Vodafone put on a very nice spread of beer, wine and nibbles. As I am always super organised, I had consumed some sushi at work before driving into the city. But I had some wine. Seriously, whens the last time you got something for free from Vodafone? I had a lovely chat with Hamish. We discussed awesomeness like 14.4k modems and the days where the BBS was better than the internet. It was. Once upon a time, in the early 1990s.

We were moved into a room off the Vodafone foyer. There we were given colored dots and broken up into groups of 5.  But before it all got kicked off, we were introduced to the Data Demons. These five boys/men are located at Vodafone owned stores in the central city and north shore and are experts in all things smart phone related. This is a new concept by Vodafone Retail to have these Data Demons accessible in store, 7 days a week. Not a silly idea in my book. I can think of at least one occasion where I have dished out smartphone advice to a Vodafone retail employee.

Sorry about the angle of the photo, but I’m sure you get the idea. Daniel and his crew of Data Demons did a presentation that in the past, you would have carried around 7kg of “crap” whereas this now fits into an approx 120gm smartphone. You can now have your GPS, Phone, Calendar, Documents, Notes etc in the one device and not spread across many. He showed a few slides of smartphone market growth etc and then told us how the evening would work. We were split up into our coloured dot groups and sent to various corners of the V’Nue suite. He also proved that Data Demons are human and had some issues with his laptop. C’est la vie.

First up for our Green Group was the Blackberry Bold. This told me nothing I didn’t already know about Research in Motion and the Blackberry Bold as a device. I’ve come across Blackberrys and I know people who love and people who hate them. But the gentleman who did this presentation did a very good job and covered everything one would expect in a first meeting with the Blackberry.

We then moved on to the Nokia E71. This was the phone I was going to get before I found out how much I loved the iPhone. Again, a really nice presentation of slides and excellent MS Paint skills for this presenter. For the other people there, I think they got this phone more that the BB Bold. Instead of someone holding up a phone going blah blah, we had slides, and I’m a visual learner. I admit I may have learnt a wee bit about the operational side of this phone.

By the time we got to the Mobile Broadband display, the whole group thing had kind of disintegrated. I learnt that the white/black vodems are different, and well the netbook, I had one of those.

At the end of the evening, with half the people left, they had a draw for the HTC Magic. I was pleased that the guy who won the phone did in honesty. It would have been better going to me, but he had this horrible, bulking winmo phone and the HTC with its static-glass touch thing will change his life.

My highlights of the evening were photographing Paul Brislen’s desk, Hamish explaining the magnetic floors and an old lady announcing that she had only come to get a battery for her trusty Nokia 3320. WTF!?!? But these things happen.

Congratulations to Vodafone on a good evening. Sorry I didn’t learn much, but considering you had the Amway function next door, and congratulations on that too, but you did an excellent job and overall I rate the Data Demons 4.5 out of 5. They’re all nice young men, well spoken and knowledgeable. I would love to chat to them in a store any time about mobile data.

But instead of the annual Christmas card and letter, there’s now this Facebook invasion into your life. This week I decided to do something on Facebook I had never done before – intentionally delete people from my friends list. This whole thing was part of my larger move to make my profile more secure. Basically, if you’re not friends with me, you cannot see a thing. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch.

Part of the plan to make my Facebook more secure also steamed from the realisation that there is nothing stopping my colleagues from showing my boss pictures of that drunken party on their screens, from their Facebook accounts. Again, we’ve heard it all before about people losing their jobs over Facebook antics, and while I run on the theory that if I don’t want my Grandpa to see it, I won’t put it online, others aren’t so fortunate enough to have the sense of appropriateness.

But in deleting friends, I got an unexpected result. I had posted a cryptic status message, hinting at my friends list cull. One of my aunts once said, if you have less than 10 friends on Facebook, you are a social reprobate. I had nearly 170, and while thats not a lot, I needed to cut down on the noise. So I started culling friends. Once I had finished, I posted a cryptic message and the comments I got were staggering.

Alison Some of you have been eliminated, but because you have been eliminated, you can’t see this message to know

That status update attracted 16 comments ranging from people asking why to people celebrating the fact they had survived the cull. Thats where it got interesting for me. People were celebrating the fact that they could still see what I am up to. I might see some of them once every week and some of them I’m really slack and might see once every 5 years and some I’ve never met. But everyone was happy not to be deleted. Why.

The New York Times says that not all unfriendings are equal.

There seem to be several varieties, ranging from the completely impersonal to the utterly vindictive. First is the simple thinning of the herd, removing that grad student you met at a party two years ago and haven’t spoken to since or that kid from middle school you barely remember.

