Earlierthisweek, a Homer Simpson impersonator began instant messaging fans with a link to an "internet-only exclusive Simpsons episode." This -- like many things spawned in the dark corners of 'net -- turned out to be a PC virus. But how did this impostor gain Homer's identity?
It turns out Mr. Simpson has a legitimate, real-world e-mail address: chunkylover53@aol.com, which appeared in the episode, "The Dad Who Knew Too Little." Before airing the episode back in 2002 for the first time, Simpsons writer-producer Matt Selman registered the address with AOL. As soon as the episode finished airing, Selman's inbox filled-up instantly. Selman began replying to emails under the guise of Homer, and fans got to enjoy a short conversation with the cartoon star
Six years later, the email account is no longer active, but fans begin receiving AIM messages from Chunkylover53. Fans forgot that an AIM screen-name can be tied to an email other than its AOL email counterpart, and Selman never registered it or abandoned it at a later time -- leaving it open for hijack.
It's a problem we've all faced before: We venture away from web based email programs to try those cool-looking desktop email clients everyone's raving about. After getting through the hassle of making sure everything syncs properly, one of the problems many seem to face is duplicate messages. Well, open source Thunderbird users don't stand around letting problems be; They face them with Thunderbird customizations like the Remove Duplicate Messages add-on.
Released by Thorsten W. Schmidt on the Mozilla site, the add-on searches a given folder for duplicate messages and automatically deletes them by tagging all duplicates with a delete flag and one message with the keep flag. To use it, first install it from the Mozilla site. Once installed, open Thunderbird and right click on a folder. Click "Remove Duplicate Messages" and that's it.
The add-on also lets you configure what fields you want to compare such as sender, message, etc. It also checks sub-folders, and can analyze about 1000 messages per second. Finally, you can choose to keep the the bigger, smaller, unread, first found, or last found Message if you have a preference.
Quick, name the most annoying thing about your Facebook profile? The status message!
Trying to contort your status to fit the "is" from updates using the proper English language often proves extremely challenging. How many times have you ignored the "is" altogether and just inserted whatever you wanted, whether it made sense or not? Fear not, Facebook has listened to their users. Over 164,000 members in a Facebook group lobbied to get rid of the clunky "is" verb and succeeded. Currently the developer platform is the only code that has been updated with the change.
However, there's no word on when you'll see the "is" disappear from your user accounts.
Text messages are normally easy to send, but what about when you're driving or occupied and want to get something complex across? Pinger is a service that lets users call into a service and leave a voicemail to a contact, that will in turn send a text message instead of a ring. Recipients then press a button and listen to your voice message and can reply or forward the message. It's a quick alternative service that makes voice messages easy without actually ringing up and interrupting a person. Recipients are presented with a message that shows who the message is from, how long it is, and when it was sent before they listen.
The Pinger service is free to use, but is only currently open to US residents. Instead of calling a number, Pinger has a special application for Blackberry and Treo that speeds up the process and allows for a visual preview of messages, list of last 10 Pinger messages and sharing between other Blackberry or Treo users.
Meebo, the web-based instant messaging application that runs across all major IM networks has released a Firefox add-on giving users a browser sidebar for easy chatting.
The Meebo Firefox add-on makes it much easier to chat with friends while browsing online. No more switching from application to application or from the Meebo homepage to the page browsing. The sidebar gives users a visual notification, the side pane pops open, when contacts send you an instant message. No more pasting links and uploading and sending images either, the add-on allows for dragging and dropping links and images right onto contacts you wish to send them to.
It would be nice to have all actions take place in the sidebar, but one drawback with the new add-on is that when IMs are sent and received you are instantly booted to a Meebo Firefox tab that must keep open at all times in order to remain signed in. Meebo's line of web based IM tools include Meebo; a web based IM for all networks and MeeboMe; a way to chat with people directly from a website.
Does Twitter really need competition? I suppose it's healthy, but why not try a new type of model that gets people pumped about your service?
Twitter has a good thing going on, their text updating service is easy to use, effective, and it was first to market. Pownce, although a Twitter-esk clone, does provide a few exciting features like that ability to send files besides just text updates. This new release to market called Yappd, although cleanly built, really doesnt offer anything new or special besides picture messages.
With successful products, you are always going to get clones, and blatant rip offs. Check out this site that lists Twitter clones from Germany to China to Hungary.
