What If I Went Viral?

This question has been bugging me today. What if, either intentionally or (more likely) unintentionally, something I did on the internet went viral and thousands of people started looking me up online. What would people find? Would I like what they found? How much would be my own fault?

I was thinking this after seeing a video that went viral of an American father punishing his teenager by posting a video reply to a Facebook rant about her parents she had done. It didn't take long for people to find his own Facebook page and phone number, etc. While most people were supportive of the father in comments, there were a few people who called the police and child services thinking he was going to harm his kid. He got so many phone calls, he just turned off his phone. He ended up saying if people who knew him wanted to get a hold of him, they knew his email address.

Not that this is particularly unique. Viral videos and posts happen all the time. Basically everyone who's had a Tosh.0 Web Redemption unexpectedly found themselves in the spotlight for something they didn't intend to have thousands (or millions) of people see.

If people were to try and dig up info on me, the most obvious source would be this blog. It's not private and anyone who finds it can read everything. The only people who visit are friends and family, for the most part, and I write my posts expecting that to be my audience. I've been careful not to share things like my address and phone number, but I do recall posting what my personal email address is (after buying my awesome domain). There's other sources of me out there like Twitter (which again is not private), Google + (which no one uses, so no worries there) and the big one... Facebook.

I've been pretty careful to make sure my privacy settings for everything on Facebook are "Friends Only" and that the barest minimum is shared publicly. But every time they change their layout, I find myself having to go through everything again, just to be sure. This latest change to "Timelines" is making it difficult for me to share exactly how I want to share. But I digress.

Anyway, this has motivated me to start going through my online presence and make sure it's "presentable". Just in case the worst (or best) thing happens.

Post From A Nerd With Too Much Disposable Income

I bought a new computer today! I've been meaning to get a good gaming rig for a while, and the recent release of Civilization V has finally pushed me over the edge. I trust that this one will be able to handle any game out on the market and last for quite a few years.

I'm excited, because I've got a few games over the last couple years which I've been able to run on my work laptop, but not to the optimal performance. Now I have a personal PC that I can keep my own stuff separate and save my laptop from the extra work.

For those that are interested, specs:
Intel Core i7 870
1.5 TB HD
12 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1 GB)
DVD Writer/Blu Ray Drive
and so on.

As a side note, as the sun was setting tonight, I saw a full on double rainbow all the way across the sky.



What does it mean?

My Experience With Internet Telephony

Right now, for work, we're doing telephone travel surveys for Stratford. Because Stratford is long distance from Waterloo, I had to look into options to keep calling costs down. Travelling to Stratford every night wasn't an option (milage would add up), and I didn't want our surveyor names to show up on call id. So, the best option seemed to be using the internet.

I first looked at Skype, since they're the best-known service, but they charge a connection fee of 6 cents each time you call a real number on top of the 2.9 cents per minute. Bell Internet Talk is the service that I ended up using, which uses Windows Live Messenger. As a service by itself, it worked decently. Quality was good and it was also 2.9 cents per minute without the connection charge per call. The problem arose when I tried to create 5 new hotmail accounts for my 5 surveyors. After 2, Microsoft blocked my IP from creating more hotmail accounts (presumably to prevent spammers), so I had to create them from other people's houses.

Once I got the accounts created, I tried to put money on the accounts (since it's pre-paid). After the first 2 accounts worked fine, I was unable to add money with my credit card anymore. I did manage to get around that (through endless chat sessions with customer service) and set up the accounts with money and set to automatically recharge to my credit card.

Well, as soon as the auto-recharges started happening, my accounts kept getting locked, and no amount of unlocking the accounts and chat sessions with customer service would help. I think that my credit card was raising red flags, since I've never used this type of service before. But even when I tried other cards, my account would still get locked.

So, my conclusion is that phone calls over the internet aren't a bad way to go... just don't try and get 5 accounts going at once.

