Facebook Scam "Yeahh!! It happens on Live Television!"

Recently covered about a Facebook worm which targeted a whole lot of facebook users. It's really sad to see that these types of scams keep growing and facebook hasn't really been able to successfully give protection to their users from such scams.

A new bloke in the list "Yeahh!! It happens on Live Television!", the most viral one yet, is spreading like a wildfire among facebook users.

The following status on one of my friend's wall bought my attention first towards this scam:

Lady is the above screen shot is Marika Fruscio an Italian Model, She had Wardrobe malfunction (Accidental exposure of intimate parts) on a live TV show, which is what the scam refers to.

On clicking the link, Facebook users are directed to the folllowing page:



In order to play the video the user has to click the button "jaa", which appears as an age verification system required in order to watch the video. when you click on "jaa" you are infact clicking on a hidden link which consequently post the same link on each of your contact's wall. Next a survey is prompted which the user needs fill in order to watch the video, thus helping the scammers make tons of money.




While searching related to the scam on the internet, I managed to find the source code of the scam on pastebin, This proves that there is not a single body behind this scam, with the source code available in public, any one could create a website and inject the malicious javascript in to it and start scamming.

How To Remove The Scam?


It's fairly easy to remove the scam, all you need to do is to report it to facebook.

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iPhone 5

Apple unveiled iOS 5, the cloud-friendly operating system that will soon reside inside current and future iPhones, there was speculation that the iPhone 5 would look almost exactly like the iPhone 4. The innards would be different, but most people could simply swath iPhone 5’s in the same cases as their previously adored iPhone 4s.

But soon enough, some eagle-eyed folks spotted new iPhone cases that would in no way house current iPhones or the doppelganger iPhone 5. Answer? The iPhone 5 will be radical design departure. Some believe it will be thinner, or perhaps tapered. Others insist it will be wider.

The current design. I know, antenna attenuation nearly ruined the initial iPhone 4 launch, but my Verizon model moved the antenna bar breaks around and I rarely, if ever, lose signal. Plus, I don’t want a wider phone (read “bigger”) phone.

A Faster Phone

Duh! Even if we didn’t know about the A5 chip, Apple’s custom dual-core CPU, why would Apple do a major product launch without raising the performance bar? We rely on our smartphones to do more every day; they simply have to get more powerful — as any good computer should, under Moore’s Law. Apple will also likely increase the amount and quality of RAM—which always has a big impact on performance. These changes will be necessary if Apple does some of the other things we’ve been speculating about.

Better Screen and Cameras

Apple’s Android competitors outshine the iPhone in the camera resolution and screen size department. On the latter, Apple’s retina display is smaller than many slab Android phones but often approaches or beats them in resolution. If Apple goes with a larger screen, 8-megapixel camera and full 1080p video recording, it’ll need more horsepower to support all of them. The bigger screen, in particular, will also demand more battery power. Apple’s been very careful about battery life (it’s why it fought so long and hard against multi-tasking) and it may have to increase battery size and capacity to support a larger retina screen.

Voice Recognition

I’ve used Google’s voice-enabled search app on the iPhone and it is quite good. Some pundits believe the iPhone 5 will come with native voice recognition, which means other iPhone apps can tap into this capability for a variety of nifty interactions. Apple did acquire voice-based personal assistant service Siri last year and hasn’t done much with it yet, at least not publicly. Talking into your phone is natural, so what’s not to like about native voice recognition?
4G or Not 4G?

I guess I’m alone in this, but I don’t give a rat’s behind about 4G on my phone. My Verizon iPhone does just fine with its 3G data connection. However, I don’t think Apple can ignore the consumer clarion call forever. These people want 4G (look at all the 4G Android phones they’re snapping up). I can’t say their battery life is worth much, but at least they have a good time surfing YouTube videos while the charge lasts. Apple could do LTE 4G, the premier option, but only if it’s convinced there’s enough quality 4G out there. I’d say there is and the phone will ably dumb down to 3G anyway.

