Skip to main content

FriendFeed sounds cooler than it is?

General disclaimer: I haven't looked into this intensively and I hope that someone will leave a comment explaining how to fix my frustrations with this service.

I first heard about FriendFeed from one of Brett's blog posts. I thought, "that sounds cool!" Later, Will invited me, and again I thought "cool!" Today I got an email saying that Will and Bill had commented on my feed. Cool! How did they do that?

Five minutes later, after I found my "Friend Feed" and added it to Google Reader, I had my answer. I was also immediately annoyed.
  • My "Friends Feed," which is the one I assume is supposed to make my life easier by aggregating everything my friends do into one feed, includes things I did as well instead of just things my friends did. I don't need to be reminded of everything I do on the web. I was there after all. FriendFeed really needs to let me filter out stuff I don't care about.
  • I really don't like micro-blogs. They're boring. Not all of my friends subscribe to this notion, however. Beacuse of this, while reading my "Friends Feed," I am constantly interrupted with boring micro-blog turds. FriendFeed needs to let me filter out services I don't care about.
  • I really don't like bookmark feeds. People bookmark all sorts of things, and the bookmark itself contains no content, which by my definition, makes them completely uninteresting to read about in my feed reader. FriendFeed really really needs to let me filter out services I don't care about.
Having friends comment on my shared items, blogs posts, photos, etc. is great. Otherwise, I remain unconvinced.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Python on Android

Note: This post is out of date. If you'd like to run Python on your Android device, please see my Android Scripting Environment project. Here's an early Christmas present for all those Python fanatics (self included) out there! With a lot of help from my friends (thanks Manuel and Thomas !) I managed to install Python 2.4.5 on my G1. It's still rough around the edges, but I think it's a good start. Klaus Reimer has a nice overview of how to cross-compile Python . My instructions borrow a lot from his. Download and build the Android source . These directions assume that you have installed the source to /android_src . Download and build the Python 2.4.5 source . These directions assume that you have installed the source to /python_src . Make copies of python and pgen for use later in the build process then clean up. $ cd /python_src $ cp python hostpython $ cp Parser/pgen Parser/hostpgen $ make distclean Apply the following patch to the Python source. diff -r -c -b P...
Read more

Email Injection

Not so long ago, I ran a wiki called SecurePHP. On that wiki, there was one particular article about email injection that received a lot of attention. Naturally, with all the attention came lots of spam. As a result, I disabled editing of the wiki and content stagnated. Still, the email injection article remained popular. About a year later, the server that hosted SecurePHP died and I never had a chance to hook it all back up. I saved the article though and I'm reposting it now. It may be a bit old (I've been away from PHP for a long time), and I didn't write all of it, so feel free to leave comments about needed updates and corrections. Though this article focuses on PHP, it provides a lot of general information regarding email injection attacks. The PHP mail() Function There are a lot of ways to send anonymous emails, some use it to mass mail, some use it to spoof identity, and some (a few) use it to send email anonymously. Usually a web mailform using the mail() funct...
Read more

Unblock Us Security

Unblock Us is an interesting solution to viewing region locked content online. Instead of offering VPN services, they offer a DNS-based solution. By using their DNS servers, geolocation requests by services such as Hulu and Pandora are directed through a geographically appropriate proxy. The remainder of your traffic (e.g. the video or audio stream) is accessed directly. That means you can make use of your connection's full bandwidth. Conversely, VPN connections often decrease your connection speed significantly. However, the DNS solution has security implications. As a DNS provider, Unblock Us is the in perfect position to perform a man in the middle attack . After all, that's what they're doing to sites like Hulu. (Note that SSL connections are safe from man in the middle attacks.) If you trust Unblock Us, then this isn't a problem. If you don't, it's best to limit the traffic that uses their DNS servers. The remainder of your traffic should use a trusted ...
Read more