ONLINE STATUS in MINI PROFILES

Hmm... this is something I don't know what to make of.

Below a user's headshot on their page, it shows "Online Now" or "Last Log In MM DD."

I never really thought of this as much of a problem. I think Y!360 had something like this but it was hardly ever right. On Multiply, here, I never worried about the feature. Somewhere while I was looking at Multiply information, I came across a piece of CSS code that took the "Online Now" thing off of my page, so I figured why not and went ahead and added that.

Now I noticed on the Official Multiply Blog that the online status is now available in mini-profiles. Frankly, this didn't bother me either since it didn't bother me before. Reading the comments, a lot of people seemed perturbed at this. Some people even insisted it was an invasion of privacy.

I think an invasion of privacy would be having CCTV hooked up to the FBI in my living room, not my friends knowing if I'm online or not. When I post this blog, it is safe for you all to assume that I'm online. When I post a comment, or a PM, I'm online. If someone is going to attack you or spam you, they'll do it irregardless of your online status.

I think it's a frivolous feature in the first place, but for people to start such a brouhaha over it makes me chuckle. I guess it would be nice to have an option to turn that on or off, or at least an "Invisible" bypass option.

Anyway, judge for yourself, and let us know your opinion (here and at the staff blog.)

-Ze Baron

Link (Again)
http://multiply.multiply.com/journal/item/217/

A MERRY BLOG ON BIGOTS

Ahh, yes, the sweet smell of hypocracy in the morning!

I'm not voting for Barack Obama. He's a dirty negro.

I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton. Her place is in the kitchen.

How does that sound? Doesn't it make me sound so arrogant? That's because that sort of talk is bigoted. Whoever talks like that has another thing coming. Somewhere Hillary Clinton was, I think it was getting off a plane, some man repeatedly yelled, "Iron my shirt!" As much as I hate Hillary, that's despicable.

I think discrimination on anything that a person has no control over -- such as sex or race -- is discrimination in the highest form. What gets me, though, is something of a different matter.

Jesse Jackson endorsed Barack Obama as his candidate of choice. We know Jackson's rash behavior when it comes to racism... what does it say about the endorsement?

The Alabama Democratic Conference recently endorsed Obama, providing him with a key black endorsement. A county commissioner involved was quoted as saying Clinton was most likely to win in November "because of her husband and because of some other things, mainly because she's white." What does that say about the endorsement?

The National Organization for Women (NOW) endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for President. Their Political Action Committee calls it "Make History With Hillary." What does that say about the endorsement?

Isn't it racism or sexism to endorse someone solely on those traits? What makes liking someone based only on those traits any better than disliking someone only on those traits?

A Democratic calling card

The NAACP has confused me this election cycle. The California NAACP endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton for 2008. I can only assume that they slipped up and actually endorsed a candidate that they might agree with. Then again, this isn't the national NAACP.

People have criticized John McCain as being too old. At least AARP doesn't have an agenda.

-Ze Baron

Question

Does anyone know who this is? I do believe it's either Lenin, Marx, or Engels... but I'm not sure.

-Ze Baron

WHO IS IT?

I posted this in my welcome message, but it is hardly noticeable. I took this photo I had saved and did a little (admittedly poor) Photoshopping to the flag there for my blog logo and blog title.

The question is, who is it? Or, what's happening?

If you've got any hunches, go ahead and google. I'm interested to see who gets it first.

-Ze Baron

CUSTOMIZE YOUR MULTIPLY PAGE (with themes)

Previously I discussed how to use the Custom Colors theme to edit your page in a method similar to that on 360 with a post called, "CUSTOMIZE YOUR MULTIPLY PAGE (with tools like those on 360)." Today we are going to take a basic step into the world of themes.

Please realize that while we're happy to help you out as best we can here at Y!360 Refugees, I don't know all that much (read: near zero) about writing CSS. I do know about themes, so there is some hope...

If you've got questions, you can post them here in our notes. We've got some folks that hang around that are pretty good at theme writing. If the problem is pretty difficult, we'll refer you on to someone who can help you.

