One of the many things I like about Plurk is its user interface – it’s a rather grand , interactive, left-right scrolling timeline that allows user to easily see their own Plurks as well as those of their friends, including an easy way to identify Plurks that have been responded to.  I’ve been using Plurk for nigh on eighteen months, having been introduced to it by my online friends that I’ve been in contact with for well over five years.

I’ve tried Twitter -and I still use that for brief contact and posting of links as well as keeping up with various services/organisations that post brief information, often including links – but it’s Plurk that is my preferrred social-networking microblog service.  Plurk is easy to use, easy to understand and easy to communicate with.  Having used Twitter and having had a go at a mutltitude of microblogging services, Plurk stands out way above the crowd.  In short, Plurk rocks.

Like many grand things that rock, it has – unfortunately – been ripped off.  Not just by any company – but by Microsoft China.  A big corporation ripping off a young startup that is doing amazing work.  Surely Microsoft has the resources to do their own work?  One would think so – but one would be wrong.

If you’d like more information on this dastardly deed, please see the post on the Plurk blog entitled Microsoft China rips off Asia’s No. 1 Microblogging Service as well as the followup Plurk’s official response to Microsoft’s apology.

I would like to think – and hope – that this will all be resolved in Plurk‘s favour – time will tell.

I’ve been thinking about this post for all of this month – one year since I entered this place called Plurk.  It’s been an interesting year, catching up with old friends met via other networks and meeting new people many of whom I’m now happy to call plurkfiends and forging new relationships based on learning about and exploring photography.

I first became aware of Plurk via people I’ve known online since 2004 via game called Blog$hares.  There’s a graph in this somewhere charting my increased time in Plurk and my decreased time playing with shares based on blog linkage, but I’ll leave that to @billythekid to blog about and your imagination otherwise.

I was on the Gold Coast last year and caught up with @gcgal and @aussiejohn for my first ever Plurkfest and since then I’ve had a visit from @soulcreates here in Darwin.  These interactions as well as time spent plurking (and via Plurk, flickring) had me thinking that I’d like to have a larger gathering of those I Plurk with and so suggested a gathering.  Plurkfest Oz 2009 will now be happening in November in Adelaide.

Many of my plurkfiends are photographers and/or have a keen interest in photography and I’ve learned much from them over the past year as they also share this mad passion.  Some of the grand photographers that I’ve met whilst Plurking that you might want to check out are murfomurf, eztephen, soulcreates, werewegian and claudecf.

Not a lot of content for having thought about it for most of the past month, is it?  But that is it – I want to get back to Plurking and flickring – much to amuse myself with.  Thanks for dropping by.

You’d probably like to know that this is the (23*3)th post.

Have many interests. If you can’t travel, read about new places.

This is the one thing I love about the internet. I cannot afford to travel far and wide overseas. We managed to get to New Zealand about five years ago – but unless we win the lottery or one of us manages to secure a better-paying job, or EmailCash finally pays out, I don’t see us going anywhere further than a thousand kilometres for a few years yet.

So I travel around the internet. Google News, Technorati, Bloglines, and many other desktop configurations allow me to go around the globe in sixty minutes. Who needs airlines when the world-wide-web gives us instant access? Its like when the Twin-Towers unfortunately fell: Most of us who had internet access watched the second tower fall in REAL-time. Scary.

Having a wide interest in a lot of differing subjects means not being restricted to one or two websites. The world-wide-web is the ultimate oyster.

Today I did something quite radical for me: I responded to a most interesting plurk (from PritchardDesign) regarding Megan McCain’s quote where she states she is ‘Pro-Sex‘. Normally I would stop there and say nothing more.

But this time I went on to search through the internet to determine what all the fuss was about and why it would reach top of the search-engine’s.

After reading quite a diverse range of sites, all of them above-board yet on the fringe between debauch and informative, I used Google to search on ‘definition pro-sex’. (I was led on quite a lengthy merry-go-round via numerous sites, slowly getting annoyed by often redneck definitions upon mismanaged Wiki’s!)

In the end, I landed upon a substantive and elaborate definition at UrbanDictionary. They have an interesting definition that helped explain the McCain statement a lot further. But I am really after the definition, the reasoning of putting ‘pro‘ in front of a word.

Then I found this word: Proaffixion.

I had to laugh, but it puts it all into perspective and slightly parody’s the usage of any word that is prefixed with ‘pro‘. It is a word that helps us explain how and why we have such words as ‘Pro-Life, Pro-Earth, Pro-Redbubble, Pro-Black, Pro-White, etc‘.

It turns out this word, not only is its own definition, but it also explains (with humour) that people are grabbing words out of the air to explain their stance on many things in life.

To explain each part of the word, here is the Latin definition of each component:

“pro”… to be for
“affix”… root words that make up words, often of greek or latin origin
“ion”… the act of doing or being
and possibly
“ist”… somone who practices the preceding word
or
“ism”… an ideology

Thus suggesting that words are made up with a mix of these prefixes and suffixes so that people will be able to understand upon hearing without needing too much explanation. This would imply that the general population understand the Latin meaning of these prefixes and how they effect the usage and meaning.

If you are pro-life, you love life. If you are a pro-smoker, you love smoking. With Meghan McCain saying “I am Pro-Sex”, it is little wonder these new words reach the headlines around America!

Me, I am Pro-Plurk. But you probably figured that out.

One of the most amazing sites to spot on a train these days is people, young through old, with Laptop and Notebooks … like me with my Dell Mini.

We’ve entered a phase in history where the portable computer is an accessory to carry everywhere, not to hide away in the back room.

Instead of living in fear of theft, we worry about where we can next get a free internet connection.

Most people carry some form of device that enables them to communicate with the rest of of the world, but most particularly with their friends, family and work. More and more I see gamers and coders utilising their travel -time, both bus and train, to get on with a few projects or complete some writing.

As I am now one of the many with a portable device that includes a QWERTY keyboard, I fully relate. There is nothing so cool as listening to your favourite music whilst tip-tapping away at something that is supposedly vitally important to our well-being so much that we feel it important to type it during the time we originally spent catching a few extra minutes sleep.

No more do the young of this planet read paper-backed books — they have eBooks. These are books that have been fully downloaded via the internet for easily reading via their PC. The Apple Touch and iPhone have this facility down to a fine-art. With them, you can choose white on black, black on white, or even the font of choice!

For all of us that enjoy writing about our daily life, this means we can even write about the journey, the views, the other passengers and life as we go through it.

Thus I entrust you take heed when next you see a passenger take the metal-notepad from their backpack… your reaction may well be what they write about for the world to learn.