Category: Uncategorized

The reality is people that can use their “real names” online, without concern, are actually the fringe group.  How so?  The only way a person could use their “real name” online on a service like Google+ is if they fit ALL of the following criteria:

Click here to follow me on Google+.

1. Have no political opinions or zero desire now or at any time in the future to express them AND:
   1. Currently have an employer with EXACTLY the same political opinions as they do or that would NEVER hold them against you, even privately without you knowing about it by overlooking you for promotions, raises, or bonuses, for example, or even worse, putting you at the top of the list when the next round of layoffs come around.
   2. All their future employers will always have EXACTLY the same political opinions as they do.
   3. All future potential employers and everyone who sees their resume once submitted will have exactly the same political opinions they do and none of the people in the chain of people who can “lose” the resume are upright citizens who’d never “accidentally throw away” a resume because of political differences.
   4. Have family members, who every one of them have no problems with political differences.
   5. Do not live in a country where political descent is punished.
   6. Have no spouse or “significant other”, or have one that has no problems with differences in political opinion.
2. Are never asked their political opinion by people who would berate them online for not agreeing with them.
3. Have no religious opinions or zero desire now or at any time in the future to express them AND:
   1. Currently have an employer with EXACTLY the same religious opinions as they do.
   2. All their future employers will always have EXACTLY the same religious opinions as they do.
   3. All future potential employers and everyone who sees their resume once submitted will have exactly the same religious opinions they do and none of the people in the chain of people who can “lose” the resume are upright citizens who’d never “accidentally throw away” a resume because of religious differences.
   4. Have family members, who every one of them have no problems with religious differences.
   5. Do not live in a country where religious descent is punished.
   6. Have no spouse or “significant other”, or have one that has no problems with differences in religious opinion.
   7. Are never asked their religious opinion by people who would berate them online for not agreeing with them.
4. Have never been the victim of a humiliating crime (rape?) or have been but seeks no need to discuss it online, pseudonamously.
5. Have no interests whatsoever that don’t fit social norms (fetishes, etc…) or have them but have no need to discuss them pseduonamously.
6. Don’t have kids or have them, but would never, ever make the mistake of posting a photo online, under their real name, with unknowingly having GPS coordinates embedded (many modern cameras and most smartphones do this, BTW), effectively broadcasting YOUR NAME, your kids images, and your kids home address, to any stranger (predator pedophile) on the net!
7. Have absolutely no way for people to find your home address from your real name.  Knowing your real name and your city, it’s very easy to find your home address, so any stranger can show up on your front door for any psycho reason they have.  Perhaps they vehemently disagree with something you said and are there to “set you straight”, or to just simply kill you.
8. You never, ever announce online that you’re away from home (at work, out to eat, on vacation), unintentionally informing strangers that your home and all your expensive stuff inside it (or, more importantly, your wife and/or kids) is unguarded.
9. Always agree with every single one of your company’s policies OR disagree but have no desire to ever (while you’re employed) say anything about it online, even if you can say it with a pseudonym, EVER while you’re employed.
10. Are happy with your boss and supervisor(s) 100% of the time OR are unhappy with them occasionally, but would never say anything online, even with the protection of a pseudonym.
11. Have never done anything embarrassing in your past or have but have never discussed it online.
12. Are not a celebrity (major or minor) or ARE one but never want to comment online, not even with a fake name.
13. Feel perfectly comfortable with every single online post you’ve EVER made and EVER WILL make being shown to:
    1. Your enemies
    2. Your competitors
    3. Your parents
    4. Your kids
    5. Your sisters
    6. Your brothers
    7. Your Aunts
    8. Your Uncles
    9. Your Grandparents
    10. Your nieces
    11. Your nephews
    12. Your spouse
    13. Your ex-spouse
    14. Your ex-spouse’s lawyer
    15. Your ex-spouse’s private investigator
    16. Your neighbors
    17. Your friends
    18. Your friends spouses
    19. Your friends kids
    20. Your girlfriend/boyfriend
    21. Your ex girlfriends/boyfriends
    22. Your descendants in the centuries to come.
    23. Every police officer that will ever pull you over in the future (they can do a Google search from their squad car while you’re pulled over!)
    24. Every judge you ever have to stand in front of.
    25. Every jury member that will ever decide your fate.
    26. Every HR rep at every company you’ll ever work for.
    27. Every boss you’ll ever work for.
    28. Every supervisor you’ll ever work for.
    29. Every coworker you’ll ever work with.
    30. Every employee you’ll ever have.
    31. Every banker that has access to your money.
    32. Every clergy member at your religious institution now and in the future.
    33. Every parishioner at your religious institution now and in the future.
    34. Every member of every volunteer organization you’ll ever volunteer for.
    35. Every review board for:
        1. Prizes
        2. Scholarships
        3. Venture capital for your new business
        4. Patent board
    36. DMV workers
    37. Clerks at any organization where you have to go through red tape to get something accomplished.
    38. Your teachers
    39. Your professors
    40. Your principals
    41. Your Mother-in-law
    42. Your Father-in-law
    43. Your brother in law(s)
    44. Your sister in law(s)
    45. Everyone you owe money to
    46. People that have done you harm in the past (pedophiles, rapists, bullies, bad cops, bad judges, nosy neighbors, gang members, etc…)

These are just examples of completely innocent people! that have needs for pseudonyms.

