Social media is what I use to find contacts with whom I have things in common for social and commercial reasons.  Accordingly, I implore anyone with whom I’ve established direct contact to exclusively expect a timely reply via email.  I regret to say that I’ve resorted to a somewhat boilerplate response to people who continue to contact me on messaging systems.  I reply to them with a copy of what they sent me and demonstrate that they are a bona fide contact in my address book.  I have had the same domain, email address and phone number for 14 years and I intend to keep them for life, so that I’m easy to reach.  Of course email is universal and will survive any fad third-party sites, but the drawback is one does need to have a powerful filter.  I also use social media as a way to update my contacts, as many change their information without advising everyone.  It’s a reference for me, but not where I would go to reliably reach out to someone.  If a person these days doesn’t check his or her  email, I wonder how his or her bills get paid online.  To me email is more important than postal mail.  Sites like Facebook will always be like AOL and never allow forwarding to a real domain POP account, which I understand Gmail and Yahoo now do (not so sure about hotmail/Microsoft).

So I’m still using the first Droid from Motorola that had the Android 2.x software on it with Verizon and I am happier with that than I ever was with an Iphone.  Truly the Google-based software has only gotten more powerful and faster with the various firmware upgrades.  I do not have any issues with stuttering and I am near the 10,000 contact limit at the moment.  I will be transferring nearly 20,000 more contacts after I finish writing this blog.

Those are the basic ones.Here are some less common smilies:

(-:     User is left-handed.
%-)     User has been staring at a green screen        for 15 hours straight.
:*)     User is drunk.
[:]     User is a robot.
8-)     User is wearing sunglasses.
B:-)    Sunglasses on top of head.
::-)    User wears normal glasses.
B-)     User wears horn-rimmed glasses.
8:-)    User is a little girl.
:-)-8   User is a big girl.
:-{)    User has a mustache.
:-{}    User wears lipstick.
{:-)    User wears a toupee.
}:-)    Toupee in an updraft.
:-[     User is a vampire.
:-E     Bucktoothed vampire.
:-F     Bucktoothed vampire with one tooth missing.
:-7     User just made a wry statement.
:-*     User puckered up, either from something sour        or for a kiss.
:-)'    User drools.
:-')    User has a cold.
:'-(    User is crying.
:'-)    User is so happy, s/he is crying.
:-#     User wears braces.
:^)     User has a broken nose.
:v)     User has nose broken the other way.
:<)     User is from an Ivy League school.
:-&     User is tongue-tied.
=:-)    User is a hosehead.
--:-)   User is a punk rocker.
--:-(   (REAL punk rockers don't smile.)
:=)     User has two noses.
+-:-)   User is the Pope, or holds another religious office.
':-)    User shaved one eyebrow off this morning.
,:-)    Same thing...other side.
|-I     User is asleep.
|-O     User is yawning/snoring.
:-Q     User is a smoker.
:-?     User smokes a pipe.
O-)     Megaton man on patrol! (Or else, user is a scuba diver.)
O :-)   User is an angel (at heart, at least).
:-P     Nyahhhh!
:-S     User just made an incoherent statement.
:-D     User is laughing (at you!)
:-X     User's lips are sealed.
:-C     User is really bummed.
:-/     User is skeptical.
C=:-)   User is a chef.
#=      User is pro-nuclear war.
:-o     Uh-oh!
(8-o    It's Mr. Bill!
*:o)    And Bozo the Clown!
3:]     Pet smilie.
3:[     Mean pet smilie.
E-:-)   User is a ham radio operator.
:-9     User is licking his/her lips.
:-6     User is braindead.
[:-)    User is wearing a walkman.
(:-I    User is an egghead.
<:-I    User is a dunce.
#:-)    User is wearing a turban.
:-0     No yelling!
:-:     Mutant smilie.
.-)     User only has one eye.
,-)     Ditto, but s/he's winking.
X-(     User just died.
8 :-)   User is a wizard.
C=}>;*{)) MEGA-SMILIE: A drunk, devilish chef with a toupee in an updraft, a mustache, and a double chin.
NOTE: A lot of these can be typed without noses to make midget smilies.
:)      Munchkin smilie.
:]      Gleep…A friendly Munchkin who will gladly be your friend.

• Still takes an unacceptably long time to open up extra tabs.

Chrome

• Installs very quickly. ?Opens up new pages and seems to accommodate
• Popup control is not detailed enough.

Firefox

• Scrambling to keep it’s secondary lead over Chrome, I found that it did not work with memory management as well, so it was always subject to crashes.

BENEFITS:

• Unlike the default media player in Windows, it has all the codecs you need and it is free. ?I can’t believe Microsoft really thought we would pay for an untold number of codecs just to watch on videos, which should be in universal players and formats.

CRITIQUE:

• When I go from video to video that has a different default size, why won’t it stick with the same size window I manually created? ?that’s rather frustrating.
• It does not notify you when there is a new update available. ?You have to seek it.

BENEFITS:

• For goodness sakes, use the rating system. ?Not only does it tend to play the higher rated songs more, but you can change them on the fly when you’re listening to your songs.
• Duplicate finder is built in.
• Mass update categories, genres.
• Use the smart playlists, which are dynamic.
• Sort by Date Added to make sure that your newest songs are always categorized and rated approrpiately.
• If I don’t recognize an artist, I will give a neutral category.
• I have Smart Playlists for 4 and 5 rated songs and then one for 5 rated songs when I know I’m not going to want to be flipping through songs, such as while I’m driving. ?Both of these lists have an exception for Holiday music.
• Until I can actually clean up the files on the hard drive, I put the least liked or shortest duration sounds/songs on one star.

CRITICISMS:

• It is very unclear what happens to “removed” items on the local drive. ?There is absolutely no file maintenance system and there is no way, apparently to change the file name from within Itunes.
• What’s worse is when you change anything on your actual file system, you either have to retrieve the information by seeking the folder again manually and you are plagued with a bunch of exclamation points for which there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to clean up.

See http://liquidninja.com/metapad

Fix: ?From the Flag drop down menu, go to Set Quick Date. ?Set it for Tomorrow. ?Do again and set for Today.

I particularly like finding rare songs on Youtube and reducing them into high quality MP3′s that are immediately dumped into an Itunes folder that is automatically added to my library and therefore onto my Ipod.

Now I just need to find an MP3 editor of some kind that lets me trim the audio like one does a video.