I’ve been testing the Spawn of FireFox called “Flock“. Flock is basically Firefox dressed up for Social Media sites. if your the type of person who loves sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and others then this may be your dream browser! It is these types of sites that this browser is made for… This is not to say it is its only use though.

Flock has some nice features for bloggers. It has a cool feature-full writer for all the top blogging platforms. I never liked it much though, it just was not what i am used to. It would be great for people who use Blogger… But for wordpress users it will not offer everything you need. If you like me you have some plugins and some of these plugins might change a few things on the fly, of course this writer has none of things.

It does have some nice sharing features for sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. It also has a nice way of integrating the browser with Social sites, you can simply drag any content like a whole web-page or photo into a sidebar which has all your friends. It will then send the content to them and hopefuly they will check it out. Features like this is what really sets it apart from Firefox. It has a cool top menu which is great for quickly checking mail, RSS feeds, and your friends.

One feature that looks really cool is how you can search for media. This tool searches sites like Google and youtube for Videos and images. It then displays them in a nice top menu with imasges and other info.

The only thing I really use is Twitter and RSS feeds. The RSS reader is great, it is one of the only real features I used. I found the email checker a bit frustrating to use though

Flock also gives you your own home page. This homepage is hosted on your computer. It grabs your feeds and other content and displays it as a sort of MSN/AOL/iGoogle type page and gives you everything you need in one easy to use page.

Conclusion

Flock is simple not a browser that is built for me. It is made for the Facebook generation who love to share things and spend a lot of time chatting. For me I would only really use Twitter which I can find a better plug-in for FireFox ( TwitterFox).

Like twitter most of the features can be found in Plug-ins for FireFox. The only real selling point is the way Flock displays these plug-ins. It also has a nice Homepage which was nice to use… But it is not really anything you cant get for free from Google or Yahoo!.

For me I think I’ll stick with FireFox and Chrome. Maybe when I get all hip and start using all the social media sites that come and die I will switch… But don’t expect this for sometime

The past few weeks have been very very  hard for me. I keep trying to write things down on here but am just finding it so fing hard.

A friend of me committed suicide last week, and I have just found it so hard to cope with. I find it hard because I can understand why he did it… In some ways I am envious of him. He has peace now and will no longer spend every day hurting and living in pain.

I knew he was going to do it… I did try to stop him (Like I do with many people) and even though I tried so hard to talk him out of it, I could really understand why he was like he was.

He has not seen his children for 2 years. He is in Family court every month and is meant to have access to see his own children. He has had a court order to see them every other weekend for over 6 months… But every time he drives to pick them up they are never there.

I have stayed up many times talking to him and sometimes it is like talking to myself. He would give me photos of his daughter and tell me “This is what she looked like the last time I saw her” and then tell me “I don’t even know if I would recognize her anymore” to which I can relate.

He tried so hard to stick to the rules and went through all the right channels. He would wait all month for his time in court only to have his ex not turn up. He would drive the 2hours to go and pick his children up…. Even though he knew they would never be there.

He tried so hard, and now he is dead. I know he killed himself… but it was really the courts, laws, and his ex who killed him. You can only kick a man down so many times…

He told me he was at breaking point and he did not know what he would do. He told me he felt like killing some people and was no longer sure that he could control himself. He was very frustrated with everything and felt powerless. He was a nervous wreck and had lost so much weight that many people never knew who he was anymore.

He would tell me how he found it hard going to public places because he would see families and they would remind him of his own that was taken from him.

His last words: “I only ever wanted to me a good dad. I tried but had it taken away from me. I never did anything wrong apart from trying to keep my marriage alive. Now I will never see my children again. I cant cope anymore”