Liam Vickery's Blog

The Making Of Adjustable Peacock Wrench

2009-12-04T04:15:00.017+10:00

So just what is this all about anyway?

Well, I decided to make a videoclip for one of my tracks and upload it to YouTube. Quite amazing what you can do yourself with a simple PC and some software these days huh? I mean, it's nothing too flash by today's standards... but only a few years back this would have been impossible to do without thousands and thousands of dollars worth of high end video and audio gear. I spent the most time actually writing the music for it. I had no intention of making the video until after the track was (basically) finished.

But you know how musicians and other arty types have this perfectionist thing where they don't want to release their work or pronounce it finished? The problem with that is, you can spend months or even years on something, refining it, going back and reflecting on how to improve or change parts etc. On one hand I am like that, but on the other - Maybe I have ADHD ? I often get bored of things I have started creating after a few days or something. And then I move on to the next thing. I'm not sure why it is, but I don't seem to stick at many things for very long. Though I do often come back to them. This makes me a bit of a 'Jack of all trades and master of none.' This track for example was made from start to finish exactly one week ago. The only things I had already done were the picture of the Peacock wrench which I drew a few months ago, and the old school video game sounding 'outro' credits music at the end, which took about a half hour another time whilst I was experimenting with retro sounds and thinking of 8 bit console/video/computer gaming.

I drew the peacock while doing some art with a very artistic friend of mine. He is a brilliant artist. Whilst I am not scared of a pencil, I'm no Michelangelo. But I do occasionally enjoy messing round with pencil and paper or whatever mediums and just going with whatever my subconscious presents at the time. So getting back to the timeframe of a week thing, I spent about three days on the audio track, then about three or four hours learning to use Windows Movie Maker and inserting frames, adding the effects and making the titles and credits. Oh, and making the spiral-ish dartboard looking thing with paint.net (which is a brilliant program similar to photoshop but free) was part of the included time whilst doing the video editing - I thought geez, I need some more frames and something for the visuals or it'll be too boring to watch. In future I may spend a more time and do some actual animations.

So to go on with the process, I first made a higher quality version at 640x480 pixels, which was about 62Mb. And it failed during upload at about 55 meg, And then Youtube went down for maintenance and I couldn't upload, so I recompiled (rendered? whatever...) a smaller version of 320x240 pixels which is 12 megabytes and uploaded it the next day when YouTube was back up.

(Get paint.net here: http://www.getpaint.net/ )

Any feedback on the track will be appreciated. Love it or hate it, I don't mind - just comment what's on your mind about it and what it does for you.

LOL is LOL

2009-03-24T20:33:00.004+10:00

LOL is LOL.

I was in a bakery today and spied myself some LOL.
Thought I would get some and give it a go. Well, LOL was okay I guess...

Google: Beware the eBay Curse

2009-03-21T02:08:00.001+10:00

Here are five things the Web search giant should do to avoid the fate that befell eBay after the last recession

read more | digg story

Growth Through Failure - Social Media

2009-03-18T00:49:00.003+10:00

Growth Through Failure - Dumb Things I've Done In Social Media.
(I recommend you DON'T do these things!)

In this post I will be sharing some of my personal experiences and mistakes I've made in social media. (And learnt from...)

Firstly, I would like to discuss the meanings of 'Social Media'
I believe that the word 'Social' is key here. It is about society and community. Making genuine connections with people and sharing useful ideas, information, and opinions. Everybody has one (opinion) as the proverbial goes - Should you share yours?

Well I once would have said, sure just say what you like when you like. Don't censor yourself at all. After spending the last few months very actively in Social Networks and online I have tempered my thoughts a little on this.

Why say stupid, boring, or needlessly negative comments?
Once you hit enter, if you say or post something stupid or malicious it is more than likely going to reflect poorly on yourself. People develop a sense of your character over time, and friends may forgive some of this, but people who are just getting to know you or see you for the first time are likely to form negative impressions of you if you do this.

Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit and other social bookmarking sites:
Submit rubbish content that is not interesting.
People won't digg, stumble, or upvote those submissions, which are recorded.. and make you look like a lame submitter. (Because you are)

Either submit stuff you actually like and think some other people will also like or don't bother. Long term if you like that site, you would want to be a good user wouldn't you? Check out and learn from what the people that inspire you do. Do a little research about the network... It is your community now so get to know it, and some of the people in it. Follow, friend, read, and learn from the best. (Whoever you think that may be, though remember if thousands of other people are interesting in them, they are at least doing something right. Whether or not that interests you is your choice, obviously.)

Blogging:
Not reply to comments. I have had a few comments on this blog and should have replied to them straight away.. Unknowingly, I ignored the people who were gracious enough to visit, read the post, and spend some time to comment! I'm sorry people, and I do endeavour to be conscious of this in future, and always try to reply promptly. Tip: In blogspot here, I have turned email notification to comments on.
Now I will know via email when I get comments, so can read them and reply if necessary.

Write lame posts. (Haha, not sure if this specific post qualifies for lame, but may help some people hopefully. That is the intent.)
Have an unprofessional or default looking blog. Yes this blog layout is still very boring. I'm new here cut me some slack, I'll work on it.