So, are you excluded from ALL of those categories?  NO?  Then YOU need a pseudonym to be able to express your opinions online without retribution in your offline world.

It’s now common practice for employers to do a Facebook, MySpace, and Google+ search on potential candidates.  You should expect that all your posts will be read by those hiring you in the future.

The reality is, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that has no need for a pseudonym.  Unfortunately, just as people don’t think much about avoiding web sites with malware, don’t think about protecting their PCs from attacks, and just assume they’re safe and that external attacks are fringe cases and they’ll never be infected, so true are people’s attitudes towards online danger that can come back to bite them.

The truth is, if you’ve ever posted anything online under your “real name”, then chances are very high that you’ve posted something that has the potential to cause you harm in the future.  You may not have even been aware of it at the time you posted it, nor even been aware of it since.  You may have already suffered damage and still aren’t aware of it.  Here are some examples of things that may have already happened to you (or your loved ones) because of something you posted online, but you’re still blissfully unaware of the reason:

• Bypassed for a promotion.
• Gotten placed at the front of the layoff queue at your company.
• Not received invitation to parties by friends and/or coworkers.
• Not been recommended for anything where you would have been if you had not said whatever it was you said online.
• If your home or car have been burglarized, how do you know it wasn’t because they knew you were gone because you posted it online?
• Been videoed or photographed by a voyeur while changing clothes, or an up-skirt or down-blouse and posted online to pornographic web sites?  And even potentially with your real name attached?  The voyeur stalked you because they were attracted to your profile photo, and given your real name and your town you published either on your profile or in your posts, they secretly found you in the real world and did this.
• Had your kids passed over for opportunities because the one making the decision doesn’t like something you posted online?
• Identity theft, which can put you and your family in a world of hurt.

The truth is, unless someone tells you that these things happened to you because of what you said online, you’ll never know.  You’ll live in blissful ignorance.  But, being blissfully ignorant of why these things happen to you or your loved ones DOES NOT PREVENT them from happening to you!  In reality, you should NEVER publish your real name online.  Publishing your real name online should always be the exception and never the default.

If you already have an account with your real name, you should practice extreme scrutiny with anything you post from that account, unless you can guarantee that every single person in your future who will make a decision that affects your or your loved ones future will NEVER hold ANYTHING you’ve ever posted online against you.  I have accounts on social networks with my real name, but I’ve tightened up the security and I’m very careful with who gets to see which of my posts and which posts I even post.  So, my accounts with my real name, tend to be quite dull, because I know I can’t express my political opinions, my religious opinions, my opinions about my work (if they’re anything other than positive).  I don’t have the freedom of speech, and neither do you, to attach those opinions to our real names.  To express those opinions online, we have to do them with a pseudonym, otherwise we risk all sorts of damage in our offline lives and we damage not just ourselves, but those we care about.

So, for your safety and for the safety of those around you, you should be exceptionally protective of your real name.  Publishing your real name makes it extraordinarily easy for a complete stranger to find you in the real world and exposes you to all sorts of retaliation.

So, WHO needs a pseudonym?  EVERYONE!

BTW, if you want an invite to Google Plus, e-mail me at . That’s not a clickable e-mail address… It’s a picture to prevent spammers from easily scraping it. You’ll need to type that address, exactly as you see it, including the G and the + in front of the word “Invite”.

See this image?
You’ll find an actual working version of it at the bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends.

Check back later for updates too!

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Good Luck and Enjoy your new Google+ account!

That’s right!  If you have a Picasa photo sharing account that’s not your name on your birth certificate, then you sign up with Google+, then they’ll not just kill your Google+ account, but will also kill your existing Picasa account!

My profile was suspended in July with the 1st round of suspensions, but they re-enabled it.  Now, they’re doing it again:

This time, it’s even worse.  The Picasa account I’ve had for YEARS is under this same account, but now they’re going to disable THAT?!??!?

I need YOUR help!  Please use the feedback button in the lower right of your Google+ page or the feedback button in your menu in the Google+ mobile app and tell them I’m a REAL person and that I’ve NEVER spammed ANY of you.

Refer them to these articles I’ve written to prove how anti-spam I really am:

1. How to Stop SPAM:  Basic Tips
2. How to Stop SPAM:  Advanced Tips
3. How to Stop SPAM:  Expert Tips

To protect my job and my family, I CANNOT use my real name!

People are very adamant about what they believe Google+ is and they think everyone else should just fall in line with their way of thinking.  They even believe that everyone should be posting the types of posts they think should be posted.  Everyone has an idealistic view of what they believe Google+ is or should be.  But, the truth is, if you ask 10 different Google+ users what Google+ is, you’ll get 10 different responses. Google+ is still an infant and everybody’s trying to impose their own personality on it rather than letting it develop its own personality.

