One of Facebook’s cute features allows one to have large threads that multiple people can reply to, even if some of the initial recipients of the first message are not added as a friend to any other person in the thread. This could translate into the thread continuing to be replied to for months, which is what is really bothering me.

Facebook doesn’t really want to help stop what it, in effect, spamming of friends. You could consider this feature to be some type of friend spamming mechanism, since every time a member of the message thread replies, you get an email from Facebook announcing it. As I found out, there isn’t even a way to unsubscribe from the thread - so if your friend’s friends are abnormal and find that a multi-recipient thread is the way to chatter about useless topics, there isn’t even a way to pull yourself out of the madness.

Here’s an email exchange I had with Facebook support:

from Facebook Support

reply-to Facebook Support

to ****@gmail.com

date Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 7:26 PM

subject Re: INBOX: A thread is sending me unwanted messages

mailed-by facebook.com

Hi Michael,

Unfortunately, the ability to remove yourself from a thread is not yet available. I am sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for the suggestion. We will certainly keep it in mind as we continue to improve the site.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Jackson

User Operations

Facebook

—–Original Message to Facebook—–

From: Michael Perlman (****@gmail.com)

To: info@facebook.com

Subject: INBOX: A thread is sending me unwanted messages



User id: 516******

Description of problem: One of my Facebook friends sent a message to all of his friends (including me) at the time. Now, people originally brought into the thread are still replying, and I continue to receive unwanted messages (and emails from Facebook telling me about the replies, as a result). Is there a way that I can be removed from the thread?

Browser: Opera/9.50 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)



—–End Original Message to Facebook—–

Supposedly, Facebook is known for being super-sensitive to some types of misuse of the site (case in point: Robert Scoble was suspended from Facebook for testing an unreleased data-mining tool from Plaxo, and many others have been kicked for sending a few too many messages or having too many friends), but from my experiences, they are way off bat in terms of keeping users from annoying each other.

My free copy/copies of Vista Ultimate arrived last Thursday and a simple manila bubble mailer. Inside that master envelope were two Windows Vista Ultimate discs (one 32-bit version, the other 64-bit, and each with a distinct license key), and a brief note thanking me for participating. However, I’m not quite ready to install. Here’s what my rig (if one can even call it that) has under the hood:

• Intel Pentium 4 running at 2.93 GHz
• 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM
• 80 GB 7200 RPM SATA I hard disk
• Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics

Needless to say, this is one woos of a computer. I doubt that it can run Aero Glass. But that’s not the only reason I’m not throwing Vista on yet: I live on XP, and simply upgrading from XP means that I’m virtually stuck with a brand-new OS, with a very difficult recourse if I don’t like it.

But with every problem, there’s a solution, and mine is to install Vista on a new hard drive (my current one is too small to adequately partition for Vista) and dual-boot. Let’s keep going with that thought: How about installing Vista on an eSATA (external Serial ATA) disk? That would allow me to transport the drive to another computer if / when I need / want to. In my case, it’s as simple as installing an eSATA expansion bracket, as my system was probably built before the eSATA spec even existed.

The hard drive I’m eyeing is the Western Digital 500 GB My Book Studio Edition, which includes a plethora of interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and eSATA II at 3 Gb/sec) and has a form factor similar to that of my current Western Digital My Book 250 GB Essentials Edition. The Studio Edition drive features a sleek casing and plenty of storage space, and happens to work with all of my currently used computers.

Every great idea comes with a party who suggested it. I’d like to thank LifeHacker for mentioning the Windows Feedback Panel program. Also, it was nice having @SoloTech to chat about the program with.

To emphasize how teenagers have such a strong influence in today’s media, I’d like to hold an event where teenage media producers - primarily podcasters (audio and video) and bloggers - can meet each other and share their experiences in producing new media. Since I’m located in the New York City area, I’d like to invite teens from all over the city, and those willing to come in from surrounding Westchester, Suffolk (rather far from Manhattan) and Nassau counties, and closer towns in New Jersey, to a teen media meetup in Manhattan. My goal is to hold the event sometime before the summer and at a popular public venue in Manhattan with a very social environment. Teens of the ages ~13 to 19 are invited for this special event.

