BEIJING (Reuters Life!) – The world’s fastest train hit its first speed bump in the form of a disobedient smoker less than a week after it began running in southern China.
A cigarette triggered an alarm that forced a two-and-a-half hour stoppage, nearly as long as the train takes to cover the 1,100 kilometer (684 mile) distance between Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, and the central city of Wuhan.
Managers of the bullet train, which debuted on Saturday, were unable to catch the smoker who fled the scene before the alarm sounded, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
“Smoking is strictly forbidden on the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed train, even in the toilet,” a spokesman with the Guangzhou Railway Group Corporation was quoted as saying. “It could trigger the alarm and even cause equipment failures.”
The train was in the Guangzhou rail station when it was delayed and had not yet begun its 350-km-per-hour journey, Xinhua added. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BT2TK20091230?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews&rpc=69
Maybe it’s just me, but 2009 was a difficult year. I am not sad to see it go away and be logged into the history books. As I have reviewed this past year, I have noticed that so many of my posts have been directly related to the things that I was experiencing or thinking about at the time. I have never written a post to get or gain attention. I write to clear my head and it relaxes me. With that in mind, I have attached links to previous posts to the various experiences I have encountered this past year. Please feel free to click on them and re-read some of my favorite posts of 2009.
It has been a year where I have had to deal with some serious health issues. A few surgeries later, I am in still in recovery mode, trying to deal with the results of the operations. Sometimes the cure is worse than the problem. More importantly, this year was a time when I had to endure the loss of the two of the closest friends I have ever had on this earth.
Within a short span of three months, I lost Bob Emrich and Bryan Blakely. Bryan was my closest childhood friend growing up in Oak Harbor, Ohio. There wasn’t much that happened to either of us from the time we were 6 to 18 that we were not involved in together. As life happens to all of us, after high school we went our separate ways. We always stayed in touch but we both lived in different parts of the country and we were on different paths. However, Bryan was part of a foundation in my life and when we were able to get together over the years, it was just like old times. Thirty years may have passed but it would only be a few moments and we were just like we were when we were 18. Good times. He was taken way too soon.
Bob was my mentor and he was the one person that could always point me in the right direction. He was an example to me of what it means to live a life that would bring honor to his family and to his God. He showed me how to truly live as Christian in this world. He taught me more about God’s grace than any preacher that I have ever heard. No, he was not perfect but he was a perfect example of what God can do in a person’s life if they allow Him to work in their life. Bob wasn’t a preacher but a truck driver. I cannot tell you how many times I would call him and he would be winding his way through the mountains of Tennessee or making his way through the corn fields of Iowa. He always made time for me and always had a good word to say. I still cannot bring myself to delete his phone number off my phone.
Performing the eulogy at their funerals was the most difficult thing that I have ever done. I cannot express to you how much I miss them.
This year was also a time where I had to deal with some major health issues. Without boring you with the details, I had to have two operations. The second surgery was much more serious than I was really prepared for and I am still dealing with the results of the operation. Those results have hindered my ability to write and to do many of the things I did and enjoyed so easily in 2008.
For example, I have completely lost hearing in my left ear and have a 60% loss in my right. I am on the fast track in becoming deaf. Anyone who knows me, knows that I love music. It is something that I have enjoyed my whole life and it is slowly being taken from me. I have also lost most of my ability to taste food. Most of my tongue is numb and I have limited ability to even taste what I am eating or drinking. Finally, my right hand is still asleep. This hinders my ability to write and typing is much harder than ever before. The doctor says that while there is no chance that my hearing will come back, I may experience some improvement with some of the other issues. So, while I am waiting to recover from this surgery, I am trying to do what my friend Bob would have done. He would have called me to talk about the things we were thankful for in spite of the circumstances that we are in.
In honoring his life, I am trying to put into practice what he would have done. In that process, I realize that I am extremely thankful for many things in my life, in spite of the difficulty of this past year. One thing in particular that I am thankful for in 2009 is this blog. Over the year, I have had over 150,000 visitors. Now I know not all of them read my blog and some visit my blog just to read what new ridiculous and stupid thing comes out of my mouth and spills out onto these pages. Like I always say, I love to write…I never said I write well.
One post that went viral this year was a post about things I am thankful for called “A Few of My Favorite Things… . This post has by far has been my most popular post with over 20,000 hits and still growing. I wrote that after my first surgery and just posted a few of my favorite things and things I was I was thankful for. I would like to update it and add to those things and really be thankful for what God has allowed for me to be a part of in 2009.
So here are a few of my favorite things to be thankful for 2009…
I am thankful for my lovely wife Pam, who always believes in me and allows me to be me. She is wonderful, beautiful, my favorite and my best friend. She is and will always be “My Exception”.
I am thankful for my children, Crystal, Nathan, Adam and Cassidy. I love them unreservedly and they bring me more joy than I could ever express.
My Mom. I am without question the biggest “momma’s boy” ever.
My Dad. Thank you for showing me, by example, what it meant to take care of your family and the importance of having a good work ethic. When the bell rang you answered and went to work.
My Grandfather, James Russel Lee, the only real hero I’ve ever known.
I am thankful for Clay, my son-in-law. Not just because he loves my daughter and treats her well but because he is my friend and he loves the Lord with his whole heart.
I am thankful for my in-laws. Hands down the best ever.
My Brother and Sister in Law. Mark and Lynn have been there for me and have supported me and will always be the one I turn to in difficult times.
Luke, Leisha and Colton, my favorites…I always will be there for them.
I love to listen to Cassidy sing, I will always be thankful for that.
I love it and am thankful when my kids call just to say Hello.
I am thankful that I am not the man I was 20 years ago. I am more than I have been.
I am thankful that God is still working to make me a better person.
I am thankful for good parents who told me “NO” sometimes.
I am thankful for family and friends that have stuck by me when others walked away.
I am thankful for God’s grace. I am a really, really, really big fan of it!!!
I am thankful for the Salvation I found in Jesus Christ. I am thankful that He never gives up on me, even when I fail.
I am thankful that I have a whole new day stretched ahead of me with its new opportunities and blessings, with my family and my friends and my God. I am thankful that I am forgiven and clean and that God stretched his love out towards me and rescued me from sin and separation from Him and brought me into His family.
I am thankful for my church and a Pastor who pursues God and His ways. He always presents God’s message with love and encouragement.
I am thankful that I have a Bible – that I can read the promises of God and discover who He is and His great love for me.
I am thankful for music and worship that draws our heart towards God.
I am also thankful when I get to see people come to know Christ – there is nothing like it in the world.
And finally, in no particular order, here are a few of the maybe or maybe not so important things to be thankful for…
I am thankful for a morning cup of coffee.
Dark Chocolate - MMMMmmm chocolate.
Fall – the best season. (the best weather, colors and the smells of the year)
Air Conditioning.
Harold “Mac Attack” McGilton – #81 My favorite Race car driver.
A nice Writing Pen (Black Ink only).
The Music of the Beatles.
Bernie Lutz – A teacher that inspired others to be more than average.
Cleveland Browns / Cleveland Indians (even though they frustrate me to death).
One victory over the Steeler’s every six years.
Paul McCartney.
A Good Working Water Heater.
Remote Controls.
A comfortable Chair.
The Tom Hank’s movie “That Thing You Do” (never get tired of watching it).
A glass of Cold Milk.
My MDR-NC7 Sony Headphones.
Being Young and in Love (Young Love)
Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant (Fremont, Ohio).
A good Pillow.
The ability to turn right on red.
Christmas Morning.
Diet Pepsi.
My 1976 Ford Pinto (if that car could talk).
A Three Dollar Box of Chocolates and the Valentines dance of 1975.
Eisley and Rooney (My granddogs).