If Apple does go 4G, however, it’s a good bet the iPhone 5 will be larger than the eminently pocketable iPhone 4. 4G needs an ample battery for a full day’s use. Big batteries make for bigger phones.

No Shopping

Back when Google introduced Google Wallet, a technology for turning one NFC-enabled phone (the Nexus S 4G) into a wallet/credit card, there was a speculation that companies that weren’t included in the deal — such as Visa — might hook up with Apple. All Apple had to do was put an NFC (Near Field Communication) chip inside the iPhone 5 and the rest would be easy. Now, however, Google has managed to sign up Visa for Google Wallet as well. I’m not certain Apple will see any value in the added cost of an NFC chip when there are no clear partners, and even less certainty that consumers are ready to start paying with their phones.

More Carriers

Apple now has both CDMA and GSM phones. Ubiquity is how to play the competition game. I expect Apple to welcome at least one new carrier partner to the table. My money is on Sprint (which, like Verizon, uses CDMA). T-Mobile is out. AT&T is trying to buy them and it’s clear Apple wants any part of that mess. For Canada, Rogers, Bell, Telus have not yet confirmed if they will be carrying the new iPhone 5.

PDF Tips & Tricks

Way to Erase Passwords of PDF Files


Today We Talk About How To Remove the Password of PDF File with easily way

You have a bunch of PDF files on your computer

that are protected by a long and complex password. You know the passwords but it still feels inconvenient and boring typing them each time you have to open a PDF file.

Is there a tool available that can remove password protection from PDF files? Someone asked me this question on Twitter the other day and the answer is obviously yes.

Removing Password from a PDF File

There’s a free Windows utility called BeCyPDFMetaEdit that can help you remove passwords from PDF files* but without make any other change to the document. (I am not sure why the developers picked such a complex name for this useful utility).

1. Launch the program and it will ask your for the location of the PDF file.

2. Before you select and open the PDF, change the mode to “Complete Rewrite.”

3. Switch to the Security tab and set the “Security System” to “No encryption.” Click the

Save button and your PDF will no longer require a password to open.



Password Protected pdf Documents?



There are sometimes genuine reasons to unlock or crack a password protected PDF file. You have the legal right to open the encrypted PDF document but forgot the password like in the case below. Say a former colleague created some critical sales reports in PDF format but he is not working with the company anymore. In his absence, you have no option but to crack the PDF password in order to open, read or print these PDF files.

Unlock the PDF Password



There are basically two types of PDF protection – the original PDF creator can either restrict opening the PDF file itself or he can restrict others from modifying, printing or copying text and graphics from the PDF file. Here are a few possible workarounds:

When there are Copying or Printing Restrictions on PDF

Say you want to print a couple of pages from the PDF document but the document settings won’t let you do that.

Open the document in Acrobat Reader or Foxit and capture the PDF page as an image using any free screen capture software. If there are multiple pages, you may try SnagIt since it can autoscroll and capture multiple pages of the document in one-go.

If you want to copy just a portion of text from some PDF page, use a screen capture tool with OCR features.

Alternatively, you can invest in commercial solutions like Advanced PDF Password Recovery from elcomsoft.com and PDF Password Remover from verypdf.com. These utilities may not recover the password for you – they’ll just remove the restrictions from the password protected file. For more tips, check the Adobe PDF Guide.

When there are Document Opening Restrictions..

This is a very tricky case and there’s no straight-forward solution to read PDF documents that are password-protected at the Open level.

The software will use methods like Brute Force, Key Search and Dictionary Attack to guess the password. They will try to use all possible character combinations as the password and so the process might take hours or even days and would really depend on your computer’s processing power.

Advanced PDF Password Recovery Professional edition from ElcomSoft is a recommended option. When (if) the password is found, the program shows it, as well as the number of passwords which have been tested, and the program speed.

Legal Issues: – you maybe surprised to learn that these PDF password cracking software are absolutely legal and Microsoft even awarded ElcomSoft a Gold Certified Partner status.