My Cult Membership Package Has Arrived

Hey Matt, you may ask... what's been going on with you for the last couple weeks? Well, let me tell you... Brand new iMac! I believe it's in the End User Licence Agreement that I now must act all smug and superior to you lowly PC users now. Allow me to show you all the light...

There it is, in all it's glory... just ignore the mess on the table.  I still need to get it a desk of it's own... all in due time.  So, why would I buy such a fancy-pants computer?  Well, this should be considered a purchase directly related to my video camera that I got this past summer.  I needed a place to put together the videos I took, and the Mac was the obvious option.  Check out the first video I put together:  The shaving of Dan and Faith's cat, Jooje.

Another project I've undertaken is to convert our old home movies to DVD.  There's years of stuff to go through... it'll give me something to do.

Happy now, Patrick?

It's Tech Toys Tuesday!

A couple of exciting things I found out about today. 1) The new Mac OS has been officially announced. The release date is October 26. That was all I was waiting for, so in a couple weeks I'll have a shiny new iMac. 2) The 5 free HD-DVD deal for buying the HD-DVD drive for the XBox 360 has finally come to Canada. Granted the movies they offer mostly suck, but I just might get one anyway.

In other gaming news, Guitar Hero 3 is due out on October 28, which I totally plan to get. Also, I'm still having a bunch of fun with Halo 3, even though my only online buddy that I've played with went and joined the Navy. Damn you Joe!

2 New Items For The Price Of 1 Post

I recently bought myself a new webcam. My old one was, well... old, and it didn't fit on my new LCD monitor.

I also got my new glasses today (finally). They're not too much different from my old one, shape-wise, But they're a little wider, so the arms aren't pinching the side of my head as much.

So, with my new webcam, I took a picture of me with my new glasses (how's that for efficiency?). What do you think?

Symantec Norton Internet Security Certainly Is A Great Program!

Norton certainly is not a resource hog, and it doesn't keep my computer occupied for 5 minutes each time I boot up my machine. It doesn't mess up the images while browsing in Firefox and I just love the seemingly random full system scans it run with no way to stop. Oh yeah, and the constant blocking of "intrusion attempts" certainly aren't annoying.

How's that for sarcasm?

Speaking of the endless "intrusion attempts", I think my most favourite one ever occurred just now. I circled the site that Symantec thought was trying to intrude onto my computer...

Tall and Thin... Just How I Like Them

I got my new monitor from Dell today. 20" widescreen...

oh yeah... and 20" tallscreen.

Just Your Run-Of-The-Mill Wednesday Post

I realize that I have to break up these work-related groveling for temp staff with a real post. So here goes.

I love my PVR. It's the handiest piece of technology ever. Although, sometimes it acts up. Take this Monday for example. I've gotten into the habit of recording everything I want to watch and then watching it later. I hardly ever watch anything when it's actually on anymore. But anyway, back to Monday. I've been watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (best new show this year, IMO), and therefore, have the PVR set up to record it. But for some reason, it never recorded. I don't know why... but once in a while it does that. Prison Break recorded and it's on right before it. So either the PVR mysteriously screwed up, or Rogers changed the title on the on-screen guide, which would cause the PVR to think it's a different show and not record it. Anyway, long story short, I downloaded the episode and got to see it anyway.

That brings me to my next point... well over a year ago, I noticed that downloads with BitTorrent were really slow on my Rogers internet. Consensus on the message boards were that Rogers was intentionally throttling down the speeds which made BT pretty much useless. But over the last few weeks I've noticed an increase in speeds again. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything and left well enough alone... now Rogers will slow it down again. Sigh...

Speaking of computers, I recently reinstalled Civilization 3 on my machine. I had forgot how ridiculously addictive and time-consuming that game is. I only wish I had a better computer so I could run Civ 4. The Civilization games are right up there in my top three favourite computer games ever... along with Sim City and Pirates.

Tonight... hockey's back and so is Lost. If only we could get the hockey game to take a break from 9 until 10, I'd be set. Oh well, there's always the PVR...