High Speed Internet Access.
Parking spaces near the front entrance.
Jerry Falwell and Liberty University.
FACEBOOK and re-connecting with old friends.
MVP Baseball 2003 – My favorite PS2 game.
Indoor Plumbing.
Aretha Franklin.
Growing Up in a Small Town.
The State Highway Patrol Officer that showed me a little grace one day.
My Ipod (8,456 songs on it and still growing).
The Ability to Give Back.
Caller ID.
Motown Music (The Temptations, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, etc.).
The arrows that show you which way to insert the batteries.
Ronald Reagan.
A clean blank sheet of paper.
Re-runs of Tommy Boy on TBS.
You Tube.
Little League Baseball.
Chili from Wendy’s.
The Whopper from Burger King.
Seinfeld.
The acting ability of Tom Hanks.
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.
Randy Pausch and his “Last Lecture”
A good Steak.
Blogging and Writing.
The delete button on the keyboard and white out for paper.
Childhood Memories.
Sarah Palin.
Ohio State Football.
Golf.
Teagarden’s Swimming Pool.
The number 22.
So there you have it… a list of a few of my favorite things I am thankful for in my life. No, the list is not complete and I am sure that there are more things I am thankful for if I would sit and think for a few minutes. However, that is for another time.
In closing, I will not be sad to see 2009 go away. I am looking forward to what God has in store for me in 2010. The slate is clean and anything is possible.
I will not be surprised by anything that may happen…but then again, maybe it’s just me.
My friend, Steve (@Steveology) on Twitter posted this and it did just blow me away! Some of these numbers are amazing! It’s fun to read, but think about the implications: scary or wonderful? What do you think? And, please, tech-dinosaurs of the world, you cannot argue that social media is just a fad any longer!
This was originally posted 31 July 2009 10:00am by Jake Hird, a Senior Research Analyst for Econsultancy. Follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn or see what he’s keeping an eye on via Retaggr.
Social media remains the hot topic of the digital world and I often get asked about the various statistics involved. This in itself is fairly difficult, as this particular online sphere is constantly shifting, evolving and growing at an astronomical rate. But I’ve pulled together some interesting (and hopefully useful) data for a couple of the bigger players in the market…
Bear in mind that these are relatively recent figures – in a few months time (or even less) a lot of it is likely to be obsolete – but for now, I think they’re a great way of demonstrating the impact that social media is having in the digital landscape.
YouTube
If YouTube were a country, it would be the third most-populated place in the world.
20 hours-worth of video is uploaded to the site every single minute.
comScore recently announced that the site had surpassed 100m viewers in the USA alone. They also reported that this US audience consumed over 6bn videos at the beginning of this year.
According to Youtube themselves, over half of users visit the site at least once a week
Facebook
According to Facebook’s internal statistics:
The site has more than 250m active users globally
More than 120m users log on to Facebook at least once each day and more than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day. Combined, more than 5bn minutes are spent on the site on a daily basis.
The average user has around 120 friends on the site.
Every single month, more than a billion photos are uploaded to the site.
More than 50 translations are available on the site, with more than 40 in development.
Mobile is a big issue, with more than 30m active users accessing the site through mobile devices. It’s well documented that users who access Facebook through mobile devices are almost 50% more active than those who don’t.
MySpace
Although now overtaken by Facebook, MySpace is the second largest social network, experiencing in excess of 60m unique users each month.
MySpace apparently reaches 30% of UK adults aged 15-24 – it’s been suggested that its as common to have a MySpace account in the UK as it is to own a dog.
According to Knol, MySpace has more than 115m active monthly users globally with, on average, 300,000 new people signing up to the site every day.
Twitter
Over the past twelve months, Twitter’s year-on-year growth rate has broken the 1000% barrier.
The company holds exact numbers close to their chest, but it’s estimated that Twitter currently has between 6 – 10m global users and this is growing rapidly.
According to a recent report on Twitter usage by Sysomos, 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity and that 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009.
The same report found that over 50% of all updates are published using mobile and Web-based tools, other than Twitter.com’s own website.
It also found that Tuesday is the most active day for Tweeting, followed by Wednesday and then Friday.
Hitwise recently reported that one out of every 350 website visits in the UK is via Twitter, but barely 5% of users currently go to an online retail service through the medium.
Not really a stat, but still quite a cool piece of info: Twitter is now officially a term in the English Dictionary.
I’m acutely aware that this is only the tip of the data iceberg for social media. If you have any other interesting stats, please share them in the comments below!
Learn more…
For background on social media generally, it’s worth reading our (free to registered users) Social Media Trends Briefing (June 2009). Econsultancy has also published Social Media and Online PR Template Files, which you can adapt and use for your own projects. For innovation in this space, download our Innovation Report.
December 2009 Exercise – Michael Rosen, CEC, Executive Chef, The Speedway Club at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Concord, NC
Braised Certified Angus Beef Short Ribs with Port Wine Demi-Glaze, Local Cabarrus County Swiss Chard and Adluh Stone Ground Grit Tower with Corn and Goat Cheese
To participate in the next exercise, please send an e mail to: jeffrey@bauscherinc.com
See all your favorite chefs’ collections of past submissions at the Deep Plate page on Facebook. Please become a “Fan”.
http://deepplate.wordpress.com and “Deep Plate” on Facebook
I had lunch at Hiltl in Zurich today and thought this was pretty cool. They have projected the restaurant’s Facebook and Twitter streams onto a wall so that you can tweet at @hiltl and have it show up. I left a message on their Facebook group to see if it worked (it didn’t), but then I realized that it’s just for announcements. Totally should’ve tweeted instead.
A friend who I was talking to was saying that Facebook was impersonal and perhaps not the best way to stay in contact. I think the most personal form of contact is talking to someone in person and failing that direct video chat. So what makes Facebook impersonal?
Broadcasting – instead of directly talking to one person, many activities, such as posting status’ or notes, are just broadcast tomany people.
Activity stream – Unlike email where each communication is acknowledged, only a few messages appear in the activity stream
Non-real time – When communication is real time, instead of asking a question and changing the message based on the information, often the answer or possible answers will be guessed. Also, a question may not be answered with much information, while in a conversation it would be natural to probe further.
These are just contributing factors. For example, letters are not real time, but are very personal and similarly a video broadcast can feel personal even if it is one way.
The broadcasting and non-real time are requirements of Facebook. As in, it is useful exactly because you can post content and many people will be able to see it even if they aren’t online at the time. That being said, Facebook (especially notes) could work more like Google Wave where it works well as either a real time or non-real time system.
I think the activity stream is the area to focus on. The fact that you can’t rely on your content being seen is the biggest issue to being personal. I mean, how can something be personal if the other party might not even be aware of its existence. How could this be fixed? At the moment, I pipe the status’ from everyone I want to follow into Google Reader and page down through them. I hardly think you’ll convince your typical Facebooker to do this, but adding an Twitter Client like system to Facebook might work, although some people would feel pressured to read everything. You could also try reducing the noise in the newsfeed (my thoughts on how to do this are currently in draft state).
At the moment, I believe that a method to follow certain posts could be invaluable. I don’t mean that you’ll only see these posts if you follow, just that you’ll almost definitely see them if you do. For example, I might split my posts as below:
Programming
iPhone
Power user
Christian
General Life
Random
This would add a certain level of complexity and a lot of effort following everyone, but it’d certainly increase how often and how useful it would be to post to Facebook. At the moment, you could try something like using the friend groups to restrict who sees what, but without it being opt in (and hence more visible) the conversation really won’t be that much more personal. Another option is to use a tool like Twitter and create multiple Twitter accounts, but managing and getting people to follow all of these ends up being a pain.
