Social Media and Cloud have been the buzzwords the last years, so I thought it interesting to try out those new means of communication.
The first thing I did was subscribing to Facebook. I had a few 'friends' - actually they were not friends, but were labelled that way by the software - and I could read all their rants and stuff posted on their wall. What was the meaning of that? What news value is the fact that somebody 5000 km from where I live is waiting on a train, that another one felt sick and that yet another one was fired by his boss. Completely irrelevant.
I have not read one sensible article on Facebook about major issues such as Global Warming, Aid to the Third World countries but I did receive quite a lot of rubbisch stuff like links to stupid You Tube movies of guys falling of their bike doing stupid maneuvres and other comics which I regard as internet noise, that you simple ignore.
So, after a testing period of six months I unsubscribed from Facebook and I'm still glad I did it.
Another Social Media & Cloud hype I tried was Twitter. Small and simple compared to Facebook, but alas, the same stupid messages à la Facebook wall. I had to block many unknown accounts that 'wanted to follow me'. I did not invite those people, so they have no place in my life.
Moreover, what can you write down in 140 chars? And tiny URL ... I don't trust them. You could be lured into a malware ridden website without knowing.
I tried in vain to attach a file to a tweet to send it to a friend, but I didn't figure out how to do it. I simply mailed him the file.
So I removed my twitter account last weekend as I am apparantly not capable to appreciate the advantages of such a medium
Then you have the so called 'cloud based services' like Dropbox or Ubuntu One. What is the purpose of those services. My personal data can be placed somewhere on a foreign server, but what for? As a backup the amount of space is much too small. To be able to get to my data when I am not at home...?
I have a netbook, a laptop and 3 USB sticks ranging from 1Gb to 32Gb where I keep my data. The USB stick are autonomous sticks as they all have a Linux distro on them allowing me to work on whatever PC I have at my disposal. The few Gb on the external webbased storage are insuffient to hold my personal data. Another problem I have, is the fact that I encrypt my data prior to uploading it, but then, I can not share them with other people I grant read rights on certain folders. I often forget to upload an un-encrypted version LOL.
Al in all, for the moment I cannot see a big advantage in using Cloud based facilities, as the Cloud does not give me something new, that I could not do using e-mail, instant messengers and a simple blog.
Call me old-fashioned but I feel happy without the cloud based environment, but I know that one day, joining the cloud will be a must, and by then I hope the system will have matured and will be less confusing.
The first thing I did was subscribing to Facebook. I had a few 'friends' - actually they were not friends, but were labelled that way by the software - and I could read all their rants and stuff posted on their wall. What was the meaning of that? What news value is the fact that somebody 5000 km from where I live is waiting on a train, that another one felt sick and that yet another one was fired by his boss. Completely irrelevant.
I have not read one sensible article on Facebook about major issues such as Global Warming, Aid to the Third World countries but I did receive quite a lot of rubbisch stuff like links to stupid You Tube movies of guys falling of their bike doing stupid maneuvres and other comics which I regard as internet noise, that you simple ignore.
So, after a testing period of six months I unsubscribed from Facebook and I'm still glad I did it.
Another Social Media & Cloud hype I tried was Twitter. Small and simple compared to Facebook, but alas, the same stupid messages à la Facebook wall. I had to block many unknown accounts that 'wanted to follow me'. I did not invite those people, so they have no place in my life.
Moreover, what can you write down in 140 chars? And tiny URL ... I don't trust them. You could be lured into a malware ridden website without knowing.
I tried in vain to attach a file to a tweet to send it to a friend, but I didn't figure out how to do it. I simply mailed him the file.
So I removed my twitter account last weekend as I am apparantly not capable to appreciate the advantages of such a medium
Then you have the so called 'cloud based services' like Dropbox or Ubuntu One. What is the purpose of those services. My personal data can be placed somewhere on a foreign server, but what for? As a backup the amount of space is much too small. To be able to get to my data when I am not at home...?
I have a netbook, a laptop and 3 USB sticks ranging from 1Gb to 32Gb where I keep my data. The USB stick are autonomous sticks as they all have a Linux distro on them allowing me to work on whatever PC I have at my disposal. The few Gb on the external webbased storage are insuffient to hold my personal data. Another problem I have, is the fact that I encrypt my data prior to uploading it, but then, I can not share them with other people I grant read rights on certain folders. I often forget to upload an un-encrypted version LOL.
Al in all, for the moment I cannot see a big advantage in using Cloud based facilities, as the Cloud does not give me something new, that I could not do using e-mail, instant messengers and a simple blog.
Call me old-fashioned but I feel happy without the cloud based environment, but I know that one day, joining the cloud will be a must, and by then I hope the system will have matured and will be less confusing.
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