add events to calendars other than ‘All’. Remember, the idea here is to maintain separate calendars until Google releases a Calendar Sync version that supports multiple calendars.

UPDATED October 2nd, 2008

Apple recently released iPhone 2.0 software which sinces multiple calendars using either Microsoft Exchange of Apple’s MobileMe.

ZoneAlarm Blocks iPhone Sync

adam — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:38:16 +0000

Problem:

I may be the only person who has ever had this problem, but if you use ZoneAlarm as a firewall, it can prevent your iPhone from syncing with iTunes. It can even prevent iTunes from recognizing that your iPhone is plugged in.

Solution:

The only solution I could find was to disable program control. However, this could potentially allow malicious programs to send and receive data. Assuming you use a good anti-virus solution (I recommend avast), you shouldn’t need to worry about getting malicous programs in the first place. However, I went ahead and enabled the default windows firewall to be safe.

Jury Duty - Day 3

adam — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:24:47 +0000

Well, that’s that. I was officially release from Jury Duty today. I feel cheated. What promised to be a great adventure turned out to be rather tedious. I wish I could tell you some great story of how I decided the fate of another human being, but alas I cannot. I can tell you that watching 5 hrs of movies on an iPod Nano can give you a serious crick in the neck.

My favorite quote from Jury Duty:

( in response to his name being called for placement on a Jury panel ) “Hang’em high!”

Jury Duty - Day 2

adam — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:40:37 +0000

Waited for 3 hours for the judge to notify us that the defendant had taken the plea bargain of 1 year jail time. Which means that, although I sat in the jurors box, I wasn’t actually involved in a court case. Maybe tomorrow will be more court time and less waiting. But just in case I’m putting the original Die Hard trilogy on my iPod.

Jury Duty - Day 1

adam — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:51:47 +0000

“Stand in line.”
“Sign here.”
“Sit anywhere you like.”
“Mr. Kuert, you need to be in the line for L-Z”, “but Kuert starts with…yes ma’am.”
“Stand on the bricks.”
“Be back at 3.”
“Don’t stand on the bricks.”
“Sorry for the wait…wait here.”
“Quiet please.”
“Wait here.”
“Take a seat.”
“All rise. You may be seated. Stand and raise your right hand. Please be seated.”
“Be back at 9. If you’re late, you’ll be arrested and fined.”

The inconvience of electricity

adam — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:37:38 +0000

My house, which faired better than my neighbors, was without electricity for seven and a half days. I probably would have gone crazy, but I grew up in a country that had frequent water and power outages, so I was accustom to such inconveniences.

I’ve been reading a about many parts of Zimbabwe, Somalia, Sudan, and other countries where my most inconvenient day would be considered a blessing. It seems to me that I should be more grateful for the comforts I have. I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy the benefits of my electrically convenience life, but I feel a little perspective is in order.

The last week was a fresh reminder, a small taste of what life is like for many around the world. I do not regret the experience. Rather, I find myself pondering if I need to endure such hardships more often.

Of the nearly 300,000 people who lost power, there are still several thousand without electricity almost 9 days later.

Facebook thinks I’m gay

adam — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:34:49 +0000

Someone once asked what business McDonalds is in. The response was predictable, “they make burgers.” However the answer is very different:

“We are in the real estate business. The only reason we sell hamburgers is because they are the greatest producer of revenue from which our tenants can pay us rent.”¹

Similarly, it can be asked what business Facebook is in and the subsequent response, “social networking,” would be misguided.

Facebook is an advertising platform that specializes in targeted advertising. They gather data about your usage on Facebook (and 40+ other sites) in order to server up advertising that you’re more likely to click on.

So here’s the kicker…today I saw an ad for “the fastest growing gay social network for gay men” on my Facebook profile. So this brings me to one of two conclusions: One, Facebook thinks I’m gay. Or Two, Facebook thinks that people who look at my profile are gay.

I don’t mind advertising as a means of sustaining freely available online services, but I never signed up for sexual or provocative advertising. And I’m not about to start clicking on it, so it’s a waste of my time and their money to show it to me.

I was once so proud of Facebook. But I have been perturbed by recent events. I currently work for a company whose primary business model is advertising. And I hope that my disgust with Facebook will help shape our companies future for everyone’s best interests.

1. http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=mcdonald’s