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Recently, Robert Scoble made a G+ post in response to something CNBC reporter Herb Greenberg posted about Herb posting simultaneously to Twitter and G+.  It seems that Robert doesn’t like Herb’s vision of What G+ is and thinks G+ should not allow Twitteresque posts or that people should spend blood, sweat, and tears on writing long posts, only to have them scroll away in minutes or at best, in days.

Robert’s a good character to follow on G+.  He’s an inside man on tech and has lots of insightful things to say about business, leadership, and innovation.  But, he’s fallen victim to the idea that G+ is and should be what he thinks it is.  I’ve seen people complain that people like to protect their privacy by not uploading all their personal details onto their profile page… even going so far as to say it’s “creepy”, not realizing that a lot of people consider it creepy that someone would be willing to expose themselves, their family, their kids, their friends information to complete strangers.  Personally, I take the route of, “assume the worst and don’t give out personal information unless there’s a good reason too”.  Unfortunately, Google’s “real names” policy flies in the face of this, but that’s a another story for another time.

Now, regarding whether or not people should be posting twitter messages, or links to articles rather than the full articles onto G+:

It’s easy to unfollow someone. The great thing about G+ is that it’s not all this and none of that. It’s what users choose to do with it. If I don’t like the posts coming from someone, I don’t circle that person. If I do like their posts, then I’ll circle them.

A lot of people that have some short posts trigger really good and long conversation. It’s not the character count that matters, but the content of the character, so to speak, to borrow from MLK.

I post a combination of long and short posts (and I NEVER use Twitter and I never cross post, though sometimes I’ll post the same thing to FB because almost none of my FB friends are on G+. G+ is my primary social network, FB being a distant second (and last)).  I participate in no others at this time.  My replies to posts tend to be much longer than the post I’m replying to and tend to be longer than most of my posts.

One problem with long posts in a G+ kind of a forum: Discoverability. Posts roll off streams fairly quickly, so they’re only seen by people for a short period of time. Sure, they’re discoverable with search, but that probably accounts for a tiny fraction of people that see them. One’s collection of posts also have no discernible or controllable organization.  They’re just there in a cluttered mess in G+ and their ordering changes based on who replied to which one most recently. If one is to invest time and thought capital into a thoughtful post, you want it to have some sort of payoff (and what I mean by “payoff” is satisfaction that the well thought out writing is around for the ages and will be seen by more than just the people who have it in their stream for a short period). Blogs provide that proper type of longevity. G+ does not. And let’s not kid ourselves: Many people depend on the ad revenue from their blogs. Google doesn’t (yet?) Provide a means of direct monitization for one’s labors here. So, because of the short lives of posts here, the lack of organization, the lack of discoverability, the lack of monitization, the severely limited formatting, and considering that blogs provide long lived posts, organization, discoverability, good formatting tools with image inserts, and monitization, these structures encourage posting to blogs, discourage spending all the effort posting on G+, and encourage posting to G+, the external links to the blog.

Think of it like this:  Regarding writing a blog article, then posting the link to G+ rather than writing the entire blog on G+; The poster DID write a nice, long, well thought out block of text, but the bits reside on a page where all the benefits lie. The link is posted on G+. The exact same conversation can and does occur in the comments under the G+ post, regardless of whether or not the posted text bits are on G+ or on a blog. It’s the same content (just better formatted) when it’s on the blog.

Now, regarding short posts that don’t link to original content from the poster and are just things like, “sitting with fam @Fudrucker’s”, heck yah, those have little to no value, and yes, I’m guilty of those too.  Anyone that comes from Facebook or Twitter has already been conditioned to those types of posts.

Also, cross posting useless content with Twitter style shorthand isn’t what I want to see either, but again, the value and use of G+ is in the eye of the beholder and we can always not circle the twitteresque posters if we don’t want to.  Nobody’s forcing you to follow anyone.

Considering G+ is still in the startup phase and is trying to gather up critical mass, I think we have to be more tolerant of most any kinds of posts, at least until that magical critical mass is reached. I’ve only convinced a small handful of my FB friends to even create an account on G+ and almost none of them are active anymore because of the lack of content here. So, if putting up with the crappy twitteresque style of posts for the short term is our price to pay to reach critical mass, I will reluctantly accept it. I’ve circled about 700 people just to have content when I log in, and I engage them in conversation when they post, even if it’s a crappy post, if for nothing else, to get them engaged. I see the following post far too frequently, “where is everybody? Doesn’t anybody use this?”

I spent a good deal of time and effort writing this reply on Robert’s thread, and it will undoubtedly get lost in the massive amounts of replies in his thread and most likely won’t even be read by most people who’se eyes roll past it because of its length. So, was it worth it? I’m guessing it probably won’t be, so to make it worth it, I posted it here, to my blog, so it’ll keep, will be organized, discoverable, formatted better and at least has a chance to produce some monitization via the Google ads on my blog.

As I was stating above, G+ is different things for different people. For me, G+ is:
– a place to socialize with new people.
– a place to meet new people.
– a place for me to interact with my tech blog followers/readers.
– a place to share my technical expertise.
– a viable alternative to FB, which I can’t stand.

