New Twitter Account

My Twitter account - @SheetalMakhan - was killed, too. When I go to that page, it says that it doesn't exist anymore. When I try creating a new account, it tells me that the username is already in use.

So, my new Twitter name is: @SheetalMak Let's resume the conversations before the hackers disrupted my life.

Facebook: Reasons to 'unfriend' someone

From cnn.com

Why I divorced Facebook

From Google Images

I take offense when I'm lied to. I feel like this is what Facebook (FB) did to me.

We started our relationship in 2007. I agreed to all FB's terms and conditions and in turn, it promised to connect me to the world, but also allowing me to control how much of information I could make visible to others. FB allowed me to rekindle friendships with long-lost primary school friends.

FB also enabled me to see my high school friend's wedding and baby photo's and not just "hear" that so-and-so got married or so-and-so had a baby. I was able to share all of my travel adventures (photographs and tidbits) with all my "friends" on FB.

Logging onto FB every morning after checking my email was routine. I could see Friend A posted a picture of her baby's first tooth, Friend B had a bridal shower yesterday and oh...look at what Friend C had for dinner last night! When FB introduced the chat feature, there was always someone online to talk to when I logged on, regardless of timezones. I loved this. We were always connected.

Updating my FB profile with news (what constitutes personal news, by the way?), photos and contact information, it beat having to send out mass emails to everyone.

Sometimes it felt like I cheated on my blog with FB. I blogged less frequently. Why spend all that time writing and uploading photos on my blog, when I could upload a whole photo album with captions - telling the exact same story. Right? Also, it seemed like people were less likely comment on my blog, but more on my FB updates. Fine. As they wish. Even though on Blogger, you can opt to comment anonymously. But, it's your call.

And then "apps" were born. Some of them were fun. Friends were able to exchange virtual gifts, do "super pokes" and even give each other fun nick names. But then something called "Farmville" was invented. I started receiving the strangest invitations of crops and...whatever else Farmville consists of.

As a social network, I found that people on FB became far less sociable.

A few months ago (in March, to be precise) I felt betrayed by FB. All my privacy settings were set to default and for a brief moment, I felt naked to all my FB friends. Apart from this (which really annoyed me), people were becoming far less interested in replying private messages, wall posts or photo comments.

FB was also "Friend Suggesting" people whose names I had almost forgotten. How was FB making these connections? It was almost haunting.

I'd had enough, so I deactivated my account. I'd previously been on "FB Diets" - a whole week without logging on. Difficult, but possible. This time, I wanted to delete my account, but the folks at FB headquarters make it so difficult to do so.

By deactivating my account, my profile was not visible to my FB friends. Within a week, I started getting frantic emails and text messages from friends around the world. "Are you OK?" "What happened?" "What's wrong?"

Many of them forgot that I actually had an email address which they could email me on. Apparently, clicking Compose, typing and hitting Send from an email account takes a lot of effort.

To be very honest, I didn't miss FB. I started nurturing my blog again, which I'm glad I did. I logged back in a few days ago and saw that some of the privacy settings had changed again (which I was glad about).

I understand why FB is so huge and why people choose to use it as primary medium for communicating with family and friends. I, on the other hand, decided to give FB a break after realizing that of my 500+ friends, how many of them do I really communicated with on a regular basis? 200? No. 100? No. What about 20? I think I could say less than 10.

I also realized that my profile had many "lurkers". I knew they were lurking because when/if I'd meet them when I'm down in South Africa, they'd comment about my photo uploads. However, those were the people whose photos were only their profile pics.

Anyways, I will probably activate my account again, but not anytime soon.

The Social Network - Trailer

A story about the founders of Facebook:

World Cup 2010 Twitter additions

Twitter has introduced two great features for its users to join in the celebrations of the 2010 FIFA World Cup being held in South Africa.  It has created a Twitter World Cup site which tracks tweets relating to specific countries, matches and anything World-Cup related.

Secondly, to liven up and colour tweets, simply add a hash tag (#) before the first three letters of a country's name and its flag (hash flag) will display on tweets when updated.

