I have been using StumbleUpon a bit recently, and have discovered some really interesting, albeit, time wasting site. One that I just found is ASCII-O-Matic. It takes a picture and uses symbols, or blocks, to create a copy of the image. I tried it out using my basic avatar and the results are pretty amazing. Click the thumbnail for a better look.

Not that is will use this for anything, but it is cool, nonetheless!

Have you ever done a search for yourself on the internet? I do it occasionally, as I’m sure some of you do, and sometimes I am surprised at the results I get. A site will appear in the list that I haven’t been to in years, but there is a comment that I made 10 years ago, still there! We leave such a trail or footprint on the internet, and for the most part, I don’t worry about it, but now I have a friend going through a terrible ordeal, and it’s made me rethink what I put out there.

So, I just a search of my maiden name, email address, married name, and Meadows Ling. I get the most results when I use MeadowsLing (one word), but you actually find out the least amount of personal information on me.

So, I’m just wondering, do you censor how much information you put on the internet about yourself? Do you worry about someone stealing your identity, or worse?

When I first began using Twitter, I had no idea what I was supposed to post. I had no one following me, so I kind of figured, “what’s the point?” Eventually, I found out that people I knew in Second Life were Twitterers, so I began following some of them. I still had no idea what to post and never even really thought about using Twitter for conversations. I really was just saying what I was doing.

Over the past few months, I started following more people, and have had people follow me, and it’s been really interesting. There have been so many weird connections too. I will sometimes see people that I’m following make “@replies” to other people that I’m following, and I wonder how they know each other.

Most days on Twitter, I have conversations going on with a few people at a time. Today, I was thinking about how I’m using Twitter like an instant messenger program now. I guess an IM program would make a little more sense, but then I wouldn’t have access to all the people that I do. I can just click on the Public Timeline at any time and look for some new interesting people to follow.

Oh, one more thing…I now have some real life (I hate saying that) friends following me on Twitter. There is hope for us!

A truly wonderful video that I captured while messing around with Seesmic. She loves to play music and thinks that Rock Band is a very cool games. She always wants to play the drums.

from www.seesmic.com posted with vodpod

I wanted to say that I’m so glad to have found out about Seesmic, it was quite by accident that I did. I never check the public timeline on Twitter, but I just happened to, one day, and saw a tweet from Loic. I went to his page and that’s how I learned about Seesmic. It seemed so interesting, that I had to check it out. I went to the website, and about 2 hours later I had my invite code.

I haven’t posted a great deal on the site because I’m shy (and dislike the way I look on camera), but I watch a good number of the posts. There are so many interesting people on Seesmic, and it’s wonderful to hear what they all have to say, even when some of the posts are drunken babble.

Through Seesmic I’ve started following some people on Twitter, and it’s been amazing. I’ve chatted with PurpleCar about kids, Critter about body mods, and rjmoriarty about Second Life. Hache and I have also started sending music recommendations back and forth. Most of these conversations have not been in-depth, but it’s been nice.

So, I just wanted to say a little Thanks to Loic, and the entire Seesmic community. You have a great product, and it’s helped a stay-at-mom from North Florida, find amazing people to chat with.

So the past few days I’ve been trying to get friends to use some of the web apps that I’ve been using. This is harder than trying to climb Mt. Everest (OK, maybe not that hard)! I keep sending emails out to people with links and invite codes, and so far, I’ve had no takers.

Since I’ve had the lack of friend interest in all of these things, I’m trying to build up my collection of internet friends. It makes me feel a little stalker-ish, adding someone on almost every social media/networking site I frequent. There have to be others like me though. It’s not like everyone started out knowing each other. I think that these are the steps that you have to take sometimes to build up your connections, right? 

This kind of goes along with my last post. I think that FriendFeed.com is an amazing site. It’s an easy way to keep “tabs” on what your friends are doing online. I would love to be able to use this tool, but I know no one that uses it. OK, I have one person that I’m following, and it makes me feel like a stalker. Ick! Granted, it’s still relatively unknown, unless you keep up with all of the tech blogs, but I just don’t see me ever being able to get any use out of it. Should I abandon it? Probably. Will I abandon it? Probably not.

I’ve been posting on the internet pretty consistently now for about 10 years, and the most difficult thing about it is getting my friends to join in. I have the odd friend with a blog, or that uses Twitter, maybe even has a MySpace or Facebook account, but that’s it. I’ve been trying for years to get friends involved in it, like I am, but with no luck.

I used to do cam chats back when I was at LSU, and it made my roommate uncomfortable. I even met someone on AOL (in 1995) and we chatted for years and finally in met them in person, in 1998. My friends thought that I was completely insane for flying to Boston to meet some “stranger”, but they didn’t seem like a stranger to me. I had chatted with this person almost everyday for over two years and we talked on the phone every other week. Hell, my parent’s had talked to him enough, that they were comfortable enough to let me go, and even paid for the plane ticket.

What I’m trying to do now is make connections. Not business connections, because I am a stay-at-home mom, but personal connections. Not that I’m looking for some deep, meaningful relationships online, but just people in the same place in their lives as me, and it’s kind of hard to do.

Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, or gravitating towards the wrong kind of people, I don’t know. I just want some people, around the same age as me, with kids, interested in more than MySpace, likes music, but that can relate with my current situation of being stuck in a small town, where college football rules, SUV are the norm, and moms dress up to take their kids to the park (all of which have nothing to do with me). Is this too much for me to ask? Am I looking for the unattainable? I don’t believe I am, but I will let you know. 

It’s a beautiful day out and i’m typing this blog from the front porch. So, reading back over the few posts i’ve made, i realize that they they’ve been almost depressing. I guess it was just a few things that I wanted to get off my chest. The past week, i’ve been totally consumed by the internet, and I had to go through a few days of just stepping back, and not worrying about every message i’m missing by not being glued to the computer.

Which reminds me….gotta go run around and play in the front yard!

I feel very shady about it, but I must admit to it, I am a lurker. I do it on just about everything that I’m a part of. I don’t lurk to be creepy, I genuinely love hearing what others have to say, and I definitely take something away from most of the conversations. I try to contribute to conversations, but my over-analysis of everything i’m saying gets the better of me. It’s not just like that in these online mediums either, it happens in my everyday life, as well.

I have always been the quiet one. From a young age, I was always self-conscious about what I was doing or saying. I was the awkward kid too. I had big curly hair, braces, glasses, but that’s not to say that I was an outcast. I plenty of friends growing up (except for that really traumatic 8th grade year). I was/am quiet a lot of times because there are 15 thoughts running around in my head at any given moment, and for me to get out a coherent thought in conversation is quite difficult, at times. I’ve often felt that I have ADD, and finally speaking to my mother about it, she has believed, since I was a young child, that I have it (she just didn’t want me to be some overly medicated kid).

That being said, I believe that we all have some form of ADD. My husband jokes around with me about having ADD, but in the years that he’s known me, I think that he’s come to realize that maybe i’m not just neurotic and that maybe there might be some truth to it.

So, the point of this post is to say that it’s not just creepy, stalker-ish types that lurk. There are people truly interested in the conversations and just trying to find there own little way of making a contribution.