Whether your text bits are stored on a G+ hard drive or a blogspot.com hard drive isn’t really relevant. What’s relevant is the content and quality of that message. Of course, whoever’s posting a just a link on G+, has a responsibility to add some text about what the link is about, or I’m not clicking it, if the text snippet copied from the article by the G+ web front end doesn’t do it justice.

BTW, if you want an invite to Google Plus, e-mail me at . That’s not a clickable e-mail address… It’s a picture to prevent spammers from easily scraping it. You’ll need to type that address, exactly as you see it, including the G and the + in front of the word “Invite”.

See this image?
You’ll find an actual working version of it at the bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends.

Check back later for updates too!

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Good Luck and Enjoy your new Google+ account!

Whenever you interact online, there’s always a risk.  Most people are completely and willfully ignorant of the risks they put not just themselves in, but their family and their friends.  Google+ is a new social network from Google that competes head-on with Facebook and Twitter.  Since it’s new, most people probably aren’t aware of the security threats present in this new system, even the people that aren’t willfully ignorant.

Click here to follow me on Google+.

There are primarily 2 types of threats:

1. Technological
2. Human

A technological threat is one caused by lapses in security measures in the software itself or as a result of the architecture of the whole system.

A human threat is generally a security threat caused by people’s action, inaction, or ignorance.  Social engineering is a form of a human threat.  If someone tricks you into giving them your password, that’s not a fault of the software, of course.

So, here are the threats to your security and to the security of your friends, family, and work due to your use of Google+.  Please understand that I’m not saying Google+ itself is a threat.  It’s simply another online resource that if not used properly can expose you and those you care about to inconvenience or danger.  Google+ is actually one of the more secure social network products available today, but even it can’t stop stupid, nor is it perfect.

Click here for instructions on configuring your privacy settings on Google+

• The Google+ service:
• Your real name.  Unfortunately, Google is insisting on this horribly bad idea that if you use Google+, you MUST publish your REAL NAME!  This connects anything you say to your real name and is available forever.
• Posts that you delete are not gone.  They are still showing up in Google web searches.  Once you make a slip of the tongue (or keyboard), you can never undo it.
• Default security settings:
• People you’ve chosen to follow (people in your circles) are exposed publicly on your profile page.
• Your gender is publicly shown and this is not configurable.
• Your employer is shown publicly.
• The schools you’ve attended are shown publicly.
• Your home phone numbers and address are shown publicly.
• Your work numbers and addresses are shown publicly.
• Your relationship status is shown publicly.
• Who you’re looking for is shown publicly.
• Your aliases and nicknames are publicly exposed, connected to your real name.
• You are visible in search.
• Your photos are publicly available.
• The GPS coordinates of where each of your photos were taken is exposed publicly.
• Your uploaded videos are exposed publicly.
• Photos you take on your phone are automatically uploaded to G+ (see notes above about photos being public by default and GPS info on them exposed).
• Things you +1 around the web (to vote up something) are listed on your profile page PUBLICLY.
• YOU!
• Posting statements about where you live.
• Posts about where you work.
• Posts about where your children go to school.
• Posts about your daily routines.
• Posts about your boss.
• Posts about details of your work.
• Posts about your family or friends personal data.
• Posts about going on vacation (leaving your house unattended).
• Negative posts about your work.
• Negative posts about people you know.
• Posting anything you know about someone else that they weren’t willing to post.
• Practicing poor security measures on your own PC or mobile device, letting it get infected, exposing your data and the data of your contacts to hackers.
• Being duped by e-mail or phone calls into giving up your password.
• Posting things publicly, rather than only to circles of people you know in the offline world.
• Your friends, family, coworkers, and other contacts on Google+ that know you personally.
• People that know you personally could unintentionally post something about your personal life.

Most of the technological issues you can fix by shoring up your privacy and security settings on your account.  The human factors can only fixed by the people who’d be breaking best practices.

Individually, most of these data bits don’t seem like they’re a big deal to expose, but someone wishing to do you or someone you know harm, they can piece together bits and pieces of your published data to form a complete picture of:

• Where you live (and by extension, of course, where your KIDS live).
• How many kids you have.
• The names of your kids.
• Your kids ages.
• Where your kids go to school and after school activates.
• Your daily routines.
• Where you work.
• Your e-mail address.
• Your home, work, and mobile phone numbers.
• Your spouse’s name.
• Your job.
• Where you work.
• When you’re on vacation (or when you won’t be at home).
• When you’re vulnerable.
• When your kids are vulnerable.

This is just a small list and is by no means a complete list.  You must be absolutely careful with what you say and post online.  Doing something as simple as the following can get your kids killed:

• Download and install the Google+ mobile app.
• Take a picture (using your mobile device) of your kids opening their Christmas presents.

That’s it!  Why?  Because, many phones have geolocation tagging automatically enabled on your phone’s camera, meaning that when you take a picture, the current GPS coordinates are embedded in a tag inside the picture file.  Since you’ve got the Google+ app installed with the defaults, your photos are automatically uploaded to your Google+ stream and photos.  Your photos on Google+ are publicly available by default.