Twitter:
Some of my faux paus here:
Be patronising. (I actually didn't mean to be, was trying to be funny with a lame joke or similar... but came off differently.)
A few times I have been rude to people inadvertently on twitter doing this. I felt bad and foolish for how I must have sounded. wished I'd put more thought into it, as I actually like those people.. Who have now unfollowed me.

People have all sorts of reasons for following and unfollowing though and I don't worry too much about why or judge anyone's choices.. I have no idea why each individual chose to unfollow me. It could have been for anything. That is the beauty of social media, it is a two way street as I've heard said many times. You can friend or follow whoever you choose.

Another time, before I'd even spoken to a person, I @replied them with a link! What a fool! It was only in jest, but I immediately thought, woops! Sorry! See you can't take those actions back, they've happened now.

But I do learn, and that is the most important thing. Choose to surround yourself with people that inspire and motivate you. Folks that entertain you, and bring out best in you. Share with them, help to bring out their best... Have fun in the many communities online as you develop your digital self.

Every letter you type, photo you post etc. is left there online for anyone to see, and the masses will never get to know who you really are on a very personal level. Which does make it important to try to present yourself as best you can. After some time online, I now see that it is just as important as say wearing makeup for women, or brushing your teeth etc. It is not about being fake or insincere, it is about etiquette, and respect.

Get to know people and try to have meaningful, genuine conversations... Be social! And hey, these aren't rules, and sorry if I sounded a little cliche, anywhere in the post. If anything did sound cliche, is because I believe it is true, or appropriate. I'm just sharing my beliefs and experiences. Any other thoughts people?

100 interesting websites

2009-03-01T05:44:00.004+10:00

100 Interesting Websites

March 1. - Southern Hemisphere Autumn Begins Today.

For my first post this month I would like to share my new '100 interesting websites' with you.
It is an open list, add your site and be included in the list. It may help get you a few visitors, or the right person find your site or blog at the right time. Please, go ahead and add your site to the list. It's easy to do.

100 Interesting Websites.

Liams Twitter Mosaic

2009-02-27T21:05:00.011+10:00

Twitter mosaic - And a little shoutout to my followers.

(If you don't see yourself here, it is because it is limited to a certain amount of followers, and I still love you.)

I just tried out this web application to make a mosaic out of your following or followers on Twitter. Good one, thought I might as well add it to my blog, a little tribute to some of my followers and just sharing it in case you wanted to do the same or check it out.

You can click on people's icons to be taken to their actual Twitter profiles, and follow them from there too, if you wish.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

The beauty of social networking.

2009-02-24T05:36:00.007+10:00

The beauty of social networking.

Why do I enjoy social networking? Here are some of the reasons I have discovered.

Friendship: I have made many friendships online. Some culminating in actual meetings in real life. For example the 'Twestival" of recent times, Feb 12th (A Twitter users gathering, which was in aid of charity: Water.) I met some twitter people there and enjoyed it.

Latest news on many topics: I have watched many current affairs and trends occur in real time or near real time, mainly through Twitter, Digg, sometimes Friendfeed... There is so many networks, all with unique angles and great resources and information to share. And so many interesting people. News spreads through social networks these days even faster than any traditional media before. Interesting times ahead.

Personal development: Truly, I mean this. There is so many great people online, opening up and sharing parts of themselves with the world. This article by Mashable (Pete Cashmore) Does Social Media Make Us Better People? brings up some issues around this, and has some interesting comments there too.

I have done many silly things and made plenty of poor decisions on the internet, (as in real life) quite possibly offended some people... But I do learn. I appreciate the opportunities social media and the internet as a whole give me to learn from any successes I may have and mistakes I make. The wrong decisions I have made, long term will be important learning factors for me... And rather than just regret things I take note and try to change those behaviours or self reflect a little.

I think social networking and social media is definitely changing me as a person, for the better. I was utterly humbled recently when I mentioned that you can donate to the Australian Red Cross - Victorian Bushfire Appeal (In aid of the sufferers of the recent bushfires in Victoria, which are still going as I type) and people replied that they had donated.

It is hard to describe that feeling when I received the replies but I was truly grateful for what I had (And still am right now) and totally appreciative of the people for helping. I have had some truly moving moments, whilst sitting at this same keyboard looking at the same monitor... I've been happy, elated, frustrated. annoyed, excited, laughed till it hurt.

I have begun truly seeing social media websites as communities, that I am a part of... and I wish to be accountable for my actions in. We all have opinions, and I just wan't to make the obvious perfectly clear. My opinions are only that... we're all just people really, sharing the same planet, same water, same air, same internet.

I Truly believe, the key to social media, is first and foremost - Be social. That is how I try to make the most of it, and share what I've learnt, and have a fun time.

There is some pretty interesting info on social networks at wikipedia.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave any feedback and some of your experience in the comments if you like. I am always interested to hear others opinions. You can always give me any feedback or ideas here, Twitter or anywhere else you find me online.

Cheers, Liam.

Digger goes meltdown crazy on Digg - nitmeh3

2009-02-20T05:26:00.008+10:00

Digger goes Crazy on Digg!