Yet another option would be to use Friendfeed. Friendfeed’s stated goal as a content aggregator was always going to be a niche area, only of interest to extreme social media enthusists. However, the ability to create groups to which everyone can post and have the content distributed to all members may be what Facebook groups would need to be truly engaging. Of course, this brings along with it the question of too much activity. Then again, this is probably just a matter of proper group management and defining rules such as no lolzcats.
NB. Facebook does have a similar option – when you post in a group any other friend who is a member of this group may have the post appear in their newsfeed, but I haven’t seen any such posts yet.
Hello again Blog World! Ha! I haven’t blogged in quite a while. I have been lazy in the writing area. Hopefully that will change.
Starting today, I’m taking a break from Facebook, MySpace, & Twitter for a week (until January 1, 2010) to spend more time in prayer and studying the Bible. The purpose is to spend the amount of time that I used on those sites in prayer and studying. Check out “Seven Days of Prayer” on Facebook.
I will be keeping you updated on the progress that I am making this week through this blog. With that being said, I should be posting at least once a day for the next week. Who knows, maybe that will get me in the mode to blog more often after this week.
Pray for me. Encourage me. Anything is appreciated. I hope you have had a very Merry Christmas!
Noted social networking site Facebook is becoming a problem for employers at offices in India, as employees have started spending so much time on the social networking site that it is beginning to affect productivity, a new survey has revealed.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) have found in their survey that office staff on average spends an hour a day on sites like Facebook, resulting in a loss of productivity measuring 12.5 per cent.
The study noted: “Close to 12.5 per cent of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing social networking sites during the office hours.”
Seemingly, the workers use Orkut, Facebook, Myspace and Linkedin for “romancing”. As a matter of fact, [the] growing use of browsing sites can be dangerous for overall productivity and IT companies have already installed software to restrict its use,” the BBC News quoted Assocham secretary general DS Rawat as saying.
As part of the study, a total of 4,000 employees between the ages of 21 and 60 from different cities in India including Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai (Bombay), Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Kanpur, were questioned.
It was observed that nearly half of office employees accessed Facebook during work time. Moreover, four in every 10 workers built their entire Orkut or Facebook profile at office. Also, 83 percent of the employees think there is no harm surfing at work during office hours.
I wish this title I borrowed from the super fierce Ms. Gaga, was like her song sounds: kind of crazy, beguiling and fun. But, sorry folks it’s referring to the literal meaning of bad…more like, non-reciprocated adoration. He’s just not that into you? So now what? It’s time to do like Dr. Phil says and “get over it”, right? Sounds logical enough…but here comes the challenging part: actually getting over that someone.
Is getting over someone a skill we get better at with time? Kind of like the first time you get your period and it really sucks and the cramps hurt, but then it’s not so bad as we (sorry boys I write what I know) get older because we “get used to it”…or does it always suck? I’m in the midst of it, and I’m pretty much thinking it kind of always sucks. And importantly, a period even a terrible one, only lasts max a week. A broken/bruised heart is usually not as speedy in healing.
To add insult to injury, I’m optimistic and dreamy in the way that artistic people can be….like I still believe in happy endings, and those movies where everything works out in the end, like in Love Actually. Couples overcoming circumstance, coming together and living happily ever after (at least happily for a while), these stories still manage to get a little tear in my eye. I will unabashedly admit it: I’m a sap, and a romantic at heart. Not good for moving on with the quickness, I’m sure you can understand if you’ve seen the movie or one’s like it.
Then there’s this damned interactive life we live…what i’m referring to is Facebook and Twitter and blogs etc. It enables one to electronically pour salt into their own wounds. Short little knife like mass communications sent out to you and all their “friends” and then if you want to suffer and are masochistically inclined you can read the responses to the status update/post/tweet from others and either 1. wonder who “they” are from, and fight pangs of jealousy or 2. wish you could respond too, but remain completely frozen at your keyboard/phone out of sheer self-preservation. Oh, and let us not forget the posts of pictures, the albums, mobile uploads, twit pics…you see where this is going….nothing like streaming photos of the former object of your affection to help you get on with it, right?
Thus have I come to a new theory: Getting over someone is HARDER in the age of Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. Possibly? Can I blame it on that? Will you just let me?
Next up on the menu….An Experiment:
My Dad always said, (yes my Dad I swear), “you will get over someone by finding someone else.” Great logic?? Not sure…but I’m willing to try most things at least once, as long as they won’t kill me or make me hallucinate. This in mind, and the ebay-like allure of online shopping (for shoes, why not men?) I have a new experiment in test mode:
Using Online dating to get over someone…Brilliant idea or foolish ticket to hell?
Stay tuned for scientist worthy results;)
Charges and counter charges-who is telling the Truth?
Iran’s president has said documents appearing to show his country is working on a nuclear bomb trigger were “forged” by the US.
Iranian president Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility
The papers, revealed last week by The Times newspaper, describe a four-year plan to test the neutron initiator.
Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the reports about a nuclear trigger were “fundamentally not true”.
Speaking to US TV network ABC News, he said of the documents: “They are all a fabricated bunch of papers continuously being forged and disseminated by the American government.”
Foreign intelligence agencies have dated the documents to early 2007, four years after Tehran was thought to have suspended its weapons programme, the newspaper claimed.
The world powers know the documents are damning but they are choosing to wait until they use them to try and damn Iran.
Sky’s foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall
He said accusations that Iran was continuing work on a nuclear arms plan were “a repetitive and tasteless joke”.
US President Barack Obama’s senior advisor David Axelrod has said any accusation that Washington had fabricated documents was “nonsense”.
He added: “Nobody has any illusions about what the intent of the Iranian government is.”
Tehran has insisted its nuclear programme is solely for civilian purposes and rejects Western suspicions that it is covertly trying to develop a bomb.
Mr Ahmadinejad also said Iran was ready to strike a uranium enrichment deal if the US and the West respect the Islamic Republic and stop making threats.
Iran is under three sets of UN sanctions for refusing to suspend enrichment and it risks more after rejecting a UN-brokered deal to send its low-enriched uranium abroad to be further refined into fuel for a reactor. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Iran-President-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-Says-US-Forged-Documents-About-Nuclear-Bomb-Trigger-Claims/Article/200912415506440?DCMP=EMC-news_OBU
What it was people! I’m back with another predicament. Why have we opted to communicate through media rather that face to face? I’m aware that different types of media like texting, messaging, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and so one allow us to communicate instantly and can make work more productive but I also feel that it has decimated the act of face-to-face communication. Today I was whispering some sweet nothings into Echo’s ear and she began to giggle which let me know that I should continue. I began to whisper something a bit more naughty then she looked at me crazy and I quickly changed the subject. We conversed for several hours after that! I could see her reactions to what I was saying and vice versa, I enjoyed talking to her and I have no doubt in my mind that she love spending the time with me. The next day she text me and I felt like the conversation was going nowhere because I missed the connection of being in her presence. She would say something funny and I would type “LOL” or “ ” like I was really paying attention, but actually I was pissed because I was missing the episode of Gray’s Anatomy that I had previously missed because I was picking out outfits for the week. I felt kinda of deceitful because I had and chose the option of creating the feelings I wanted her to feel since she couldn’t see me, but then again she could have been doing the same. I don’t know maybe people just don’t like talking to each other because they are afraid of getting their feeling hurt in person or they feel a better comfort level not having to come up with a response on the spot. People, am I the only one feeling this way??? What do you think about this? Oh yeah, Why is it that Mykal texted me “Hello, whatcha doing? ” I was sitting on the couch across from her, and there was no one around, what the hell is that!?!?!? some one let me know something…….
With the phony Senator Ben Nelson’s (D-NE) vote now secured, the Senate and its tyrannical leader Barack Hussein Obama can finally move forward swiftly in its application of forced bondage upon the American people.
