Social Sunday: A closer look at my Facebook settings

December 21, 2009 By

Courtesy flickr: bala_

So, the other day I promised you that I’d go over the settings I’m using within Facebook to manage my privacy. before we get to them, though, a few quick notes:

  1. My settings are not for everyone and this isn’t a “Best” or “most secure” type of guide. I use Facebook in two capacities at the same time (Business and pleasure) and that makes it rather tricky.
  2. I make extensive use of friend lists – something not everyone is comfortable with. People fall into only a single group (Well, for the purposes of privacy settings) and that often puts me into a tough spot when trying to decide where someone falls.
  3. My setting are never ‘finished’. I’ve spent hours refining where they are now, but there’s always one more thing to change here and there.

So – that all said, let’s take a look. It all starts with friend lists.

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Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Methods

Managing Facebook: New Privacy Settings

December 17, 2009 By
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Courtesy flickr: chant3

So, back in August, I posted a story called Managing Facebook: A World Divided to talk all about how I’d done up my privacy settings, friend lists and so on. It was a set of rules, permissions and walls that I was happy and comfortable with.

And then, Facebook went and changed them all on me.

Now, there were a few major points to their most recent privacy update:

  1. All regional networks are gone. We are now one world, one Facebook.
  2. The granularization (Yeah – I think I made that one up) of wall posts and other privacy settings.
  3. The opening of select information to the public as a whole.

So much as I did back in August, I decided to go through the new bits piece by piece to figure out how I felt about them and how I could tweak them to my liking.

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Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Methods

The Honour Of Being An Early Adopter

October 6, 2009 By
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Courtesy: @applecrispmusic

Being an early adopter is an exciting game with ups and downs every day. Sometimes, you get yourself into an awesome service before they close the doors and tell you you’re not allowed in. Other times, you end up paying more for a product than you probably should have. And sometimes, you get to see something so early that it you see it start, grow and die before it gets the chance to go mainstream.

As one of people behind the Limestone New Media Group initiative, I’m always keeping Kingston – and Kingston’s businesses – in mind as I browse the web. Fairly early on, I had a feeling that Twitter was going to get pretty big, and I registered a number of account on behalf of local businesses. I did this again earlier this year.

Twitter’s position on these names is pretty clear: Don’t do it. According the the use policy, bulk registrations, impersonating others and trying to sell names back to corporations for profit is a clear no-no and will end in a suspension of the account – as well as potentially other accounts you manage/’own’. I have, twice now, flown straight against this rule and registered a whole bunch (8-10 each wave) of accounts.

I bring this up because I got a wonderful email the other night that allowed me to turn over another account to a local business. I didn’t charge them anything, didn’t have them buy a time share and didn’t even add their email to a mailing list. They wrote to me – and I simply replied with the password.

While it may be that Twitter’s not shutting me down because the haven’t found me, I’ve also been very careful about what I’ve done with the accounts:

  1. I don’t tweet on their behalf. In fact in the second wave, I only post a single tweet that reads “This account has been set up as a placeholder. If you feel you should have it (It’s free!), follow the link in the profile for details.”
  2. The profile links to this page – which is a letter explaining who I am, what the LNMG is, why I’ve ‘stolen’ their account, and what to do to get the password.
  3. I don’t edit defaults: The background, icon and everything else stays to whatever Twitter says it is.
  4. Once I get an email, I check who it’s from. If it’s from the domain I’d expect it to be, I just turn over the account. If not, a few quick Google searches will usually confirm who the person is. In either case, once I can verify the person, I blank out the profile link, delete the tweet and send them the password.
  5. I don’t market them – I don’t want to be seen as ‘that guy’ who’s squatting the names and approaching people with them. Though I’m not asking for money (Or even suggesting they turn to me for a strategy or consulting), I know that “cold-calling” in this way is frowned upon, so I just don’t do it.

My entire first wave of accounts went to their proper owners in just over 6 months. This second wave is taking a little longer to be disbursed - but I crossed the halfway point by turning over @applecrispmusic recently.