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Beautiful Looking Homepage

Designing your own website can be a lot of fun. You get to choose the content and the layout. However, creating a website takes a lot of hard work, to the point where most people get frustrated and give up. This can have negative consequences on the look of your website and especially your homepage. Maybe the vision was good but the execution was not up to the task, so what is one to do? Much like the new Windows 8 that is coming out, and the not as successful Vista, you need to plan your website well!

Here are seven ways to help you get your homepage off the ground and looking great:

1. Quality Content

Spice up your homepage up by featuring quality articles, product reviews or pictures. This has the two fold effect of keeping your loyal users engaged as well as attracting new users to your site. You could also get the same idea as the Windows Eight Downloads for beta testing and trial your content on friends, family and even customers to see what works.
2. Be Creative
Always experiment with new ways of engaging people with your homepage. Try music or animation, or even a short video. Never be bland or generic, new websites need to make a big splash on the crowded online marketplace.
3. Keep Your Links Focused

Your homepage will need several links in order for people to be able to navigate your site. However, make sure the links you include are relevant to your website. Keep the links focused and easy to understand. A link titled ‘About’ is easy to understand because it’s clean and simple. A link containing more than seven words is too loaded and unfocused.
4. Keep it Clean

The best way to create a great looking homepage is to avoid clutter. Big websites, like Amazon, have a massive client base. People will keep going to the site no matter how busy the homepage is. You don’t have that luxury. Keep the homepage clean and simple for now.
5. Limit the Scrollbars

It might be tempting to stuff your homepage full of information so people have everything at their fingertips. However, it can be pretty off putting for people when they are faced with a dozen scrollbars full of content. It can be so daunting that they quickly lose interest and leave your site, so save the content for the inner pages.
6. Keep it Up to Date

Don’t let your homepage lag behind the times. Make sure your homepage receives regular updates to keep people interested. Of all pages that need to be refreshed periodically, your homepage takes precedent because it’s the first thing people will see.
7. Make the Homepage Relevant

You want your website, and especially your homepage, to aesthetically match what you’re trying to sell. If you have a site that features classical music, make sure your homepage isn’t covered with barbed wire graphics. Make sure you register with a robust web hosting service, as they usually provide you with the tools to easily customize your site.

Your homepage is the first thing that people see when they click on your site, and with these seven tips you can make a great looking homepage that is sure to gain a lot of traffic.

Samsung vs Apple iPhone

Few days back Apple made another move in the chess match, amending its complaint against Samsung to strengthen the language and to include a number of new Samsung models, including some of those set to be turned over to Apple today, as infringing products.

Many of the changes are designed to portray Samsung's alleged infringement as an incredibly outrageous act of copying. The original complaint already accused Samsung of "slavishly copying" Apple's designs. The amended one stresses that Samsung "has been even bolder" than other competitors emulating Apple's products and has created "products that blatantly imitate the appearance of Apple's products to capitalize on Apple's success."In addition to the original 15 Samsung models cited in Apple's lawsuit, the following models have been added: Droid Charge, Exhibit 4G, Galaxy Ace, Galaxy Prevail, Galaxy S (i9000), Gravity, Infuse 4G, Nexus S 4G, Replenish, Sidekick, Galaxy Tab 10.1, and Galaxy S II. Apple has also tweaked some of the patent claims included in the lawsuit, removing a few assertions and adding other patents to the mix. 

Apple's dispute with Samsung is being closely watched for a number of reasons, including Samsung's recent strong growth with the Android platform, Samsung's role as a prominent supplier for components of Apple's iOS devices, and the vociferousness of Apple's claims of outright copying by Samsung accompanied by numerous side-by-side comparisons in support of the claims.

Apple has amended and expanded its intellectual property right complaint against Samsung to include more products and more patents.

In April, Apple filed suit against the Korean giant, alleging that products like the Galaxy S series of smartphones and the original Galaxy Tab copied the look and feel of Apple products, violating the Cupertino company’s patents and intellectual property.