If you are a teen new media lover in the metropolitan New York area, and would like to meet others who share your interest, let me know. Leave a comment below or head over to the contact page, and tell me a little bit about yourself.

The Lowdown: Basics of Using Twitter

The essence of using Twitter is quite simple. Sign up, give them your phone number, IM network ID, or both, and send a message to the service that tells your friends what you are doing.

Now obviously, most tweets aren’t directly saying what a person is doing. They could describe what he is thinking, who he’s speaking to, what funny picture he took recently, what video he uploaded or just watched on YouTube (and for the latter of those, as well as links to any site, Twitter integrates the TinyURL address shortening service), or just the fact that the person is awake.

Twitter for Interactive Communication

Much of the fun in Twitter is having conversations without having to set up a new environment for the “conversation instance” - no need to set up a chat room in AIM or the like. Just preface your thought with the “@” symbol followed by the name of the person you’d like to direct your thought toward. As a result, the person you addressed will receive your tweet, regardless of whether or not he follows you on Twitter. In essence, you can start a conversation with any person or group of people who is/are member(s) of Twitter.

The Addiction to Twitter

Part of using Twitter is being constantly involved. It’s quite obvious that if you tweet once a month you will end up being immensely un-popular within the Twitterverse. What many people end up doing is tweeting about anything and everything going on in their lives, in some cases almost every few seconds. In return, that person’s followers will reply, and make their own tweets, etc. There is a certain element of fun involved with being constantly updated of what your friends are doing. For me, there is so much that I almost got my phone taken away by my principal for receiving a text message from Twitter during school hours (despite that, of course, I receive dozens of them a day from those whom I follow). No wonder they call people like me Twitterholics…

Impact of Twitter on “Traditional” Social Networking

Twitter redefines social networking as we know it, mainly because the service primarily provides us with real-time updates of the things that our friends are up to. It’s provides a somewhat more personal relationship with people who we don’t actually know personally, because, essentially, we can have a one-on-one conversation with them without actually developing a real relationship.

Also, and this is strictly IMHO, the randomness of Twitter gives us a sense of relationship building. For example, I’ve been following Daniel Brusilovsky on Twitter essentially since I met him, and through both “@” replies and direct messages (a feature available to friends who follow each other), we’ve developed a much stronger relationship with each other.

In other words, Twitter provides a platform for connecting with people, not just “meeting” them. The terse nature of tweets makes forming connections faster and easier, and the real-time functionality brings us closer to those with whom we communicate.

The first new enterprise I’d like to introduce is the MichaelTech Podcast. Podcasting has only made sense to me for a relatively short while, during which I’ve listened to several tech podcast, like Leo Laporte’s This Week In Tech (TWiT), and Daniel Brusilovsky’s Apple Universe. Both producers have shown me the ropes (although not necessarily personally), and given me at least the technical skills required to record, edit, and publish podcast episodes.

Joining the MichaelTech Podcast is a companion blog. On the WOrdPress.com-hosted blog, I will be writing about recent tech stories and product releases as well as my own articles and tutorials.

Speaking of podcasts, I’ve joined Daniel Brusilovsky’s network of sites as the typed content editor. Most of my work in that area revolves around the fact that many people who write online don’t have particularly expansive writing skills. To make it short, I read over Daniel’s blog posts before publishing, edit them for spelling, grammar, and tidy up the HTML formatting in the posts (I keep telling Daniel that the Qumana blog editor for Mac OS produces atrocious HTML). It’s work that I’m quite sure is appreciated by both Daniel as well as all visitors to his sites.

Finally, live media has also taken a place in my mind, mostly thanks to Chris Pirillo’s 24/7 live broadcast. As you can see in the header navigation tabs, I’ve added a live page to the Educated Network site. That special page displays my UStream.tv broadcast channel, as well as a live chat room (powered by the WyldRyde IRC network) that anyone may participate in. If you’d like to join the chat, all I ask is that you follow WyledRyde’s community guidelines, which includes keeping the conversation clean and peaceful.