A Digg user has had an angry meltdown today - nitmeh3 'was' his username.

In 54 minutes it has 90 Diggs so far... [Digg]

It appears they have currently banned the user nitmeh3 (Who has reregistered another profile under the name MICKvernon, and adding more comments.)

They have not currently blocked the page from the site, here's an earlier view...

I was hesitant to tell people about this, however I guess that is journalism for you, and if I don't cover this story and give some details, someone else will anyway... So I might as well share my experience.

The story has already made it to Reddit I notice.. On Reddit

We will have to see what the outcome is later I guess...

*update half an hour later*
The first big Digg reaction.

So that article actually makes much more sense.

And he's back again a third time, banned twice in half an hour.
MickVernomn | 9 minutes ago | Sorry got banned again. (etc.)

I don't think what happened was very cool at all, a shame it happened actually. The guy needs to loosen up a little... Maybe he could do with some time away from the computer or something? Well, it was some entertainment for my morning, in any case.

Stalked By The Reddit Alien

2009-02-08T01:59:00.012+10:00

Stalked by the Reddit Alien!

Okay, first a brief rant to Reddit, to set the mood.

Reddit, your site hurts my eyes and is not as cool as it could be. It is a little harsh on the eyes in my opinion. Maybe a firefox plugin with custom CSS options for changing the colour from default white, A few options?

Maybe Reddit? I dunno, I guess having the site set up like that is your thing, but whilst I love the content on your site, I don't enjoy looking at it or visiting as much as I could purely for visual reasons. I wonder if that affects your site much from others?

A funny thing happened to me today. I was browing some articles on the net and I'm looking at one on Reddit and noticing how stark the site is. So I tweeted this on Twitter...

I had gone into blip.fm and I was playing some music so I wasn't paying attention to twitter. I came back to twitter a little later, and it opened to this: THE ALIEN!!!

The freaking Reddit alien staring right at me in my Twitter stream!
Notice also, how he said "Zing!", and then shortly after, @autosnap said "OH SNAP!"
This is an automated response, if you say anything ending in zing, that bot/script will repeat the tweet and add OH SNAP!

So I was naturally like, "Who is this @kn0thing guy, with the evil little red alien in his pic?"
And it turned out to be; the Twitter account of Alexis Ohanian!
(Alexis Ohanian is the co-founder of reddit.com)

Thanks Alexis, you really made me laugh hard with that one! Cheers ;)

Follow Friday

2009-02-06T17:59:00.004+10:00

Follow Friday ( #followfriday )

If you have heard of #followfriday and wondering what it is you have come to the right post.

Every Friday in the 'Twitterverse' it has become a tradition for people on Twitter to recommend some of their friends or interesting people that they follow to their own readers/followers.

It is a great idea, and fosters the development of groups and communities of people better. It is an organic way of improving the network if you think about it, and is a lot of fun. It makes people feel good to be recommended to follow and also to recommended to others.

One very important defining feature of #followfriday is the hashtag, make sure to place a #followfriday somewhere in the tweet. It doesn't matter where you place the #hashtags in your tweets. Learn more on #hashtags here, they are VERY important and useful in Twitter. http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Hashtags

For an example, to recommend some for follow friday, you might tweet:

#followfriday I reckon @liamvickery is good for a follow friday because he is the World's best guitarist!

Or something to that effect *Grin*

Now that you know, make sure to have some fun on followfriday's from now on. If you are not on twitter, and you got this far.. What are you doing?? JOIN TWITTER NOW!

Cheers readers. I hope this helps some people.

Top Aussies On Twitter

2009-01-27T23:56:00.006+10:00

Top Aussies On Twitter.

Liam Vickery's personal choices for the top Australian twitterers.
Before you read any further, let it be known that this is a personal opinion and current as this post was made but not my conclusive list. Twitter is ever growing as we know (those that are already using it) and many more top Aussies are sure to come.

Please contact me on twitter if you would like to be added or know someone who should be and I agree that you/they should be on this page :-)
Contact me here: @liamvickery

Here we go, in Alphabetical order:
@liamalexander
@liamvickery
@michaelgrainger
@nickhac
@nickhodge
@phocks
@problogger
@silkcharm
@stilgherrian
@strictly
@tneilen
@waynemansfield
@WomenCan

Much more to come, just wanted to get the ball rolling for now. Maybe see this as a draft version.

The Greatest Guitarist In The World

2009-01-22T12:43:00.004+10:00

The greatest guitarist in the World is Liam Vickery.

Amazing guitar solos, Jangly Funk, Electro-tribal-industrial beats... Sharp smooth solos. Wailing whammy work. But, am I really the best guitarist ever? How much do I believe that? Not at all... This is simply exploiting search engine algorithms, and let's see how far I get, and for how long. I will try to take snapshots and look to show how I am doing occasionally too.

Have you seen my music site? Here... You will see down the bottom of the page what I am tryin to do. Here is the link:

Liam Vickery - The Greatest Guitarist In The World.

If you want to learn more about this what I am doing, look up search engine optimisation and see what you can find. There is lots of great sites around...

So yes it will be interesting to see how far I get with this one. Thanks for reading.