It makes me SO excited to see so many Kingston companies beginning to to adopt social media tools – and I’m honoured to be able to play a small role in helping them along.

Filed Under: Archives, Methods, Projects, Twitter

Managing Facebook: A World Divided

August 14, 2009 By

So, over the past week, my Facebook privacy settings have been the subject of conversation in a few places: In person at dinner, then again at a breakfast…On Twitter… On my blog comments and of course, on Facebook itself.

Facebook has always been an odd place for me. It’s the only place, really, where my ‘online’ and ‘offline’ worlds collide. Sure, some people I know from my ‘offline’ life are now on Twitter, or have connected through LinkedIn, but for the most part, Facebook is the place where those people are interacting with me. And I love that. It’s nice to have a place where my ‘offline’ world can gather and interact – pictures, wall posts, notes and everything. All of the people who I get together with for dinners, who my wife and I double-date with… who we go out with and have over… Plus past co-workers from my pre-web life… and old high school friends… It’s my spot for all of that.

But it’s also where a lot of my ‘online’ friends gather, too. While we’re all over Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, FriendFeed and who knows how many other networks, we’re in Facebook, too – so it’s expected that I’d be there for this type of activity, too. And this leaves Facebook right in the middle.

Now, several of my friends are stuck in this same boat… And to the best I can tell, there are three solutions. You either split your list by creating a second profile, you simply accept that the worlds are going to collide, or you try to manage it all under one profile using privacy settings. I chose to do the later and did so using friend ‘groups’. Here’s how:

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Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Methods, Social Media

10-and-a-half Webapps I Use Regularly (And 4 that don’t quite make it)

August 5, 2009 By

So, the other day I was talking about desktop apps – and why I couldn’t yet get rid of some. Today, I want to look at the other side and focus on the webapps I use. Some of these are used daily, others weekly, but they’re all playing a vital rolw in my cloud-based living mantra.

  1. Gmail – Bar none, the absolute most important app I use. Period. I have dozens of email addresses and a handful of domains pointing to it, all being handled by a horde of filters and labels. Really, if it’s not in here – I’m not likely to see it…
  2. Google Calendar – Unless, of course, it’s on here. Seventeen calendars call this place home – all colour-coded and sorted by priority and what segment of my life they apply to. My calendar pretty much runs my life including everything from client work to garbage night.
  3. Toodledo – My calendar’s evil partner in crime. I’ll admit, I’m only JUST discovering the power and potential of this task app, but it does tie into Google Calendar, lets me prioritize items by date or importance AND will let me recur items every 9 days (Something VITAL to my operation) – so it’s on the list.
  4. Twitter – Yeah, this one should probably go without saying – especially since I listed Seesmic in the other list… But Twitter IS a webapp first and fore-most, and I do seem to have a tab open to it most of the day – particularly to search
  5. Meebo – Oh Meebo, how I <3 thee. Meebo is, as of this weekend, the ONLY IM platform I use. If it isn’t supported by Meebo, I’m not using it. Period.
  6. Google Reader – Yep, the big G gets another spot on the list for the RSS reader. What I use this one for should be pretty obvious. :)
  7. CastRoller – CastRoller has ‘replaced’ the podcast section of iTunes for me. I listen to my episodes online most of the time – and use the single feed to sync my iPod and Blackberry when I’m on the go. Plus, I’ve found lots of cool new shows thanks to it’s sharing features
  8. Facebook – Oh, Facebook, how I </3 thee. Facebook and I have an odd relationship. I’m there – mostly because it’s expected of me – but I haven’t figured out how best to actually USE it yet.
  9. Delicious – I KNOW I should be sharing bookmarks. I know that. But I’m not. I AM using Delicious though, and the day my thousands of bookmarks saved over 10 years are cleaned through, they’ll all go public. I promise.
  10. FreshBooks – I’m not always using freshbooks – but this one IS my invoicing app and I love it. :)
  11. Flickr & Youtube – These guys half make the list. I use them to host my pictures and video… But I’m REALLY not using them to their fullest… or regularly. Half a point each.