Nelson was a pretender to pro-life and anti-abortion measures and held back his “yes” vote on the not-even-completely-written Senate version of ObamaCare until he was also offered—as were other Senators—a huge bribe (with monies from American taxpayers) to secure his being on board with the rest of the Senate’s corrupt members. Nelson’s bribe was that the federal government will—into perpetuity—cover any and all Medicaid expansion costs for the state of Nebraska. The other forty-nine states will be forced to pick up Nebraska’s portion of the bill.
Nelson had acted (with true emphasis given to that word) as the “sole conscience” pro-life holdout in the US Senate. As we now know, Nelson didn’t care about abortion in any way—whatsoever. As the others before him, he just wanted his piece of the Reid & Obama Bribe Pie. Even Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders—an avowed Socialist in the Senate—was promised a $10 Billions bribe for his vote. He, like the others before him, sold what was left of his soul for the money. And please remember, folks, this bribery is being accomplished with OUR money. Therefore We-the-People, whether we like it or not, have been made co-conspirators in the illegal and unconstitutional power play being affected by our now openly-corrupt-and-proud-of-it ‘leaders’. For decades, the US Legislative body (AKA Congress) has been utilizing unconstitutional measures to “get its way” around US laws. Its members’ arrogant response has been that they know its unconstitutional—‘so what?’ and (knowing full well this is not the way checks and balances work) they offer ‘if the judiciary wants it stopped, SCOTUS can step in and stop us’. Complete Story:
The liquid in printer cartridges – which carries a price tag of about $10,000 per gallon – costs far more than the most expensive bottle of champagne any of us will buy over the next few weeks. And despite the popularity of recycling, each year millions of empty toner and inkjet cartridges used in laser printers, fax machines, and copiers are thrown in the trash, destined for landfills and incinerators.
As more enterprises look for ways to ‘go green,’ many do not realize that re-aligning basic information technology (IT) practices can help play a part in becoming more environmentally responsible.
One way for IT teams to help reduce waste is to implement new approaches within daily processes. It’s not enough to reduce the amount of paper we use, as beneficial as that is to the environmental and the cost of doing business. As business processes move toward being completely electronic, enterprises need to think about ways to reduce our “paper footprint.”
Continued use of paper to record critical business transactions can weigh down organizations because of the cost of paper and printing, compliance risks and the environmental challenges of disposing of paper. Yet, there are fairly simple steps that organizations can take to reduce paper consumption. They are:
Use business analytics software: Integrate software that automates manual reporting and analysis, and electronically distributes reports over the Web or on mobile devices. One mid-size company estimates that it saved enough paper to cover 5,519 football fields on a yearly basis simply by moving manual-based financial and operational reporting processes to a business intelligence system.
Re-align business processes: Automate and streamline business processes among people and systems, reducing paper consumption by eliminating unnecessary papers trails and content storage costs.
Move business tasks to an electronic format: Encourage non-technical employees to try electronic forms and survey software that does not require an IT department’s resources. Traditionally, compiling forms and surveys required several technical workers weeks, not minutes, at a significant cost in an IT department’s time and salaries. For example, electronic forms are currently used by more than 1.4 million Army personnel worldwide, yielding a projected $1.3 billion in cost savings to the U.S. federal government.
Monitor and regulate printing: Encourage employees to edit and review documents in electronic form, while promoting a paper-free environment. For example, don’t ask employees to print meeting agendas. Instead, use whiteboard or laptops to take note during meetings.
Eliminate the unnecessary printing of documents: Prevent IT teams from writing and then printing massive documents that are quickly out-of-date as requirements change. Use software to make requirements an electronic process, providing teams with the ability to visually capture requirements for a project using sketches, storyboards, comment threads and rich-text editors. An IBM “No Paper Weight” study indicates that when companies stop printing their “born digital” documents, paper consumption can be reduced by 80 to 90 percent.
Review software code – online: Don’t print out code for “code review” – like proof reading a paper for grammar. Worldwide, more than 80 billion lines of code are written annually, representing a “mountain” of paper. Manual inspection is time-consuming and error-prone. IDC estimates the cost of fixing software defects at $5.2 million to $22 million annually, depending on an organization’s size.
Increase Data Center Capacity: Grow the capacity of an enterprise’s data center while reducing spiraling energy costs through facilities design, power and cooling infrastructure, active energy management and efficient, scalable systems.
Introduce Collaboration Tools: Use team collaboration software that lets people share links instead of attachments or hard copy documents, reducing storage and paper requirements.
Use mobile devices. Today more than ever, as mobile software applications have grown in popularity, employees can complete most all of their business tasks by using their mobile devices. They can review, read and work on documents and other business tasks while on the go, reducing the amount of forms they might have printed in the past.
Consumption of large amounts of paper within organizations can lead to redundancy, increased costs, increased time and decreased quality. By making a New Year’s resolution to make at least some of these simple strategies, organizations can take steps to improve business processes and cost savings, while embracing “green IT,” making themselves a more socially responsible and attractive employer and vendor. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-373661.html
Uncle Obama and his buddies have the credit and debit cards of every man woman and child in America
Al Capone
By Nancy Morgan Thursday, December 17, 2009
Canada Free Press
Uncle Obama has gotten ahold of your credit card. And he’s amassing charges on it that – you – not he – are liable for. You can call the fraud line, you can call the police, you can call any politician or government agency, and they will all tell you the same thing. Shut up and pay up.
Since misery loves company, you might feel better knowing that you’re not the only one being extorted. Uncle Obama and his buddies have the credit and debit cards of every man woman and child in America. And they’re charging up a bundle. So far, each of us has a $38,000 tab that we are personally liable for. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, which by the way, isn’t melting.
Yesterday, Uncle Obama actually got the limit on your credit card increased. Yup. The House of Representatives voted to increase the overall debt limit, meaning the amount of money they can charge in your name has expanded. This, despite the fact that our national debt now exceeds the statutory debt limit that the Democrats approved last February as part of the cutely entitled Recovery Act. Which, by the way, didn’t work. But the intentions were good.
For the 7 million Americans without jobs, this is not good news. Not to worry. The media assures us folks that Uncle Obama is going to take care of everything.
Just look at all the things he’s doing for us. The House yesterday approved an additional $155 billion of our tax dollars for “shovel-ready” construction projects and money to avoid layoffs of teachers, police and other public employees. Of course the small print says that in order to get any of this money you better belong to a union or be employed by the federal government. If you’re Joe Blow or Suzy Homemaker you’re just plain out of luck.
Maybe you’ll sleep easier knowing that the one billion dollar charge on your credit card last Wednesday will go to preserving tropical forests overseas. Or that the $3 billion charge last month will help the Palestinians in their fight against Jewish ‘occupiers.’ Or that your hard earned money will soon be at work aborting babies in our nation’s capitol. After all, we must do our bit to save Mother Earth, and who are we to disagree with the experts who tell us that abortion is a kick ass way to do this?
Hello all it has obviously been a while since I posted this post was birthed from a status posted on my Facebook account about the laughter. The post read…
“Tonisha Swanson is lol @ my Lai her laughter is so genuine…ah childhood (most) have not a care in the world…Lord help it remain that way and bless the children whose laughter has been snatched by evil…”
When I posted this I was watching my daughter laughing effortlessly more than likely about nothing but since she is only 3 to her when she laughs it’s about everything and there is a certain beauty in that. Can you laugh at everything or simply anything just because? If your answer is yes, is your laughter genuine? Do you use laughter to cover up pain?Anxiety? Fear?
After this thought it later came to me about how sad it is for a child’s laughter to be stolen and various ways or reasons a child’s laughter would disappear.