Australias greatest guitarist ever

2009-01-22T12:09:00.003+10:00

Australia's greatest guitarist ever is Liam Vickery.

Confirmed True and 100% accurate. It has been conclusively shown time and time again, here I'll show you an example.

Click on the image for the full-size view.

Guitars supported by Liam Vickery: Ibanez. Awesome Japanese artworks of guitars that they are... RG's and Jem's are my desired weapon of choice.

Favourite guitar player ? Too hard to choose. Favourite gutarists then? Steve Vai, Al DiMeola, Allan Holdsworth, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Frank Zappa, Buckethead, Eddie Van Halen, John McLaughlin, Joe Satriani, Rick Nankivell, Jim Kelly, George Benson, Wes Montgomery... Oh I am getting tired, and have to go and listen to some of these guys. Check them out people! If you haven't heard of some of these guys, have a look for their stuff. Recommend.

Thanks for reading.

Follow me here on twitter: twitter.com/liamvickery

The top 100 websites.

2009-01-21T22:07:00.003+10:00

The top one hundred websites...

Click Here to Visit The Top 100 Web Sites

And the beauty is, we are on that page :-)

Why? Well why not...
Use your time wisely people, don't read this blog... Go and do something productive.
Have a nice day!

The Death of Twitter

2009-01-20T21:24:00.003+10:00

I have been hearing about the death of twitter since I started using it...
My prediction? It's here to stay for a little while at least, and considering they just turned down a US $500,000,000 dollars offer from facebook, it appears the Twitter team think so too.

Check out all these articles I just found, we'll see which ones are true and false in time.

http://tangerinetoad.blogspot.com/2009/01/will-facebook-be-death-of-twitter.html

http://www.dryerbuzz.com/2009/01/tweetchat-is-the-death-of-twitter-and-twitter-apps/

http://www.medialoper.com/hot-topics/media/will-sxsw-2008-be-the-death-of-twitter/

http://www.totalpolitics.com/blogs/index.php/2009/01/07/will-hacking-be-the-death-of-twitter

http://dom.net/word/2007/03/death-of-twitter-is-myth.html

http://broadstuff.com/archives/1327-The-death-of-Twitter-exaggerated-again.....html

http://nakedpr.com/2008/06/17/social-media-spam-and-the-death-of-twitter/

Well nothings stopping it at the moment - Growth for 2008 was 752%, nice.
See here - http://mashable.com/2009/01/09/twitter-growth-2008/

Well that is all for now. I will edit this post later (maybe) and I'm off to get busy elsewhere.

One thing is certain: Twitter is FAR FAR from dead, and is in my opinion, just beginning to hit mainstream use and will grow HUGE in 2009. We'll see.

The secret to getting lots of followers on Twitter

2009-01-20T02:38:00.005+10:00

The secret to getting lots of followers on twitter is...

Well, start by adding me here.

@liamvickery

*Okay people, this one is for those of you who are pretty new to twitter or have never joined. This will help you to get started, get more QUALITY followers, and have some fun. If you have been using twitter for a while, maybe you could point some new folks here, if you think it might also help them :-)

See, "It is not really about how many followers you have - it's about the great people you meet and what you can learn and share."

If you haven't joined already, just click that link and sign up it's easy you just need to choose a username and password, and enter in an email address.

I've only joined recently myself as of this post and have 750 followers on twitter right now. I had 5 on Dec 19th.

So far, I recommend following people from peoples profiles, and their conversations... Read some of the blog posts, particularly the retweeted ones. RT or retweet is repeating something useful another person has said, like this:

RT @liamvickery You win some, you lose some. What matters is getting a beer ocassionally.

Spend the time to talk with people, genuinely converse - that is what this medium is wonderful for. Listen to people and don't just talk all day long about you. I am very guilty of tweeting a lot :-) And am learning to be conscious of what I say to not flood peoples stream so much... If it is only you (or me) talking, all you see is them and no-one else seems to get a word in edge-wise.

Find out who you know that is on twitter and encourage your friends and family to join, it's a whole lot of fun and you can learn some amazing things. There is also some celebrities on there, along with some fake ones, ha... and there is a lot of news channels and companies using it. You can also try typing twitter.com/ <--TypeANameHere and see if they are on twitter.

The username you choose turns into links, for example mine is: @liamvickery and the URL it also creates and that links to is this; http://twitter.com/liamvickery

Hey, I'm not an expert by any means, ha! I'm only new at this and this post is aiming to share with you what I have learned so far. Follow me on twitter and we can talk some more about anything I've written here.

One of the beauties of twitter and it's 140 character limit is that it makes you think about how to get your point across more clearly and efficiently. I would not have the luxury of a few sentences like I do in this post, it is a realtime conversation in twitter... Though it is strange because you could also go back and reply to things from months or years ago. I don't really recommend this that would be silly. Just get amongst it, and start sharing with people and speaking your mind, though be nice... You may regret some things other wise.

To get some tools and applications for twitter, check out twitter.com/downloads
A very popular one to use is tweetdeck and you can see a widget version on my myspace page.

I still use the standard web a lot though, and use Firefox with Powertwitter which is a great addon and if you are using firefox to twitter get this one. you will see why.