Any pedophile that’s stalking or lurking through your profile will see the photos of your kids and your home address with the geo tag embedded in them.  You’ve given the pedophile most everything he needs to abduct your kids!  He knows what they look like, about how old they are, what toys they like (because they’re opening them in the photos), where they live, and your name!  If he wanted to be more careful, he could just monitor your public posts about your daily activates, find out when you expose the name of their school or derive your daily schedule to figure out their most vulnerable times for abduction.

When you post anything online, you’ve got to think before you post.  Even though your intentions are casual conversation with friends, you have to consider who all can see it, how long it’ll be visible (hint: forever), and how could that post hurt you or anyone else now or at any time in the future?  If your boss saw it, could it damage your job?  What if your coworkers saw it?  What if your kids saw it?  What if some stranger you’ve never met (a pedophile, or a home burglar) saw it?  What if the police or a divorce lawyer saw it?  Or your in-laws?

Seriously!  You have to think before you post.  Not only can you damage yourself, but you could cause damage to other people.  The things you do and say online don’t just affect you, they affect everyone you talk about, everyone you post photos of, everyone you post videos of.  You have a morale and ethical responsibility to protect the people in your life, which means you have to think about every post and whether or not it has the potential to cause harm to anyone else, no matter how unintentional it is.

In addition to thinking about what you post online, you should also consider who can see it!  Fortunately, Google+ gives you almost complete control over that.  You do that by creating circles of people you know and dropping your contacts into your circles.  Then, whenever you post anything, YOU pick and choose which people and/or which circles get to see that.  But, always remember, even if you post it to just a few individuals, they still have the capability to share your post publicly.  If you don’t want it reshared, make sure your say that in your post.  And do it in EVERY post you don’t want shared.  Don’t assume your contacts will assume it.

The biggest piece of information that ties all this together is your REAL NAME!  I strongly recommend that you create a pseudonym for any and all activity online, including on Google+.  If you want your friends and family to connect with you on Google+, tell them what your pseudonym is, or better yet, just e-mail them a link to your profile page.  Google is completely against this, but then again, your and your family’s safety far outweighs what Google wants you to do.

Be safe!

BTW, if you want an invite to Google Plus, e-mail me at . That’s not a clickable e-mail address… It’s a picture to prevent spammers from easily scraping it. You’ll need to type that address, exactly as you see it, including the G and the + in front of the word “Invite”.

See this image? 
You’ll find an actual working version of it at the bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends know about this article so they too can be safe with Google+.

Check back later for updates too!

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Good Luck and Enjoy your new Google+ account!

Many of you have already heard about the anonymity and pseudonym crisis going on with the new Google+ social network service.  Googler’s had solace in the fact that at least they could create GMail accounts with anonymity.

NOT SO ANYMORE!

Check out these screen shots for creating a new GMail account.  It used to be that the First Name and Last Name fields were NOT required.  Now they’re required and this happened only in the last week or two.

Not only do you have to enter a first and last name, but now you have to give them your phone number too!  This removes just about any possibility of plausible deniability if you’re a whistle blower for a big company, a political dissident, etc…

This is starting to get out of hand.  It’s been stated numerous times all the legitimate reasons people (normal, every day people) need anonymity, not to even mention the life saving reasons people in oppressed countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, etc… need to protect their identities while still being able to communicate with the outside world.  Whistleblowers, battered wives, abused children, even people with minor to major celebrity status, people with a JOB that’d like to express their political opinions without being punished by their supervisors or bosses who may happen to disagree or to avoid receiving ridicule from their coworkers.  The list goes on and on.

Detractors in favor of the real names policy have been saying (Including Eric Schmidt himself), if you need anonymity, then Google+ is not the service for you.  He said that in response to a question someone threw at him in an recent open Q&A.;  Part of the response was that Google+ was first created as an identity service.

Well, that may have been (“have been” being the key phrase there… PAST TENSE).  It’s NOT that today.  Today, it’s a social network that competes head on with Facebook.  The Google+ social service can easily be separated from the “profile” service… THAT’S the service where the real names identity is enforced.  In fact, they already ARE separate entities (Google+ and the profile).  This is because you have a Google account (which lets you access all your Google services like GMail, docs, picasa, YouTube, Google+, Google Voice, etc…).  The profile is an addendum to your Google Account.  Your profile can be “suspended” without you losing access to your Google Services like GMail, docs, etc…  There’s absolutely no reason why Google+ can’t be (or isn’t already) just another Google service.

If Google wants an identity service, then, by all means, make one, if the profile service isn’t already that service (and I declare that it IS).  But let the battered wives, the political dissidents, the job hunters, the sexual crime victims, the people with embarrassing health issues, et. al. have the ability to interact with the outside world without having to reveal their real names!  Let them maintain their privacy!