That brings me to the next point. If you have questions about themes, whether it be implementing them, writing them, or anything that has to do with the look of your page, I give the highest accreditations to Multiply Design, an emerging group with some of the best admins far and wide.

I even had the opportunity to design an official group badge for them, below. Click to follow through to the group.

Many of you are members of Modify, another theme help group. Due to recent actions taken by one of the admin there, I feel that that group will be unable to provide you with the best and speediest service. There is currently only one admin who acknowladges that he does not have time to properly help members out. That is why I am encouraging you seek help at Multiply Design. User Support Group apparently has reached the same conclusion. They list some of the most reputable groups in their right rail; Multiply Design has replaced Modify there.

If you are looking for pre-made themes, or looking to get yours out, I suggest Customized Themes. This group is the largest group on all of Multiply, consisting of over 91,000 members. On Alexa.com, customizedthemes.multiply.com consists of an amazing 1% of traffic on Multiply, while multiply.com grabs 22% and everything else makes up the rest. For one group to seize 1% of the traffic is unheard of.

Anyway, at Customized Themes, you can use the search box at the top or the tags to search for a theme of your liking. Choose the correct base theme on your page, then copy the CSS provided into the CSS box on your page, and you should be done. If you have questions, first check out how to install a theme (found here.) Any further questions regarding that process can be directed to our notes section or Multiply Design. Customized Themes is not prepared to handle questions of any sort. They are, in essance, an art gallery. You wouldn't go to an art gallery for painting lessons, you'd go to an artist or art lessons.

I will nto be writing a tutorial on how to make a theme or on how to install a theme, but I'd welcome a guest writer to please PM me about writing one.

-Ze Baron

STAFF SURVEY

The Multiply staff at the Multiply official blog have asked the MP community to take a quick survey.

http://multiply.multiply.com/journal/item/216/

I personally would not approve of basic services being a paid-service, but thing like how we are currently able to order prints and mugs from our photos are nice additions. I think if Multiply provided a back-up service (for a charge), they might find a lot of folks interested in that. Those things I can see succeeding. Paying for things like bandwidth, picture or music space on your page, and other features would merely create a caste system. I love blogging, but I would not want to pay to host my page here or have these many photos, etc, etc. I'd be reluctant to the point of moving to pay for anything except what is above and beyond.

To make it clear -- these features are likely barely in the planning stages. Multiply is not going to become a fee site any time soon.

Multiply.Design GROUP BADGE

Multiply.Design now has their own group badge, similar to a user's group badge.

Simply copy the HTML code into your Welcome Message on your site (or most anywhere else) and show your support for this group!

Once you install the code on your site, you'll get a badge like this:

The picture is actually a hyperlink, so clicking on it will take you to multiplydesign.multiply.com. It's a great way to get the word out about the best page design group on Multiply!

-Ze Baron

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink is the second book by author Malcolm Gladwell. It's focus is on thinking we, as humans, do unconsciously in a split second reaction.

The beginning of the book starts having told us how the J. Paul Getty Museum, in 1983, was asked about a kouros statue that was available for purchase. Very few of these such statues are in existence, much less any in such an exceptional state as this. The kouros had a $10 ml asking price. Many experts, when confronted by the statue, had a gut feeling that something was awry. Extensive testing proved the statue was "genuine" but later investigations found how these tests could be fooled. No one knows the authenticity of the statue.

The story that struck me the most was the story of the Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo of South Bronx. Four NYPD officers in the Street Crime Unit were patrolling in an unmarked car wearing regular clothing, except for 9mm handguns and bulletproof vests, when they happened down Diallo's street. They were suspicious of him, so after driving past, they went back. After a terrible chain of events, the officers fired 41 total shots at him. Gladwell explains how their rapid cognition led them down the wrong path, that is, killing an innocent man.

The basis of the book is that everyone makes snap decisions based on many different factors. Most people don't give these decisions much credit, but, as Gladwell illustrates, they deserve a second look. They can provide insight or construct false assumptions -- both of which carry weight.