There is all sorts of people and topics that float around 'twitterville', so I recommend checking out the public timeline for an interesting hit of new information and people.

search.twitter.com is very useful too... look for topics you are interested in and follow and talk to people about them! The search is real time which is great.

I will post some more as I learn people. Thanks for reading.

DISCLAIMER

2009-01-10T06:58:00.005+10:00

Disclaimer:

Terms and conditions of reading.

Everything in this blog is neither fact nor fantasy. It is the ramblings of a rampant information junkie. All posts previous and future are fictitious, and I will not be held responsible for any actions resulting from any post. Any and all Brands, trademarks, slogans, and other copyrighted material is Their respective owners... Who do a great job at what ever it is that they do, or I wouldn't be ranting about them. By reading this blog you agree to disclaim any and all rights to discuss what was read here or repost or use of this content anywhere on the internet or other media of any tangible form without my explicit permission. I pwn you, not you pwn me damn internet freaks! I laugh at crazy companies' crazy lawsuits and the like and this blog will damage your eyes and brain if your read any more of it. I have changed my mind, and all of you are forbidden to read it. Every single person! Close your browser now, and go out in the sunshine, get some fresh air and have a beautiful day! Or snuggle up with some hot chocolates or whatever tickles your fancy... Sorry for the lack of formatting in this post but I am tired. I still felt it was important to say above said, and to relinquish any evil readers of the right to say or do anything about what I write here as they were not invited in the first place, and it is all just rubbish! Every single thing I write here is just one big rant about whatever I am thinking at the time.... Well, I've gotta go get busy on another project so thats all for now. kthxbye.

Facebook's security compromised - A different twist.

2009-01-06T03:54:00.008+10:00

Facebook falls for phishing scam on Twitter!

*Update 14th Jan 09 - The account was hacked.
I was wrong, they weren't phished and tricked.
Sorry FaceBook.

However - The following rant is still entertaining... And is what I believed happened at the time.

Facebook: I hate how you allow third parties (other friends installed Applications) to access my information against my will. I see you have been compromised on twitter, and your representative fell for the dirty trick.

Serves you right... @facebook. Couldn't have happened to a better (Worse) twitterer. Don't get me wrong - I don't hate facebook or anything people, I just have concerns over security there... And so far have not found anything to alay them, the further I dig, the worse it seems. It's all cute 'lil green patch on the surface... Who is running these apps and why?

This shows you first hand the problems of third parties having access to your info. Suck on that, 'James'

See this funny screenshot... (Funny to me, sucks for them!)

In my opinion, APPLICATIONS=PHISH. 'nuff said, I'll shut up now (for a little while, heh...)

Antidisestablishmentarianistic

2009-01-02T18:52:00.004+10:00

Antidisestablishmentarianistic

Could I be this?

Probably add more to this post later...
For now just know that this is the longest word (30 letters) that I have come across from memory.
Actually read something that said the 'ism' version of word was longest, so I added istic (2 more letters) Just did a search and sure enough...

Urban Dictionary - Antidisestablishmentarianistic

Let's hope for and make 2009 the best year ever!
..-)

Facebook Censors Breastfeeding Mums

2008-12-28T14:08:00.004+10:00

Facebook has allegedly decided to censor breastfeeding mothers photos as they are 'obscene.' A physical protest is taking place today (27 December 08) at Palo Alto from 11AM to 2PM(PT), outside Facebook's headquarters. An online protest is also taking place. Members are uploading photos of themselves nursing their babies as their profile pictures. See here: http://digg.com/politics/Facebook_Censors_Breastfeeding_Mums/

read more | digg story

My personal rant on this...

I personally find this a bit much - you can see just as much on the cover of magazines commonly for sale in shops for instance... So they decide what I can and can't share, and what is appropriate? I get no choice which of my friends third party Applications have access to all of my information (THEY ALL DO!!!) So to block these applications who I don't know/trust/like I have to block my friends. Whihc leaves you all alone in FaceBook, as most people have been fooled like I was in the beginning. I personally find FaceBook's policies completely insecure and disgustingly un-transparent. Even MYSPACE gives you total control over who and what you share your info with. And the fact that you can't DELETE your account, only CLOSE it... FaceBook is a slimy cesspool that will become more and more corrupted and perverted as time goes on...

140,000,000 users, 55,000 applications and counting... FaceBook says they are monitoring third-party applications, but how could they possibly have the time or manpower to monitor all activity? In my opinion this is just a smokescreen, and to compete with MYSPACE they allowed developers access to all of everyone's info once they use that application.

Yeah, so I might be 'being paranoid' but how do I know that an application is not really run by a Pedophile ring, harvesting baby photos to sell on the blackmarket? Word of mouth?

How do I know that applications aren't harvesting credit card numbers and email addresses for future scams and fraud?

Why is my friends who use applications inbox going wild since they started playing 'games' on FaceBook?

FriendFeed

2008-12-28T09:27:00.003+10:00

Heard of FriendFeed? It's a social networking website, which takes feeds from all(most?) of your other social networking sites and feeds them into one post.

