The Rig

As it was in the past election, I kept a close eye on the results as they trickle in. Rather than wait to hear it on mainstream channels, social media was the way to go.

My Mac Pro were rigged to them allowing me to blast the reports through twitter and facebook as they came in.

I used a multi-column tweetdeck app to monitor twitter with keywords and mentions, while another screen scour the RSS feeds using feedly and of course facebook though the web browser.

Stock for the night ...I had instagram on the phone and to disseminate my tweets, I used tweetcaster pro, which allowed me to simultaneously post on both twitter and facebook with just one click. I ended up usign the phone to send out posts attached to a bluetooth physical keyboard allowing me to type fast and post ont the fly.

The disappoinitng thing was how slow it took for the results to reach us. SPR really let us down - and Karim Raslan really had a go on live TV - and it was bordering on frustration. Once the results started to come in, it was evident that the then opposition were gaining ground.

SPR optimistically - and somewhat arrogantly - promised that the results would be done and dusted by 10 pm, but it was not to be. When Tun Mahathir came live on the air at around 1.30 am putting pressure on the commission, then finally things were moving.

Clearly the Chairman was unprepared with the shift that night and since there were plenty of results not going as expected, they had to do more checks and recounts. This raised the suspicion of the so-called “black magic” which were rife in previous elections. The Chairman also had to answer the question on why the voters who came earlier that 5 pm were not allowed to vote despite queueing for hours before to get to the room. He simply did not hvae the details and looked stunned. There were also an imbalance in the number of voters paired with centers with clearly they had too many voters than they could cope.

Karim Raslam really went mental after elarning that Tony Pua had a majority of more than 100,000. Clearly there were just too many voters at the constituency.

Almost out of kuaci .... but many of the results were still pendingThe results were more or less confirmed by 3 am and despite the tally was not ready for Sabah, I had to call it the night. I was already tired from my tons of posts and reply. Suffice to say that it was an interesting night and the rig worked like a charm ....

New Flickr. Y No Pro?

I've been a Flickr member since Nov 2007, before converting into a Pro in 2009. I've never looked back ever since. I do host most of my photos on SmugMug though and I tried 500px and Picasa in the past. I've never trusted Facebook with my photos. I was keen on Google Plus but felt Flickr was still the clear winner.

So, I was glad to learn that Marissa Meyer made Flickr one of her main products when she took over Yahoo! Certainly Flickr is a good product, and the previous management neglected this diamond. So, which way did the new regime was taking Flickr?

I knew things were serious when the 3-months Pro account was given away before Xmas last year. I was waiting for them to implement a face-lift a lot earlier. So, when it finally came, I was actually very happy. Google probably caught wind of this change since they only updated their Plus experience only last. For the better.

I'm happy with the new interface. Definitely more modern. But the subscription model made me sit back. I felt that the company missed one important element here. Flickr was actually built on loyalty.

During the lean times, the user stood by the product. They wore their Pro badges with pride. I was one of them. By abolishing Pro - only allowing old timers to be grandfathered in if they have a recurring payment program - these hardcore band would wither away. I personally felt that the loyalty wasn't rewarded. In the days of social media, 6 years is a long time!

The jacked-up interface was a welcomed change. But I was hoping that there would be movement to recognise these Pro group of users who had stayed on through thick and thin. If there is one, I would sign up in a heartbeat. To have to pay extra just to have no advert is just plain lame.....

Three Years

I have always thought that sites such as FourSquare and Go walla would gain in value with time. So was my blog. When we look back, it formed a diary for me. I could catch up on old photographs in context. Which is different from looking at photographs in isolation.

So, when I checked into FourSquare earlier in the week, I was surprised to learned that I had been a subscriber for three years. There is a lot of data in there. I wished that it does a lot on the data for the user though. But in the meantime, let's see what I was doing two years ago .....

iKlout?

I thought that my accounts had been hacked since fixing out that my Klout score had surged from around 16 steadily towards 51in the past couple of weeks. It turned out that they have changed the algorithm. Damn it! I thought I was becoming an overnight sensation there, but it was merely a change in the way the count was established. Well, Justin Bieber had no reason to be afraid then .....