I'm getting too much of Chris.

It's not that I don't want lot of Chris - I really do - there's just too much of him for me to cope with.

To be fair - it's not Chris's fault, it's a technology problem. Let me explain.

What I use...

I use Slidescreen on my G1 phone to pick up Twitter and Facebook updates when I'm not at my desk.

At my desk I 'switch over' to TweetDeck.

I use also then Google Reader for catching up on blogs/photos and 'proper' news.

And now... we have Buzz.

On Friday night Chris (not being at the Pub of course) finds Bubbles a nice wee youtube vid and shares it via his Tumble Blog.

The ONLY place I want to see this content (as it's a YouTube vid) is on my Google Reader. Chris doesn't know this nor should he. It's not up to him how I want to view his content.

So Bubbles get gets automatically posted to his Twitter.

This then automatically updates to Buzz and Facebook (and probably more!). This is good because not everyone is on his Twitter... not everyone is on Facebook.

So here's the time line:

Friday Night - Chris posts Bubbles to Tumblr.

Friday Night - I read that Tweet on my phone and ignore it for now.

Saturday AM - I read the same message on my G1, this time via Facebook.

Saturday PM - I do some work - so I see the same message again twice in my Tweetdeck.

Sunday PM - I check out Buzz again - and again I see Bubbles.

Monday AM - I log in to my google reader and - yup - finally I get to see Bubbles in the right context for me to view it.

DO NOT THINK I AM IMPLYING THAT CHRIS NEEDS TO CHANGE ANYTHING.

My point is, the addition of Buzz to the Social Scene is only making it harder for me to find the right content, at the right time, that's important to me. There was only one time when it was going to be technically and physically appropriate for me to view Chris's Bubbles!

Chris shouldn't have to think twice about where and when he posts what he does [Maybe he disagrees?] My point is that we need to get the mobile and desktop social network software all talking to each other. Mark as read on one device - mark as read on ALL.

Thereafter, ideally there would be just one Social Network, but for now though I am stuck checking all 3  of Twitter, FaceBook and Buzz. I just hope they can all work together to solve this re-posting overload this year. Not likely I know.

For now then, Chris, you can be assured that I'm getting all the Bubbles from you I could ever need ;-)

At the time of writing the new Google Buzz is not yet available in any of my accounts. I've had a lot of experience with, and somewhat of a fanboy of Google so I feel qualified to speak on this based on the videos I've seen online:

• Google have been pretty bad with social stuff in the past, they are aware of that, and wont be going into this without thinking it through very carefully.

• Filtering all the CRAP on Facebook is too hard. Farmville, Which Celebrity Do You Look Like, I joined the Group > "Facebook has too much crap going on...", yawn yawn yawn. One thing Google are the undisputed masters off is filtering out the crap and only giving you what YOU want. This will be their biggest strength.

• However - no Facebook integration is a real surprise to me. It's probably a clever tactic by Google though. Watch this space.

• Over the next few days you will hear: "It's shit", "I'm not using it - I don't see the point" and "I'm sticking with Facebook". These are the normal responses to a new product from your friends and you should ignore them.

• As with everything else Google have done it will not be perfect from the start. Gmail wasn't. Gtalk wasn't. It doesn't matter - If you don't like it now - come back in 6 months once they have massively improved it and just see.

• I suspect the real power in Buzz is going to be LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. Chris Nixon has just published his timely thoughts on FourSquare and GoWalla. I think this will trump them both. Google know that in a few years there will be more people using the Internet mobile than on a PC or TV. To this end I'm going to make a prediction: 

Rather than let an old PC gather dust in my home-office, I thought I would try giving it a second life.

It's a 5 year old Dell PC and only has 256Mb of RAM - pretty crappy huh?

It had been running windows XP, but even though I had only the bare minimum installed (Anti-Virus and Firefox), it still took nearly 8 minutes to become 'usable'! Even then it really couldn't play youtube videos, never mind anything more intensive.

Instead I've downloaded and installed the free Ubuntu operating system. Installation was a peice of piss. Just download the installer here, tell it how much hard drive space to use and let it do it's stuff. I took about 60 mins to install - most of which was the "big" download.

It came pre-installed with Firefox 3.5, which auto-updated to the later version on the first boot.

It now boots up in 90 seconds. It plays full screen you-tube video without stuttering. I've got tweetdeck, dropbox and extremely fast chrome running... I've not even bothered with Anti-Virus software.

I'm really impressed with how easy this was and how an otherwise useless PC is now very much back-in-action. This is especially true since we are working more and more in the browser these days! You still have to wait a few seconds while it has the occasional 'think' but overall -  I recommend this idea to anyone it was SIMPLE.

After leaving school he has spent 2.5 years as a apprentice mechanic before deciding, as we all did at an early age, that this wasn't the career for him.

On the face of if it then producing a CV for him was going to be a challenge - he went straight from school and has had just that one job - so we plumped for a CV writing service at a cost of £15 from FutureStart.

After paying by paypal we simply filled out a questionnaire and two days later a great CV was returned. Two more email conversations and the finished article was printed and ready for sending. 

FutureStart did not simply 'pad out' his achievements .. they asked questions which led us to realise there are PLENTY of great things which can be said. Here's an example. My neighbour is extremely reliable - just one sick day in 2.5 years and always early to start. This became "I am a loyal, hard working and conscientious individual, highly reliable with an excellent timekeeping record."

He has also been completing online applications for jobs, and was able to cut and paste directly from his CV which was a real bonus.

My nod of thanks then to Dave Cotton at FutureStart who deserves recognition for helping many people substantially improve their chances of landing a very nice job. I can't see why anyone would NOT use his service!