In the amended complaint, Apple has added a number of handsets — including Droid Charge 4G and the Galaxy S II.

We decided to take a look at some of the Samsung products Apple claims violate its intellectual property to see just how similar the design and UI aesthetic is to the big fruit.

MS Windows 8

Windows 8, is going to be available soon for your tablets, desktops and for selected smartphones.

Yes Windows 8 comes with a hybrid design and isn’t like the Windows OS we are usually familiar with. Latest version brings completely new visual interface, which is optimized for touchscreen devices but can be equally efficient with mouse and keyboard for desktop computers.

Here’s a preview of What Windows 8 will look like:

Start Screen:



Lock Screen:



Keyboard and Apps (Earlier we used to call them programs):



File Management:


Download Windows 8

Microsoft was quick enough to release the developer version for Windows 8 for general public.

You can select from one of following versions available at Microsoft’s website:
Windows Developer Preview with developer tools English, 64-bit
Windows Developer Preview English, 64-bit
Windows Developer Preview English, 32-bit

It appears that Windows Developer Preview English, 32-bit will be suitable for many, unless you need to get the developer tools too.

You can download any version of Windows 8 from this link.
How to Install Windows 8 on Virtual Machines:
You can install Windows 8 preview on a virtual machine instead of dedicating an entire PC for it.
You can use VirtualBox for hardware virtualization
Download Windows 8 from above given link.
Create a new VirtualBox virtual machine and select Windows 8 as the OS type.
In the Motherboard tab under System, check Enable IO APIC.
In the Processor tab under System, check Enable PAE/NX.
In the Acceleration tab under System, check Enable VT-x/AMD-V and Enable Nested Paging.
In the Video tab under Display, check Enable 2D acceleration.
Remember to mount the Windows 8 .ISO file you downloaded and you’re good to go!

Note: Make sure your PC supports hardware virtualization for this to work, or you can go with a fresh machine to install Windows 8. Remember, you can’t un-install this copy of Windows unless you format the drive.

Want to Change Metro UI:
If you want to disable the Metro UI?
Go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Change the value of RPEnabled from 1 to 0.

facebook new security changes

Summary: Facebook’s privacy and security settings have changed massively. It’s time to catch up and ensure your settings are up to date.


Every single Facebook user should now have the brand new privacy settings, which have changed radically since the last update.


With brand new features and revamped settings to play with — this three-day holiday weekend is a perfect opportunity for you to take a look at your Facebook account, profile and privacy settings, and lock them down.






However, because of Facebook’s expected profile, account and privacy shift earlier this month, an awful lot has changed — as you will no doubt have noticed.


The previous Lockdown Guides have been some of the most popular content on ZDNet to date.


Each gallery guide will walk you through a crucial focus area of Facebook’s settings, and will run through every single setting, option and feature available to users, to ensure that your privacy is as protected as it can be.
Gallery guide 1: Secure your friends lists




New guide: This guide is a crucial focus to the remaining guides, showing you how to create lists of friends, such as colleagues and family, as well as a ‘limited profile’, allowing you to limit updates and uploaded content from those you do not want to share with.

Gallery guide 2: Secure your profile page
Updated: Believe it or not, your profile settings page is now where your privacy settings are. This guide will walk you through the updated user-interface, as well as the recommended settings for each section of your profile.

Gallery guide 3: Secure your account settings
Updated: Your account settings are at the heart of your Facebook, and have changed significantly. This guide reflects those major changes, and shows you how to be secure using the world’s largest social network. It also helps you manage your data, including a full section on how to manage the applications and games that are connected to your account.

Gallery guide 4: Secure your privacy settings
Updated: Everything has changed! Included in this guide are the new privacy features that Facebook rolled out earlier this month, including changes to how you are tagged, and who can share your data. You can also manage your block lists from here, and make sweeping permissions changes to your old posts.