Chapters:

1. The Statue That Didn't Look Right


2. The Theory of Thin Slices: How a Little Bit of Knowledge Goes a Long Way


3. The Locked Door: The Secret Life of Snap Decisions


4. The Warren Harding Error: Why We Fall For Tall, Dark, and Handsome Men


5. Paul Van Riper's Big Victory: Creating Structure for Spontaneity


6. Kenna's Dilemma: The Right -- and Wrong -- Way to Ask People What They Want


7. Seven Seconds in the Bronx: The Delicate Art of Mind Reading


8. Listening with Your Eyes: The Lessons of Blink

-Ze Baron

CUSTOMIZE YOUR MULTIPLY PAGE (with tools like those on 360)

Many users have had problems customizing their pages. A lot of new users left, dejected, thinking they had to learn HTML and CSS to customize their page. While those tools are available, there is a much simpler way of doing it.

The "Custom Colors" tool is just like the one on 360. I'll explain how to get you there, and if you've customized your page on 360, then you should know the rest.

First, choose "Customize My Site" under your headshot.

When the yellow bar appears at the top of your page,
select "Choose a Theme."

Choose the "Custome Colors" theme.

Then will appear a page like this. It is essentially the same as on 360.

If you're unsure of what you are choosing colors for, look at the sample picture above. This is from my previous theme. It was powder blue with red accent colors. I designed it to match a picture of Marilyn Monroe in a powder blue dress with bright red lipstick. The font was a light skin color. Check out what groupings I used, ie, which groups of colors are black, blue, tan, etc. If you are uncomfortable with customization, choose appropriate colors and add them in using the pattern I have above (for example, where there's blue, use all one color, black, all another.)

Also, if you can't find good colors, click on the color splotch and then drag around to find a color. If you have a photo editing program, like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, you can pull colors out of the photo using the dabber tool. I use Photoshop to do that. You can find Photoshop here. Note that it costs $999. More reasonable is Photoshop Elements, which I have. The price of that is $99. GIMP, though, is free (found here.)

-Ze Baron

'Foolish' reprint of Prophit cartoons

Remember those Muhammad cartoons? Did you ever see what they looked like?

Didn't think so.

Come, read, learn: http://zebaron.multiply.com/journal/item/202/MUHAMMAD_IS_THE_BOMB

-Ze Baron

(Title of post is ref. this article.)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Hmpf. It's Valentine's Day tomorrow. As my friend Alison (revelationsandfables.multiply.com) pointed out on her calender, why not show your love the other 364 years?

Today as I was in Wal-Mart (ugh), I noticed two obnoxiously large signs the breadth of the aisles advertising the V-Day's stockpile. I'm not one prone to eco-happy thoughts, but it occurred to me, "Imagine all of Wal-Mart's signed piled up in the dumps." There must be hundreds of thousands of Wal-Marts, each with two signs that are about 20x20. And then I noticed all the people (mostly teenagers) spending their money, buying those adorable little teddy bears that no one likes to receive, of course they also being thrown out within six months, possibly more or less depending on the relationship's length.

Someday this coming week, I'll walk in and buy some Ferrero Rocher candies, because they are just delicious morsels of heaven. Why, just blogging about them now inspired me to go and get one. After Valentine's Day, or any other day (notably Consumerism Remembrance Day), Wal-Mart practically gives the candy away. I got candy canes for $0.24 a week or two after Christmas, and most of them are still hanging on the rack of the deer mount, waiting to be eaten as I browse Multiply. Be careful in what you post: I might choke on a candy cane. And I just got a pack of dark chocolate Rochers as a gift. They're scrumptious.

Some of you might wonder if I have some sort of vendetta against Valentine's day. Well, the answer is no, I'm just cynical. While buying stuff is fine by me, I detest folks doing it on one day like today that has absolutely no significance. Other days have significance, sure, and giving a gift then is perfectly fine, but not in excess... but that's another post.

I wonder which industry sees it's sales spike most. Candy, perhaps? The flower industry? Those Vermont Teddy Bear guys, whose commercial I hate so much? Trojan and KY?

All this on a day that I've finished one of the best books I've read in a long time, "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield. I read TIME every week, interspersed with books, but sometimes I lose faith in books. I read the first few chapters. Then I get dejected, and just let the book rest where it last came to sit. From the urge to want to participate in Bookgasm, I decided to read one. This one was just a marvelous read.

