Wednesday, December 30, 2009
How The Rich are Debt-Free
|
Power Vegetables In A Drink |
|
Hi,
===========================================
Crisis ???
The Rich are debt-free and do really have
a lot of options in life.
If you want to be rich, you must know
- what kind of income to work hard for,
- how to keep it, and
- how to protect it from loss.
That is the key to great wealth.
Discover this kind of income in:
===========================================
Cheers,
Labels: become debt free, debt free, social networking
Proceed now to Social Networking | Famous Entrepreneurs | Podcasting | Home Shopping Online
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
 |
 |
 |
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Want privacy on Facebook? Here is how to get some
|
Power Vegetables In A Drink |
|
NEW YORK - Over the past week, Facebook has been nudging its users - first gently, then firmly - to review and update their privacy settings.
You may have procrastinated by hitting "skip for now," but Facebook eventually took away that button and forced you to update your settings before continuing to use the site.
After finally accepting Facebook's recommendations or tweaking the privacy settings yourself, though, you might have made more information about you public than what you had intended.
At the same time, Facebook has given users many granular controls over their privacy, more than what's available on other major social networks.
So if you want to stay out of people's view, but still want to be on Facebook, here are some things to look out for as you take another look at your settings.
1. Some of your information is viewable by everyone.
Everyone can see your name, your profile photo and the names of work and school networks you're part of. Ditto for pages you are a fan of. If you are worried about a potential employer finding out about a quirky fetish or unorthodox political leaning, avoid becoming a Facebook fan of such groups. You can't tell Facebook you don't want those publicly listed. Your gender and current city are also available, if you choose to specify them. You can uncheck "Show my sex in my profile" when you edit your profile if you don't want it listed, and you can leave "Current City" blank.
2. Your list of friends may also be public.
Facebook also considers your friends list publicly available information. Privacy advocates worry that much can be gleaned from a person's list of friends - even sexual orientation, according to one MIT study. But there is a way to hide the list. Go to your profile page and click on the little blue pencil icon on the top right of your box of friends. Uncheck "Show Friend List to everyone." Either way, those you are already friends with can always see your full list.
3. You can hide yourself from Web searches.
There is a section for "Search" under Facebook's privacy settings page, which is accessible from the top right corner of the Web site under "Settings." If you click the "Allow" box next to "Public Search Results," the information that Facebook deems publicly available (such as photo, fan pages and list of friends), along with anything else you have made available to everyone, will show up when someone looks up your name on a search engine such as Google. The stuff you've limited access to in your profile will not show up.
This is useful if you want people you've lost touch with, or potential work contacts, to be able to find your Facebook page. If you'd rather not be found, uncheck this box.
A second setting, controlling searches within Facebook, lets you refine who can find you once that person has logged on. Limit searches to friends only if you think you have all the friends you need and don't want anyone to find you when they type in your name to Facebook.
4. Beware of third-party applications.
Quizzes and games are fun, but each time you take one, you first authorize it to access your profile information, even if you have made that available only to your friends. You're also letting the app access some information on your friends.
Under "Application Settings," Facebook lists all the apps you have opened your profile up to. If you no longer want to authorize access to "Which Golden Girl Are You?" you can always remove it by clicking on the "X" next to its name. Apps you use regularly, such as Facebook for Android if you update your status from your mobile phone, should stay.
Next, by clicking on "Applications and Websites" on the privacy settings page, you can edit whether your friends can share your birthday, photos and other specific information. Remember that applications can access your "publicly available information" no matter what.
The security firm Sophos recommends users set their privacy settings for two of Facebook's own popular applications, notes and photos, to friends only.
5. Go over your list of friends.
The average Facebook user has 130 friends. But many people interact with a much smaller group when commenting on status updates, photos and links. So it doesn't hurt to occasionally review your list of your friends to get an idea of just who can view your status posts, vacation photos and funny links you've shared over the years. Don't feel obligated to add anyone as a friend, even if that person adds you first. For professional acquaintance you don't want to snub, send them to a LinkedIn profile you can set up. Some workplaces and schools have rules about Facebook interactions between bosses and employees or students and teachers.
6. Create custom friends groups.
If you have friended a lot of people, sort them. Think of the groups you interact with in real life - co-workers, college buddies, girlfriends, grandma and grandpa - and organize your Facebook friends in these groups, too. Go to "All Friends" under the "Friends" button up top, click on "Create New List" and fire away. Then decide what aspects of your profile, and which status posts and photos, these people will have access to. Or, simply create a "limited" list for acquaintances or distant relatives and limit their access.