It is a pretty handy application/website... I have it integrated with Digg, Twitter,Facebook,My Blog, And more. This blog post will end up in there once I hit enter and 'PUBLISH POST'

Australia's Greatest Living Guitarist

2008-12-23T23:55:00.006+10:00

VIRAL MICKEY

Who is Viral Mickey?

Current proposals and speculations.

He is the anti-matter reverse image of Liam Vickery.
He is the anagram of Liam Vickery.
He haunts Liam Vickery for no reason at all other than a preposterous habitual shrieking which can be heard from man miles away...
He is found only in Cyber Space currently...
No sightings have been made otherwise, and youTube is currently awaiting content upload just to see what his latest encouragements will be.
A band of thirteen people and four dogs have been apprehended stalking Viral Mickey... He considers privacy invasion to be totally uncool.
KoobFace is really just an anagram of FaceBook... and is pretty much the same thing... A trojan created for the purpose of capturing your information.

Apparently, Viral Mickey exploits are rumoured to be on the rise.
I'll keep you posted...

P.S. What is a Viral Mickey Finn?

Okay, my last post could be considered a little Biased... I mean, who am I to declare that?

Well it seems that the greatest source of information in the world.. google.com agrees!

It is now officially confirmed. This is 100% proof that Liam Vickery is Australia's Greatest Living Guitarist.

See this screenshot for evidence:

So yes, The greatest Australian guitarist to ever live is most certainly Liam Vickery. It is a certainty that the Best Australian guitarist ever is Liam Vickery, and NOT Viral Mickey.

DO NOT Believe Viral Mickey! He is not real!!!

Picasso smiley strikes again

2008-12-23T04:18:00.006+10:00

Picasso smiley strikes again!

..-)

What next? Well, it's coming... more to come in this post I don't have time to finish it right now,
but this page is just here in recognition of ..-)

Picasso smiley. One of my offspring...
You saw it here first.

(This page is currently the official Picasso smiley fan club page so feel free to comment here)

/|
(:|) Moo!
\|

Yeah I know this is all a bit silly but we all need a little light hearted fun and games now and then don't we? I'm a big kid really... Not all the time, but we're all just here doing our best in life so sometimes it's nice to not takes things so seriously, or just to think a little differently from your normal routine, even if that means taking the colon from a smiley, and replacing it with two periods, creating PICASSO SMILEY!

w00t w00t
_/-\_
qQQp
_|u|_
The sheriff will be after that Picasso smiley character if he causes any trouble, he reckons he has strange eyes and he'll be watching him!

Any other ideas for getting creative people? Comments are very welcome here.

New twitter logo

2008-12-22T15:25:00.006+10:00

Thanks by the way, Twitter... For making your logo available as a high resolution .psd file for Photoshop! I love you guys....

So the answer to the earlier question "Who is the greatest living Australian guitarist of all time" is Liam Vickery! Yep it really is true. You know it! (Snicker, laughs because he really ISN'T the greatest Aussie guitarist ever...)

I really reckon that title deserves to go to The phenomenal and formidable TOMMY EMMANUEL!
Apparently he has a new instructional video out called 'Emmanuel Labour' and I am very keen to see this sometime soon. His brother Phil Emmanuel is also a very worthy guitarist, who is more into the electric side of things, whereas Tommy is more of an acoustic afficionado. Sheesh, I mean GURU!!!

So yeah people if you haven't seen him before, check out Tommy say here on you tube...
Tommy Emmanuel playing Classical Gas...

That's all for now...

Oh and p.s. does this logo get artifacts?
*Update: No, it comes out perfect ;-)

What the BLIP do I know?

2008-12-22T14:01:00.014+10:00

It's true!

Did you know that Liam Vickery is the greatest Australian guitarist of all time.

This is 100% true and has been proven by me on numerous occasions.
For evidence, see the internet... THE source for informative TRUE information.

You can hear me play guitar on some of the songs at my website (You know where, or if you don't then Google it... You'll find it!)

Also, check out some music I like at BLIP.FM
Blip ROCKS MY WORLD! What a great idea! It is kinda a social networking site for music, where everyone listens to and shares music, and you can find downloads to buy of the songs etc.

Really cool. I personally love all the competition and millions of social networking and similar sites abound. It will be interesting to see long term which sites and companies will live and which will die.

I am currently using twitter (you can follow me at twitter.com/liamvickery) and have it integrated it with or playing around with;

Friendfeed.
Twitty Tunes.
SecondBrain.
Tweetdeck.
Twhirl.
Blip.fm.

P.S. The artifacts in the .png image here where created when I uploaded this image to blogger. They were NOT in my original file. I am not redoing it though (I just spent 10 minutes making this logo, and that is enough time on it for now, I am not re-editing just so it looks prettier on my blog, hehe you can either follow me or not and I'm sure the logo will do it's job...)

(I will probably fix this later when I have more time)

So, getting back to BLIP, you can find me DJing at blip.fm/liamvickery. Blip is absolutely 10 stars in my book, apart from a little lag in responsiveness now and then (and when you have a million connections open haha) it is a great service I totally recommend you to join or at least check out. It is free, and has great users...

Check it out people!