Anyway, after that, please... don't send me a sparkily Valentine's day picture.

I've put together three songs in my albums for your listening pleasure, so aptly related to this wonderful day. The music "album" is here, called LOVE.

-Ze Baron

TIP: Multiply Toolbar

I have the Multiply toolbar installed on Firefox, which I use primarily for browsing Multiply. I do most of my other web browsing on Opera. Anyway, I have a tip that you may not have noticed.

First, make sure you have the latest version of the toolbar. Or, if you don't have it, I highly recommend installing it. To do either of those, click here. Once you've got that done, here's how to start:

Click "Options" and drag down to "Toolbar Settings"

(Red Arrow)
Then, make sure the box in Message Summary is checked.

(Green Arrow)

You will then want to change the "Update Message Summary every..." from 5 minutes to 1 minutes. This way, your toolbar will update every minute rather than five.

I find this very, very handy. It makes the updates come in shortly after they're posted. That way, you can have more accurate updates regarding your page and your contacts' pages.

-Ze Baron

THE RACE 2008

I support John McCain, not the Democratic spin machine.

President Nixon greets wounded POW John McCain.


It's the Hillary Obamanation!

-Ze Baron

TUTORIAL: BLOCK GRAPHICS FROM GUESTBOOK

(And keep your background!)

Yes, Multiply has unveild a checkbox to stop HTML in it's tracks! No more flashing or scrolling text, no more obnoxious glittery graphics, and no more distored pages! To read more about that, click here.

Well, anyway:

First, click "Customize My Site."

Then, choose "Edit" in the guestbook module.

Finally, put a check in "Don't allow HTML in comments" and save.

Questions can be referred to Y!360 Refugees help center or Multiply User Support.

-Ze Baron

NEW FEATURES ALL AROUND

Yes, folks, they've done it again. Multiply has implemented more features. The beauty of it, however, is that they're listening to their users. They hear folks complaining and suggesting (but mostly complaining!) at MUDS about the system, the upgrades, things that could be better, and on and on. They've taken some ideas and run with them.

• Online Buddies now carry more signifcance. Online buddies are now more of a seperate class, while still remaining on your contacts list. Items can be set to "Contacts" and "Contacts Except Online Buddies," along with the regular choices. Read more about that at the official blog's Feb. 5th post.
• Photo slide shows, like those on other sites, especially photo-hosting sites, are now available. You can even embed a slideshow using your Multiply photo albums! No need for Photobucket now.
• A new filter was recently installed called "I've Replied" which only displays threads to which you've replied. They added another option to custom filters, "only posts I've replied to." I'm not sure what significance these options have, seeing as the only posts you've replied to are old ones, but nonetheless, they're there.
• BLOCK HTML IN GUESTBOOKS!!! Yes, yes, yes!! The option you've all been waiting for, the ability to shut off HTML in your guestbook. That means no more annoying blink codes, no more annoying marquee codes, and most of all, no more page-distorting graphics! Of course, for those of you who like sharing graphics, you don't have to shut off the HTML. To learn how to work this feature, click here for an in-house tutorial.
• Social networking features have been expanded, making it easier to spread your content to your other pages on other social-networking sites.
  
• Photo album navigation is now customizable. The colors are the ones used in your theme.
• "Comment Deleted..." at the request of the author, among other such notes, have been removed from your guestbook when a comment is deleted by you or the author.
• Contact imports have been expanded.

Well, that proves once and again that Multiply just rocks. Read the original post on the official blog by clicking here.

-Ze Baron

ALEXA RANKINGS

I've always found sites' Alexa rankings to be interesting.

You see, Alexa ranks sites according to traffic and views. Here's Multiply's:

It's a bit dramatic how it tapers off at the end, but listen to me here: Let's look at trends.

Right in mid-October, the site makes a significant jump in hits, right around the time 360 users started coming over and settling in. Obviously this influx of users has had a profound effect on Multiply, as their hits haven't dipped below their pre-October rankings... until now.

