Technology in Society

Two studies in British universities conclude that friendships formed in online social networking sites, such as Facebook, are not as close as once made face to face.

They also have the interesting observation of the type of people who are friend collectors. These just try to accumulate as many "friends" as they can via other friends, even if they do not know them that much.

Via the CBC.

Drupaller Noel Hidalgo is traveling the world in seven months, on a budget of $7,777.

The purpose of the trip is documenting Drupal, Open Source, free cultures, social innovators, and global change, as well as many other aspects of his experience.

Check the web site, aptly named Luck of Seven.

Noel met Drupal founder, Dries Buytaert, In Antwerp, and interviewed him.

Winnipeg police say they've arrested a scam artist who used an e-mail scheme to con an 84-year-old man out of more than $30,000.

The victim received a large number of e-mails between April and September offering him $1.5 million in exchange for his help in unblocking funds held in an account in Nigeria ... Tempted by the promise he'd become an easy millionaire, the man wired more than $30,000 to Ghana, police said.

Meet Annie!

Annie is the grandmother of my friend Jim. She lives in Toronto, and is 99 years old.

A few years ago, she went to the public library and took some computer courses in order to learn how to use them.

Jim lives in Waterloo, and stays in touch with her via a web cam and occassional instant messaging using MSN on a Windows computer. The photo above was taken from the web cam, and you can see the monitor's reflection in her eyeglasses.

I have a picture of Salma, my youngest daughter, titled the girl with the curly hair. Cute picture, proud father, normal blog stuff ...

Today, I got this request from someone called Senthil (assuming he is from India), requesting that I link back to his site about hair care tips and hair loss remedies from that page.

Facebook has another milestone today.

Asharq Al Awsat, an Arabic language daily published in Britian targeting Arabic speaking readers in the Middle East has coverage on the Facebook phenomenon.

The article discusses Facebook as a social networking platform as well as an alternative media with user generated content. It quotes several professors and "experts" in the field of alternative media.

Well, for the last month, I have been in Egypt, on a visit to extended family.

I planned to work via my laptop and had an ADSL installed from Link for that month. On the days I am out of the city, I planned to use the dialup modem.

Sounds like a good plan with all the bases covered. Right? No, wrong!

What happened was a series of unpleasant surprises that left me frustrated.

In the second year of high school (equivalent to grade 11 in North America), I had a story called Operation Mastermind by L.G. Alexander, published by Longmans. This was in the mid to late 1970s.

The story was boring, and being a school text makes more so. It was written by someone who was a teacher and a promoter of English, and not by an established writer.

Another scam claiming to be from "Microsoft and AOL email beta".

From: MICROSOFT GOLDEN JUBILEE PROMOTION <crowsds@cox.net>
Date: Aug 31, 2007 4:16 AM
Subject: CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS AGENT(MR KEN GATE) FOR CLAIMS PROCEDURE

Dear Lucky winner,

GOLDEN JUBILEE PROMOTION BY MICROSOFT

Another advance fee fraud email, with a bit of a new wording. 

From: "Mr. Jubril Abubakar." <JubrilAbubakar@new.rr.com>
Date:  Aug 28, 2007 7:59 PM     
Subject: CONTACT MY A/C OFFICER FOR YOUR CHEQUE OF US$700.000.00 COMPENSATION!     

Dear Partner,

Its been quite a long time and maybe you may have forgotten completely about me and my transaction. In all case, I thank God and I am happy to inform you about my success in getting those funds transferred under the co-operation of a new partner from paraguay.