There is a beauty in innocence and just as innocent as most children are before (some) are taught otherwise their laughter has an innocence about it as well. However, there is so much evil in the world (and I’ll stop at that description) just hatred and pure evil that lives and breathes among many and within many. This very evil would cause people to destroy even the laughter of a child. Painful to even fathom the hows and whys.
The next time your child or a child around you laughs and perhaps it’s a little too loud or a bit bothersome let it pass and be thankful for that child’s laughter and that it and their innocence is (prayerfully) still intact.
One day after suffering serious injuries from falling out of the back of a pickup truck during a domestic dispute, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry has died at the age of 26.
This is a very sad story. I wonder what will happen with the Bengals game this weekend against the Chargers.
From ESPN:
Police say Henry died at 6:36 a.m. Thursday. Henry was 26.
Away from the team because of a broken forearm, Henry was rushed to the hospital Wednesday after being found on a residential road. Police say a dispute began at a home about a half-mile away, and Henry jumped into the bed of the truck as his fiancee was driving away from the residence.
Police said at some point when she was driving, Henry “came out of the back of the vehicle.” They wouldn’t identify the woman, and no charges were immediately filed.
“Detectives continue to work diligently on this active investigation,” police said in a statement Thursday announcing Henry’s death.
Henry is engaged to Loleini Tonga, and the couple has been raising three children. Tonga’s MySpace page identifies herself as “Mrs. C. Henry” and has a picture of her next to a person who appears to be Henry. She also has a post from Tuesday talking about buying wedding rings.
The last two days have brought us some revealing news on the state of the mobile web.
Probably the biggest and most complex offering was Morgan Stanley’s Mobile Internet Report (Complete) which was provided on Tuesday by Business Insider.
Among other gems hidden in this 600+ page document are these revealing figures on Facebook and Apple.
Apparently Facebook has a world-wide audience of 430 Million unique who have made over 500 Million downloads from a choice of over 350,000 apps. In comparison Apple has sold 57 Million iPhone/iTouchs and the owners have made over 2 Billion Downloads from choice of over 100,000 apps.
Meanwhile GigaOm has published a diagram showing By the Numbers: Facebook’s Road to an IPO while the Business Insider reports that Facebook Revenues [are] Screaming Toward $1 Billion.
So let’s take a closer look at what all this excitement means. Do the quick maths and you’ll soon discover that $1 Billion in revenues from 430 Million uniques equals $0.19 in month ARPU for Facebook. So while everybody is getting excited about the Facebook IPO it would appear their APRU is going backwards. Why? Because last years figures (as proven in our recent post What’s on the MobCon Radar for the Social Networks?) suggested an ARPU of $0.25.
So the great hope of global social network marketing can’t even generate the equivalent of 1 SMS per month in revenues from its user base. Fascinating?!
So what about Apple? We again a quick calculation based on 20.7 Mil.Units delivering $13.2 Billion in revenues for the 4 quarters ending Sept 09 would suggest an annual ARPU of $637.68 (e.g. The Average Sales Price of the iPhone plus revenues from the Apps store).
So Facebook is delivering an annual ARPU $2.28 vs Apple’s $637.68. Further proof, if any was needed, for the position I set out in Facefone, myPhone and LinkedTel.
So what about Apples developers? How are they faring since our examination of the Apps Gold Rush in Watch out! iPhones have long tails too and So just how much money can you make developing iPhone Games?.
Well a couple of stories of interest have emerged over the past two days about the success of developers of Bar Code scanners for Mobile Phones. The first is GigaOm’s Eventbrite Launches Analytics; Barcode Reader and Directory on the Way
Around the end of the month, Eventbrite expects to launch a live barcode scanner device through a partnership with Trakkers, giving organizers a very, very simple and small Linux-based system for scanning tickets.
The thing that interests me about this company is
They have built a version of the mobile ticketing system I discussed in an earlier post A Telco you can Bank on?
They have grown their business by applying the Find Me, Find You and Exchange retail media model. Driving ticket sales at first by Google SEO, then by hooking into Facebook Events, and lately via Twitter.
The other company of interest is Red Laser. I originally covered Red Laser and ShopSavvy in the posts on how the Smart Phone was revolutionising retailing. (See It’s the New Plastic and yes, it feels Fantastic and Point, Click and Discover the Future of Retailing.)
Shopsavvy is of course the free Android app that has been recently migrated to the iPhone. Red Laser is the paid app. This new article from Mobile Crunch Bar-code Scanning RedLaser iPhone App reaches 750K downloads, over $1M in revenue provides us with some interesting data on the economics of iPhone development.
RedLaser has been in the top 5 of the App Store paid apps for 3 months now, and again has got there without any advertising or marketing whatsoever. The interesting thing is the news that a top 5 paid app averages only $12,000 in revenues per day.
This of course makes us think once again we need to watch out because iPhones have long tails too.
Finally there is the news that Mobile Web Apps Look Hot – Can They Challenge the iTunes App Store? and iPhone Users, Get Ready for Flash Games.
Neither of these two stories provides long-term hope for the mobile games industry. As we have proven before you can make money developing iPhone games but the long tail of online game development means Analog Dollars equals Digital Pennies for Online Games Developers.
Junk food manufacturers must remember that they also have kids.Money earned by spoiling children’s ( for that matter any one’s) health is Sin Money.
True, parents can not monitor mouse click of children.Solution lies with the Government, which could block this ads or penalize the companies, journalists/media and most importantly with the manufacturers with a conscience.
Amy Norton
Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:40am EST
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Advertisements for junk food may be cluttering many of the Web sites most popular with children, a new study suggests.
When researchers examined 28 of the Web sites most frequented by children, they found that the majority of food products advertised there met experts’ criteria for “foods to avoid.”
Ads for sugar-laden cereals, candy, soda or fast food populated a majority of the Web sites, which included sites one would not readily associate with food, like those run by Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network, among others, noted Dr. Lori Dorfman, director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group in California and one of the researchers on the study.
In contrast, of the 77 advertised products across all the Web sites, only five were foods that children should be encouraged to consume, the researchers report in the American Journal of Public Health.
Cartoon Network declined to comment on the study, and calls to Nickelodeon were not immediately returned. But a spokesperson for PBS Kids — cited for having “fast food brands represented” on its Web site — said that its representation in the study is “misleading.”
PBS Kids does not accept advertising, and “it does not market food products to children,” said Lesli Rotenberg, senior vice-president of children’s media.
Instead, the site carries, at the bottom of some pages, the logos of various PBS sponsors — which include fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A. “Children will never see an image of a food product,” Rotenberg said.
She also noted that PBS Kids has Web pages — Fizzy’s Lunch Lab and Don’t Buy It — designed to teach kids about healthy eating and avoiding media influences, respectively.
When it comes to the issue of media influences on children, TV ads have long been under fire for marketing junk food to children and teenagers.
But the Internet has provided a whole new outlet for advertisers — and companies are expected to keep increasing the proportion of their spending devoted to online marketing, according to Dorfman’s team.
“The public health implications are serious,” Dorfman told Reuters Health in an email, “because digital marketing such as what we found on Web sites popular with kids is much different than TV advertising, which caused the alarm in the first place.”
“Digital marketing,” she argued, “is immersive, interactive and incessant — rather than 30 seconds watching a TV commercial, children are spending 20 minutes deeply engaged with the brand.”
A recent study found that food manufacturers’ use of “advergames” — online games that companies use to boost traffic to their Web sites and promote their brands — may indeed influence kids’ eating choices.
When researchers had children play advergames that focused on cookies and chips, the kids wanted those same foods afterward. But when the games featured fruit and orange juice, the children tended to want those foods for a post-game snack.
For the current study, Dorfman and her colleagues assessed the nutritional quality of foods and beverages advertised on the 28 top children’s Web sites between July and August of 2007.
