Don’t Check-in at Home: Never check-in at home.  That’s just silly. Scenario: You check in at home; a few hours later you check in at another location. You live alone; you don’t think thieves and robbers use the internet? Sure, your home address can be found if people really need to find it, but do you really want to make it that easy and  plant the seed of misdeed ? If you really need to check-in at home do it privately.

Don’t Check-in to a whole Parish: Ok, this one is funny. Why would you check into a whole Parish? I’m surprised someone hasn’t checked into Jamaica yet…

Don’t Check-in to your friend’s house: This is also a big no no.  You don’t want your home address out there just the same with your friend’s address. If you want to seek their permission. Checking in “Off the grid” works here too.

Common sense tips aside, if you’re going to use foursquare make it funny for everybody and leave tips at locations you visit. Happy Foursquaring!

Check out Foursuare’s “Privacy 101″ here

I was going to wait a few more days to post this, but i felt the need to put this out there now.  David Mullings wrote an excellent post about Foursquare mayship and privacy on foursqaure in general.  Check it out

Final note: I’ll update this post as soon as i can think of other tips.

At about 9:00 AM this morning i got a call from a Digicel sales agent; she was pleasant, thanking me for signing up etc. She confirmed the information i submitted via their website and told me where i could pick up my modem. Because i signed up online i was eligible for a limited edition gift, she told me i had the choice between a USB Pen or a wireless mouse.  I went to the 2  locations closest  to me only to find out that they were not yet set up to sell the devices. You would think that a company would have all this sorted out before they decide to launch the product (Obviously the sales agent who i spoke to had no idea that these locations were either not stocked or ready to sell the devices), but alas.  I decided  to check out the other retail locations in my region on their website by calling them instead of wasting my time to check each location individually only to find out that most were not stocked, and one dealer had no idea what i was talking about, mind you this is a retailer listed ON the Digicel website.

I visited the only location selling the device and after battling with them initially (the wait and other minor annoyances) they finally started giving me some attention. Now i realized that signing up online was useless because 1. They didn’t know that i signed up online and also had no idea that you could and 2. They did not know that i was eligible for a gift and other incentives if i did sign up online even though it is clearly stated on the website.

I told her i would return for my gift in a few days ( She did not deny me the gift, but was honest and said she knew nothing about it, she claimed they have not been trained yet and would be attending a training seminar soon). Not to lay the blame squarely at her feet–i blame Digicel for not training their employees prior to launch…

The Process

To purchase the Digicel 4G Modem  you need 2 recent utility bills and some sort of identification ( Driver’s License, Voters ID etc if not you need a letter that is signed and stamped by a JP). They will make copies of these.  After purchasing the modem they will test it to ensure it’s in full working order by connecting it to a laptop and check for a connection. Once a connection has been established they will direct the browser to the Digicel 4G website where registration of the device is done. You’ll also choose the username and password for your self-care login

Payment Options

Payment for Modems ( You have a choice of a 2. The CPE Wifi Modem (Less Portable) or the USB Dongle Modem ( more portable)) comes in 2 flavors, prepaid and post paid. With prepaid you have the option of paying for 7, 14 or 30 days while with postpaid you pay for 30 days.

I chose the postpaid plan which requires a deposit of $3,000 (Which is all you need to pay, because the modem is free with the postpaid plan) which you get back at the end of the 1 year contract. The first month is free, after which as seen in the image above you pay $2,500 monthly ( 30 day cycle)

Speed

Speed i imagine depends greatly on signal strength, which is measured from 1 to 3).

1. - The signal is on, but the reception is poor. <- Which i got.
2. - The signal strength is in the range between 16 and 24 – Good reception
3. - The signal strength is greater than or equal to 25 dBm – Excellent Reception

The reception can also be checked from your Web Configurator page. Wifi can also be turned on from your web config page; this is explained in depth in the Quick Start Guide that you receive with your modem.

Conclusion

Digicel has a plan, and i may have had a bad experience acquiring my service, but it will inevitably get better. They will soon be offering Laptops with their plans which is good. And for the people that may have a hard time paying for it Digicel has partnered with NCB in offering loans up to $150,000. Not only is this beneficial to Digicel, it is beneficial to Jamaica and will aid in propelling our nation into the future; there’s nothing like access to knowledge and the internet provides that. Prices will also be competitive because they have other networks to contend with ( LIME, Claro and Flow)

If you have any question please feel free to leave a comment.

I mean, It’s just a few things that grind my gears, here goes:

Cryptic Tweets: People who only tweet strange, enigmatic thoughts that no one ever gets. Do you think you’re cool?

IM Conversations: Yes, It’s your twitter account, you do with it what you want, but there are unwritten rules and something called “netiquette”.  Twitter was never meant to be used as  a chat-room ( ipso facto, the 140 character limit).  Some people constantly @ each other talking about things no one can relate to, because it was never meant for twitter. Blackberry Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Chat and a myriad of others are there if you need to have prolonged conversations with a friend, UTILIZE them because nobody cares about your extremely mundane conversations.  Then you wonder why you have 50 followers; that last bit is a precursor to annoyance #3.