7. Customize your status posts.
Type "I'm hungry" into your status update box. Click on the little lock icon. You'll see a range of privacy controls pop up, letting you either allow or limit access to the post. If you want, you can even hide it from everyone by clicking "Only Me" under the custom settings. Click on "Save Setting." Repeat with each post, or create a default setting for most updates and increase or decrease privacy as you see fit.
8. Let your friends know you have boundaries - in person.
Many of us have woken up on a Sunday morning to find that an overzealous friend has posted dozens of photos from that wild party we barely remembered - the good, the bad and the hideous. Chances are, they didn't do this to embarrass you, though if they did you have bigger problems. Rather, they probably don't know that you don't want these photos posted. Sure, tweak your photo privacy settings on Facebook. But if someone starts snapping pictures of you at a party, ask them to check with you before posting it anywhere.
9. Never assume complete privacy.
Even for the most tech-savvy person, unflattering photos, incriminating text messages or angry status posts about work have a way of worming their way out in the open. Just saying.
By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer
Labels: Facebook, privacy, social networking
Proceed now to Social Networking | Famous Entrepreneurs | Podcasting | Home Shopping Online
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
|
|
|
|
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Google employees testing new mobile device
|
Power Vegetables In A Drink |
|
LOS ANGELES - Google Inc.'s employees are testing a new mobile device that runs on the company's Android operating system, as the search giant continues its push into the wireless market and toward more direct competition with Apple Inc.'s iPhone.
In a blog post Saturday, Google said the new device combines hardware built by an unnamed partner with its Android software. The free software is crucial in Google's efforts to make its search engine and other services as accessible on cell phones as they already are on personal computers.
Google handed the device out to employees across the globe so they could "experiment with new mobile features and capabilities," and give quick feedback on the new technology, said Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management, said on the company's blog.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported Sunday that Google plans to sell the phone directly to consumers, instead of through a wireless carrier. Such a move would mean Google would go head-to-head with Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's Blackberry, as well as current makers of Android phones.
Mountain View, Calif.-based Google launched its first Android phone in September 2008, the G1 sold by T-Mobile USA. Verizon Wireless last month released the Droid, the first smart phone to run Android 2.0, and expects to launch another Android phone this year.
Labels: Android, Blackberry, Droid, iPhone, social networking
Proceed now to Social Networking | Famous Entrepreneurs | Podcasting | Home Shopping Online
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
|
|
|
|
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Privacy advocates slam Facebook change
|
Power Vegetables In A Drink |
|
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Privacy advocates slammed revamped Facebook privacy controls on Thursday, saying the change masks a move to get members to expose more information online.
"These new privacy changes aren't so great for privacy," said Nicole Ozer, northern California technology and civil liberties policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) rights group.
"It's great that 350 million people are being asked to think about privacy, but if what Facebook says is true about giving people more control over their information, they have a lot more work to do."
Online rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) labeled aspects of Facebook's privacy change "downright ugly."
The world's leading online social network fired back, saying its critics are wrong and that time will prove that Facebook is taking "a giant step forward."
The controversy came a day after Facebook began requiring users to refine settings with a new software tool that lets them specify who gets to be privy to each piece of content uploaded to the website.
While the Facebook privacy overhaul has laudable features, there is a push to get the online community's members to expose information, according to EFF.
"Facebook's new changes are obviously intended to get people to open up even more of their Facebook data to the public," EFF lawyer Kevin Bankston said in a blog post.
"The Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook's users, whether intentionally or inadvertently."
Prior to the change, Facebook users could keep everything but their names and networks private.
A newly created "public" category at Facebook now includes names, profile pictures, home cities, pages users have joined as "fans," gender and friend lists.
"There is a whole lot more information that users have no ability to keep private," Ozer noted.
Software that walks people through modifying privacy settings recommends making more personal information public and doesn't allow stricter settings than were previously in place, according to the ACLU.
"If users aren't careful, the transition tool will transition them to less privacy," Ozer said.
The privacy change doesn't address the ability of third-party applications installed in Facebook profiles to mine data from the social network, according to the ACLU.