Of the 77 products they found, 49 met the “foods to avoid” criteria set by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), an advisory body to the federal government. Another 23 products fell into the neutral category because they were neither junk foods nor nutritious enough to be encouraged; such products included lower-sugar cereals and certain baked snack foods.
Only five of the advertised products — including oatmeal, milk and pure fruit juice — were foods that the IOM encourages children to eat.
“Parents should be concerned because much digital marketing flies under their radar,” Dorfman said.
But she also asserted that parents should not be given the job of monitoring the ads their kids see online.
“The online environment is not like watching TV, something a family might do together,” Dorfman said. “It’s unreasonable, and unfair,” she added, “to think that parents could monitor every mouse click children make.”
Instead, Dorfman argued, “food marketers and children’s media companies need to adhere to higher nutrition standards for the foods they market to children, especially when they do it out of earshot of parents.”
SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, November 2009.
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I was reading Rich Byrne’s Free Technology for Teacher’s blog Why Can’t We Be (Facebook) Friends? this morning and he was discussing “friending” students and former students on social networks. I started to comment on the blog and got thinking about it. I probably need a personal policy on this issue and plan to make it a page on all my blogs. This way others will know up front my personal policy on friending and social networks. After posting this blog entry, I plan to make edit into a “policy” page to formalize my social media friending personal policy.
Most of the time a student will request to “Friend” a teacher just as a matter of course without thinking about any other factors. The definition of online friendship to most students is different than it is for adults and they view “friending” someone much differently than most of us do.
I have had this student policy since I started on Facebook and other social media sites. I will not request to “friend” any former or current student. Initiation of a friend request will always come from the other direction.
If a current or former student who is still in school requests to friend me, I will automatically send a message back explaining while they are still in school it is an inappropriate boundary and refuse the request.
If the student has quit school, I wait a few days then I determine how I actually got along with that student. I consider the question is this someone that I would want to sit down and talk with or is this just a generic oh it’s Mr. Shaw, I know him to get my friend count up.
If the former student is someone who has graduated, I think for a couple of days before I choose one way or the other. Then I usually hide them in my stream. I don’t want/need to know the day-to-day lives of teenagers/young adults – if you follow my meaning. But if they want to talk to me they can still do so.
I guess I am very conservative in my “friending” of those who are still students. Have I allowed some former students to friend me while they still are in school – yes, but none from where I currently work. Those are exceptional cases and I usually have unique reasons for doing so and carefully consider any potential consequences of that online “friendship”. I might even go so far as to contact the parent or legal guardian and definitely keep a copy of all the correspondence – CYA. There would have to be a very specific reason for a student still in school to be on my “friend” network.
Friending of co-workers is another area where, unless there is a specific reason to do so, I usually won’t. Former co-workers are fine and I have several in my Facebook feeds. I guess that I believe that there should be some separations between my work life and my personal life.
On the whole, I really think that teachers have to be very conservative in who they choose to allow to be “friends” on social networking sites and I don’t believe that it is just about former students either.
We are role models for our students and need to project a positive image of our profession to others. Yes teachers just like everyone else has the right to freedom of expression. But sometimes keeping one’s choices a bit more private might be a good choice for those who work with kids.
To me “friendship” is more than “following” someone and reading about their life online. I don’t have that many friends on Facebook, but I follow several hundred on Twitter. Friendship is usually reserved for people that I have actually met, talked to and have something in common with and I think that I will keep it that way. Facebook is part of my personal life and Twitter/other social networks are less personal, but important to me in a much different way. Twitter is the way I communicate with others that I may not know personally, but talk with about common interests and are part of my Personal Learning Network or whatever people want to call it know.
So here is to being conservative in online social media sites.
HaroldTechnorati Tags: Facebook, social media, Friending, Twitter, Resource220, role model, hshawjr
As if Facebook wasn’t annoying enough already, it’s now played around with everyone’s “privacy” settings. People who should be more concerned about their privacy are suddenly showing off their pictures to the world.
Every time I log into Facebook I discover things I’d rather not know. I see loved ones behaving in ways that are beneath what I expect of them, it’s a disheartening experience, and instead of merely logging out I always deactivate my account after I’m done browsing.
Forgive me, I know my being annoyed isn’t a valid reason for you to update your settings, or to change your behavior for that matter, but I find words of advice failing me. I can’t think of a nice friendly way of telling you: you shouldn’t be doing this. I feel like yelling, and when one feels like yelling, I suppose silence is the best way to go.
NeNe Leakes and Kim Zolciak are locked in a stand-off with the people at “Real Housewives of Atlanta“– and we’re told it’s partly due to a power struggle over their electric bill.
Sources close to the ladies tell TMZ both women are in the midst of contract negotiations with Bravo for next season — and a major point of contention is the electric bill. We’re told the ladies are sick of having to pay giant electric bills out of their own pocket after the show tapes at their homes and drains tons of juice from their sockets.
Read more: http://www.tmz.com/#ixzz0ZUMpf6NB
We’re also told the women are demanding an upgrade in travel arrangement — because they’re tired of having to use their own airline miles to upgrade from the coach seats provided by the show.
There are more demands — including stipends for wardrobe, hair and make-up.
Now I won’t lie, I’m on it too. In fact, I have 4 tabs open right now…one facebook, one this blog, one for gMail and one for E-learning (a course management system…for UCF peeps it’s Webcourses@UCF, FSU: BlackBoard).
But really, I think it’s about time that we try and NOT bring our computers to the library. Impulse and addiction drive us to the fact that the first tab we open up is Facebook. I don’t even see why people bookmark Facebook; we can type the address just as fast as we click on the bookmark (bookmarks were meant for more complicated links anyway).
I remember on my old MacBook I used to have software that could block access to a webpage for a pre-determined time period…I forgot what it was called, something like SelfControl or some sort of compound name. But it was good…didn’t do the trick always (by that I mean I actually would be desperate enough to use my iPod Touch to access Facebook), but it did the trick sometimes.
Regardless…if people do it on their private computers at the library, I’ll laugh and say whatever because I’ll end up doing it too. But on a public computer? Come on, show some courtesy. Check your gMail, fine; check your Google Reader, fine…even check Facebook for a few notifications, fine. Just don’t use the annoyingly unstable Facebook chat while I’m trying to wait for you computer.
Creo que la mayoria de usuarios empezamos a ver el mensaje de actualizacion de configuraciones de privacidad hace un par de dias. Y ya esta teniendo sus propias reacciones.
Y no solo en TechCrunch, sino The Washington Post, InformationWeek, estan publicando las primeras impresiones de estos cambios. El factor comun, lo confuso de los cambios, viniendo de un modelo del que no estabamos tan pendientes, si nunca le habiamos puesto la debida atencion.
Mientras tanto, no todas las redes geograficas han desaparecido (la de El Salvador, aun esta disponible), asi que veremos mas cambios en los proximos dias, junto con la reaccion de los millones de usuarios en todo el planeta.
Facebook is starting to walk its 350 million monthly active users through a new interface for privacy settings today. Each user will see a window when they log in to Facebook, directing them to a page that asks them to confirm a new set of options for who can see things like their photos and status updates.
The big picture here is that Facebook is trying to balance a complex set of use cases so that people will use it — and not other services — for all sorts of public and private sharing. One minute, the average user might want to share a status update with the world and the next minute they might want to share a set of baby pictures with just their family.
We should note that Facebook first announced most of these settings in July. But there are a few very big new aspects to the changes today. Here, we’ll discuss how it all works, and how the moves fit in with Facebook’s larger goals.
