I just discovered your podcast a couple of days ago while at work randomly clicking around online during my lunchbreak (actually who am I kidding I was blatantly slacking off during work hours). I’ve just got through listening to this week’s show and I have to say I’m already hooked. I’ve not listened to any podcast before but the GGP perfectly combines my love of technology and the web with my short attention span and hatred of reading…. what’s more I’m from the UK so it’s nice to hear words like ‘arse’ and ‘bloody’ which I can relate to way more than the usual US stuff

Good work and thanks for providing such a useful service for free!

Essential PIM

It’s great because it will sync between Google Cal (importing) and mobile devices (exporting), its a manual sync, but you usually know when you’ve changed your calendar.

It’s only for Windows users but its a great product.

And yes you can sync multiple calendars to Outlook with it.

Ideally syncing multiple GCalendars to Outlook and a couple of mobile phones…

Cheers,
-G

Millions of young people could damage their future careers with the details about themselves they post on social networking websites, a watchdog warns.

Another pertinent BBC News story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7108627.stm

More than 50,000 Facebook users signed a petition calling on the company to alter or abandon its Beacon advertising technology.

Story from BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7120916.stm

I manage a group of people in India from Canada and sometimes I think I forget where I am…

Yeah in Canada you are about as far removed from our timezone as you can get - bummer. But it also explains why Keith gets up at 4 am when he does the show!

We shall work on a Northern Hemisphere SL group then

I’d like to learn more about SL, but unfortunately Aussies like you and Cam are on a way different time zone from us up here in Canada. I’m not sure how far you’re off from EST, but I never seem to catch anyone at TPN HQ in SL.

I think I’ve already added you in SL, I’m using Herne there as well.

Not everything costs $L in SL - you just have to know where to look. But then to actually acquire some L$ is as cheap as so 10 lindens is about 5 cents or something stupid. If you like I’ll throw you 1000 and see if the experience changes. I bet it doesn’t that much. As we said in the show - SL is what you make of it. I agree we have to find a better way of finding events that are worth attending - I think that is actually hard.

The other thing that we should do is have a meet - up for the GGP. We are working on a place that we can meet as well That is where it is at for me - interacting with people. And unless you know people in SL the experience can be ordinary. But I have found that ppl are actually really friendly and want to do that as well.

In addition to all that we are going to start including some SL content into the podcast - places events and news so that we can all learn what the go is together.

Again I reiterate though - SL is what you want to make of it. If you sit at home and do nothing - don’t ask yourself why you have no friends. SL is exactly the same on so many levels. You want somewhere to call home? Buy it, build it, or call on a mate for a favor. All these aspects inho make for a very interesting mix of places events and circumstances that you might find yourself in SL.

Maybe I need to take you skydiving in SL??

@Dave: Yeah, Facebook has far too many apps, and the people who keep adding them to their profiles obviously are missing the little checkbox that says “Allow this application access to your private data?” Uh, no, I don’t want MORE marketers having access to my data, thanks.

In regards to Second Life… I’ve been trying it out, but I’ve still to find a real purpose for it other than letting Linden Labs make a crap-load of money, or “dancing” for Linden bucks. Everything seems to cost Linden bucks, and I personally can’t see giving LL $10 a month for what they’re offering. I’ve been asking Cam to do a show about what SL is and how it’s useful, maybe you should get together with him on that?

Interesting comments about the social networks. While I have a profile on Facebook, I shared as much as I was willing for them to know. The other thing I don’t do is add a crap load of apps. They just crowd the facts imho. Plus I said what I thought of Beacon, and there will be more news on that in this weeks show.

Thanks for the insight into the PayPal thing Wade - I did not know it had been done before.

Oh and for those reading and tracking the comments - I have a huge surprise this week with a new host - it will not be what you are expecting. And THAT is all I am going to say

A few brief comments as I need to give a presentation im yet to write.

1. Nice use of dildo in the show Tim!
2. Thanks for your efforts in hosting.
3. Good rant KW!
4. Im still not into social networking perse and dont think I ever will be, but hey lots of the younger crowd here at work (geez i must be old) all have facebook or myspace.

Show realted comment about PayPal’s one time use credit card numbers. American Express was doing this in 2000 with a product called Private Payments. Basically you logged onto Amex’s site and generated a card number every time you wanted to use the service. They have since tuned this application off in 2005. The main driver behind this I am sure it that it is easier for them to gaurantee that they will cover any fraudulent spend on your card (which they do with the blue card in the US) than to run an application to track all those random card numbers.

Also, in reply to Herne;

Over the past few weeks, I have heard so many people complain about Facebook and what they are doing with the data you have given them. I’ve given it some thought and have come to the conclusion that social-networks are nothing more than marketing data harvesters. Asides from having a ton of eyeballs to market to advertisers, most of the user’s on these social-networks provide accurate user data. The reason I believe this to be true is that, you want at least most of your profile to be accurate so your friends know who you are on that network. This accurate data makes for good demographics that the social network owner doesn’t have to work so hard to retrieve.

In the end, you’re not an end user. Your a pawn within a giant game called online advertising. If you don’t like it, don’t use the damn service. Here is a better idea, buy a webhosting account, download WordPress, and create your own social network that you control, around your blog.

The MyChingo service refers to a service that allows people to click the link and then leave us a voicemail on the MyChingo service.

So you are going to have to fill me in a bit more. But I can assure you that the whole podcast is on the server and streams fine from the website.