Look again, though: Early January was a hump, then a decline, then a huge jump in mid-January. I can't think, now, of anything that can be attributed to that large increase. But you'll also notice that Multiply has taken a huge downturn in late January. Looking at the monthly charts, traffic really started to tank right after January 28th, and even more so from the 29th to February 1st, the latest they have rankings for. I firmly believe I know why that is.

A undersea broadband cable that transmits untold amouts of information from the Middle East and Asia was cut, causing internet outages from Isreal to Bangladesh, stretching nearly a continent long.The internet is apparently still choppy in some areas, slow in others, and nonexistant in yet others. A sizable chunk of Multiply's users are of South Asian nationality, so this could be a large contributing portion of regular users missing.

Alexa even lists the amount of users from each country. At the top, the Phillipines, with 30.9% of traffic. Indonesia and Thailand fall in second and third with 14.2% and 7.7%. The United States, fourth, at 7.2%. Rounding out the top five is Singapore with 6.2%. Going further, there's Malaysia, Viet Nam, Hong Kong, China, and the United Arab Emirates, all who depend, at whole or in part, on this cable.

I imagine that the Phillipines spot at #1 might have been shaped by this deal.

Again, though, this is all speculation.

(Forgive me, but how 'bout them Giants? Hoo-rah, take that, Patriots!)

-Ze Baron

REMOVING Y! MASH PAGE

Well, there's been concern since we started here on how to clear out various profiles at Yahoo!. I haven't had a comment on my Mash page in over 8 months, so I think it was time to purge it. I went through first and remove all relative information, and then threw a Multiply badge on there for good measure.

After looking around, though, I came across a page that should help us all out. Click here to access it. Once there, you can change permissions for most anything (notably who can see your page.) I changed everything to "Only You."

A user pointed out on this thread that you can contact Yahoo! via this link and have them remove your page. Be sure to include a URL to your page.

If you're unsure how to access your page -- I know I was, after eight months -- just sign into your Yahoo! account and type "mash.multiply.com" into the address bar. Or, just click either of the two links to Yahoo! in this blog while signed in.

-Ze Baron

SUPER BOWL PARTY

Disgusted by the Patriots and not watching the Bowl?

Wanna have a party, here, now on the favorite American holiday?

-Ze Baron

DEATH PENALTY APPLIED

I'm going to do a case example of someone, who, in my mind deserves the death penalty (assuming his confession is true and there is proof beyond all doubt.)

Father Of Murdered Baby In Houston Confesses

The father of a 3-month-old boy who was found murdered near the Galveston, Texas, seawall turned himself into police in Pennsylvania, saying he intentionally murdered the boy by repeatedly stomping on him.

Travis Mullis told Pennsylvania investigators he repeatedly stomped on the 3-month-old until he felt his skull collapse, according to an official Galveston Police Department document.

Mullis turned himself in Friday afternoon, where his bond was set at $1 million, police said at a Friday night news conference.

(Emphasis mine.)

Do you see? He confessed, telling PA investigators that he stomped on the skull until he felt it collapse! That's unspeakable. It's just...

I saw this on my friend Mav's blog. He first blogged about it when they found the baby. He did a follow up when they caught this man. I just could not believe what the man said about stomping until he felt the skull collapse... that is just too much for me. I can't even imagine doing that to a dog or a cat...

Things like this just make me wonder... where, if not in a case like this, is the death penalty appropriate?

It's all fine and dandy when we're talking hypothetically about abortion and the death penalty. Now, when he committed what could be called his own version of abortion, does he deserve the death penalty?

This man obviously has no conscience. Things like these justify my cynicism.

-Ze Baron

GIVE ME SOME LOVE

Some songs really are just neat. I have this great song by James Blunt, called "Give Me Some Love." I uploaded the song to my album, now that they can't be downloaded... well, yeah. Here's the album: James Blunt. For those of you with little ears, and I don't mean the undersized audio receptors, I believe he says, "sh*t" a few times, but the song is not a "bad" song, as you might peg it.

Anyway, give it a listen.

But the real purpose of this blog:

What good songs have you come across lately?

-Ze Baron