It’s weird. Overnight, my Facebook page literally exploded with quizzes, ranging from people telling me where they were supposed to live, or what their personality was, or who they were supposed to marry.

So crazy!

I had to join the bandwagon.

I chose to the “What Are You Born to Do” quiz. Ever since I can remember I have wanted to become a doctor. Except I get weak at the sight of blood or the thought of veins. So I guess the next best step was to marry a doctor. Heh. (Not that I have… yet!)

Later I thought to be a journalist, a recording star (hehe really, but, it was not meant to be), a writer, a poet, an artist, a photographer… oh, the list goes on. Now I am hacking away at being a programmer. But I know it’s not what I want to do really…

I don’t know what I want to do for a job. I just know I want to receive a salary and travel the world. So, so crazy. Anyways, I thought Facebook might help.

Here’s what I got?

LOL. Why did I think Facebook would be any help?

Need life insurance no exam?

Twitter is my latest obsession. It’s a remarkably convenient way to blurt out thoughts and at the same time be able to personally follow, in real-time, the remarks of those you idolize (or otherwise).

I began to use it only to join the NameCheap Christmas trivia contest, where you win a domain if you tweet the first correct answer of the hour. No, I never did win, but that doesn’t matter now. I feel like I won anyways, having found a whole new playground on the Internet!

At the same I have recently been persuaded to use Facebook and Plurk, both of which are a lot similar to Twitter in that they encourage the short, frequent status blurt-out. So I had to find a way to use just one service to send out one blurt out to them all.

Plurk to Facebook

Thankfully, Plurk can send updates to Facebook. On your Plurk account, just go to My Account, click on the Facebook tab,  and integrate the two apps.

Twitter to Facebook

Facebook has an application that can automatically pull in your latest tweets. Just go to this part of Facebook, and follow all necessary instructions.

Twitter to Plurk (and Vice Versa)

Unfortch, Twitter doesn’t offer this service. So you will have to use an external app to connect the two. Feedtweeter is the wonderful website that does this. Except that it’s invite-only and you have to have an invite code to use it. However, there are a lot floating around the web, and I found a code that worked under two minutes. So just search for one and I am sure you will be using Feedtweeter in no time.

Twitter On Your Desktop

Lastly, I don’t like to keep the Twitter website open all the time on my browser. Besides, it doesn’t refresh automatically. I first tried to use Twitteroo, since it’s recommended on the Twitter website. But it’s not so great. It pulls in the latest updates, but for some reason or another, I could not post from Twitteroo to Twitter, even though no error message ever showed up. So, anyway, I had to uninstall the app.

I would use Twitterrific in an instant, but it’s only for the Mac, and I’m on a PC. Boo! Thankfully, I found Twhirl, and it’s a really great desktop app. It not only allows you to use your Twitter account, but you can also use your Identi.ca, Laconi.ca, Friendfeed and Seismic accounts (not that I have those, and am not interested so far).

So with this kind of setup, all I have to do is update my status through Twhirl, and it sends my tweets straight to Facebook and Plurk. Easy enough, huh?

Plug Your Twitter Account

So what else is there to do now but to tell the world that you’re on Twitter? It is so very easy to just put a link on your blog or website, but someone’s made it a lot easier to advertise.

Hongkiat just compiled a list of beautiful Twitter icons and buttons for you to post on your blog or website, utterly free! The Twitter icon you see above belongs to one of the sets in his post.

I am so loving this Twitter origami graphic and I am probably going to use it on my blog! Heh.

So what are you doing still here? Follow me on Twitter already!

Freindster is the first ever social network of the world. It was the first social network I ever joined, and I am still active on it, although no longer as active as I am with my Multiply and Facebook accounts.

I love social networks and keeping up with my Freindster friends, knowing what they’re up to and all of that. I sometimes also do some lurking, especially when I have a crush and want to know more about a particular guy, well it’s Freindster I hit first. Haha.

I’ve never liked those closed accounts. You know, those profiles that only show the primary picture and nothing else. I’ve always felt those people were kind of snotty, opening up their profiles only to people they deemed deserving to see their photos.

But it turns out maybe they have a point. The spate of kidnappings in Mindanao has rapidly risen. Recently, some Ateneans went to Basilan and were kidnapped for ransom. The survival rate of victims is pretty random. Some fortunate ones are returned to their families, yet some others are murdered.

A friend of mine advised me to close my Freindster account to the public. He says that the kidnappers in Mindanao work by hanging out in malls and observing customers. They pay special attention to those who bring large bills or spend using credit cards. Even people who dress especially well are monitored. And it’s not only done inside a mall. There are also those kidnappers who hang out observing people with nice cars, or nice houses.

When the bad guys (hope they catch mesothelioma or something awful like that) have their eye on an unfortunate target, they monitor him closely, studying his daily routine and scouring Freindster for his profile. They try to find out everything about their target, then send all the information and photos to their contacts in Basilan (one of the most lawless cities in the Philippines, and a place one should never go to without police supervision).

The next step is for the Basilan kidnappers to do their job and kidnap the target, hauling him away to Basilan and then demanding ransom from his poor family.

I have no proof of this affair save for the recounting of survivors. I am not advising anybody to stop hanging out in malls (please, let us not let terrorists terrorize us) or to suddenly stop buying nice stuff for themselves, but as a safety precaution, let us all limit the information we publish on the Internet by closing off our profiles and photos to the public, and make sure that we do not “friend” everybody who asks us on Freindster, but only those who are actually our friends.

Same goes for other social networks such as Multiply, Facebook and, yes, even our blogs.

P.S. I mean “Friendster”. Sorry, it’s a geek thing.

I’m lucky I have a not-so-common nickname. Flisha, as my father invented it. I get to have a simple username unlike my sister Tricia and Melisse, who often have to use numbers to claim a unique username.

Still, there are a few other people with my name so I’m OC when it comes to signing up for new services. I’ve gotta claim my name first. I’m sure I’m not the only one with this new age disorder, so teh Internet geeks have found a way to help us cope.

UserNameCheck.com checks whether your preferred username is still available or already taken among the many Internet websites they have listed.

I found a lot of new sites I’d never known about and started registering like mad for an hour or so. Haha. Now I have like 20 new accounts that I don’t what I’m going to do with.

The list of services is a bit lacking, though. I would love for this tool to incorporate more searches for social networks. Where’s FaceBook and OpenID? In the Philippines, Friendster trumps all other social networks, although Multiply (listed) is fast gaining ground. Ning is also an emerging player that’s not on the list.

A lot of the included searches are for start-ups like Kwippy and Jaiku, invite-only sites. Flickr and Picasa shouldn’t be part of the search, I think, since these services use e-mail addresses as usernames, so they’d probably be eternally available for the username one prefers.

Still the major sites you’d expect to find are there. The very useful ones are Blogger, Digg, eBay, Gmail, Yahoo, Multiply, MySpace, Stumbleupon, Technorati, Twitter and Plurk.

So if you’re username-obsessed like me, go visit the site. :-)