"Facebook's system now is if I am friends with you, I am friends with all the stupid apps you run too," Ozer said. "Even if your friend takes a quiz, they could be giving away your personal information."
Names, profile pictures and claimed home cities are public, so people can find friends, colleagues, and other acquaintances they want to connect with in the online community, according to Facebook.
Users are not required to provide profile photos or specify the town where they live.
"It is not that big of a change," said Facebook director of global communications Barry Schnitt.
"The vast majority of users have already made this information available to everyone."
More than 20 million Facebook members used the new privacy tool Wednesday night and more than half selected their own settings instead of relying on automated recommendations, according to Schnitt.
"This data shows that privacy advocates are wrong and that users are much smarter in paying attention to privacy than advocates think," he said.
"The process is more transparent and transformative than they give us credit for. When they see how many people around the world have made choices about privacy this will be hailed as a giant step forward."
Facebook said its privacy settings let members avoid being listed in Internet search engines or receiving unsolicited messages.
"People come to Facebook to connect and share, not to hide," Schnitt said. "When users find their friends or are found by friends, they get a much better experience and that is what they want."
by Glenn Chapman
Labels: ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, privacy, social networking
Proceed now to Social Networking | Famous Entrepreneurs | Podcasting | Home Shopping Online
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
|
|
|
|
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
Friday, December 18, 2009
Twitter hacked by 'Iranian Cyber Army'
|
Power Vegetables In A Drink |
|
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Popular microblogging site Twitter was briefly shut down overnight, its home page replaced with an image claiming the site had been hacked by the "Iranian Cyber Army."
The website's official blog acknowledged the disruption but gave no details as to how the site had been disrupted and who was responsible.
"Last night, DNS settings for the Twitter Web site were hijacked," the site's co-founder Biz Stone wrote Friday on the blog.
DNS stands for Domain Name System, an Internet protocol used to translate online addresses from long strings of numbers into simple "urls" such as www.twitter.com.
Hackers hijacked the settings for Twitter's website, rerouting about 80 percent of its traffic to another page from shortly before 0600 GMT until 0700 GMT, according to Stone.
"The motive for this attack appears to have been focused on defacing our site, not aimed at users," Stone wrote. "We don't believe any accounts were compromised."
Visitors were redirected from Twitter to a page with an image of a green flag under red text reading "Iranian Cyber Army" and "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army."
Screengrabs posted on Flickr clearly showed additional text below the image in English.
"U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But They Don't, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To," the text said in broken English.
"NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA? WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST. Take Care," it read.
Technology blog TechCrunch reported that the disruption also affected Google searches for Twitter.
It posted a screengrab showing that searches for a time returned a result reading "This Web Site Has Been Hacked by Iranian Cyber Army," above Farsi script.
"As an Iranian, in response to mischievous interference of this service provider at the order of US officials to meddle in our country's domestic affairs, this site is being hacked as a warning," the Farsi read, translated by AFP.
The hacker claimed to be in Iran, but people "tweeting" about the attack on Friday expressed skepticism.
Iranian demonstrators protesting the results of June presidential elections used Twitter extensively, both to organize marches and to release information about their movement.
The use of Web technology amid the Iran protests was closely watched in Washington, where a State Department official asked Twitter to postpone a planned maintenance shutdown by a day to allow Iranians to speak out and organize.
Their use of the microblogging site led some to dub the pro-democracy action against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "Twitter revolution" and made the Iranian election one of the top "trends" on the site this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month told the United States to use Twitter and other social networking sites to fight against the leadership of arch-enemy Iran.
"Iran prevents people from freely accessing the Internet," a senior official quoted Netanyahu telling parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee.
"Using the Internet and Twitter against the Iranian regime is something extraordinary that the United States can do," he said.
The microblogging sensation was back in action on Friday and apparently taking the attack in stride.
"Late night, early morning, big day, and a party to go to after work," Stone tweeted on Friday.
Labels: hacking, microblogging site, social networking, Twitter
Proceed now to Social Networking | Famous Entrepreneurs | Podcasting | Home Shopping Online
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
|
|
|
|
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Plurk Succeeds Where Twitter Stumbles in Asia
|
Power Vegetables In A Drink |
|
Plurk, a microblogging rival to Twitter, is winning over markets in Asia by offering service in local languages, something global leader Twitter has struggled to do even in European languages.
