With that said, a while back, I had started making some of my own.  I experimented alot with Photoshop but also at photo manipulation.  My inspiration came alot from imaginary paintings described in Charles de Lint’s Newford books, where his character Jilly, would paint the most normal urban scenes but always, there was an element of faery.

So here are my own attempts, stock photos taken by me, or just pure art from scratch.  Feel free to download and use them.  All are sized for 1680 x 1050 resolution I’ll probably be posting more whenever I make more:

I’ve been giving some serious considerations lately of going into creating more Wordpress themes as I seem to have developed a passion for it, though I still need way more practice.  Meanwhile, check out this tutorial that gave me the basis of how to do it: WPDesigner.com.  I think I followed up to lesson 6 before I went my own way.  Because I don’t widget-ize my themes, it gives me alot of finer control over the sidebars.  Up next, I’m thinking of going beyond the standard header and links on top, and branch out to do some funky design.

Meanwhile, inserting my shameless plug here, if you are interested in getting me to create a Wordpress theme for your blog, contact me!

Below is the full un-edited response from Facebook:

Hi,

Fake names are a violation of our Terms of Use. Facebook requires users to provide their full first and last names (i.e. no initials). Nicknames can be used in the form of FirstName ‘NickName’ LastName, but only if they are a variation on your real first or last name, such as ‘Bob’ instead of ‘Robert’. Additionally, please note that impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited.

If you would like to use this profile again, just get back to us with your real name, and we will reactivate the account for you.

Thanks for your understanding,

Tatsuya

User Operations
Facebook

However, you’ll notice that nothing in their terms and agreements actually states anything about the name. The closest part is the Registration Data section, which indicates that account creation have to be in compliance with their registration process. Yet, in their registration process, all they state as needed is a full name. What’s their definition of a full name? Does full name necessarily mean legal name, which is what is being implied here?

The cases I’m worried about the most are the Chris vs Christopher, or Matt vs Matthew here. Under the email that was sent, using Chris, when the full birth name is Christopher would probably in violation. However, knowing alot of my friends that have used shorten names in their Facebook accounts, the email seems a little too strict for me. For example, I just found out today that a friend named Dan is really Daniel. If I saw his Facebook account as Daniel, I would wonder if that was really him…

What do you guys think?

Edit:
Good discussion going on here: http://loadingreadyrun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=209886#209886

In the past couple months, Facebook has been taking hits on their terms and conditions, as well as their privacy policy.  But here’s something new to think about.

My friend had registered a Facebook account with a name, obviously fictitious, but very much his personal brand.  (In fact, half of us call him more by that fictitious name when we get together face to face, than his real name.)  However, Facebook, without warning, deleted his account on the premise that he had used a fake name.

I can understand that a fake name where one is impersonating someone else, or hiding one’s own identity is an issue.  However, in this case, it was very much a brand that was near and dear to his heart, and thus he has decided to take this up with Facebook, so far with little success.

He’s also had very little support from the various communities he belong to.  Many think that he has violated the service and terms agreement and thus he has no case whatsoever.  However, while this is a situation more on the extreme side, I’m not so sure that it’s so black and white.

Think for a moment what does “your real name” mean?  Mind you, Facebook had never mentioned “legal name”, which means that it just has to be a few words that identifies you.  Sure, he had picked something that was obviously fictitious, but by the same grounds that Facebook had deleted his account, because it wasn’t his “real name”, then can they also delete an account that used the name ‘Anna” when the person’s  legal name is “Diana?”  (This is just an example.)  And by that grounds then, would it be so much of a stretch that if a person’s legal name is Christoper, can they delete an account with the name “Chris”?  How far of a stretch is it?  Where’s the gray area?

I have to admit that I’m not satisfied with Facebook’s definition of “real name”.  In this case, yes, it’s clearly not a legal name, but it’s his personal brand, and it’s what everyone identifies him as.  Would that not qualify as a “real name”?

There is no conclusion yet, but I’ll be following this up closely and I will be blogging about this as well, with my friend’s permission.  But what do you guys think?

(P.S. lucky for Twitter, they don’t have such restrictions.)