First, after clicking through the initial window, users are taken to the new privacy settings page. It shows a range of menu options, letting users decide what types of information will be shared with whom. The company has pre-selected a choice for each category. If the user has, in their previous Facebook privacy settings, selected a more restrictive set of options than what Facebook makes the new default, then Facebook will pre-select “Old Settings” in the new options.
Today on a call with the press, Facebook estimated that only 15 to 20 percent of all users have previously made changes to their privacy settings. This means that for around 280 million people, Facebook will pre-select the new options. And, in some cases, Facebook is tacitly pushing users to share more with the world. Facebook Pushes “Posts I Create” to “Everyone”
In the first section of the new privacy settings page, users see the following categories: About Me, Family and Relationships, Work and Education, and “Posts I Create” (which includes status updates, links, photos, videos and notes). In this section, each user has two options: Either stick with their old settings or let “everyone,” as in everyone on the internet, see the information in each category.
The other information is pretty standard. The really interesting part is that Facebook has put “Posts I Create” into this category — there’s no option to, by default, share “Posts I Create” with just, say, your friends.
However, to balance this push, Facebook is also rolling out a new, more granular set of ways to change settings in the publisher (for those not familiar with the term, this is the big window for sharing things that you see at the top of the news feed on the home page, and at the top of each user profile). Even if you have all of your status updates, photos, etc. set to be shared with everyone, you can still decide to be more restrictive for each piece of content as you share it. As with the other changes, the core of this interface was announced much earlier this year.
Publisher privacy options, as the company discussed in July, will now include not only everyone, but “Friends of Friends,” “Only Friends” or “Customize.” The last option lets you choose a specific friend list or verified network to share the content with. So if you have a friend list of family or college friends created already, you can choose the list and only share your special photos with them.
Note that verified networks include workplace and school networks, and can only be accessed by people with email domains for those types of networks (like “ericeldon@company.com” or “ericeldon@college.edu”). Regional networks, as the company has been saying for a long time, are gone.
Another important clarification from Facebook today: Users under 18 years of age will automatically have “everyone” restricted to friends, friends of friends and verified networks.
Lots of Information Will Stay Private
In contrast to “Posts I Create,” Facebook is making other new privacy options naturally more restrictive.
The second section of the new page shows Photos and Videos of Me, Birthday, and Religious and Political Views with the option to share either under “Old Settings” or under “Friends of Friends.” In other words, Facebook is not trying to get people to share any of this information with everyone on the Internet.
The third section is even more restrictive. Email Addresses and IM, Phone Numbers and Address are either shared under “Old Settings” or with “Friends.” There’s no new option to share this information with Everyone or even Friends of Friends.
These section options show that Facebook both wants people sharing day-to-day content with the world, but keeping much of their vital real-life information private.
Other parts of the new privacy settings interface go through great lengths to explain everything to users. Each category of information includes a question-mark icon, which, if clicked on explains in more detail what exactly is contained within the category. The bottom of the page includes links to learn more about Facebook’s privacy policies, as well as a reminder about what sort of information is shared with third-party applications. (However, on the call today, the company made clear that its planned changes for app access to user data will be separately rolled out “early next year.”) After selecting options, each user is taken to a page asking them to confirm the choices they’ve just made.
One final tweak we should mention is that users cannot get out of going through these new settings. The first time the user sees the initial window about the settings, they have the option to skip it. But after 24 hours, they’ll no longer be able to skip it.
Conclusion: More Privacy, but Also More Content for Everyone
Facebook’s focus on having all shared content go, by default, to everyone is a crucial part of its bigger plans. Connect, the company’s tool for letting other services access Facebook user data and share back to Facebook, relies on a lot of this shared information being public. For example, the live-streaming widget lets users watch videos of events — like President Barack Obama’s inauguration or Michael Jackson’s funeral — and share their comments with everyone else watching it by updating their status. If lots of users were to put their sharing settings to only allow friends to see their status updates, there would be fewer status updates for everyone to read. This would decrease engagement on Connect.
So today’s announcement is really about Facebook trying to have it all: People’s real-life, very sensitive personal information and relationships, as well as their very public activity.
Source: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/12/09/with-new-privacy-settings-facebook-wants-best-of-public-and-private-worlds/ By Eric Eldon
In late October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the head of Facebook Platform, Ethan Beard, provided insight into the future of the platform in the company’s inaugural road map address.
Overlooked by almost every marketer, media company and agency were major changes Facebook announced to current pages, used by businesses and organizations worldwide as their primary Facebook presence. The changes significantly affect how brands can leverage Facebook and will break many brands’ Facebook Pages if they do not make significant changes.
While Facebook has not committed to a definitive launch date for these changes, the Facebook developer site provides a rough date of “late 2009 / early 2010″ for the changes to go live. I’ve heard that a mid to late January 2010 launch is most likely.
The Boxes Tab and Applications
The most important change to Facebook Pages will be the treatment of how custom content is integrated into brand Pages. Posting content on the Wall of Facebook Pages is a great way to spread a brand message by allowing Fans and others to comment, like and share the content. But many companies need to go further to set up a brand presence and add custom content to the Page to highlight promotions, applications, links and more.
There are currently two ways to integrate this custom content and functionality. The first, and easiest, is through the use of Boxes, which appear on the left-side of the Facebook Page Wall tab and in the Boxes tabs. Under the new design, Boxes and the Boxes tab will be removed and any current content offered in them will disappear immediately upon the new Pages launch.
For example, Michael Jackson and Red Bull’s Facebook Pages below have Boxes tabs with a series of promotions and custom content boxes that will go away in the new design.
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San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), working with the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Samuelson Clinic), filed suit today against a half-dozen government agencies for refusing to disclose their policies for using social networking sites for investigations, data-collection, and surveillance.
Recent news reports have publicized the government’s use of social networking data as evidence in various investigations, and Congress is currently considering several pieces of legislation that may increase protections for consumers who use social-networking websites and other online tools. In response, the Samuelson Clinic made over a dozen Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on behalf of EFF to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies, asking for information about how the government collects and uses this sensitive information.
“Millions of people use social networking sites like Facebook every day, disclosing lots of information about their private lives,” said James Tucker, a student working with EFF through the Samuelson Clinic. “As Congress debates new privacy laws covering sites like Facebook, lawmakers and voters alike need to know how the government is already using this data and what is at stake.”
When several agencies did not respond to the FOIA requests, the Samuelson Clinic filed suit on behalf of EFF. The lawsuit demands immediate processing and release of all records concerning policies for the use of social networking sites in government investigations.
“Internet users deserve to know what information is collected, under what circumstances, and who has access to it,” said Shane Witnov, a law student also working on the case. “These agencies need to abide by the law and release their records on social networking surveillance.”
For the full complaint: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/social_network/social_networking_FOIA_…
Contacts:
Marcia Hofmann
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation marcia@eff.org
Shane Witnov
Law student
Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic switnov@berkeley.edu
As a first step in our Facebook application, we’ll be retrieving some basic information about a logged in user who is visiting our application.
fbuser = User.objects.get_current()
# Get some specifics about the user
user_details = request.facebook.users.getInfo([fbuser.id], ['first_name, current_location']);
name = user_details[0]['first_name']
current_location = user_details[0]['current_location']
This is pretty straightforward. First we get a user object for the logged in Facebook user using the User.objects.get_current() method.
Then we’ll use the user’s ID to gather some basic information about the user, i.e. first_name and current_location. It’s important to note that the user information that can be retrieved depends whether you’re passing a session variable.
While the method doesn’t require a session key, without one you’re limited to the following:
uid
first_name
last_name
name
locale
affiliations (regional type only)
pic_square
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The same restrictions are in place if the user has not yet installed our application.
If you have a session key and the user has installed our application, the sky’s the limit. See the Users.getInfo documentation for a complete list of what’s available.
