Somewhere in Youtube: The Insane True Story Behind the Birth of the Internet

Internet is serious business… can give you serious issues

We are online at least once a day, like what I always say, being online, through your mobile or in a computer, is very essential tool for our daily lives, it provide us with entertainment, time-wasting activity generator and of course profit. In the end, there should still be a limit of being online and not affecting your real life with all the crap the internet has to offer,  its time to cut off the access before it developed into a full-blown internet addiction, complete with having a session with an Internet addict anonymous group, which unfortunately exists.

Pointless Updates From Out of Nowhere
With the power of mobile internet, you can absolutely use the net anywhere. In the end , you don’t need to put unnecessary and very pointless Facebook status and tweets that only you and your personal stalker will care. Your personal stalker will deed every time you post a single update in directionless intervals, even if it is pointless (like you just ate your favorite ice cream), you saw a celebrity (slightly interesting) or you saw an Elephant crashing from the skies (that is very interesting.)

Your DVD/Beta/VHS/VCD/Laser Disc movie collection is… collecting dust
When was the last time you actually bought an original movie that is in a physical case? in my opinion, movies in physical format is still superior than watching your hard drive eating movies from your computer or other similar devices. It sucks whenever you watched a streaming movie buffers due to your internet speed. At least you are not worrying about disk space of your computer. It is also awkward to watch a movie, in a small screen, shaking like crazy while you are inside of a vehicle, with your headphones on your ears.

Getting REALLY angry in message boards, chatrooms, etc
Message boards is a way to interact with other people, some good but mostly dicks. Don’t go bonkers whenever you read something that is not right, like someone responding negatively from your entry. Maybe have a respond and have a good debate of some sort but don’t bring it up in real life. If you can’t let go your rage because someone fought you online with harsh words and emoticons with angry faces, which should not bother you in the first place, just find any flash games that involves explosions and shooting to release your anger.

You can’t last a short time without checking your email
It’s okay to check your email regularly, especially if it is work related, but there are times you don’t need to check your email, especially if you are in appropriate place and time, like in a funeral or having a well deserved vacation. You don’t need to keep on clicking the “new mail” every chance you can, even if it is clearly there is no fresh email arriving. It is not your problem if someone from a different time zone, country and with “all work no rest” mentality send you an email with a time stamp of 2:32 AM local time, and you go in a paranoid trance because you did not get a chance to read his email, at 2:32 AM, wherein you should be resting and catching some zzzs. That is why there is a determined work time at the office, that’s when you can check the email from a guy that has no life.

Constantly checking updates
Opposite of you constantly updating your status. This time, you are the one, probably the personal stalker of someone, stares at the screen, awaiting for any kind of update since you know the person is online. You just can’t wait to know what he ate for his lunch, was it a Tuna sandwich his dear mother made or a corned beef sandwich he taken from a gasoline station from the other side of the city? This disorder also applies to surfers who refreshes a web page with a patterned interval just to see a latest update, even if the writer of the site is somewhere taking a coffee break.

You are more productive in online games than in real life
You earn millions, has a set of houses and have a successful restaurant, all in online game formats of course. In real life, you barely reached a substantial income every month, you still pay to your run down house, and still eating in same old restaurant. If you can be productive in online games, even if the premise were ridiculous and easy to win, just use that drive in real life to be successful in real life. Who knows, using your own developed strategies raising cattle online is the way to lead you in a better tomorrow.

Just use the Internet in moderation, even if it is redundantly everyday. Just balanced everything and remember that the most important thing ever is that you have a life outside of all those cables and tubes called the Internet

What the Eff…Facebook groups

Facebook is now todays Friendster. Back during the heyday of Friendster and MySpace, aside from the usual individual profiles there were profiles created for the homage of items, food and even a phrase. Today, Facebook can make fan pages for everything and no longer treat as an individual human account. Of course, with the power of anonymity of the internet and applying real life shenanigans online, just like my blog, there are some odd, weird and unusual Facebook groups that grows immensely all over the servers of Facebook. This is the What The Eff…Facebook groups and  I personally found some of them within my friends list and randomly across Facebook.

Girls Get Period Pains, Why Don’t Boys Get A Kick In The Balls Once A Month
with 217,367 fans
Well, I can’t blame girls for their monthly pains, but please, being kicked in the balls is like being punched by Manny Pacquiao and Muhammad Ali on the face, at the same time.

ATTEMPTING TO KILL A PERSON WITH YOUR MIND
with 4,919 fans
We all have desires to kill the person you hated the most, even hitting them with a folded steel chair repeatedly. Imagining doing the killing deed is better than actually doing it. Now go hit the person more with your imaginary baseball bat to his imaginary body.

No, I Don’t Care If I Die At 12AM, I Refuse To Pass On Your Chain Letter
with 1,043,318 fans
This I definitely agree, I received my first stupid chain mail of same content way back in 98, when I got my first personal email. I hope the original sender of this atrocity should die a horrible death at 12 AM, through my mind of course.

