Tech Stuff

Facebook: Its Face in Your Book

If your life is an open book, Facebook has had its face deep into it.

And if you thought your life was a closed book, Facebook has had its face deep into it, you poor deluded soul.

Facebook privacy issues: Social network is watching you even when you’re logged out

Facebook has admitted that it has been watching the web pages its members visit – even when they have logged out.

In its latest privacy blunder, the social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750million users, even when they are using other sites.

The social networking giant says the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake – that software automatically downloaded to users’ computers when they logged in to Facebook ‘inadvertently’ sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.

Before this, it was OnStar.

What next?

My cellphone listening in, even when it’s not on a call? Or when it’s allegedly turned off?

And what about Google?

Or my answering machine?

Or my toaster? 😯

OK. I lost interest in fleshing out this post. Sorry. That’s just the way it is. I have a real life to live…and that means I have to earn a living. Or rather, try. 🙁

PS to Facebook: The “blunder” and “mistake” and “inadvertently” and “bug” concepts all require the willing suspension of disbelief.

My Computer’s Still Personal

One Facebook friend told another (out of my presence, I suppose he thought) that I’m paranoid about The Cloud. Here. Read the exact quote for yourself:

image of Facebook comments about me being paranoid about the cloud
IDs blurred to protect the…ah…insolent. 😉

His opinion versus my opinion — I’ll take mine any day! 😀

And I’ll even throw in this next piece for free:

The Cloud’s My-Mom-Cleaned-My-Room Problem

This is not a short reflection on my childhood neither of my parents was the room-cleaning type but a metaphor for the set of web services we call the cloud. We all know the feeling of logging into Facebook/Tumblr/Twitter/Netflix/Pandora/Gmail and realizing that the interface has changed.

[…you really ought to read the missing guts…]

The personal computing era rose at a time when bandwidth was very constrained. Software ran locally and most individuals’ computers were not hooked up to networks. Your computer *was* personal. And when you got a new one, the first thing most people did was to customize the desktop background. BBS, AOL, and the web began to change all that, but we still thought of our computers as objects distinct from the Internet. You ran software (games, word processors, organizing tools, music players) inside your box without reference to the wider web.

Now, more and more of the computing power we use comes from a CPU across the Internet. We no longer own our digital homes. Instead, we live rent-free with our parents. There are some serious upsides to living with your parents, particularly in today’s economy. You save money. You don’t have to worry about figuring as many things out on your own. Someone else fixes all the messes. And it’s harder to make a a mess when you’re being constantly monitored.

But the freedom of usage that defined personal computing does not extend to the world of parental computing. This isn’t a bug in the way that cloud services work. It is a feature. What we lose in freedom we gain in convenience. Maybe the tradeoff is worth it. Or maybe it’s something that just happened to us, which we’ll regret when we realize the privacy, security, and autonomy we’ve given up to sync our documents and correspondence across computers.

So, no, I don’t Carbonite or Sync or Mozy or GoogleDocs or DropBox or Office 360.

I still believe in privacy and security.

I still believe in personal computers and personal local-box software.

I’m old school. 😯

I don’t live with my parents.

Go ahead. Call me paranoid for that too! 🙄

Someday a tornado is going to come out of that cloud and remind you of me.

PS: I have some Facebook “privacy” news in the hopper for my next post.

Huge Regret: I Trusted Firefox

I have been a loyal Firefox user for years. Hugely so.

Well, we reap what we so(w). Hugely. Actually, harvests are always more huge than what we sow, but that’s another (hugely important) subject.

About 23 hours ago I tried something new in my Firefox browser: creating an additional profile in a custom location. (That’s actually two new things.) Then I deleted the profile, having done absolutely nothing with it.

My payback from the world’s best browser? 🙄

Firefox deleted hundreds of non-Firefox files in the custom location, including tax and banking records. And the action can’t be undone.

I. Was. Just. Sick.

Two questions for Firefox:

  1. Why does your Profile Manager do such a stupid thing?
  2. Why doesn’t the dialog box tell us that’s what you’re going to do?

Just to be “fair,” I’ll acknowledge that if I had done even a little research online, I would have learned that Firefox does such a stupid thing.

Deleting a Firefox Thunderbird or SeaMonkey 2 profile

Warning: The folder for the profile you are planning to delete may contain non-Mozilla files, if you created the profile in a custom location see above. If you use the “Delete Files” option to delete that profile, the entire folder and all of the contents will be deleted, including any non-Mozilla files it may contain. This cannot be undone! For this reason, you should choose the “Don’t Delete Files” option when deleting a profile. If you want to delete the profile folder, you can do that manually.

(Emphasis not mine.)

But why should I assume I need to research such a thing when the dialog box doesn’t warn of it? (Emphasis all mine.)

Firefox Profile Manager

Click image to see more of the screen shot

I. Feel. Betrayed. By. My. Trusted. Browser. 😳

Will I now switch to Google Chrome? 🙄

Well, how do I know it won’t pull something just as dastardly?

Besides, it’s Google. 😯

OK. That’s enough moaning for now. I need to see how much I can restore from back-up. And then see how much of that backed up data needs updating.

PS: No, I didn’t have time to put this together. But this is my way of giving back to the Firefox community. Or something. 🙂

Monitoring Your Eyeballs

I need to remember to do this. And if you’re reading this on a monitor, so should you.

Reduce Computer-Caused Eye Strain with the 20-20-20 Rule

Repetitive stress injury RSI and eye strain are common ailments among computer users, and there’s no silver bullet for avoiding them beyond taking regular breaks to relax. Following his doctor’s advice, tech blogger Amit Agarwal suggests a simple 20-20-20 rule.

To help you deal with this problem, the 20-20-20 rule suggest that after every 20 minutes, you the computer user should take a break for at least 20 seconds and look at objects that are 20 feet away from you.

“Rule suggests” — isn’t that so…modern?

No wonder people treat the 55 mph rule as a suggestion and not a…well…rule.

But in the case of the 20-20-20 rule, I’m glad it’s only a suggestion. Otherwise, I need to be punished.

Well, that aside, apparently there are eyeball-rolling exercises to help eyestrain. But they shouldn’t be done just anywhere.

You IDK WordPress?

So…you I Don’t Know WordPress? (Hopeful question)

Well…I I Do Know WordPress!

And I’m here to help…for a fee…because none of the bills I have pending are marked F R E E.

WordPress jobs are starting to come in high demand again. Automattic is looking for talented folks in a variety of fields, and Crowd Favorite is looking for PHP developers, but you won’t be able to walk into just any office and apply for a WordPress-related position. You’ll need to know where to look first.

Elance seems to be the way to go these days, and it’s definitely worth noticing that “WordPress” is their most in-demand skill set.

Source: Finding WordPress Jobs

Above all, love God!