The full list of hash flags are:

Algeria #alg - Argentina #arg - Australia #aus - Brazil #bra - Chile #chil - Cote d'lvoire: civ - Cameroon #cmr - Denmark #den - England #eng - Spain #esp - France #fra - Germany #ger - Ghana #gha - Greece #gre - Honduras #hon - Italy #ita - Japan #jpn - Korea Republic #kor - Mexico #mex - Netherlands #ned - Nigeria #nga - New Zealand #nzl - Paraguay #par - Portugal #por - Korea DPR (North Korea) #prk - South Africa #rsa - Serbia #srb - Switzerland: #sui - Slovakia #svk - Slovenia #svn - Uruguay #uru - United States of America #usa World Cup #worldcup will display a little soccer ball.

World Cup 2010 Google Doodle (SA)

Congratulations to Nikisha Lalloo (13) from Port Elizabeth (Eastern Cape) on winning the Google Doodle competition in South Africa. Her doodle appears on Google South Africa on June 11 and will also participate in the global competition for an opportunity to appear on Google's international homepage.

World Cup 2010 YouTube Logo

Love this World Cup 2010 logo from YouTube

Google Doodle celebrates Pac Man's 30th birthday

I've always been a fan of Google Doodle, and this time they have not failed to impress.

The homepage has turned into an interactive game where users can play Pac Man to celebrate the game's 30th birthday.

Very cool!

 

"Nice" just cuts it

From Google Images

I remember my high school English teacher once saying that the word, nice should only be used to describe food and not objects or people. Find another adjective, if you must.

We all know those moments when we're at a loss for words, and we can't think of anything nice to say about someone except that they're just nice - you know?

Well, for now I'm dismissing that rule (sorry, Mrs Moore) and going ahead to acknowledge some really nice people that I know. A few days ago, I wrote about weeding people out - mortals that just kind of feed off you. Many of us seem to dwell on the 'energy thieves' in our lives, but this evening, I'd like to take a U-turn and recognize all of MY nice people!

The following gems hail from various parts of the world and I've gotten to know some of them online. That doesn't make them any less "real", but I sincerely hope that I get to meet them somehow, somewhere, someday.

So what makes them nice? It's many things - but above all, I've noticed the way they treat others. I've been raised to respect people regardless of their gender, age or status and over the past few months, I've come to realize that these people share the same values that my parents have instilled in me.

In no particular order, I'd like to thank the following people for just being, well...nice :)

Chetan Dodia, Ken Wilson, Jason Renshaw, Vicky Loras, Mercy Moletsane, Grant Monareng, Junior Kanam, DJ Sbu (Sbusiso Leope), Uyanda Mbuli, DJ Fresh, Kojo Baffoe, Trevor Madondo, Gregor Rohrig, Nicki Her, Stacey Yount, Faizan Qureshi, Rebekah Johnson, Mrs Hahm, Myeong No-su. My brother, Darmesh (DJ Damage or his pet name used exclusively at home, but I fear he'll cut me off if I write it on here!) needs to be included here. He really is one of the nicest people I know. He's kind, caring, considerate, funny and wise beyond his years <-- This is up for debate, mum!

So why am I writing this post? Have these people offered me cash or an ocean cruise for writing this? No. Am I sucking up to these people? No. It's just that I think everyone needs a lift now and then. Over the past few days, I've had people say some very nice things about me. I'm not entirely sure if I'm worthy of the praise, but my way of saying 'thank you' is to bring the same joy to someone else.

Alright  - 'nuff with all the soppiness. As you were!
       

Cheeky FB Fairies! -Part 3

You may have read my first post and then the latest one.

I woke up this morning to a reply from him. He apologized for the late reply saying he doesn't check that e-mail address often. ...I don't know, I may even be guilty of using that line before. He also said that I could send a Friend Request on FB "...it's not against the law. LOL"

Anyway - I didn't get butterflies in my tummy when I saw his name in my Inbox. It was a short message - said he'll write again later. If he does, OK. If not, it's really OK too.

   

NaNoWriMo kicked me in the right (write) direction!

29 days ago I took a pledge of some sorts - along with thousands of writers around the world. For a month, I committed myself to take part in the annual event - NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

I haven't spoken extensively about this on my blog and very few family / friends know that I'm doing it. It's something I've wanted to do ever since I discovered my love for books and reading. I've been writing for years, but to write a book has always been like a secret fantasy. I guess I could have started years ago, but I never really had the will to.

The aim of NaNoWriMo is to write a novel of 50,000 words in one month. For the first week I was all set to go. I was penning about 1,000 words a night. Writing became addictive and I was so excited to finally getting down to writing what I always wanted to. I have to admit that I would never have done it alone. I have met some amazing writer's online who have encouraged and motivated me to go on and not give up.

