My biggest.mistake

First on the announcement list is that I think I just lost a month of my life. Where did it go? Well, actually I know where it went: last.fm. For the unconverted, last.fm essentially records what music you listen to. You create a profile on their website, like MySpace or Facebook, and use an appropriate music player with the appropriate audioscrobbler (what the site used to be called) plugin, and the statistics for the songs you play are automatically uploaded. You can then see these stats on your profile, such as how many songs you've played, how many by each artist, how many artists, etc. You can also "love" tracks and create playlists, make friends and see what they're playing at the moment.

Here's the really good bit: last.fm has a huge database of songs and artists that you can listen to, and "radios", which are basically playlists of a certain type. For instance, "Pink Floyd radio" will play songs by Pink Floyd and related artists, so you can discover new bands. People also end up with their own personal radio, which shows the tracks they've most recently listened to, or their most played. I've embedded mine as a widget on my site, so you can load it up (see the top of this page) and see what I've been listening to. If last.fm has the songs, you can listen to them too! Web 2.0: 1, reality: 0.

I hope I've been a convincing advert. The only problem with it is that it really affects what you play (if you have OCD, anyway), as you realise that everyone is going to see your music collection. This is particularly true when you first join, and any changes to your stats are pretty weighty. So I'm holding off on the Westlife until my music collection gets so big that they'll go unnoticed. Also, it's nice to have your music library in order (OCD...), and ideally you want your favourite artist to be the one you listen to the most. Or is that just me?

For foobar2000 users, it is possible to get an audioscrobbler component to use with last.fm. Download the component by clicking here, and unzip it to your foobar components directory. Set it going in the preferences section, and away you go! I'll probably add that to the tutorial.

Why be a Twit?

I joined Twitter the other week. Before I say anything else, I must admit it is a very pretty site. Beautifully modern and minimalistic, with nice colours and little birds. It looks bang up to date, which is the main reason for me signing up. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, because as soon as I joined I was asked to search for friends by their e-mail addresses. This was the first stumbling block, as I knew of no-one who was using Twitter. I added my first "tweet" (don't get me started on their special language) in utter futility, as nobody would see it except for me.

A tweet is a short description of what you're doing right now, as this is, of course, essential information for everyone. My knowledge of the special Twitter language breaks down from here, but I'll do my best and offer practical substitutes where I can. You can "follow" (that's a real one, meaning "stalk") other "twits" (made that one up), and you don't even have to be their friend. In fact, you can receive up to date information on the intimate details of the lives of Stephen Fry, Barack Obama and David Bowie, as far as they choose to divulge them. And I know without a doubt that they are the real people, because they have a little profile picture to prove it. So when Mr. Fry pops out for coffee, myself and thousands of other followers can go and join him. Or assassinate him (joke, don't sue me).

For some reason this has become a mini revolution, but Facebook has spotted it. And stolen it. Now, instead of updating your status on Facebook (already the most annoying part, for me anyway), it says "What's on your mind", in a friendly, irritating sort of way. It's become all Twittery, but at the same time still has kept the ridiculous amount of stuff you can do with Facebook, rendering Twitter redundant. But due to Facebook's annoying friendliness, it's unusable vastness and incessent blueness, I call web 2.0: 1, reality: 1.

The final showdown

This is an easy decision actually. I just have to turn to the plethora of consolidated information that has so far single-handedly dragged me through my degree. I am, of course, speaking of Wikipedia. When it first hit the scene, many were skeptical due to the fact that "anyone can write whatever they want", and that it could therefore never be a valid source of information. The irony is that in the time it took them to say that sentence, more people started using Wikipedia. And more people using Wikipedia means greater combined knowledge. Statistically, the more people using Wikipedia, the more accurate it becomes. Also, the more obscure the entry, the more likely it is to be accurate, as only an authority on the subject would consider creating and adding to it.

This is why it's actually a brilliant source of information for Physics, and researchers use it to "publish" their theories and results. In fact, it's an authority on pretty much anything, and can be used effectively to end arguments between friends (particularly effective if you change it to suit your view before they read it). My personal belief is that the days of picking up a big dusty Encyclopedia have gone. Web 2.0: 2, reality: 1.

Go on, try it out. You know you want to.

The distinct lack of updates

What does the near future hold for joncairns.com?

• I'm just about to add the Dilbert comic strip to my home page, because it's great.
• I've been messing around with foobar2000 and particularly the ELPlaylist and Panel Stack Splitter components, so expect a tutorial to pop up sometime in the next month.
• More albums added to the essential albums section.
• New additions to my portfolio section! I've been working on a website for a while, and a whole bunch of fliers. Should be up within a week.
• Hopefully more web design tutorials.

This isn't legally binding, by the way.