1. Chris uses the free program for Mac OS X called CamTwist to embed the chat in the video. The chat is rendered by an IRC client for Mac OS called Colloquy, and is embedded in the video stream using CamTwist’s picture in picture functionality. Both are free programs.
2. Ponzi is Chris’s wife, and Wicket and Pixie are his dogs.
3. Chris used to host of several television shows on ZDTV / TechTV / G4TV, most notably the show Call For Help, in which Chris managed to produce several bloopers (which made it to NBC’s 100 Most Outrageous Moments).
4. In general, Chris is an all-around computer geek/nerd/[choice of related adjectives]. He produces videos via his live show, runs the blogging network LockerGnome, and does a lot of other stuff I don’t quite know about (but still tech related). Type “what is chris” into the chat room at live.pirillo.com (minus the quotes) to get the official description.
5. Chris’s current computer setup includes a Mac Pro (with dual Intel Xeon quad core processors, of the January variety), two 30-inch Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP monitors, a 17-inch MacBook Pro, and a Mac mini (which is used solely for broadcasting the live video stream, and is connected to its own DSL internet connection).
6. Bonus #6: Chris’ chair is a Grahl Synchron 8. It’s outrageously expensive, as Chris tries to describe on video.

For comments or more questions, join the chat at live.pirillo.com or drop Chris a line at chris@pirillo.com (his public email address). “We’ll ‘e ya later!”

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend ManyCam at all. While I was uninstalling it, after finding it to be not incredibly useful, it erased all of the start menu shortcuts on my system! I don’t know whether it was the developers’ fault, Nullsoft’s (or whoever wrote their installers), or my own computer’s fault or glitch, but it sure is annoying.

The quick moral of the story: Don’t download ManyCam! And if you already have it installed, find a way to manually remove it (files, shortcuts, registry keys and all). If you uninstall it, ManyCam will make your life miserable.

This year, I have a number of new pieces of ski apparel, listed as follows:

• Rossignol ski pants
• Under Armour ColdGear mock-neck
• Falke ski socks
• LL Bean 3-in-1 parka
• The North Face Thresher hydration pack (hopefully the one-half hour I spent washing it out got rind of the nasty chemical taste)

This trip is really supposed to be a snowboarding trip, where my classmates will learn to snowboard (possibly without professional instruction). However, I opted to continue skiing, for two reasons:

• Skiing is usually significantly cheaper.
• Since I already know how to ski, why waste a trip on trying something I might not like?

In conclusion, I have a strong feeling that this will be one of the best ski trips of my (very young) life, based on the current weather forecast and my experience with skiing.

To put things in to perspective, my current cell phone is serviced by Boost Mobile’s pay-as-you-go plan, which is just about the most I can afford. Keeping that in mind, it would be outrageously expensive and almost impossible for me to have my own voice plan from Sprint and have the BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service, which includes email and, depending on the price level, unlimited Web access), for two simple reasons:

• I am not of age to sign contracts (my age < 18)
• I don’t have a consistent source of income (the largest sum of money I ever made was from a summer job)
• I don’t have access to nearly enough money (it’s all in the bank, in my savings account nonetheless - and I don’t even have a checking account yet!)

Aside: Please don’t leave comments saying that when I grow up I’ll be able to enjoy this stuff. I get enough of those speeches at home from my parents.

Continuing, as I humored about earlier, my uncle got a BlackBerry 8300 World Edition from Sprint a short while ago. Realizing that I can’t afford to pay for my own voice plan from Sprint (or sign the necessary contract yet), I figured I could do what my uncle did for his BlackBerry: Buy my own BlackBerry device, and add another line and another BIS account to their family plan. In total, the deal would cost me about $50 a month, plus taxes and fees, which comes out at slightly more than $600 a year (more than a third of my earnings from last summer, which I plan on spending on something - I’d like it to be service for a BlackBerry). And I’d probably be keeping my Boost Mobile phone, still paying my $20 plus sales tax (no other taxes or fees though, since it’s prepaid service) every 90 days.

Now as any person would expect, my dad says that this would be too much of an investment, with very little ROI. He also said that I shouldn’t go digging into my savings account, which is my money for life. Being an irrational teenager, and one from a modern era at that, I highly disagree. But when it comes to money, I almost never get my way.

Getting a BlackBerry is a nice, but unfortunately, expensive idea. I really don’t have a business justification for it. But who said being cool (and connected) wasn’t going to cost me? For now, a smartphone is just a figment of my imagination, but I sure hope it doesn’t stay that way for long.