So I wonder if I really am "The greatest Australian guitarist of all time" ? We'll see I guess.
More on the other social networking sites I am on and using, and links to them in another post soon. Thanks for reading, hope you learnt something!

Latest Internet Explorer security hole patched

2008-12-19T19:18:00.001+10:00

Check it out! Microsoft's latest GAPING SECURITY HOLE is patched!

http://www.zdnet.com.au/blogs/securifythis/soa/IE-patch-Microsoft-s-eight-days-of-hell/0,139033343,339293905,00.htm#talkback

Update your Internet Explorer now guys... (And then DON'T use it anyway!)

MUCH BETTER BROWSERS: These all support modern web standards and security much better than Explorer ever did, and by the looks of it, ever will. Lose the dinosaur I reckon microsoft... Team up somehow and rebrand Firefox or Chrome or something...

Google chrome is open source, you will be able to steal that code, encrypt and compile it and pass it off as your own work!

At least that Browser would be more secure than your swiss cheese type offering, that smells like same, but as if the cheese had been left out in a warm, moist mouldy room for a week. Simple. Explorer stinks, and is full of holes....

Google Chrome.
Google Chrome - Download a new browser

This is what I prefer to do to explorer myself:

Online surveys

2008-12-19T08:45:00.000+10:00

Okay. I Joined an online survey company in mid November. So far it is not that impressive... I won't say the name of the company... (Yet?)

I emailed them through their online feedback form when they asked for feedback:

Hmmm...

I seem to have only been credited for 1 survey.

I have attempted HEAPS and wasted about an hour or more to continually get rejected and told I don't qualify after HEAPS of questions, more than seems reasonably needed to qualify. I feel ripped off. I will also be copying and pasting this text to my blog and wait your response...

I will not post your reply in my blog (if you do) as that is confidential, but I will say whether I am happy with my response or not and whether I should recommend you to my readers or not. Cheers - Liam Vickery.

I felt a bit silly after sending this to them, but also felt obligated to post this on my blog as I said I would.

Heh.

I have joined a few of these sort of things lately, will let you guys know if any are actually any good, and which ones earn some descent money online... And which are rubbish to stay away from.

How to uninstall facebook applications

2008-12-18T04:46:00.000+10:00

Currently the answer to the title of this blog post 'How to uninstall facebook applications' is you can't. Well at least not the official FaceBook applications. Which brings dismay to me and many a user...

There is some serious privacy problems going on from what I can tell with FaceBook.

When you join you have applications like the Gift application by default and cannot remove them. Third party applications can be developed which can either 'pull' your info and details or not. I am yet to find one which doesn't ask you to do this to use them. So to use their application you have to share you and ALL YOUR FRIENDS information including details, pictures, friends etc...

Okay this is another issue.. look at the following picture. The default setting for this application and all I've seen: CHECKED! So the program has access to all of my data at any time. The data is all of my profile, and all of my friends' as well as pictures etc...

Have a read of some of the typical Facebook users' comments about one of the default applications in Facebook, in this next picture I have created. This is an actual screenshot from the 'Gifts' application page. I just blurred the users name and images for privacy reasons obviously, as that is the whole point and problem here. (Click ON the picture to see a better quality version)

I can't believe that they are not listening to their users on this one.

So I made the mistake of actually writing a few pretty harsh and crass comments around the FaceBook world which was silly so I thought I would blog about it for posterity, lest I get kicked off there. Hehehe. No great loss if I do though. It has been good while it has lasted but I have decided to make a stand here as I feel this is important and needs to be clarified.

I have created this group for anyone who uses FaceBook and wishes to join in and help here.
Let's BOYCOTT The FACEBOOK TROJANS (or they call them APPLICATIONS...)

Hopefully I'm not booted and the group helps somehow... FaceBook I really love you, sorry for swearing and the nasty comments, but I demand respect for all of us!!! What you are doing is not right and needs to be updated and fixed.

December 08 - My latest social networking toy

2008-12-09T00:11:00.000+10:00

My latest toy: Friendfeed!
Wow, this is great! It integrates a whole lot of web services and things that you do, e.g.

Post videos to Youtube, your status updates in facebook, digg posts, flickr etc.

And then creates a feed like this:
http://friendfeed.com/liamvickery

Pretty handy huh? I am very impressed, and dare say I will be using this for sure!
Social networking over the web is becoming more and more real time...

Have a mobile device (Laptop with USB wireless modem is a great choice here in Australia, due to the nicer screen size and keyboard but still portable to anywhere...) and you can be up to date with whatever and whoever you like these days. You can even use VoIP services and talk programs and cut some of your mobile or phone bills... Spend it on more data usage or higher speeds or just save money.

Becoming more and more things to keep up with these days, and all the world is a chatter.
That is why for me, tools like this can be very handy.

Wanna know something cool? This post will go straight to my Friendfeed, check it out!

Facebook Bug.

2008-12-06T04:51:00.000+10:00

Okay people, I thought this was pretty funny. A bug in facebook's time system...

To understand what I mean here, just look at the picture:

I'm not sure how clear the picture will come out here, but if you look at my comment time it says I posted it TOMORROW! Hehe I haven't even seen a simple forum or anything do that before. Pretty funny.