I started off the lecture stating that people are probably going to be watching movies, gaming, or doing their homework on their laptops while I’m talking and that’s fine.  Take from what I say, as you will.  And that’s always been my personal theory.  If I even reach one person, change their perceptions a bit to help them become a little more successful in starting a career, I’ve done my job.

But on to what happened.

Last year, my collegue and I concentrated a bit more on personal stories and letting the students draw their own conclusions, but this year, I took a different tact and decided to state more about my lessons learned using my “voice of authority”, adding only half of the anedotals that I usually give.  I gave a bit of background about the company I work for, my own history and then dove into the need to understand the business and how a piece of code can affect the business.  At one point, I read out something I had copied down during my morning conversation with my manager.  He said “coders are like cookies in a bakery, sold by weight and there is always a fresh batch in the morning.”

That was when things got interesting.

Immediately, I had one guy in the front put up his hand.  He was offended! (And he said as much.)  The back-and-forth then went on as so (as much as I can remember of course):

Him:  It’s kind of degrading, and yeah sure, there will always be new grads, but I would have gained experience and be more valueable.
Me: Experience in what?
Him: In coding!  It’s not a stagnant skill.  There are lots of successful coders out there!
Me: Yeah..but I bet you they are successful, not because of their coding skills, but because they have an understanding of the value of their code, that they understood where it fit within the business.

After that, I proceeded to relate it back to the point of lecture which is that you can’t be successful if you are coding in just a silo.  If you look at the the bigger picture, have a greater understanding of where you fit in, then you begin to understand the impact and that’s the experience you gain.  (This is also a pointer from my manager as well.)

I could almost see the wheels in this student’s head turning after, but I could also see a resistance to buy into what I was saying, probably because I offended him and he was raising defensive shields.  But I also saw a few other students’ gears turning.  One asked me what else I learned that carried forth to which I answered the concepts behind a programming language, the experience of working in a team on a project, and all good stuff.

Later, I spoke about understanding the business in the bigger picture. In this economy, everyone’s asked to explain how they contribute to the business strategy overall.  It’s with all companies, I believe.  I know it’s certainly a common theme in conversations around my workplace these days. By understanding your company’s strategy, you begin to see how your work relates, and by drawing that clear line for your leadership team, you are able to pretty much justify your job’s existence. In these days, probably a very good thing.

I hate reading financials.  I absolutely hate financial statements.  The tiny numbers make my head spin.  But when I held up the annual report I was pouring over the night before, and a student asked me if the time spent was worth it, I replied with no uncertainty, YES.  Understanding that strategy, no matter whether you’re in operations, IT, or communications, you begin to understand your company’s direction and how you can align what you do with that strategy.

You also being understanding the importance of business decisions made that otherwise seem unfair or unfathomable.  At the end of the day, a business is a business.  It has to drive profits to ensure its survival.  Understanding the stratagies to do that, and how you contribute to those strategies is going to at least help in your own survival.

I counted one napper, and about 70% not paying attention.  One student was as rude as to get her friend to listen to the headphone she had on.

But, I think I saw one or two wheels turning.  I know my friend who was in that class understood alot of what I said in the bubble tea session I had with him after.  I think one or two other students may also begin to think a little differently.

To me, that’s worth it.

Oh, and in retrospect, I should have brought that nerf gun to peg some of those guys…

Incidentally, he also made the following statement:
“I’m such a stats wh0re.. lol”

All that aside, it’s interesting how everything we do can be and needs to be justified by numbers.  ROI (with usually investment being in time) doesn’t only apply to corporations anymore but also in personal life.    Even blogging is often evaluated by the amount of comments we garner and/or the stats.  (How many blogs are running google analytics like mine and kdmurray’s?)  But not everything is measureable.  Enjoyment for instance, or taking time to go offline.  Those are more priceless than we think.

All that aside, I also want to mention this follow up to the Twitter incident mentioned before.  This is Cisco’s official response.  I think Blair’s response is entirely right and I wonder what kind of negative press they were getting over this issue in the first place?  Any ideas anyone?

Coincidentally, my wargammer buddy just sent me this article: Twitter confirms paid pro accounts coming

This means that Twitter will be charging companies now that want to look trusted and authenticated, though exactly what they are charging for yet is still unclear. Considering the openess of their current model though, it’d be interesting to monitor just what additional features they plan to offer to their “pro” customers.