Here’s a list of arguments FOR the real names policy and why those arguments are wrong:

• If you don’t want to use your real name, don’t use G+.
• That is, of course, an option, but If Google achieves what they want with G+ (to defeat Facebook), then where is one to go if all your community is on G+?  It’s been demonstrated time and again that only 1 social network can exist as everyone moves to where their friends are.  Remember MySpace? and that other one I can’t even recall the name of that was once “THE social network”?  When a large (VERY LARGE) company, such as Google, becomes a centralized service that hundreds of millions of people depend on, their moral responsibility shifts.  They have a social responsibility too.  Google admits as such with their motto, “Do no evil”.  Well, how is telling a 12 year old incest rape victim that she either has to reveal her real name or go somewhere else NOT evil?
• Or just simply change your last name to Smith or something. (stated by the same person that made the above remark).
• If you support the real names policy, then you can’t support this activity.  And if you think this is a solution (which, obviously, people will certainly do), then what’s the point of the real names policy if it can so easily be defeated?
• He’s got a point (referring to Schmidt’s response). Nobody’s forcing you to use G+. If you don’t like the policy, there are plenty other social contact services (Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo! Pulse, LinkedIn) that you’re welcome to go to.
• See my response to the first bullet.  Besides… “Yahoo! Pulse”?  Who’s ever heard of that?
• Exactly, in much the same way as you will never please everyone. If they allowed pseudonyms then there would be just as many people that were unhappy about that.
• I seriously doubt it.  Here’s why:  On G+, you choose who you follow.  So what if there’s a “Darth Vadar” user?  If you don’t want to follow that person, then simply DON’T.  Nobody’s forcing you to and I doubt you’d even know that person even existed on G+.  You know the people you want to follow.  Just do it.  And don’t follow the people you DON’T want to.  It really is that simple.
• The problem with pseudonyms is that we’d run into the Facebook problem. 750m names spread over half that number of people.
• Refer to the pro real names comment above stating “Or just simply change your last name to Smith or something”.  Also, Facebook also has a real names policy, so you’ll get the same effect on G+.
• In this case I agree with Eric Schmidt. Use your real name and identity and take responsibility for what you write.
• Really?  So a battered wife should have to reveal her REAL NAME online when seeking support?  A 12 year old rape victim (raped by a family member) should have to reveal her REAL NAME online when seeking support and help?  A drug addict who’s seeking help should have to reveal their REAL NAME so their employer can find out?  An Iranian, Afghan, or Chinese civilian should have to reveal their real name when they’re reporting on atrocities by their own government?  Pardon my French, and I’ve NEVER used this language in ANY of my posts until now (look at them going back many years), but HOW F%$#@!NG STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO MAKE THAT KIND OF A STATEMENT?!?!?!?!?
• Aside from a few name glitches, what is the big deal here?
• See my response just above.

 

Kodak receives another Hall of Shame award:

When I signed up with Kodak’s e-mail offers, it was immediate, as would be expected.  When I just unsubscribed, they falsely claimed it’d take 7-10 days to “process” my request. 

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Seriously Kodak! Do you think there’s anybody on the planet who’s got enough brain cells to operate a web browser and e-mail who doesn’t get that you’re intentionally delaying the request? Everyone knows this is 100% automated. When we signed up, it was a simple and immediate insert into a database record that took a millisecond and we received e-mail within a second or two to confirm it (or just received our first newsletter immediately). Removing us from the subscription is a simple modification or deletion of that same record.

BTW, side note:  Here’s a good alternative to Kodak’s All-In-One printers with falsely advertised “cheapest ink” line (like their ESP 3250):

• Epson Stylus NX420
• 
• Black Ink Cartridge
• Color Ink Combo Pack (separate cartridge for each color (CMY)
• BTW, this printer works just fine with Ubuntu Linux 11.04 too… The printing part, not he scanning part.

In order for this unsubscribe request to be delayed, you (Kodak) actually have to put extra effort into it.  You have to write and deploy code that records the request, but NOT ACT ON IT RIGHT THEN!  Then you have to write another program that queries your e-mail database for unsubscribe requests to finally act on it days later.  Then, you also have to do some finagling with your software schedulers to make that unsubscribe program run at specific times of day to do the intentionally delayed usubscribing.  In reality, it’s a HECK of a LOT easier to update the e-mail record at the moment the user clicks the unsubscribe link, just as you did when they originally subscribed.  How do I know this?  Because I’ve been programming since 1982.  Any programmer will tell you the same thing.

Do you (Kodak) actually believe that there’s anyone that doesn’t understand that you’re refusing to comply with our usubscribe requests for 10 days?

This gets you the hall of shame award for 3 reasons:

1. For believing that any of us are naive enough, in this day and age, to believe that it takes 7-10 days to unsubscribe us from your spam database… as if you’ve got some clerk working a full time job, running around the office with pencil and paper making this happen!
2. For presenting a bold face lie.
3. For intentionally delaying our request to not receive anymore of your spam.

Here’s what I did, and I encourage everyone else to start doing this too:

1. How to Stop SPAM:  Basic Tips
2. How to Stop SPAM:  Advanced Tips
3. How to Stop SPAM:  Expert Tips

I had an e-mail address that I only gave to Kodak.  No one else in the world knew what it was.  Whenever I receive e-mail on it, I know who sent it, not because of their from address, but because of my to address.  No one but Kodak should be sending me E-Mail on that address because no one but Kodak knows about it.  So, if I start getting spam from someone else, I’d know that Kodak was responsible for leaking the address.