I will post a better picture sometime in my forum.

Am I the first to write an article about it?

2008-12-06T03:47:00.000+10:00

I just updated my website a little, it is okay I guess but needs a lot of work to show what I am capable of properly. It is going very smoothly though, with a guest book, forum, some of my music including a song featuring a very angry woman swearing at a person I know... I wonder if she will ever hear it? You can hear it in any case at music.liamvickery.com

I found this interesting and really cool...
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/12/square-is-new-round.html

Finally a company GETS IT! Round and shiny is great, but not for everything and especially not at the cost of usability or efficiency.

Myself would rather simple, or even ugly... Than slow, buggy and bloated just to be shiny and look 'better'. I think there is much beauty in simplicity sometimes. - My thought for the day.

A great product I have just started using for XML RSS and atom feeds etc. is Google Reader.
www.google.com/reader

You can use it to subscribe to news feeds and things like that, and be current to world events at anytime of the day. You dont have to install it onto you computer, it is a web application online.

McVirus

2008-12-05T03:44:00.000+10:00

Wow! Trojans found in the form of a Macca's ad.
McVirus! lol.

So as always, the rules are:

Don't open attachments from unknown emails. Ever. Really.
Make sure you have a virus scanner.
Make sure your virus definitions are up to date. (update your virus scanner)
Always scan attachments first before opening them and installing or running programs they contain.

Not much else to post right now, I'm a little tired...

The answer to my earlier question about editing your blog is

2008-12-04T05:19:00.000+10:00

So, if I edit an earlier post, does the date update? *5-12-2008 Lets see. I am editing the text right now, we'll see what happens when I save. I am new to Blogger as you can see by the fact that this is the second post. I will have to play around a little with some random posts and edits as you do.... just to see what happens.

I like knowing what I am working with and being able to make the most of what I have, and this is a great tool here at Blogger. What do you think I shoud write about next?

This is just a short post so far, I'm not sure if I can edit it or just delete it later. I'll soon find out as I play around here in the blogger interface, whatever you call this page I am editing this blog in.

*WOOT WOOT you can edit the pages later and that's all good! Great work blogger! you guys rock.

It's pretty handy dandy really.
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q_p q_p q_p q_p q_p q_p q_p q_p q_p
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~~~~
| 0 O|
\_|_/
_\^/

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Some ascii art for your viewing pleasure.

I can't be bothered previewing, bit tired and going back to lie down now. That's it for the blog of Liam Vickery, 4 December 2008. (Will be a good silly season, with cheap fuel prices... Oil under $50 dollars a barrel currently!) Great for people to go on holidays with the affordable costs for driving longer distances with the current petrol prices.

And a new blog is born.

2008-12-03T01:15:00.000+10:00

HELLO WORLD!

(No this is not a programming blog... but I do know why you might have thought it was... see here for what the hell I am talking about if you don't get this...)

Okay. So I did it, I actually created a blog. Dunno why, I have my own website and could just do it there... I am just the experimental type that likes to put my fingers in all the pies and try lots of different things. Whilst I may not post much content very often here, when I do you write something new, it is SURE to be a big rant...

----------------
Now playing: 14 Gillian - The Waifs (A Brief History... (Disc 1))
via FoxyTunes

Seen/Got FOXYTUNES yet? get it for your FireFox (or IE if you for some unknown reason still use that obsolete virus carrier... I STRONGLY recommend getting FireFox, Opera, Safari,Chrome... Anything that is actually STANDARDS COMPLIANT) IE doesn't support agreed on web standars that other people have been settled on for years, and is the most exploited and affected by malware of any of the modern browsers, (DISCLAIMER - in my experience anyway, and this is my opinion only.)

Check out some music that I have made if you like, and you can see FoxyTunes in action on my page...

----------------
Now playing: 04 Jesus Christ Pose - Soundgarden (Badmotorfinger)
via FoxyTunes

I also added these 'now playing' links by pressing a button. Neat huh?

I installed JOOMLA last night on my windows machine... Great application.
It is an Open Source CMS or 'Content Management System' which relies on Apache web server,
MySQL database, and PHP.

I started getting those softwares individually, and had set up apache when I found a link to XAMPP by ApacheFriends.org - It is a great software set that is crossplatform - combining Apache MySql PHP and PERL. I uninstalled my original apache and set it up and it works great!

By the way, I am from Australia.
Have you seen the movie by Baz Luhrmann?

----------------
Now playing: 08 Let You Down - Dave Matthews Band (Crash)
via FoxyTunes

The best original music I have heard lately is by Chrystal and The Rock, an amazing group of musicians, led by the georgeous and soulful Chrystal Lynch...

I am not a very lyrically oriented person, being a guitarist and all, I usually listen more to the elody and other content than the actual words... She has some really amazing songs though which really caught my ears and made me listen... Awesome! Keep your ears open and eyes on this girl I recommend it.

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Now playing: 14 TV News - Living Colour (Stain)
via FoxyTunes

Over and out for now...

I'll leave you with this:
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Now playing: 02 Wholly Cats - Charlie Christian (The Original Guitar Hero)
via FoxyTunes