Monday, October 31, 2005

Why I replaced my Neoboard with a Cbox

I tried the Neoboard for a while, and frankly, being faithful to my "spend $ 0" policy when it comes to blogging, I don't intend to upgrade to the premium version.

I enjoyed being part of the Neo community. It's amazing how you come across people who are different in most ways, and still most of them always have nice words to say to each other, truly amazing. I enjoy the international, multilanguage sides of the Neo people. And also I have to say, the way they communicate with the users and the prompt responses (in most cases), just great! They have many satisfied users.

I haven't told you about LittleNeo and his List. Being part of LittleNeo's List is a good way to get new visitors to your site and also to discover other web sites from around the world. A great feature to keep the people coming to NeoWORX and maybe the only reason why my Neoboard was still on the sidebar until recently. I discovered interesting blogs over there, most interestingly is the number of blogs that I already knew that I've seen on LittleNeo's list, actually it's not surprising since they do, for most, use the much appreciated NeoCounter.

I have had a few problems with the NeoBoard though. They tell you that during the trial period you have all the premium features but I hardly succeeded in customizing my NeoBoard. The US flag always shows even when I uncheck the "show my flag" box brrrr... irritating. But I was living with it. At some point, Meq was unable to post messages (oh you don't know Meq? check out the Little Pieces). Then, I was unable to post myself. Still this also allowed me to experience one of the good things about the Neoworx service, all I did was go to their homepage and post a message on the message board they have there to tell them about my problem, a little while later, it was working. It's amazing how they actually take the time to read and answer to the people who post messages there! I wonder how long they can keep this up. Oh yes and did I mention that they have multilanguage user support. Though it surprised me that there weren't more messages on the NeoBard at the NeoWORX homepage.

Before I knew it, my 14 day trial period was over and I saw giant ads on my Neoboard, and a message saying the Neoboard would be back in a few minutes, it bothered me quite a bit, but it was the free version after all...

Well I was thinking about having two message boards on the side bar! I don't think it's prohibited but probably it would confuse my visitors. I've discovered the Cbox, and I want to try it out for a while, it looks a bit more sober and customizations are easily made, I hope it will last longer than my NeoBoard.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Introducing my Cbox

I'm using a Cbox now, just hoping it will last longer than my Neoboard. I'm a bit sad about getting rid of my Neoboard...

Bye my Neoboard

I'm taking off the Neoboard. It's been fun but it has to go.
Thank you to all those who stopped by to drop me a few lines.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

New title

To those of you who've been here before and who actually knew the title of this blog, and even used it in your links (Thank you! Thank you!) I'm informing you -just in case you didn't notice- that the title has changed.

It's no longer the "Chatterbox" but "Meeting people online". What's in a title anyway? Well, not much but I thought it was about time I changed it so it to reflect the way "things" have evolved (more on the evolution of "things" in future posts).
And also I think it's a good way to prevent people searching for blog chatterboxes to come here.
I don't think chatting in itself is something I enjoy but I do enjoy meeting new people, not only through Yahoo messenger though.

Lately I've been having a hard time finding endings to my posts...oh! I've found something...

I'll dare ask my beloved readers, what do you think of the new title? frankly?

Thursday, October 13, 2005

No children allowed in Yahoo ! chat rooms

I made a Google search for instant net fame and the #1 result was slashdot.org when I went all the way to the last page, the first result was also a page from slashdot.org. I went on Slashdot and learned about the new actions Yahoo is taking to "protect children".

Here's what Yahoo says: "The ability to create user rooms in Yahoo! Chat is currently unavailable."

"To enhance the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service, Yahoo! Chat is now available to users who are 18 years of age or older."

It seems one thing they have not thought about in these measures is how to protect the children from themselves. I went once into Education rooms -not user created rooms, Yahoo rooms- and the kids that were there got me running out deciding I would never, ever go back in there. I was there thinking I would meet teachers and students discussing about teaching learning and other education related themes but no... I found only kids in there -I usually find kids in chat rooms annoying- and the ones who talked to me wanted to talk about one single thing that I think you can figure out.
Well, as long as it makes the children safer.

By the way, I met a 17-year-old Pakistani this morning in one of the Yahoo! Chat Help rooms.


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Saturday, October 08, 2005

Another catastrophe

I just read about the earthquake in Pakistan and India. Really sad...
Even though I don't regularly check any online news media I do look at the headlines when I log on my Yahoo! mail. That's how I learned about this earthquake. I noticed they mentioned Kashmir. I thought, hey! don’t I know people who live there. It turned out the two Pakistanis I thought lived there actually live in Karachi. -For those of you who know about Pakistan's geography, please don't laugh at me.- I probably should add details to my contacts.