I Yell At Inanimate Objects
with 73,445 fans
Different strokes for different folks, we all love to yell when we are mad, but you can do this in a different and humane way, like yell in an inanimate objects, like a mannequin with an annoying smile. After yelling your heart out over it, now hit it with a baseball repeatedly.

I Want to have sex on a Grand Piano
with 1,209 fans
Good thing it’s not about doing the deed with the Piano but doing it with your partner, on top of the Grand Piano, in it’s all cold, black, smooth surface glory.

All Glory to the Hypnotoad
with 7,302 fans
It is one of the most popular internet me…. ALL GLORY TO HYPNOTOAD!

I read the group name, I laugh, I join, I never look at it again
with 501, 815 fans
If you don’t know which Facebook group you’ll join this is the perfect group for you. Why? this group is just there for you for no reason at all. Sounds good? join them.

Internet is definitely, a weird place.

Adding fire to Firefox: my recommended Firefox add-ons

I use Firefox primarily as my browser. It is safer and more reliable than the Internet Explorer, and I can’t remember the last time I used that browser. I sometimes use Google Chrome for its speed but Firefox takes the cake because of its countless and helpful add-ons. It may slow the browser sometimes but I highly recommend the following Firefox add-ons.

Adblock Plus: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
This add-on can easily remove all the unnecessary and space hogging  ads in many popular sites. Random ads sometime slows the loading of a page, this add-on simply gets rid of the ad on the fly. It may not work in other lesser known websites though but you can block them manually.

Linkification: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/190
You no longer copy and paste a static html address, this add-on automatically converts to a more convenient clickable link. This is useful in message boards that does not support HTML scripting.

Text to Image: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/618

It is like linkification, but instead of a link, the text URL of an image will turn into the actual image itself. It is again useful in message boards that does not support HTML scripting. Remember , this add-on may mess up other   due to conflicting HTML image URL mess fest. You can easily disable this with a click if a problem occur in  a different site.

FoxTab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8879
It’s like the Safari or Google Chrome multi-tab screen, in Firefox format. This is useful if you have a habit of opening a lot of tabs. This add-on will make a navigation to countless tabs easier.

NoScript: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722
Probably the best security add-on for paranoid people. It shields you from malicious web attacks and clickjacking that can put your computer at risk of being hacked, played around or even steal your personal data.

DownThemAll!: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201
A faster download manager, its like the old Download Accelerator we all loved during the heydays of Dial-up internet, but this is faster… way faster, its like your download speed ate a bunch of Popeye’s spinach. It can download huge files in less than an hour, it is still depends on your internet speed, it just enhances the speed by three times.

VideoDownloadHelper: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006
Effective tool if you want to grab a video from an online streaming sites like Youtube. If you know what to do, you can retrieve the FLV address of the video using VideoDownloadHelper and use the DownThemAll to download the video file, faster.

Use these useful add-ons for more smooth flowing internet experience especially if you are an active message board participant or an online streaming video addict. There are a lot of other add-ons scattered throughout the internet but I think the following were the the most important ones. Go to Firefox add-ons to get more add-ons at https://addons.mozilla.org.

Before the Internet

Internet today is an essential tool for profit, work and recreational use. Internet is like an addiction for me, an indispensable tool for my profession and of course, my time-wasting activity generator. Before the Internet, life and overall experience is different, maybe the Internet sheltered as too much that we forget to deal with some stuff in life, maybe the internet in some way made us more lazy but in exchange it made life better and easier.

Then
Cut out photos from old books, magazines and newspaper.
Now
Google image search the goddamn image.

Then
When I am researching something I will go to a library to do some hands on real research with books.
Now
A quick research is one Google search away.

Then
Going or calling to the office to ask something, like booking flights.
Now
Just browse the company’s website for inquiry and book your flight by few clicks here and there.

Then
You have to wait patiently to have the package delivered, without knowing where the hell it is now.
Now
You can track it with the deliverer’s tracking Internet thing.

Then
Manually pay bills.
Now
Pay bills online.

Then
Landline phones, and humongous bills for overseas and long-distance calls
Now
Yahoo Messenger, Skype, and other similar messenger tools.

Then
Checking movie schedules by reading newspaper and calling the theatre hotline.
Now
Browse the schedule while enduring annoying flash animations.

Then
Watching  those videos on VHS or Beta, with your finger a few inches away from pushing the stop or eject button once someone enters the room
Now
Streaming those videos and the mastery of quick alt-F4 finger pushing to close the window once someone enters the room.

Then
Hanging and strolling around the mall
Now
Hanging and strolling around Facebook, Multiply, Friendster and WordPress

Then
Writing in a diary with a big lock around it
Now
Blogging everywhere, including outside of a coffee shop, sitting inside, typing with an expensive laptop, with one tab for Facebook opened, without ordering anything.

Like I said, Internet made us a little lazy since we are dependent with the benefits of doing everything online. Physical stuff is still better than online stuff, like its better to read a book, holding it with your hands than reading an E-Book in a screen. We should balance everything from the manual stuff and the internet surfing, at least move something with your body.