Plurk's user interface and microblog posts are available in a range of tongues, from English to the languages of some of the fastest growing countries in the world, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Hindi (India) and Chinese.
"When Plurk first launched, we had a translation system where the whole system was translated into 25 different languages in two weeks, and it's all done by our users," said Alvin Woon, a cofounder of Plurk, in an interview.
Plurk sends out an e-mail with a new string of English to volunteer translators and they localize it then send it back. Head translators lead teams of users, and they vote for the best language usage when they run into unusual English slang or a new phrase. Many translators come from the open-source community and are willing to work without pay, Woon said. They also have a strong desire to localize a microblogging site into their own language.
So far, Plurk is offered in 33 languages, but a total of 45 different languages are being translated as of this writing. The list of writing systems is as impressive for its range as it is for difficulty. Arabic, for one, is available on Plurk, as well as Hebrew, Greek, Japanese and both forms of Chinese characters, traditional and simplified. The more obscure offerings include Irish (Gaeilge) and Catalan for people in Spain.
Twitter is available in five languages currently: English, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese. And although it's behind in the language race, the pace Twitter is adding new ones appears to have sped up. Twitter opened for Italian Dec. 10, just a few weeks after adding French on Nov. 19 and Spanish on Nov. 2, according to the company's blog.
Twitter did not return requests for comment on its language strategy.
One of the cofounders of Twitter, Biz Stone, told reporters in Japan last month that it's very hard to localize in Asian languages, which is the reason his company is focusing only on Japanese now.
Plurk hasn't found localization such a challenge. The Canadian company employs only nine people, including three cofounders, without a single translator, says Woon.
"I've been surprised at how many people want to translate Plurk into their own language," Woon said. Their only reward, aside from Plurk in their own language, is a virtual Rosetta Stone badge they can put on their Plurk user profile.
The importance of localization can be seen in parts of Asia where English is not commonly used. Plurk is already the number one microblogging site in Taiwan, according to market researcher InsightXplorer, and is popular in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia and Malaysia, because people are able to use local languages.
Twitter continues to dominate markets in Asia where English is common. The microblogging service ranks first in Hong Kong and Singapore, with Plurk trailing in both places, according to data provided by Internet researcher Hitwise.
Globally, Plurk remains far behind Twitter, according to data ranking Web sites by traffic from Alexa.com. Twitter is number 14 globally, behind giants such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo. Plurk comes in at 1,073 on the list.
Plurk's largest audience is in Taiwan, according to Internet research firm Alexa.com, followed by Indonesia and the U.S. Twitter's main audience is from the U.S., followed by India, Germany and the U.K.
Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service
Labels: localization, Plurk, social networking, Twitter
Proceed now to Social Networking | Famous Entrepreneurs | Podcasting | Home Shopping Online
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
|
|
|
|
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
Monday, December 14, 2009
Malaysian firm buys Friendster social network site
|
Power Vegetables In A Drink |
|
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Online social networking pioneer Friendster has accepted a buyout from Malaysia-based MOL Global, the companies announced Thursday, saying the site would shift into e-commerce.
Friendster, which made its debut in 2002, was widely used to share videos, photos and messages before its popularity was challenged by the emergence of mighty competitors like Facebook. Its users are now mostly in Asia.
Under the new deal, the California-based Friendster will be fully acquired by MOL Global, an affiliate of online payment firm MOL Access Portal which is controlled by Malaysian tycoon Vincent Tan, they said in a statement.
The purchase price was not disclosed.
"The new combined entity gives Friendster the kind of financial backing, retail distribution, and e-commerce infrastructure that will enable us to accelerate our strategy," Friendster chief executive Richard Kimber said.
With over 75 million registered users, Friendster said 90 percent of its daily traffic comes from Asia, while MOL has over 500,000 physical and virtual channels in 75 countries to collect payment for content and services.
MOL chief executive Ganesh Kumar Bangah said the merger will allow the site to transform into a combined "social media site and online marketing channel with an integrated payment platform" that also offers games, goods and music.
The deal came after the two companies entered a partnership in October where MOL was appointed to provide an integrated payment platform for Friendster's e-commerce services.
The two services, The Friendster Wallet and The Friendster Gift Shop, allow users of the site to buy virtual gifts for their friends.
The new entity will build on those services to enable "a wide array of content to be distributed to Friendster's community and monetise via micro-transactions using MOL's payment platform", the statement said.