As always, I welcome comments and constructive criticism. I am by no means an expert at this so I can already anticipate there are better ways to accomplish the things I’m trying to do.
It is the Doctor who is to be prosecuted and his licence to practice canceled.
Story:
A two year-old boy was taken away by social services and put into foster care after his parents, Paul and Lisa Hessey, refused to follow doctors’ orders and feed him junk food, they have claimed.
The Derbyshire couple, both 48, had been concerned about heath of their son, Zak as he was not eating properly.
Mrs Hessey and her lorry driver husband, took their son, who weighed just 17 lbs, to Chesterfield Royal Hospital in July.
The couple rejected the medical advice to feed Zak a diet of junk food, to fatten him up.
“They said we had been negative about eating. That was because they had been telling us we should feed Zak crisps, chocolate and cakes to get calories into him,” said Mrs Hessey.
“I was questioning that approach. We eat proper home-made food at our house and just have chocolate and cakes as a treat.”
Doctors said they wanted to undergo a series of tests over a fortnight and the couple, of Bolsover, near Chesterfield, agreed to have him put under observation.
But in a decision that surprised the couple, a social worker from Derbyshire County Council later said that Zak needed to go into foster care so they could “assess his needs” and determine how he ate.
The couple, who have four other children aged under 10, were told that if they challenged the decision, social services would “go straight to court” where “all your parental rights would be taken away”.
“I was absolutely devastated, I broke down in tears,” said Mrs Hessey.
“I was scared out of my wits.
“They kept saying, ‘if you love Zak and you want the best for him, then you’ll agree to this voluntarily’.”
After he was placed into foster care, they were later able to negotiate, through lawyers, to spend three hours a day with him during the following week, but only in the presence of social workers.
“I thought I was doing the right thing going to the best people for advice when Zak began to lose weight,” Mrs Hessey said.
“Instead they basically accused me of neglecting him and implied it was all my fault.”
Eventually they went to court to try to get Zak back, and after four months, he was allowed to return home after gaining less than a pound in four months.
Social services eventually said they were good and caring parents.
A spokesman for Derbyshire County Council said: “We only take a child into our care either with the consent of the parents or following very careful consideration by a court.”
A spokesman for Chesterfield Royal Hospital added: “While we understand Mr and Mrs Hessey’s distress, Zak’s welfare was paramount and we believe we acted in his best interest.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6713838/Couples-son-2-taken-into-care-by-social-workers-after-they-refused-to-feed-him-junk-food.html
In this photo and video, Al Tkatch tries a Bourbon Burger from Burger King
This was filmed by April Smith of AHA MEDIA on a Nokia N77 mobile cameraphone. April is passionate and skilled in making Nokia films by exploring mobile media production through the camera lens of a cellphone. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith Twitter.com/AprilFilms or Facebook.com/AprilFilms
Beberapa orang, berpikir bahwa untuk bisa aplikasi facebook mereka harus punya gadget yang bernama BLACKBERRY. Tapi ternyata tidak! Kita tidak perlu gadget yang mahal itu untuk facebook’an ria dari hape. Malahan, hape yang harganya 1 jutaanpun bisa melakukan ini semua. Believe it or not, it’s true.
Dari dulu, ada aplikasi walaupun hanya bookmark browser saja. Tapi sekarang, sudah ada yang benar-benar aplikasi facebook untuk hape symbian. Berikut listnya :
1. Snaptu
Snaptu adalah sebuah aplikasi freeware yang didalamnya terdapat aplikasi facebook, twitter, picasa, dan lain-lain. Kelebihannya adalah, program ini ringan dan tidak perlu mendaftar untuk menggunakannya. Untuk mendownloadnya, silahkan klik di sini. Atau bisa juga melalui m.snaptu.com langsung dari hape.
2. Mobile Tribe
Mobile Tribe adalah sebuah aplikasi multi fungsi juga seperti snaptu. Bedanya, dia terfokus pada beberapa aplikasi saja. Kemampuannya terletak pada fungsinya pada Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Plaxo, Yahoo and Google. Program ini harus daftar terlebih dahulu sebelum menggunakannya. Untuk download silahkan langsung ke sini. Bisa juga dari hape langsung ke m.mobiletribe.net.
3. Mobile Facebook
Nah ini dia, rasanya satu-satunya yang ga perlu pake screenshoot tapi semua orang pasti tahu
ya, mobile facebook ini dapat diakses dari semua hape dengan menuju ke m.facebook.com. Disarankan, browser yang digunakan seperti Opera Mini untuk menghemat transmisi data. Opera mini bisa didownload di sini.
Nah, buat kamu facebookers mania, ada sebuah tips yang bisa digunakan. Baru-baru ini, Telkomsel mengadakan Telkomsel Mobile Campus, yaitu fasilitas dari telkomsel yang memungkinkan kita online dengan harga murah. Ga percaya? Silahkan cek harga GPRS’nya di sini. Bagaiman triknya? Berikut caranya :
Beli Perdana Simpati (Ingat simpati, bukan kartu As)
Aktifin flashnya (ketik flash kirim ke 3636)
Daftarkan kampus kamu (ketik KAMPUS (spasi) kode_kampus kirim ke 8888)
Daftarkan flash on versi kampus yang 10 ribu. ini yang paling menguntungkan (ketik FC ON 10k kirim ke 3636). harga lain bisa dilihat di website Telkomsel.
Kalo anda jeli, maka tarif per kilo-nya hanya Rp 0.3. Murah? Pasti murah Apalagi kalo anda punya internet unlimited.
The power social networking websites have over today’s people has been brought to my attention! In August this year, 6,439,980 Australians were using Facebook! Isn’t that amazing?
It sure is.
This whole social networking thing is pretty cool. I mean, I love it. Twitter and Facebook and WordPress – it can’t get any better. But I hate the name. Social networking? Puh-LEASE! Everybody “socially networks” in REAL LIFE. In a sense. And the idea that “networking” gives, that we link up to other people via a network, is just disturbing. I, for one, don’t want to be “linked” with anybody. It’s ridiculous. Social networking websites are just for talking to other people. Telephones aren’t called social networks, are they? So why Twitter?
Moving on to more technology ranting, my older brother got his laptop courtesy of the Australian government today. He is in year nine. This is the very first time laptops have been government issued to students. And they have given them to the year nines. The year nines. Pointless.
I mean, yes, maybe I am just jealous, and maybe they shouldn’t give them to us year sevens because some of us can’t be trusted with our own laptops, but really. They should have given them to a grade that really needed them. Like year eleven, or year twelve, maybe. They’d use them for the HSC. Easy. But year nines? They don’t do ANYTHING. In terms of important exams, I mean. Nothing at all. And the government goes ahead and gives them all free laptops. Pointless.
Noted social networking site Facebook is becoming a problem for employers at offices in India, as employees have started spending so much time on the social networking site that it is beginning to affect productivity, a new survey has revealed.
” like I was really paying attention, but actually I was pissed because I was missing the episode of Gray’s Anatomy that I had previously missed because I was picking out outfits for the week. I felt kinda of deceitful because I had and chose the option of creating the feelings I wanted her to feel since she couldn’t see me, but then again she could have been doing the same. I don’t know maybe people just don’t like talking to each other because they are afraid of getting their feeling hurt in person or they feel a better comfort level not having to come up with a response on the spot. People, am I the only one feeling this way??? What do you think about this? Oh yeah, Why is it that Mykal texted me “Hello, whatcha doing? 
” I was sitting on the couch across from her, and there was no one around, what the hell is that!?!?!? some one let me know something…….
Al Capone
Image via Wikipedia
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I am all for Twitter and Facebook being fun and social and even acting as a tool for getting help with stories for journalists.
Believe it or not, it’s true. 
