Spent the day away tweaking my Samsung netbook again today.

First it was an attempt to make my Windows XP void of all windows application while also mimicking the looks of Mac OSX. That was kind of a success.

Then I saw this post on Lifehacker the other day, with Jolicloud reigning the No. 1 spot on the blog’s weekly Hive Five series.

I tried a minimal, Linux netbook before on now my cousin’s Eee PC. It sucked. But I was tempted at installing Jolicloud as the interface looks very sleek, and after some Google research, rave reviews have also been given about it.

So on the day I forgot my MacBook in a friend’s car is the day I decided to try it.

The pro? It’s everything I ever hoped for for a simplified netbook OS.

The con? I spent the WHOLE day as opposed to their supposedly few minutes of no-hassle out-of-the-box installation.

I couldn’t get my Dropbox to sync. My Wireless Networks were missing. Couldn’t switch to Thai keyboard even though the language pack was installed. After a reset, my “theme” was missing for no reason. Application windows are too big for my screen (when on Windows, my 1280×600 resolution was more than plenty) and now I can’t find/click Cancel or OK buttons on some menus.

Well after a whole day of trial and error, I solved all of the above except the screen size problem.

And so far, I’m liking this Jolicloud this. Their “apps” are mostly Prism-based webapps. So don’t be fooled by Gmail, Twitter, Facebook “apps”, they’re just like a webpage, pinned to your desktop. It’s a JoliCLOUD after all, your life is supposed to be on the internet, not on the hard drive.

But the webapp is not so great for services like Instapaper or Google Reader as when you click on a link, it would appear in a separate browser app in the background, and this had me think that it was doing nothing.

But well this is a pre-beta release, which means you can’t complain. But all in all it’s a fun OS to use and is fully functioning unlike the crippled Eee PC OS which looked more like a child’s toy than a computer.

I was doing some Stumbling when I came across this website:

www.futureme.org

Basically you just write an email to your future self. And if you sign up for an account, you can write more emails to more people and keep track of them.

Personally I just wanna forget it and be surprised when it arrives.

I just wrote one, complaining (like it’s any news) and basically giving a brief look into my current life, like a snapshot of what it is like right now. And I just set it to send to me the morning of my 25th birthday.

I wanna know how much things will have changed. Or not at all.

A week before 2010, I decided to take a little Twitter detox.

OK at first I said Facebook, blogging, Tumblr, and Twitter but in the end I could only stick to one.

And I realized how much I depend on Twitter. There were so many things I wish I could tweet/retweet and then I had to stop myself.

So to satisfy my craving for the past week, here’s what I wish I could tweet.

“Damn Time Machine is awesome. Combined with my equally awesome and cute WD drive, this is heaven.”

“Never cared for Twitter Lists much until this detox.”

“RT @macTweeter Gunman iPhone app merges LazerTag with augmented reality: http://bit.ly/8HUSeK”

“Is it time to start using Microsoft Office for Mac? Does it still suck?”

“BK Magazine got their dirty hands on Miss Jay Alexander: http://bit.ly/7z6NBK”

“Been using iPhoto ‘09 face detecting features. Why do they keep asking if I’m someone else?”

“Wow the Lin Ping craze just took a creepy turn. Found this at a bakery near the office. [TwitPic]
”

“Got so bored tried to force people to Skype Video with me. Got three victims.”

“Bought a B40 Kit Kat. Comes with two packs and a free Kit Kat shaped pen!”

“So the Honeymoon+travel English edition is finally out after…9 months. With only ONE of my articles on it. Oi!”

“BKK you’re being ridiculous. Being gloomy on the last day of work does not encourage me to be at the office at all.”

“Oh hell yeah! GLEE is coming to Star World Jan 20!”

“Going Club Culture for the NYE. Expect free drinks at midnight. But then since I can’t tweet no one is gonna know about this surprise.”

OK I cheated. I’ve been jotting down those tweets and reading the updates. But it was fun being an observer for a change. I did go through a day without opening Tweetie, both on the Macbook and the iPhone, and that was my proudest moment. I didn’t feel incomplete as I thought I would. And once you’ve missed a heapload of tweets you just can’t be bothered going back reading them all like you would when you missed a few hours.

Happy New Year, by the way.

The “new twitter” Foursquare has surprisingly caught on quick here in Bangkok, partly thanks to the increase of Blackberry users as much as I hate to admit.

Foursquare is a location-based social app. The idea is you “check-in” at places you go during the day. It gives you points, which in turn ranks you in a city chart. And if you check it multiple times at a single place, you can become a “mayor” of that place. It’s a great app to meet people, see which friends are around. You can also add “tips” or advice for these places so other people who have never been there before know what to expect. I’d say it makes an awesome travel guide as you can switch cities.

I knew about this app a long time ago but only recently that they took on more international cities and Bangkok was one of them.

And I have been enjoying it and observing its growth in Bangkok. One thing for sure though, just like any other new social services, people here seem to always find a way to, not misuse, but misunderstand these social apps and turn it into one big mess. Examples:

- Iam Superhot is not an ideal Facebook name.
- RT in Twitter does not mean reply. And really you don’t need to give to us minute-by-minute emotion and digestion report.
- and of course “P’ Nat’s House”, “My room” and “I am drunk now” are not exactly the kind of places and tips Foursquare members can benefit from.

I really don’t know if they misunderstand or they just simply don’t care.

And some just care too much. Like checking in at every BTS station s/he journeys on, or getting insanely empowered by their bogus mayorship, that when I “took over” their favorite mall, they got all pissed off.

This is just insane.

I admit I am a social network addict. I have blogger, wordpress, facebook, twitter, tumblr, youtube, flickr, linkedin and more, and my hands are sometimes glued to the phone, but I’m still able to distinguish between online and offline world.

I had an idea of doing a Social Network Detox for a week to see if I am still capable of living without checking my friends’ and updating my status. I still don’t know when though. Maybe for New Year.

I found this girl’s picture the other day and I was wondering how was it possible that this photo was featured in iPhone Photography Tumblr when clearly there was no app that could do this and it would go against the blog’s policy of posting iPhone-only photos.

Then I found the app.

Lo-Mob. And it became my 11th photography app on the iPhone.

To be honest, I bought it because of its tagline: Bring Retro to Your Mobile Pictures. It’s not like I don’t already have other Lomo-fying, Polaroid-izing, apps but this one just tops it all with over 25 formats.

Lomo, Holga, Polaroid, Slide, 35mm, etc. And they look authentic.

From a boring Look Shin shot like this:

I now have these options to choose from:

There goes another $2.

But this surely won’t stop me from coming home from Wang Lang or Ratchada Night with a 30-year-old camera. But $2 does beat B5,000 for a retro shot.

*Yes I tried the app with a Look Shin photo I took at On Nut Square. I was hungry. And now I’m hungrier.