Today is Download Day!

From my stats I know that half of you already use Firefox, you guys get cupcakes. Before I'll even consider cracking open my second Tupperware full of cupcakes, the rest of you need to download Firefox.

Why do I use Firefox?

• Firefox renders websites correctly, IE masks coding errors.


• By using Firefox you're helping web developers look to the future, rather than spend so much time on backwards compatibility.


• Add-ons! I have a boat load of add-ons, from StumbleUpon to Firebug. Handiest things EVER.


• It makes you cool. No word of a lie.

Why do you use Firefox?

If you've got a Twitter account you might have experienced the really irritating outages that have been happening of late, but never fear! Plurk is here to save you from your dawdling moments on the internet! I got an account a few days ago, and I've been addicted ever since.

Reasons why you should stop Tweeting and start Plurking:

• The interface - it's a gantt chart! Some say it's tricky to get a hang of, but I thought it was pretty easy: new plurks appear on the left, old plurks disappear to the right.


• Karma! Karma is like crack. You will find yourself plurking, re-plurking, sharing and commenting to increase your stats and get more emoticons and other easter eggs.


• It's like a social micro-blogging IM system - you can have conversations in response to your friends' plurks. New responses appear in real time.


• Everyone is really friendly. The userbase is reportedly around 8000, which isn't much, so everyone seems really friendly. I find Twitter to be very impersonal, and find it hard to really connect with people there, even people I know in real life!


• This is real networking. You can share links, images and videos with your friends and then discuss them!


• Permalinked plurks. You can @message other users like on Twitter, but Plurk has permalinks for all plurks and responses, so you can refer to them forever! Check out one of my plurk permalinks.


• Plurk has its own language.

So, if you're interested in jumping ship or if you've never tried micro-blogging before - why not have a look? I have linked to my referral page, so when you sign up you'll instantly be my friend and start following my plurks. It also means I get points that go towards earning stars!

Of course, you don't have to use the referral link but stars are nice, aren't they? :P

Let me tell you the story about three little blogging platforms, Twitter, Tumblr and Plurk. It all started with a girl who liked to explore the minutiae of people's lives...



I tried to get into this style of blogging early last year, starting with Pownce. Random people started offering me files like they were big boxes of chocolates, and it all got a bit scary to be truthful. Then, people told me "If you don't Twitter, you're not cool!" So I got an account to test the waters and pretty much left it there. I wasn't interested in receiving sms updates, and having to return to the actual site to read updates was wearying.

Then, riding on a white horse from the horizon came Twirl, and it totally rejigged how I used Twitter. Basically, I can tweet from my desktop and get real time tweets from the people I follow - all packaged in a lovely little interface that isn't too annoying.



I had eyed Tumblr from across the room, and even rubbed elbows with eatsleepdraw a few times until it clicked that this was Twitter but with images. Finally, something I could get REALLY jazzed about. I use it to post work in progress, finished pieces and inspirational images, as well as random quotes and conversation snippets.

One drawback is that in its natural state, comments aren't available. However, using Disqus you can plug comments in as a kind of elegant work around. I've noticed that Tumblr isn't very active or community driven, which is weirding me out because usually when you join sites you get a few people meeting and greeting and handing out the complimentary champagne and stuff, but I haven't had one smidgen of human interaction there yet - maybe it has something to do with the comments being an optional extra? I do love Tumblr, but I want to talk to people!



Suddenly, Plurk comes creeping around the corner in an onomatopoeic fashion. You can post what you're doing; how you're feeling; what you're wanting; images, videos and links. BUT! IN GANT CHART FORM. I think one of my friends joined up just based on this alone!

So, you and your friends' plurks are arranged in a gant chart - or a timeline - but what sets it apart from Twitter is there's some kind of mysterious karma system that seems to encourage community driven activity. The whole concept is intriguing, but without a desktop client or sms functionality, it might be something that loses its sheen really quickly. Pity it didn't come in a box that I could play with when I tire of it!

Wanna micro-blog with me?
Twitter
Tumblr
Plurk

This strangely moves me... and by the way, how amazing is it that you can now post videos on Flickr?

I found it on TwitBuzz, after rediscovering my own neglected Twitter account. Join me! It's (reportedly) the cool thing to do. Maybe one day I'll Twitter about something incredibly embarrassing and instantly regret ever signing up for an account. And then I'll Twitter about that regret.

I have heard rumours that Twitter is addictive, but I'm still not convinced. Maybe because I don't have my sms messages enabled. Maybe because I'm not following enough people. I'm not sure what the magic formula for Twitter addiction is. Perhaps if I give it a chance, and let it invade my life, I will have no choice but to succumb?

In a Billy Connelly way of doing things, this brings me back to the above video. There's absolutely no way that there can ever be a "no news day" in this era, not when people can bug you with their micro-blog posts on your mobile phone!

If you read Craftzine.com you've probably seen this already: an amazing flickr group called "Rainbow of Books" dedicated to pictures of people's bookcases that have been organised by colour.



This excited me so much I had to go and rearrange our book case. And that was when I discovered that a lot of my books are in a big packing box somewhere or strewn across the cosmos... and the rest have either black or white spine art. Lame!



Why do the Harry Potter books have three blocks of three very different colours on the spines? I literally pondered for five minutes at this quandry. My "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" books are all different editions, therefore all have different spine art, therefore are all split up in the RGB spectrum. This annoyed me much.

Will I go to drastic lengths to rectify this? Probably not ;)