Also, now that I’ve unsubscribed, I’ve turned off that address and it now gets forwarded to a special address where all my unsubscribed e-mail goes to… a REJECTED address who’s sole purpose in life is to reply with a “vacation responder” that they sent mail to a disabled or nonexistent address and I provide a link to a contact form (which filters out e-mail addresses and URLs, sends a confirmation e-mail message to the person requesting contact, then, after they confirm their e-mail address is real, it finally sends a a message to me, giving me the details of their contact request).

Kodak’s spam that is inevitably coming multiple times between now and the end of the 7-10 day window of self-declared immunity to my request, now gets tossed to that REJECTED address.

Shame on you Kodak!

BTW, if you want an invite to Google Plus, e-mail me at . That’s not a clickable e-mail address… It’s a picture to prevent spammers from easily scraping it. You’ll need to type that address, exactly as you see it, including the G and the + in front of the word “Invite”.

See this image?
You’ll find an actual working version of it at the bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends know about this article so they too can quickly quickly get up and going with Google+.

Check back later for updates too!

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Good Luck and Enjoy your new Google+ account!

Click here to follow me on Google+.
I can’t believe some of the things people post publicly on these social networks!  It’s incredibly important to understand that every time you post something negative about your job, a friend, or someone important to you, there’s a chance that they may find it.  That chance is probably much higher than most people think.  For example, here are some things that strangers to me have said that I have access to (and if I have access to it, you can bet your bottom dollar that their EMPLOYER has access to it!):

The above comment disappeared shortly after I made that comment.  Good for that person for taking it down.


This person, has on his public profile, “Complain about my job”!!!

Above is an example of a more safe post.  Note that it was NOT posted to public, but I was in the circle that it was posted to and this parent and I have never met, but now, I know where their kids go to school, that they’re girls, and the exact GPS coordinates of the school.  When I commented on her post, she seemed to have gotten a little miffed at me and a little insulted.  I wish that hadn’t happened, but, if it helps with her kids’ safety, then it’s well worth getting someone a little miffed at me.

While prepping for this article, I also discovered that posts that were either never private, or were public at one time, then removed, still linger in the cloud.  I did a Google search for instances of “hate my job” on Google+ and found a LOT.  Here are the first 3 results:

The first one didn’t exist on the user’s public profile anymore (or might never have), but they’re available in a Google search result.  I did report this to Google.
Here’s another search for “I hate my boss” on just Google+!

So, the moral of this story is, don’t post anything about anyone you wouldn’t say to their face, because chances are, that comment will never go away and they’ll eventually become aware of it.  You can ruin relationships and lose your job.  So please, use some common sense and be careful people!  This is NOT the economy you need to be looking for a new job in.

Don’t expose yourself or your kids to danger!

Another incredibly dangerous thing I’ve already seen plenty of people do on Google+ do is post that they’re “dropping the kids off”, while at the same time, doing a “check in”, which posts your EXACT LOCATION.
What you’ve essentially done is said,
“Hey internet predator pedophiles, I have kids and I just dropped them off at this EXACT location.  And guess what else?  I’m leaving, so I’m not there to protect them!”
Seriously folks, NEVER post your location publicly unless there’s a very very good reason to do so.
Other things you should be aware of:

• If you’re going to post photos, make sure you remove the geo-location stored in them before posting.  Posting pictures of your kids opening presents on Christmas morning?  Guess what, if you have geo-location enabled on your camera and you post the pictures where they’re available publicly, you’ve just shown internet pedophiles what your kids look like and exactly where they live!
• NEVER Announce that you’re going on vacation.  That’s the same as saying, “I’m leaving my home and all it’s belongings unguarded beginning on this date and ending on that date, so if you want to break in and steal my stuff, that’s the best time to do it!”
• Don’t “check in” to cool places when you’re on vacation.  Again, you’re announcing that you’re far from home.  People can either deduce that your house is empty or that your wife and kids don’t have you around for protection.
• Don’t post photos or make ANY MENTION of the vacation you’re on UNTIL YOU GET BACK!  There’s no need to let potential thieves know you’re not home.  Your vacation photos and stories can wait until you get back.  A lot of thieves say it’s easier to steal from people they know, so they just wait for them to announce they’re going out of town, then they “go to town” on your stuff.
• Don’t make a habit of “checking in” with any of the mobile software for any service.  You could get caught up in a lie with your boss, your girl/boy friend, or your spouse.  You could also reveal a pattern that people could use against you in any number of ways.  People don’t need to know where you are and you need for them to NOT know.
• Don’t talk about your home or auto security systems.  Nobody needs to know that UNLESS they’re planning to break in and steal your stuff.  You NEED for everyone to NOT KNOW ANYTHING about your security system(s).
• Don’t post something unless you’re putting restrictions on who can see it.  It’s rare that you need to post publicly.  If you DO post something publicly, by all means, think of how your boss, your coworkers, your parents, your grandparents, your aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, kids, teachers, students, clergy, and potential employers would take it.
• Be mindful of the kids that may be following you on all of the social networks you post to.  Don’t talk about college drunken parties when your kids or nieces or nephews may be reading (or your boss, or your parents, or your aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, scout leaders, church patrons, etc…) could be reading your posts.

