Monday, November 26, 2007

What I'm called


Except for "sir", most of the ways people call me online are quite common and expected even though they aren't necessarily appreciated. I'm called sweety, honey, hon, dude, amigo, friend, yaar, baby, maam, sir, black beauty, mon ami, marguerite, margrrite, jaz, jasmine, jasmin -and a few others that I wont tell- . At some point, I figured that "marguerite" was too unusual for my non-French-Speaking friends and I tried pushing mj (m for marguerite and j for jasmin) to make it easy for them but even I had to stop using it except when I leave comments on particular blogs. Now I mostly use Marguerite Jasmin which is completely unoriginal and very formal. How do people call you online?


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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Another Free communication weekend at eHarmony

I wasn't aware of it before but eHarmony has a free communication weekend every once in a while. The latest one will start this Friday. I already wrote might thoughts on the free communication weekend at eHarmony, read it before you join eHarmony to take advantage of this special promotion.

The free communication weekend at eHarmony starts Friday, November 16th and ends Monday, November 19th. I've turned my matching off the last time because my matches did not respond to me at all, I figured it was pointless. In fact I was going to delete my account altogether but just didn't find a way to do so, I may have to write to eHarmony and ask them to do it for me.

Actually instead of going through eHarmony's extremely long sign up processes you should join instead. Sign up and search for people with Open Club membership in your desired area, you can contact them for free. Before you start initiating contact on Worldfriends I suggest you add a photo, a profile with a photo is more likely to get response than one without a photo. Knowing that people with Open Club memberships are likely to receive a whole lot of message you do want to stand out from all the other people contacting the person you're interested in.


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Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Googling the people you meet online

Remember Pablo? Well I once googled his name and found out a whole lot of information about him. I found out about the university he went to, his course of study, online projects he was involved with, an interview he had given to a journalist and that rap song he recorded a few years ago! He had no idea there was that much information about him available online by simply performing a Google search for his name.

I've googled the names of many of my online friends and I have found interesting information in many cases. There is one person who had a profile on a site that did not adequately hide its member's pages to the Google spiders and I was able to view information that should only be accessible by logged in members. I actually don't search for people hoping to find information they might be hiding from me but rather I search to find out about their online presence, how they reveal themselves on the internet. Indeed, most of the time the information available about you online is directly provided by non other than yourself, remember that the next time you fill out a form to register to this latest cool new website. It is a common practice for websites you join to make public the information you provide them, at least in part. Many websites do that by default, you have to explicitly tell them not to make your information public for them to make it private.

You need the person's full name to get a sure hit when you search for him tough you can still find the person with his firt/last name only if it's a rare one and if you have other specific elements to add to the query like his location, school or anything really specific that would help you narrow down your search.

You have to keep in mind that many people share the exact same name - in case you find out that the person you're searching for has a criminal history-. Unless there's a photo attached or some other specific personal information, you might not be able to tell for sure whether you've found the exact person you're looking for until you ask him or her about it.

Make friends Worldwide and don't forget to look them up on Google.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Making friends online on dating sites

It may not be obvious but I don't do online dating, on the other hand, I do enjoy meeting people on dating sites, for friendship. The fact is dating sites usually put the most effort and money in marketing compared to "friendship" sites. As a result, they are more visible and usually more attractive than the latter.

Among all the sites to meet people online, dating sites are usually the ones with the most members. Also, I have to say that many so-called dating sites are not exclusively dedicated to matching people up for dating, they usually allow you to specify what type of relationships you are seeking (friendship for example). Even if the website you use does not offer such option you should always be specific in your profile about the type of relationship you are seeking to avoid disappointing anybody who might take the initiative to contact hoping to find more than what you wish to offer.

Make Friends from all over the world at Worldfriends.