Making Science Simple

In this blog a short webvideo about facial recognition techniques that computers can use. The interview is conducted at Tilburg University with the help of prof. dr. Eric Postma.

Hope you like it, let's make science simple together!


MSS - Episode 1: Facial Recognition Techniques from Paul Deckers on Vimeo.

Ten Top Twitter Tips

I found with my last blog that a had a lot to say about twitter, a lot I have not said yet. That is why I made this “in-between” blog about Twitter.

I want to give you guys some tips about how to create and keep followers. So, here are Deckers’ Top Tips:

1.       Profile name
When choosing a profile name, look for a serious or semi-serious name. This can be your real name, but also the thing you twitter about. If, for instance, your field of expertise is social media, you could pick a name like “Social wizard”. Do not use immature names like “sexychick86” or something like that.

2.       Use the 70-30 rule

When posting, make 70 percent of your messages informational or intend them to send to all your followers. The remaining 30 percent can be more of an informal nature.

3.       Post catchy, clear and comic

When you post a message, make sure it is clear on the topic. Besides this most important point, try to make it funny or catchy as well. People will enjoy the message more this way.

4.       Follow and thou will be followed

Following people is a great way of getting more followers yourself. Follow people you know or people you share a group or interest with. Followers that follow you, but are not yet followed by you, you should also follow. That is called politeness.

5.       Make every character count

Because of the limit of characters you can put in one message, you should use the space as effective as possible. So use shortened urls, from bit.ly or tinyurl for example, when you want to link to something. Put the message down in as few words as possible, but make complete sentences. Do not make incorrect or incomplete sentences. However, use abbreviations, especially the ones that are promoted within Twitter itself.

6.       Tag the message

Using Tags is a very good way to get into list people are searching for. When a soccer match is on and you use the hash-tag #uefa or #barche for instance, you will show up in the list of users who search for the topic. Also, you can be posted in constantly updating Twitter-feeds on sites. This is a great way to get in touch with people you do not know yet.

7.       Feel good vibes

Stay positive in your messages. Also when you reply to someway, try to stay positive, other people could be following the conversation as well. Show interest in your followers and they will show interest in you. Stay positive towards you followers and they will be positive to and speak positive of you. It is as simple as that.

8.       When you personal message, really personal message

When replying to another person, use the @-sign followed by this person his Twitter name. When you do so, do it at the beginning of a sentence. This has multiple advantages, like you can switch off that the message also will be posted in a linked program like Facebook (option is switched on and off in Facebook), but also you make directly clear for who the message is intended, making it easier on your followers.

9.       Use external links

When posting your messages you will often find restriction. Make links to things you intend to accompany the message, so to photo’s, or your blog for instance. People like the idea they can find more behind a link about the posted topic if they want to.

10.   Retweet

Interesting messages you see from people you follow and you think are interesting for a lot of your followers as well, you can retweet. Remember, when you retweet someone’s message, always give credit. It is only polite.

Hope you learned a thing or two about responsible using Twitter. Next time, we have a very special video, treat for you. Curious? Keep checking the blog.

Deckers OFF

Unravelling the social online network (part 2)

In this blog I will look at four of the greater blog systems, that are additions to your home base (see part 1).

Twitter

Twitter is probably one of the biggest blog systems. It is a short blog system (a blog may consist of 140 characters at maximum per post). One of the most prominent features of this system is that people can follow each other as well as famous people or opinion leaders. If you have not protected your tweets (the short blog messages), you will see that a lot of companies will start following you in no time. Protect your tweets, so you do not have 20 mattress-suppliers following you from the time you make one post about going to bed. Twitter is a good medium for professional use, but is often use for personal messages. When you use personal messages, it is even more beneficial to protect your tweets.

Due to the limited capacity of text, there are a lot of twitter-abbreviations (sort of like SMS-language) to fit more data into one tweet. Also a lot of links are used, for linking towards longer blogs or pictures for instance. When you want to post an URL on Twitter, you can use tinyurl.com for instance to shorten your link-URL so you have more space left to write an accompanying message. Finally, you can also use hash tags to label your messages, so that people who search for a specific word or concept can find your tweets.

When you use Twitter more professional (like for news-messages and reviews for instance), you can link Twitter to LinkedIn. When you use it more personal, it is a better idea to link it to Facebook or Hyves.

Twitter is a short blogging service mostly used for status updates, so use it in this way.

Tumblr

Personally, I am not that familiar with this system. It is kind of the midway between Blogger/Wordpress and Twitter. Though you can make fairly long posts, it is most commonly used for posting pictures with an corresponding message or for blogging poetry or song lyrics. These messages are of medium length, most of the time around 10-15 sentences. This medium is more used for personal cultural expressions and can better be linked to Hyves/Facebook then to the more professional systems. When linked, new posts will automatically generate new posts containing a introduction and link in the personal feed of the home base system.

This system has the great benefit that it lets you share anything, from songs to movies and from photo’s to quotes.

Blogger/Wordpress

Blogger and Wordpress are more or less developed for the same purpose, namely to blog in the traditional way. Here you can write long blogs without any limit. Also you can customize the lay-out of the site and personalize it. You can link blogger to all home base systems, and every time you publish a new blog post, it will automatically appear in your personal feed.

Blogs written here can be about everything. Mostly the blogs are used for one of the next two reasons. The first is to give an opinion. This can be about a movie you saw, a new medium or even the public transport you had to take to get home yesterday. The second reason is to inform people. These blogs give elaborate updates about upcoming events, or give scientific findings of yourself or for instance your University.

These blogs are not for status updates, but for elaborated findings and your views on life.

As you might have noticed, due to the structure of this blog I proponed Foursquare. This will be probably be in my next blog though, so not to worry. It will be explained in one of the next blogs for sure.

Deckers OFF

Unravelling the social online network (part 1)

The last few years social media have popped up like mushrooms in autumn. This calls for specialization of the systems. There are so many of these systems nowadays that people tend to lose track. Not to worry, below you will find a quick guide through the systems and how to use them, where to use them, and which to integrate.

Facebook/Hyves
This is the homebase of your social structure. These systems are designed to have the social experience online. Here you keep track of your whole personal network. You can make photo-albums, follow pages that define you and post pictures of, for example, your vacation. This makes sites like picasa obsolete. These systems is can be linked with almost every other social system. Also, it is the home of your network because you will spent the most time here, chatting, commenting on posts and tagging photo's of your friends. Important to note is that this system is more personal. Be aware which people you allow to be your friends. Do you really want your boss to see all your party pics? Also mind which information non-friends, like your boss for instance, can see. Companies can use this information to get a more personal notion of you, though most companies are not interested in this information at all.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn on the other hand is developed to promote your professional self. Companies actively use this network to search for potential employees. This is much less socially active as Facebook and Hyves. On this system you can upload your CV and add professional relationships like collegues and partners. Also is this system nice to keep track of schoolmates. The only problem (in the Netherlands at least) is the use of the system. It is growing fast, but there are still only a select few of your friends on this site probably.
This system can be integrated with your home network system (Facebook/Hyves), but is not recommended by me. The system is too different and can better be seen as a third starting point of your social online network.

In the next part we shall go deeper into more specific systems like twitter and foursquare.

Deckers OFF 

April fools by Google

Today, on the first of April, a lot of companies did something as sort of a joke. Especially internetcorporations and websites are actively trying to find new and original jokes. The best joke by far I've seen however is the one by Google introducting the new "Google Motion". It is a revolutionizing way to communicate through gmail. Using body movements to preform tasks and even write whole messages. Could this really be the future of interaction between human and computer?
Check out the video and/or website:

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html