So that’s the list! But unlike the desktop side, I’m ALWAYS playing with other applications on the web. Here are 4 others that I use less frequently but so still use occasionally or am currently experimenting:

  1. Netvibes – Netvibes was once the glue that held everything together for me, and my browser could never be found without a tab open to it. I still do use it… but not nearly as often.
  2. WordPress – WP makes the list in this section… Because while I DO use it daily I’m not 100% sure it fits the ‘webapp’ model. It’s web-based though, so I’ve put it on here.
  3. Web-based Docs – This is a two-for-one. On one side you’ve got Google Docs, on the other you’ve got Zoho. Both are awesome. Both are things I should be using more. Google Docs slightly out-ranks Zoho because of the gmail integration.
  4. Last.fm – This is the app I’m working on ‘replacing’ the rest of my iTunes with. I’ve been playing with it off and on over the last while and DO like it… But it hasn’t made it’s way into my regular rotation yet.

And that’s this list! I’m always on the hunt for new apps, too – so if you know of something that out-ranks one of the ones I’m using, I’m all ears!

Filed Under: Archives, Methods, Webapps

The 10 Desktop Apps I Still Use Most And Why

July 31, 2009 By

As most regular readers and friends know, I do as much as I can using web applications. I do this mostly to allow myself to use (almost) any computer at any time and still be able to accomplish most of my work. Despite this, there ARE still some desktop apps I’m using regularly. I’ve been tracking my app usage for the last few weeks and want to share the apps I am still using. In the interest of keeping this accurate, I’m leaving off the ‘run in the background’ apps (Like anti-virus software) as well as web browsers (though my default, Chrome, takes top spot). So… What’s holding me back from a complete web-based life?

  1. Notepad – Despite dozens of web alternatives, I can’t seem to shake this one. I blame the muscle-memory [Win + r] [n][o][Enter] keyboard shortcut for this. I mostly use it as a quick place to jott down a note while on the phone – or as a quick pastebin of sorts when programming. As a side note, I SAVE very few (if anything) in it – instead, it’s copied to a web document, email or other tool.
  2. Seesmic Desktop – There are piles of web-based Twitter clients, but nothing (yet) that seems to do what Seesmic can for me. This is one that I’m always actively seeking a replacement for and am ready and willing to give up as soon as the perfect web version comes along.
  3. RealVNC – There are several computers in the house, some of which don’t even have keyboards, mice or monitors hooked up.  This lets me control them from my laptop. Kinda like having three computers in one.
  4. VLC Media Player – My default media player for any movie or music file. It’s kinda broken and won’t let me seek to a new position in AVI files… but oh well. I play files using web-based players where possible, but it it has to be a download (or is coming from local storage of some sort), it gets played here.
  5. iTunes – Pretty obvious one. My music library + iPod Touch and Shuffle syncing. I also manage playlists here to sync to the Blackberry Pearl.
  6. Windows Media Player – This one only makes the list because my VLC player is broken and sometimes I want/need to skip ahead in a file. I’ll someday fix VLC and this can vanish again.
  7. CDBurnerXP – I’ve been burning a lot of backups of files and data from some of the hard drives to CD or DVD recently and this freeware burning app makes that nice and easy.
  8. VirtualBox – As I play with more and more web apps, I’m also playing with a lot of netbook OSes. This free virtual machine lets me do so without having to install anything permanent to the drive and dual-, triple- or quad-boot.
  9. Adobe Fireworks – Another one that SHOULD be off the list and isn’t – only because I haven’t had enough time to learn my way through Aviary.
  10. Filezilla - To get things ONTO the cloud. With WordPress having core and plugin upgrades along with  plugin and theme installs all built into wp-admin, I’m guessing this will soon likely only be used for audio/video/image media and file permissions.

That’s it! For the most part, the stuff I’m using locally is stuff that can’t go on the web – But I want to know what you think? Did any of these surprise you?

Filed Under: Archives, Methods, Webapps
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