I’ve used sites like Facebook and MySpace for a couple of years now. I used to log on when I got a notification email from one of the sites, which was only occasionally. I don’t do very much on MySpace anymore. I mostly just maintain my profile as a way for old friends to find me. My habits on Facebook have typically been pretty much the same since I signed up long ago.

Fast-forward to today, and I’m hooked on Facebook! I prefer it to MySpace by about 10-to-1. I’ve become addicted all all of the apps you can add to Facebook. I’ve come to enjoy apps like: Word Challenge, Pieces of Flair, The Hatchery, Super Wall, Battle Masters, SimmBook, and so on. I find myself signing in several times a day to check up on things and to boost my standings.

The recent addition of integrated instant messaging in Facebook has only sweetened the deal. It works very well. I like being able to see at a single glance if I have any friends online, regardless of what page I’m viewing on the site.

While MySpace has grown stale to me, Facebook is evolving. I’ve read a few articles predicting a type of “Facebook fatigue” would eventually set in for most users. So far, for me, this has not been the case.

Tonight, I ran across a link to the most addictive web game I have ever played. It is called Motherload, and it’s a Mars mining game. I’ve been playing it for hours now. It’s got me totally cracked out. Try it!

I’ve been using the Del.icio.us bookmarks site for a long time now, but recently decided to create a brand new account. I started from scratch and imported all of my bookmarks from Firefox. I had Del.icio.us automatically assign tags to them as they imported. It did a pretty nice job at that, for the most part. What troubled me is that it set all of my imported bookmarks to “not shared” status. This for your own privacy, I understand, but there is no option to make them shared. It appears the only way to turn them all into shared bookmarks, is to change each bookmark individually. One site I read said that Del.icio.us was working to add such a feature to change them in bulk. That site was dated back to 2005, and today, we still don’t have the option.

The available extension(s) for Firefox confuse me a little. I like using the traditional Del.icio.us Bookmarks extension, which simply puts two buttons on your toolbar (this extension still is not compatible with Firefox 3.0). At the same time, the site also has another extension, called Del.icio.us, which is much more bulky. It adds a sidebar, and integration with your local bookmarks. I don’t care for that much overlay. On top of that, while searching the site, Del.icio.us offered two local bookmarks to add to Firefox that uses some Javascript code to take you to the Del.icio.us site in a new tab, and you can add a bookmark to the page you were just viewing. Personally, I like the last approach the best. No extension is required, and it is very simple.

I do love the simplicty of the Del.icio.us site, but it feels like it’s in need of a bit of an overhaul. It is a little slow at responding sometimes, too, despite it’s lack of graphical flair. I still love it, and use it daily, it’s just that it’s starting to feel neglected by its owners. Hopefully that isn’t the case, Yahoo!

Through Digg, I have found a really cool YouTube mashup called TimeTube. It displays videos from YouTube in an awesome time line that you can scroll and zoom. You can produce for a time line for any topic. Great stuff!

This past weekend, I set out to create a strong, complex password for my favorite log-ins. I did so, and went about changing my passwords online. I soon ran across several sites that had a 10-character limit on passwords. In total, three to four sites on my list had this limit. Even worse, the website for managing my AT&T Wireless bill only allows an 8-character password.

Fortunately, most of the sites I visited have a 20-character limit. That is way more than I will use, but a good number to use as a ceiling. Limiting passwords these days to 8-10 digits is surprising to me.

In a recent post about Yahoo, I mentioned that I use Gmail, but didn’t find Yahoo Mail lacking. I have changed my mind about that. Gmail is clearly better in every way compared to Yahoo Mail. That goes without saying, but in a recent test, I was made sure of it. This post is about the features. I’m talking about the ads.

In using Yahoo Mail some lately, I found it to be so littered with large, animated ads, it is painful to use. The new Yahoo Mail is worse in that aspect than the Classic view. Ads are everywhere–and they are big. I had several tabs open within the Mail window (Home, Inbox, Sent, etc.), and each tab had animating ads running all at the same time. Also, after composing a new message and sending it, an ad is displayed on the right side of the screen that is so large, it literally takes up almost half of my monitor.

It isn’t only the flashy ads in the Mail site itself. The advertisement taglines sent with all outgoing messages are really annoying, too. Yahoo used to have ones that simply mentioned the message having been sent by Yahoo. Today, it is a random text ad, shown below a horizontal line that doesn’t quite line up with the message window, or the text below it. Obnoxious and tacky! Fortunately, Gmail doesn’t do this.

One can sign up for Yahoo Mail Plus ($20 yearly) to ditch the ads. That is too expensive for my taste, especially since free accounts already get unlimited storage. I suppose anyone could use AdBlock for Firefox to block the ads within Yahoo Mail, but it won’t do anything about the taglines in your outgoing messages.

Overall, Gmail has so much more class and tact. Google doesn’t charge for the extras that Yahoo is asking users to pay for. If you use Yahoo and are willing to change your email address, I’d suggest ditching it. Gmail is so much faster and snappier than Yahoo, by a mile. You’ll certainly be thankful when you don’t see anymore flashing ads!

I received the link to this site in an email that was sent to me. It is worth sharing with you all. It is a flash-based world clock and counter for planetary data of all types, including births, deaths, CO2 emissions, etc. I don’t know how accurate the figures are, but it is pretty stunning none the less.

I just discovered the website Popurls.com. I don’t know how I hadn’t heard of it before now. I stumbled across it on the web just this weekend. Popurls aims to provide “popular urls to the latest web buzz”. They succeed brilliantly. Every single site that I can possibly think of is represented on Popurls. Everything from Digg, Flickr, Delicious, ifilm, YouTube, MetaCafe, Slashdot, Wired, Clipmarks, to anything else you can imagine. The page at Popurls is beautifully designed. I’ve made this site my new home page. It is truly a one stop shop for popular things on the net. If you haven’t been there, go now!

This is one of the funniest, most ridiculous videos I have ever seen. It is a video from 1978 of William Shatner singing Rocket Man. I have had it on my list of favorites on YouTube for some time, and tonight I played it again, and almost fell out of my chair. It’s a must-see. Ha!

With all of the hoopla surrounding the presidential election this year, choosing a new president could be as easy as a visit to Glassbooth.org. Check it out. Take a slick online questionnaire of your beliefs on a range of issues. The website will then tabulate a scorecard of which candidates would best represent you. Pretty cool!