And there we have it. My actions were completely impersonal to the professionally sensible. And yet, some people I should have deleted are still there. There is a good reason for that too. They are people, who like me, have locked up their profiles, but for some perverse reason, I want to see what they are up to. I don’t want them to see what I am up to. So I created a friends list. They can’t see ANYTHING that I am upto, they can’t look at my photos, they can’t message me either. So I guess at the end of the day, I am as bad as those who are snooping in my life.

The most notable exception to the whole snooping rule was a promotion run by Burger King USA – called their Whooper Sacrifice promotion, offering free burgers to the people who culled the most friends from their profiles. Facebook ended the promotion when Burger King began to notify people that they had been culled in the name of a free burger. But failing Burger Kings notification, you can be deleted from a friends list and never be aware of it.

But I have decided that the noise of Facebook is a good enough reason for a cull. And I’ve given myself some rules to live by on Facebook.

• I will not invite people to play games/applications/quizzes
• I will not be actively seeking out people to be friends with
• The decision rests with me as to who is on my friends list
• I will join groups I believe in, not because you invited me
• If I don’t want my Grandpa to know about it, it doesn’t go online

I will leave this very long blog post with some wise words from a Harvard graduate. Harvard being the same institution that spawned Facebook:

Mr. Atwan, a recent graduate of Harvard (where Facebook got its start), recommends culling your friend list once a year to remove total strangers and other hangers-on. Keeping your numbers down gives you more leeway to be selective about whom you approve in the first place, he said.

EDIT: Some interesting links to read:

The Latest Facebook Employee Nightmate

The Facebook Entry that cost ‘Lindsay’ her Job

Facebook Firings

1. Twitter

Fantastic time waster. Brilliant. But I found out how really handy it can be today. I was having some trouble signing up to Vodafone Broadband Lite (more on that further down) and getting no where with customer services. So I twittered a tweet to @vodafoneNZ and the lovely man there asked me for a DM (Direct Message) with my mobile number and within 5 minutes, I was sorted. This is verses the 20 minutes I had ripping my hair out with their customer services desk the old fashioned way.

2. Dandy Warhols

Dear Vodafone, please change your hold music. They were a one hit wonder and 10 minutes of the same song, Bohemian Like You, is too much and drove me near suicidal. Thank you.

3. Vodafone Broadband Lite

I have noticed an increase in my mobile broadband data useage. I am lucky enough to have a nice Nokia 6121, while not the coolest phone, and lacking QWERTY sophistication, it does the few things I want. Lately I have noticed more and more, I rely on Mobile Broadband. Be it accessing my facebook page while I’m at the racetrack, using IRC while travelling to Hamilton (NOT while driving… ), or uploading funny photos to Flickr. Yes. I have become so internet addicted that I can get it all on my mobile.

Now until Vodafone brought along this nifty new plan of 100mb of Data for $10 a month, I was using their casual useage plan of $1 / Day, limited to 10mb. This was all good, but I rarely use 10mb a day, but I use my mobile interwebs most days a month, resulting in bills of around $20/month for mobile data. At least now I have the added bonus of not having to pay for expensive hotel data when on the road as well. Doubly awesome!

So from now until eternity, or whenever I buy a laptop with bluetooth, I will have to ensure I travel with my Nokia Data Cable!

4. Firefox

How I lived so long without this browser, I have no idea. I have a fantastic add on called ‘Yoono‘ which sits on the left hand side of my browser window and updates me with new tweets and facebook happenings like pokes and status changes. I can also use MSN Messenger on it, check and read my gmail and it also gives me my RSS feeds – something I was looking at useing to keep up with the play. I haven’t had a look at any other Firefox addons, but I will soon.

5. Ubuntu on the Acer Laptop

I took the plunge and gave Ubuntu its own 10gb partition on my Vista “powered” laptop. I put powered in quotes as running vista, it is a complete dog. Its very slow and painful and whilst I disable most of the pretty vista features, it was not designed for Vista. But just for booting up for an internet surf, quick internet check, Ubuntu serves me just fine. I’m still attached to MS Office tho. Read No. 6

6. Kudos to Warehouse Stationery

I got a flier in my local paper last week from the Papakura Warehouse Stationery. $49.00 to buy a copy of Microsoft Office Home & Student Edition. Limited to 15 copies only. So I was there before the store opened. I got one of those 15 copies and am now very chuffed to finally own a legit copy of Office. I will save up now to buy a legit copy of Outlook.