That annoying, “Please follow me” phrase: Please, don’t beg someone to follow you on Twitter, It’s really pathetic.  If you are genuinely interesting or actually have some substantial tweets then people will follow you, albeit  maybe not that person you’d want to follow you, but that’s fine; different strokes for different folks, but people will follow you.

Retweeting/replying done wrong: I remember when “retweeting” made its debut on Twitter.  The users created it, until twitter decided to formalize it. I remember how people originally used it.  People retweeted your tweet for many reasons, maybe because they liked it, because it was a tweet that was particularly helpful etc.  In recent time many Jamaicans have flocked to twitter and as simple as it is, not many people know how to use the re-tweet/reply function.  They are distinctly different.  A brief tutorial:

The tweet above is how i see most people reply to to tweets. They “retweet” the original tweeter’s tweet and put their response in front. Occasionally this is fine, especially when you want to save people from clicking the “in reply to” option, but most people, i find don’t know any better, so they always do it thinking it’s the only way to respond to a tweet, but it’s not.

Now this is the right way to respond to someone’s tweet. It’s really easy. Just find the tweet you’re referring to on whatever client you’re using whether it be Tweetdeck, Seesmic, or even Twitter web use the reply function and twitter will automatically reference the tweet automagically.  When the person who you replied to receives your response they’ll know what tweet you’re referring to because they’ll see the “in reply to username” as highlighted above which avoids the “what are you talking about” tweet.  It’s a really easy concept to grasp, So if @waynjonesjnr is to click ” in reply to Waynejonesjnr he’ll promptly see that i was referring to his tweet about cigarette smoking women.

People who do blast #FF’s- On twitter it’s tradition to recommend tweeters  that you like for other people to follow. This is called “Follow Friday, or #FF for short. Follow Fridays are done by putting the #FF hashtag in front of the tweets followed by the people you want other people to follow. e.g: #FF @nigel_thomas @ryanmattis, @waynejonesjnr, @rtrowe, @iamsbee (btw, these are all cool people, you should follow them), but i find this way of “mass #FF’ing”  annoying and ineffective, instead i find it a lot more substantial to write a blurb about the person(s) you want other people to follow instead. e.g: #FF @ryanmattis Fellow techie, blogger and full-time pessimist. You’ll find that people appreciate this method as opposed to the “blast method” that i mentioned above, they’re also more likely to get followed; Quality over quantity i say.

Finally, Tweeting in CAPS: Anybody who’s an internet fanatic or even someone who occasionally uses the internet knows that when you type in caps it signifies that you’re screaming/shouting or showing your disgust for something. Typing/tweeting: “I’M SO LOVING MY BREAKFAST RIGHT NOW”  in caps  is wrong, tweeting using caps indefinitely is annoying and not to mention noobish, come on, get with it. Read more about Online etiquette here

Unfortunately many people i follow on twitter are guilty of my peeves; hoping they’ll all read this and apply it to their day-to-day tweeting so that me and everyone else can have a more pleasant twitter experience. *crosses fingers*

Now, i never valued paying for any service online ( Website hosting is an exception), instead i bought only physical products. But maybe a year or so ago that has changed a bit.  Below is a list of  online services/tools i currently pay for either monthly or yearly. I won’t say much about them because their greatness is ineffable ( i wouldn’t be paying for them otherwise)  Here we go:

LASTPASS:  I’ve written about lastpass already. A year or so later i still use and love it. It’s great free as it is paid ( Premium members receive additional features) . You probably use the same passwords on all the websites you’re registered on.  That’s pretty sad, unsafe and not to mention lazy, luckily you can still be pretty lazy and still be extremely secure/safe online.  Read more about Lastpass here

Price: $12 USD yearly

REMEMBER THE MILK: Not much to say here, it’s a GREAT to-do list ( keeps me organized and productive)  An excerpt from the RTM about page ” Managing tasks is generally not a fun way to spend your time. We created Remember The Milk so that you no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand. Remember The Milk makes managing tasks an enjoyable experience.”

Price: $25 USD yearly.

TUNEUP MEDIA: I’m particularly picky when it comes to my music collection; I’m a neat freak in that regard, but cleaning up the ID3 tag on every song is definitely a hassle, that’s where Tune UP comes in, check them out..they’re seriously good.

Price: $19.95 USD yearly OR $29.95 USD for lifetime license

CLICKY: I’m an analytics Monkey! I have this service covered.  Check out my blog post on it here.

Price: Varying Prices; $4. USD $19.99 USD monthly.

GIGANEWS: Usenet oh lovely usenet.  If you torrent stuff it probably originated here.:)

Price: Varying Prices: $ 7.99 USD – $24.99

All 5 services are great in their own right and you should probably check them out,  seeing as they all have a free version, minus Giganews.