Twitter already has an “exec-twitter” for the executives of large companies to tweet about their daily lives. So far though, it looks like alot of users there are using to provide a bit more insightful comments than your average joe like me, including links to business articles, etc… The balance though is to not expose too much of your daily job though, right? (Just like what I talked about in my previous gab.)

I see alot of companies these days, or even product managers of various web 2.0 companies, as well as experts, market themselves. The fun part of it though is that you can pin a face and a personality to what might have been a faceless corporation before. If Twitter is going to give out pro accounts to companies, how does that work with those that are using their personal accounts to twitter for work?

Twitter’s got alot of thinking to do.

This may be confusing at first to the non-techies, but once all this is wrapped up, I will write a post on how to set up your own site, and how to move sites, in very simple terms.  Promise!

old status: I’ll be performing some site migration in the next week or two, so at times, www.wiredcrow.com or www.infinite-voices.com may not be available. Check both. Thanks for your patience!

To give a bit of background first, the team I work on is spread across Vancouver, Vernon, Calgary and Toronto.  The people are awesome, but the team dynamics are just not the same as if everyone was in one place.  I couldn’t quite put a finger on the concrete “how so” though until today.

See, I saw my manager tweet about his lunch.

And it strike me as horribly funny.

Why?  Well it’s the kind of conversation I would have with my coworker beside me.  It’s this kind of small talk that spurs on what’s good and not good for lunch, and what’ s the best way to prepare the dish in general, or whether we hate that kind of food or not (in this case, it was tuna).  It can veer off into about what’s for dinner, favourite restaurants, etc…  It’s through these kinds of casual conversation that you really begin to learn more about the person than just besides their work habits.

But while my manager and I joke and have casual conversations quite a bit over the phone, we would never pick up the phone to talk about our lunches.  (There are simply much better stories to share than that!)  So there’s some aspects of conversation or learning opportunity about the other person that is lost.

Twitter has just, for the first time, bridged that gap to some degree.  It has helped to close that physical distance in an very unique way.  It takes a couple seconds to post and a couple seconds to read, thus very undemanding on our time.  It’s informal enough that you can post any trivial thing, unlike some other tools that demands formality or substance such as blogs or emails.  It’s nearly instantaneous without being as intrusive as instant messaging, because you just post and people respond only if they feel like it. (And it’s not considered impolite!)

No wonder Twitter has become popular as it fulfills a niche that other forms of online communication doesn’t quite get to yet.  Has Twitter helped you bridged some gap in some way too?

(I’m almost tempted to ping my manager and go “so…overcooked tuna…I like mine usually raw” just to get a reaction. )

The second was my host, who has always been very good, but recently, have started locking down users’ abilities to perform certain actions online such as purchasing an extra domain.  Usually I wouldn’t mind making phone calls so much if not for the fact that their business hours is in the East, and it’s a long distance US  call from Canada every time.  Not to mention I tend to work on my site/blog at lunch or after work… Get the idea?

Because of the domain restrictions, I ended up purchasing the domain www.wiredcrow.com at godaddy then pointing and masking it.  But my buddy kdmurray, one of the tech gurus in my life, pointed this out:

“The only downside with masking… (just remembered this) is that there’s no way to bookmark a page like http://wiredcrow.com/about/ because ‘masking’ is just a cheap abuse of frames. ”

(Yes, he included the emoticon.)

Further problems include search engines unable to catch that domain and still indexing under www.infinite-voices.com, which is a huge factor.  This means that if people search for content on this blog, one of the big hitters on how to drive traffic to this site, the content will be referred to as belonging to www.infinite-voices.com.  This means a good chunk of people (hopefully) will still accessing through www.infinite-voices.com (not so hopefully).

That’s not exactly what I want either, especially when I want to drive traffic through to wiredcrow and not infinite-voices, maybe eventually drop infinite-voices.com.

So while this is in place, I’m going to have to reconsider my options.  Very likely, it’ll be a matter of switching accounts or even hosting….  We’ll see, but one day if you get a redirect through www.infinite-voices.com, you’ll know why.

Any other suggestions?  Let me know!