Author Archives: BettyW

Friday Faves 10-26-12

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Note: this may be the last Friday Faves until December. I’ve signed on to do NaNoWriMo this year, which means my writing energies will be occupied with laying down a 50.000-word novel between November 1-30! Through the magic of pre-scheduled posting there WILL continue to be a weekly article each Wednesday.

New Music: my friends Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys recently composed and played live a soundtrack to the classic silent film Metropolis. Fortunately it was recorded, and you may now download it for pay-what-you-will on Bandcamp – I’m thinking it will make a great NaNoWriMo soundtrack too!

 

Kickstarter Trends

Besides the ubiquitous band-making-an-album, I’ve noticed a few trends lately in Kickstarter projects:

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Facebook Tip: Nothing Is Really Private

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Just in case anyone still has any assumptions about privacy on Facebook:

A friend of my partner sent her a private FB message mentioning having a certain type of not-average medical procedure… and 24 hrs later I started seeing ads in my FB feed for variations on that same procedure, which had not been pitched to me previously.

Since we are both friends with that person, plus J and I are listed in our FB accounts as being in a relationship, this is an example of how FB targets ads based on what keywords they are seeing pass through ANY part of your account AND the accounts of people with whom you are connected.

This is also an example of what can be done while still probably adhering to a privacy policy. FB, Google, etc say that they don’t give identifiable information about individuals to advertisers – but I’m sure that use of that keyword in the message plus my being linked on FB to both people in that conversation resulted in my account ID # being lumped into a batch of IDs used to target an ad using that same keyword.

So again, a reminder: do not post anything on the internet that you wouldn’t want to see featured on the nightly news or in another public forum.

[Also check last week’s post on keeping your public FB posts private]

Facebook Tip: Beware of Privacy Slippage

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Who can see what you post on Facebook is a tricky concept. After numerous complaints FB made a lot of changes to their privacy settings but it’s still complex, and not all of the settings are “sticky” – you may think you are fine but unknowingly did something that makes everything you subsequently post a LOT more visible than you thought.

The most dangerous privacy slippage I’ve seen recently is one that may be setting ALL your status updates to be publicly visible – including to job interviewers, co-workers, etc.

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Quick Shopping Tip For Smartphone Users

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If you are a smartphone user who will need to choose between warm hands and using your touchscreen phone outside during the winter, stop by your nearest Five Below store. They have stretch knit gloves with conductive tips on both thumbs and index fingers for only $3! I tested them and the conductive material worked well with my iPhone’s screen.