Lucky for me, revenue from my blog is able to offset the costs for them:)

Click Admin Dashboard

I was using Google Analytics at the time, and i more or less stuck with them because, well it’s Google and also because it was free ( And still is). Problem was, Google Analytics is so tedious to use i barely understood what was going on so i more or less developed some level of apathy for website analytics. But on Sun Feb 14 2010 i signed up for Clicky; i subsequently  started to abandon GA and started using Clicky more frequently. Only recently i decided to sign up for a pro account and i have not looked back since.

My favorite Clicky feature is probably something called “Spy”– Spy is a live view of visitors interacting with your web site.

Click Spy showing a world map and where visitors are viewing your website from wherever they are in the world.

If you’re a website or blog owner you will definitely  not regret using Clicky. I’ve grown to love web statistics and it has caused me to take my blog a bit more seriously. Don’t lose out like i did for so long, try it before you knock it!

How different is it if you insult someone via twitter in contrast to insulting them in person? The medium may be different and unconventional, but the effect can be just the same ( hurtful). Therefore i think it’s wrong for people to say “It’s just twitter”. Like it or not twitter is apart of our generation and it has amassed quite a following in a short period of time ( Over 10 million people). So whether you choose to acknowledge it to be substantial or not it’s still there and behind many tweets are real people and prospective friendships to be made.

I’ve been fortunate enough to meet many great people  exclusively through twitter and i have developed timeless friendships with just as much. Some of these people I can name without a moment’s hesitation @aundra, @eddiane, @franarexic, @iamsbee, @MarcGrandmaison, @Zaineysmummy, @jamaipanese @MissBrownin et al.

So, the next time you say “It’s just twitter” remember that behind every username ( robots etc aside) is a REAL person with REAL feelings and anything you say to them there has the potential to help or hurt just as much as it would if you said it to their face.

N.B You can apply this to any other service that facilities human-to-human socialization online ( i.e facebook, tagged etc)

For those who are not familiar with twitter, Commoncraft.com has put together a brief video with an explanation, embedded below is the video:

Last Pass - I don’t do passwords, i honestly don’t. I really suck at remembering them too, couple that with my unfortunate hacking experience a few years ago and you have me being an extremely paranoid security person. I don’t know any of my passwords.  Every password for every website i use is randomly generated by a password generator provided by lastpass; they’re usually something like 8Au#r9US7Br^H 6-10 characters long, in some cases even 15 characters long. Passwords are encrypted client side and sent to the lastpass servers already encrypted. Military security type of thing. My #1 online essential tool. Heck i love the damn thing so much i’m a premium user. $12 a year isn’t bad:)

SmrtGuard- Nobody likes losing there cellphone, more so the information on the cellphone. Me? I’m safe. In the unlikely event of me losing my cell phone or worse it being stolen i can remotely wipe everything off it, track it, and my information is always backed up by them which i can restore conveniently at any time. Damn lifesaver if i say so myself:) Yet again another online essential tool for only $4 USD monthly.

Xmarks- I’m always juggling my laptop and my desktop. Love both dearly, but it gets tedious sometimes sharing information between the two. But syncing bookmarks between them is a synch. Xmarks does that well. Now it feels like i’m using one browser. Sure there is del.icio.us i use it, but xmarks always comes in handy:)

Dropbox - Last but not least Dropbox. Syncing files between computers. You never know how good it is until you actually try it. Then there are those odd times when you mistakenly forget an essential file. Log into dropbox and download that badboy, a lifesaver!

Twitter Vs. Facebook

When you add someone as a “friend” on facebook in contrast to you following them on twitter is two different things. Facebook offers you the ability to view  picture of the person, they’re religious views, interests,video and a myriad of other things while twitter is much less formal, offering you only  a short blurb about the person and a link to they’re blog/website with status updates.  If you’ll notice when you add someone on facebook you are much more likely to know more about them compared to when you add them on twitter( assuming they provide they’re info on fb).

Twitter is good for collective thoughts and it can give you an idea of what is on the masses’ minds. That is where “Trending Topics” come into play, facebook does not provide that. Another favorite of mine is Twistori, twistori shows you what people love, hate feel, think, beleive and wish which is all made possible with twitter’s status updates and there API. Facebook provides more robust stuff like say quiz applications, games etc. I could go on and on about the usefulness of both but i’m guessing i made my point ( or not?).

Ultimately they’re both great and DIFFERENT coomunications services and i will use both.

Check them out here.

Most of the places i can vouch for, others i’m not sure, but seeing as it’s from lifehacker i’m sure it’s all solid, so check them out and be sure to watch amazing history unfold tomorrow.

My first rant about there idiotic first instance sad excuse for a favicon was in June of last year, they’ve come up with an even worst one since that time. There newest one, which also seems to be the final one is even WORSE, i’d feel better if they said this was not the final, but sadly it is, but such is life, i guess i’ll get used to it.  Now my tab bar is all uhm.. weirded out *sighs*

Apparently this one incorporates all of google’s logo color scheme into it. Maybe i should stop complaining, maybe it isn’t that bad, who knows i might get used to it, but for now i hate it.

Read google’s blog post regarding there new favicon here