Apart from MOL, Tan also has property, leisure, gaming and financial interests under his Berjaya Group conglomerate.
He holds retail franchises in Malaysia and across Southeast Asia for 7-Eleven, Starbucks, bookstore Borders and McDonald's among others.
Labels: Friendster, Ganesh Kumar Bangah, MOL Global, social networking, Vincent Tan
Proceed now to Social Networking | Famous Entrepreneurs | Podcasting | Home Shopping Online
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
|
|
|
|
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
Friday, December 11, 2009
'Anti-social network' aims to be Facebook killer app
|
Power Vegetables In A Drink |
|
PARIS (AFP) - Facebook makes you despair? Social networking makes you want to end it all? You may be ready for online ritual suicide with the aid of a new website that helps you kill your virtual identity.
"Impress your friends, disconnect yourself," is the slogan on www.seppukoo.com, a site that aims to subvert Facebook by offering its millions of users a glorious end and a memorial page to match.
"Rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, ancient Japanese samurai preferred to die with honour, voluntarily plunging a sword into the abdomen and moving it left to right in a slicing motion," the site notes.
This form of ritual suicide was known as "seppuku."
"As the seppuku restores the samurai's honour as a warrior, seppukoo.com deals with the liberation of the digital body," the site says.
Today the enemy is not other bands of noble warriors but corporate media who use viral marketing to make huge profits by connecting people across the globe.
"Seppukoo playfully attempts to subvert this mechanism by disconnecting people from each other and transforming the individual suicide experience into an exciting 'social' experience."
The site, which uses its own viral marketing strategy to lure in disgruntled social networkers, is part of a protest wave that sees Facebook as a potentially dangerous entity beholden to corporate interests.
It offers ritual suicide for Facebook users in five easy steps.
Willing victims must first log in to seppukoo.com by typing in the same information they use to go on to their Facebook profile.
They then choose one of several memorial RIP page templates before writing their last words, which the site promises to send to all their Facebook friends when they have taken the final step.
Once the user has made that fatal final click, his or her Facebook profile is deactivated.
But in what might be seen as a bit of a cheat, virtual life goes on after the ritual suicide.
It comes in the form of testimonials friends can write on the memorial page or by rising in the seppukoo ranks by scoring points with every former Facebook friend who follows your lead and commits hara-kari.
The top scorer in that game is currently a blonde woman who uses the name Simona Lodi and who passed into the post-Facebook world on November 5.
But seppukoo.com has some way to go before it attracts anything near the more than 300 million users Facebook currently boasts. On Wednesday it pulled in only half a dozen Facebookers ready to end it all.
Its owners -- whose website says are an "imaginary art-group from Italy" -- told AFP by email that over 15,000 people had done the deed and over 350,000 Facebook users had received an invite to follow suit.
Facebook did not immediately reply when contacted by AFP to ask if it saw seppukoo.com as a threat and if it planned any action to block it.
To reinforce the tongue-in-cheek approach of seppukoo.com, the group's art director -- who uses the name Guy McMusker -- replied when asked if he was a Facebook user: "Of course. We're not Luddites. We're incoherent."
The group is called "Linking The Invisible" and its website says it is made up of media artists Clemente Pestelli and Gionatan Quintini whose work explores "the invisible links between the infosphere, neural synapsis, and real life."
Seppukoo admits that it is in reality a social networking group but seeks to distinguish itself from Facebook by noting that it will store no data and its server will not sell data to any third party.
"If you've trusted a merciless company (Facebook) until now, we hope you can also trust an imaginary artist group," it says. McMusker said the site was not set up with a view to making money.
The RIP memorial page it offers Facebook dissidents could easily be mistaken for a real memorial for a real deceased person. But McMusker rejected suggestions it was in bad taste and said that no-one was likely to be upset.
"Just take it easy," he wrote.
In the real world, suicide is obviously a one-way trip. But in the virtual world even a would-be subversive site like seppukoo.com cannot prevent your resurrection.
If you realise that leaving Facebook was a mistake, all you have to do is log back on again and your profile is instantly restored.
by Rory Mulholland
Labels: Facebook, seppukoo, seppuku, social networking
Proceed now to Social Networking | Famous Entrepreneurs | Podcasting | Home Shopping Online
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
|
|
|
|
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
Subscribe to Comments [Atom]