They hail from all over the world - America, Canada, the UK and Australia. I have gained such valuable tips from them all with blog posts, Tweets and video updates - in particular Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn. In Joanna's video's, I felt them to be so personal - like she was talking only to me! She is very honest as she speaks about her own NaNoWriMo journey - her difficulties, challenges and how she overcomes them. She really makes others feel like they're not alone in this "quest" - Thank you, Joanna!

My fellow NaNoWriMo friends are mostly married men and women with children. This motivated me even further. If they could find the time to be a full time spouse/parent AND write 50,000 words in a month - then what is my excuse?

As the second week in November rolled in, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find the time and energy to sit and write well. Although, the aim of NaNoWriMo was not to write perfectly. It was just to get everything out on paper. (No editing whatsoever!) I only had time over the week-ends, but I had other pressing deadlines to meet...or I was catching up on sleep! I also realized that I wrote better at night. Everything was quiet around me, except for the odd scooter revving past my apartment. I felt like I was one with my thoughts and ideas. My writing went past midnight and some days I only climbed into bed at 2am. There were mornings that I was already writing by 6am. I'd wake up with an idea or scene I had to write and I'd write for about an hour before getting ready for work.

It's Monday, November 30 2009 and NaNoWriMo has come to an end.

I haven't reached the target of 50,000 words. I think I'm bordering on 20,000 words at the moment - which I'm pretty proud of :)

How am I feeling?

Satisfied & motivated to go on...

If it weren't for NaNoWriMo, I probably would never have started this little adventure. It's given me a kick start in the right (write?!) direction. The people I've met, tips I've learned and advice kindly given to me are humbly appreciated.

Slightly sad...

For a few weeks, I got used to chatting/Tweeting with some of my fellow writer's online. We shared anecdotes of our writing and helped each other out by trying to increase our final word count. I enjoyed the discussions on how to write a dialogue to, "My novel has some unconventional sex scenes I don't want my parents reading - what do do?!"

I hope that my new friends will continue with their writing adventures online and keep us all in the loop of their progress. It has become almost like a habit chatting and tweeting with them when it was morning/afternoon for me here in Korea and evening in America (while my family and friends in South Africa were asleep!)

Appreciative...

Even on days that I didn't write for NaNoWriMo, I was encouraged to write something, so I blogged a lot. I've received a lot of hits over the past few weeks, and incredible e-mails from people - especially after my very open post about having panic attacks and keeping it "secret" in Korea. I've learned that the more naked I get with my writing, the more people can relate and respond to whatever I'm trying to say.

Having said that, to those who have reached their 50k mark - CONGRATULATIONS!

To the rest of us, let's not put our NaNoWriMo '09 to bed just yet. I know that I will continue to work on mine, even if it takes months to complete.

Thank you everyone who helped and advised so kindly over the past month!

HIV sufferers find love online

Website helps people living with HIV find love online

Coumba Sylla | Johannesburg, South Africa 26 July 2006 08:23 South African Ben Sassman admits his bid to help a lonely friend living with HIV/Aids started out as a "feel-good project for myself" but is now an online dating service reaching people around the globe. The Positive Connection, in its third year, can even claim success in the matchmaking game, having brought together a few solid partnerships. The 39-year-old Cape Town resident, who is married, says his website is "the first and only one in the world solely dedicated" to people living with HIV/Aids. The idea came after watching the disappointment and stress of an HIV-positive friend repeatedly turned down by women he wanted to date. "Once he disclosed his status, the girl would usually run away." Sassman suggested he tap into online dating sites, to meet more woman and more potential dates. But the friend baulked, saying "he'll still have to disclose his status" and face rejection. So Sassman came up with his idea -- an online resource site and meeting place for people living with the stigma of HIV/Aids. The site's "about us" entry, next to a photo of the good-looking Sassman in a smart, dark business suit, says it aims to "eliminate the stress and emotional difficulty of disclosing your status to your partner". If people meet someone on www.thepositiveconnection.co.za -- launched in September 2003 with a R28 000 ($4 000) investment footed solely by Sassman himself -- "you're both in the same health boat, and you can just go on with the date and not worry about disclosing [your status]," he said. "Therefore there is no emotional pressure explaining your current health status. I thought it would add a little class to how they can meet new and interesting people," the site reads. Continue reading the article here