Google has now made it possible to send updates to Calendars using SMS. The request to do so came in on the Google tip lines. People wanted a way in which to send text messages to add events, or a way to find out which events they had coming up.
The SMS updates work by sending a text message to 'GVENT' (48368) , with some details about the event, (ie. Starbucks meeting at 2pm). The GVENT will them be added to the users calendar immediately, and a text message confirming the details will get sent. If the word "day" is sent to 'GVENT', a text message will get sent back that contains all of the day's events. "nday" can also be used to get a list of all schedules for the next day.
Way to go Google, always innovating. Just let me pull out my cheat sheet so I can take a look at all the other shortcuts like this I can use.
CuBee takes the clutter out of your email inbox. It's a rich content email and messaging system which allows users to send out emails containing large files like video, pictures, animation, and notes.To add a little bit of Web 2.0 cuteness, messages can be sent inside a digital envelope with an emoticon to express feelings.
CuBee is integrated into ZCubes, a website where users can seamlessly browse, search, edit, paint, draw, watch, listen, print, network, work, and just about everything else you would care to do online.
Twitter, built by Obvious Corp., is a great way to constantly update people on what you are doing, think simplified blog. Short messages (under 140 characters) are posted by IM or web interface.
One cool thing about Twitter, is that you can update your Twitter feed using your Google Talk account. Simply add twitter@twitter.com to your contact list in Google Talk, and send it a short message. Using Google Talk to feed your Twitter opens doors to Twittering on your Blackberry device through the Blackberry Google Talk Client.
If you feel the need to constantly let friends know what doing, this is one easy app to try out.
RAZZ is a simple way to record and post web audio to your blog, MySpace, or other social networking site. Creating a RAZZ is a way to make a short sound clip (up to a minute long) and put it on your site. RAZZ wants to be the audio for your blog like many of the photo, video, or slideshow sharing sites. Audio has in fact been largely ignored, but is it really the next phase in the socio-digital revolution? I think it could be, but don't know if we really have a good idea of who and how many people would use audio so religiously as something like, YouTube for example. RAZZ is a good way to make this whole audio invasion thing happen, since the process is deceptively simple and even fun. See what you think of RAZZ, and while you are at it, let me know what you think about audio being the next video on social networking sites. Do you think audio snippets are a viable and viral communications tool online, or just a pipe-dream for companies who just had the idea to do it? Would you participate in audio-messaging on a site or blog? Do you already? I'm curious what the verdict here will be.
Ever wish you could call your Backpack account and leave a voicemail? Me neither, but now that someone thought of the idea and cranked out voiceNote for Backpack (beta, of course) - I can't wait to start dialing! To sign up, you simply have to enter your name, email, Backpack URL, the email address of the Backpack page you want these voice messages sent to and up to three phone numbers from which you'll be calling. You then simply dial a specific number to make your call and leave your message. celltell, this service's provider, lists about 7 U.S. numbers in major cities you can call to use this service, but I would imagine that if you have long distance dialing, it shouldn't be a problem no matter where you are in the country. The voiceNotes are added to your specified Backpack page "a few minutes" after your call as small Flash players, complete with export-ability to an MP3 file.
This looks like a fantastic (and unexpected) addition to an already stellar online PIM. If you try it out, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.
iChatStatus used to be the hip iChat plug-in that let you display your current iTunes track in a number of ways (albeit small, but a number). But since Tiger's version of iChat (3.0) has been out, many people have just simply stopped using iChatStatus. iChat 3.0 comes with the option of displaying your iTunes music track while you're chatting. Plus, iChatStatus hasn't been updated in quite awhile. Sorry iChatStatus. You were good to us before you got mauled to death. We salute you!
It's a problem we've all faced before: We venture away from web based email programs to try those cool-looking desktop email clients everyone's raving about. After getting through the hassle of making sure everything syncs properly, one of the problems many seem to face is duplicate messages. Well, open source Thunderbird users don't stand around letting problems be; They face them with Thunderbird customizations like the Remove Duplicate Messages add-on. 
been out, many people have just simply stopped using iChatStatus. iChat 3.0 comes with the option of displaying your iTunes music track while you're chatting. Plus, iChatStatus hasn't been updated in quite awhile. Sorry iChatStatus. You were good to us before you got mauled to death. We salute you!