In short, be aware of who has access to your posts now and at all points in the future up to and beyond your (hopefully distant) death.  Use common sense!
BTW, if you want an invite to Google Plus, e-mail me at .  That’s not a clickable e-mail address… It’s a picture to prevent spammers from easily scraping it.  You’ll need to type that address, exactly as you see it, including the G and the + in front of the word “Invite”.  I’d also appreciate you clicking the “+1” at the bottom of this post.
See this image?
You’ll find an actual working version of it at the bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends know about this article so they too can quickly quickly get up and going with Google+.
Check back later for updates too

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Good Luck!

 

Click here to follow me on Google+.

I was going to write an article about using common sense when posting comments on your Google+ account (and I still may do that), but I discovered something much worse!  Google is exposing your PRIVATE comments to the public internet!

Here’s how:

While doing some research for my article, I did a special kind of Google search to search Google+ for certain phrases that could get you in trouble at work.  I found plenty, but the first one I found, when I clicked on the link, it took me to the person’s G+ profile page and THERE WERE NO PUBLIC COMMENTS!

Here’s a snippet of what I found with my Google search.  The names and links of the “innocent” have been obfuscated:

The very first result is the one I was going to to get a snipped to paste into my article, but when I got to that person’s page, there were NO posts at all.  This tells me one of two things happened:

1. They posted it as public, but have since deleted it.
2. It was never public and Google is indexing NON-PUBLIC posts!

It doesn’t matter which of those has happened.  It’s a security breach that Google needs to fix pronto.

So, obviously, BE FREAKING CAREFUL WHEN YOU POST!  Just because you think it’s a place your employer, your spouse, or your X can’t get too, think again!  Just don’t post anything that could get you in trouble.  Use some common sense and don’t be under the false impression that it’s secure.

BTW, if you want an invite to Google Plus, e-mail me at .  That’s not a clickable e-mail address… It’s a picture to prevent spammers from easily scraping it.  You’ll need to type that address, exactly as you see it, including the G and the + in front of the word “Invite”.  I’d also appreciate you clicking the “+1” at the bottom of this post.

See this image?

You’ll find an actual working version of it at the bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends know about this article so they too can quickly quickly get up and going with Google+.

Check back later for updates too!

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Good Luck!

 

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Let’s face it, no matter how good a Social Network’s technology is, it’s useless to you if no one you know is using it.  Fortunately, Google+ is growing faster than any other Social Network, and that’s while it’s still in invitation only mode.  Just look at these highly accurate numbers (they must be highly accurate, because I pulled them from some stranger’s post on the internet with no references!

Days required to reach 10 million users for the following social network.

Social Network	Days
Facebook	852
Twitter	780
Google+	16*

[*Google+ required invitation to join]

Here are some things you can do to get your friends over:

1. Send them an invite, of course.
2. Post your content to G+ and paste links to your G+ post on other networks, instead of posting directly to the content.  For example, if you post a link to a youtube video to G+, get a link to your G+ post (This only works with posts you’ve made Public):
   • 
   • That opens the post in it’s own browser window or tab.  Copy the URL:
   • 
   • Then, on Facebook:
   • 
   • Paste the link:
   • 
   • Click “Attach”, Type a description if there isn’t already one, Then click “Share”:
   • 
   • Now, after they click your FB post, but they’ll be on the G+ website:
   • 
3. A lot of people still haven’t heard of G+, so you can send them a link to this:
   • Getting Started with Google+ (Google Plus)
4. Some people will ask what can it do that Facebook doesn’t.  Send them a link to this:
   • A Facebooker’s guide to Google+ (or Google Plus)
5. Let them know it’s more secure:
   1. All pages are encrypted by default.  In fact, there’s no way to load a G+ page without it being unencrypted.  FB tries hard to send you unencrypted pages, including the login page.
   2. You have control over who sees your posts with Circles.
   3. Facebook tries to make everything you do public by default and every few months, they keep changing the security and privacy user interface and when they do, they also undo your settings, making things public again.
6. Facebook won’t let you export your contact data easily.  G+ has a “data liberation” page where it will zip up all your contacts, posts, & photos for you to download and do with as you wish:
   • Google+ (Google Plus) doesn’t hoard your data like Facebook does

BTW, if you want an invite to Google Plus, e-mail me at .  That’s not a clickable e-mail address… It’s a picture to prevent spammers from easily scraping it.  You’ll need to type that address, exactly as you see it, including the G and the + in front of the word “Invite”.  I’d also appreciate you clicking the “+1” at the bottom of this post.

See this image?  

You’ll find an actual working version of it at the bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends know about this article so they too can quickly quickly get up and going with Google+.

Check back later for updates too!

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Good Luck and Enjoy your new Google+ account!