The other day a friend of mine familiar with Joomla dropped the update bomb on me. "So, you know they're up to 1.5.x and 1.6 will be out soon." Yeah, I know. I didn't want to admit to him that I'm still powering up the site on circa 2007 Joomla, specifically - "Joomla! 1.0.13 Stable [ Sunglow ] 21 July 2007 16:00 UTC."
I don't know how the program gets a name such as Sunglow, or why there's an exclamation after Joomla. I guess the original developers were truly excited about it. I wonder if they still are after 33 or so releases since 2007 (post-Mambo) (http://guidecms.com/all-cms/j/joomla/news). Why not give it names such as Joomla! 1.0.13 Stable [ DAMN it's GOOD ] or Joomla! 1.0.13 [ WE FIXED IT ]?
Other names for update releases include: Sunset, Sundial, Sunburst, Sunshade, Sundown, Sunbow, Sunfire... Why the sun plays into the naming convention who knows. But with the release of 1.5, the naming convention changed to Swahili names such as Khepri (an Egyptian God), Mapya, Endeleo, Takriban and Karibu - various ways of saying [ THE PROGRAM IS STILL COOKING ]
(http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla!_Codenames).
Click the orange dot where it says "Yeah, it's old" to read the rest.
One day while perusing profiles on Faebo (slang for Facebook), I stopped by a friend's profile just to give them a poke (a virtual wave) before moving on to see what interesting fanpages I might come upon. Lo and behold, I discovered a fanpage for Chocolate Chip Cookies with 1,330,661 fans! Their mission is stated as such, "To spread awareness of the joy chocolate chip cookies bring." Between reading the discussions about cookies and looking at photos (of which there are over five pages of chocolaty goodness), I caught myself wasting at least 15 minutes.
If you think this is a frivolous use of Facebook you're missing the ultimate outcome of the above example. All those chocolate chip cookie lovers gathered together to pay homage to the cookie translates to cold, hard cash for advertisers and cookie companies by allowing links to offer coupons, recipes, and anything to do with chocolate chip cookies that the fans may jump on. Who could resist a coupon for a box of cookies? It’s perfect engagement marketing – connect with your fans, make them offers they can’t refuse, have them talk about it, spread it around the ‘net, share it with their friends - it's a virtual gold mine!
Hence, the explosion of fanpages on Facebook has grown exponentially. From celebrities and cookies to Starbucks and schools - all sorts of businesses, social groups, artists, etc. are creating spaces in Facebook to attract their fans.
First off, if you're not familiar with Facebook Fanpages, get thee to this page and read all about them. But in a nutshell, a Fanpage is a specific type of Facebook profile where you can connect with people who like your product/music/art/hobby to join together in mutual admiration. They can leave messages, read links you've posted or share links and messages with each other. With Facebook’s vast array of widgets and apps, you can add such things to your fanpages as RSS feeds, photo galleries, Twitter accounts and games - just to name a few.
To place information about your Facebook fanpage there are several widgets and badges available, but the latest and coolest tool is called the “Fan Box.” With the quick addition of a bit of code (that Facebook gives you) you can add a Fan Box to your Website or blog. The widget shows your current newsfeed, items posted on your “Wall” and even how many fans you have showing off their little propics (profile pics). But the coolest and best feature of the Fan Box is the ability for people to click a button to “Become a Fan” right there and then without loading up their Facebook profile. You’ll have the option to turn off elements such as the fan icons, the feed or change the width of the widget to fit your template needs.
We here at NCI, have been building fanpages for our magazine brands and love the Fan Boxes on our sites. You can see some of our Fan Boxes here:
So come on in, join the conversation, be a fan, or start your own Facebook presence. You, too, can add your two cents to this chocolate chip cookie making question: milk or marshmallows?
I don't use this site as a blogging site. In fact, I never have time to blog. It's funny because I work with other people and help them to blog. I build blogs for people (WordPress rocks!). I read blogs. I've inspired other people to start blogging. Yet, I never have the chance to do it. Here's my chance. Blog blog blog. You see? I have no idea what to say. So many people that have started blogs have things to say. I do things, I make things, but I have a hard time writing about it all.
I just needed to get that off my chest. Blame it on the Nyquil. But who knows... maybe I'll just start blabbing away on this thing. Make it my stream of consciousness dumping bin for all the crud inside my head. I need to make more room in there anyway. Wouldn't it be cool to pull out your thoughts like the wizards do in Harry Potter? Thin, silvery threads of thoughts all stashed in a pensieve ready to be activated upon when needed. I do wonder how we hold so much information in our brains - just think of all the numbers you've got in there. Social Security number, phone numbers, addresses, birthdates... There's an infinite amount of bytage in our brains - more than a brontobyte, I'm sure. And that's a real number. Check out this chart from the Ask a Storage Expert dude:
1000 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte
1000 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte
1000 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte
1000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte
1000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte
1000 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte - In 2000, 3 exabytes of
information was created
1000 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte
1000 Zettabyte = 1 Zottabyte
1000 Zottabyte = 1 Brontobyte - that is a 1 followed by
27 zeroes
I had never heard of anything past terabyte and I can barely imagine how much space that takes up but it would look like this on paper - 1000000000000000000000000000. How did someone discover this? It boggles the mind. So I thought I would take this question up with the great, almighty GOOGLE. I asked, "how much memory capacity does the brain have?" And can you believe it? There's an answer thanks to WikiAnswer:
"The human brain contains about 50 billion to 200 billion neurons
(nobody knows how many for sure), each of which interfaces with 1,000
to 100,000 other neurons through 100 trillion (10 14) to 10
quadrillion (10 16) synaptic junctions. Each synapse possesses a
variable firing threshold which is reduced as the neuron is repeatedly
activated. If we assume that the firing threshold at each synapse can
assume 256 distinguishable levels, and if we suppose that there are
20,000 shared synapses per neuron (10,000 per neuron), then the total
information storage capacity of the synapses in the cortex would be of
the order of 500 to 1,000 terabytes. (Of course, if the brain's
storage of information takes place at a molecular level, then I would
be afraid to hazard a guess regarding how many bytes can be stored in
the brain. One estimate has placed it at about 3.6 X 10 19 bytes.)"
The quote is attributed to "some researchers," meaning the 12 year old kid next door who's been trying to find his way to the moon and came upon the ultimate equation to figure out brain capacity. I suppose, according to the "researcher," the formula would equal a petabyte. I think.
But my favorite answer so far is from Ace Pincter on the Answer Bag. "1 gigglebite," they wrote. It made me smile.