Gallery guide 5: Secure the miscellaneous bits
Updated: This guide will show you how to download all of your data, as well as showing you how to manage your BlackBerry and iPhone settings. Also, seeing as your status update window has changed, it will show you how to set locations and tag friends in a safe way, and how to create private events that are limited to your network.

Americans Spend 23% of Internet Time on Social Networks [STUDY]

Americans spend almost a quarter of their time online on social networking sites, says a Nielsen report released Monday.

According to the report — which combines data from Nielsen mobile and online meters, buzz data and a survey — Internet users spend more than twice as much time on social networks (including blogs) as they do on online games, the next top web destination by time.

The most popular social network as measured by Nielsen online meters is Facebook, followed by Blogger,Tumblr, Twitter and LinkedIn.




Nine of the 10 most popular social networks were dominated by women. Only LinkedIn had a percentage of men visiting the site that exceeds the percentage of men who are active Internet users. Women also watch more video content than men, although men watch longer videos.

Both genders are increasingly accessing social networks using mobile apps. Social networking app usage is up 30% from the same time last year. Social networking apps are the third most downloaded type of smartphone apps behind only games and weather apps. App growth has not affected the percentage of people who access social networks using mobile browsers. Mobile Internet users account for 47% more unique visits to social networks than they did last year.




Mobile is just one of the many ways Nielsen found social media use becoming universal.

“It’s the first time we looked at the data comprehensively,” says Nielsen’s SVP of Media & Advertising Insights and Analytics Radha Subramanyam. “[What is most surprising to us] is the rapid adoption, the measurable reach of social media. Four out of five Internet users. One of five minutes spent online. When you have those numbers and see their scale, it’s staggering.”

image courtesy of Flickr, rishibando

Kinetic Laptops along with Specs

Endless possibilities can be done with technology. We can create things that could make our work easier and even use our own motion to command the characters we play. And speaking of which, a group of Australian scientists have recently unveiled a possible breakthrough that could allow us to power our laptops through typing.



The technology behind kinetic laptops involve the concept of ‘everlasting batteries’. But what’s even more interesting with this is the fact that it will allow individuals to power their notebooks by converting kinetic energy from their fingers.

Reportedly, the technology involves the use of piezoelectric crystals that has been quantified into smaller particles through nanotechnology. Through this, the scientists have managed to form a very thin sheet of piezoelectric material which can be integrated into the laptop as well as on other portable gadgets and devices.

On the other hand, it was also stated that this technology can be further extended to other things we normally use, like our running shoes. The latter can utilize same energy conversion in order to use kinetic energy (from running) to charge say our mobile phones. Nokia has the same goal for its Kinetic concept phone.

Thus, it is possible that in the near future a wide-range of devices may not need any battery packs or external chargers.

Google+ Tips

Google giving another try to control the boom of facebook in specific and the other social media network in general, lets analyse Google Plus a Google new social network web app for people around the globe.

Google+ is on its way to charm people and many of the Facebook users are already making their minds to take a shift, so it is just matter of time, but again these are somehow pre-mature thoughts, so we will have to wait and see the impact.

Frankly speaking, we had to spend sizable amount of time to get familiar with Google+, we thought of saving you from the effort. So let’s start with Google+ and here you will get some basic useful tips if you are just joining Google+ or are still wondering what to do here?
Getting Started

There has been much hype about how and from where to get Google+ invitations. People started writing tutorials on how to invite someone on Google+, but Google has resolved the issue now and you do not need to end up pasting your email address here and there to ask for an invite.

Registrations on Google+ are now open and you can sign up without any invite. Simply visit http://google.com/+/ and register yourself.
Welcome to Google+

If you have ever used any of Google’s services (Gmail, Google Profile, Blogger, etc.), then there are chances that Google+will detect more than 50 percent of your bio – to fill your profile. Don’t worry, your privacy settings will not be disturbed. For instance, you can link your Picasa account with Google+ while maintaining the same privacy settings as they were with your Picasa account.

So it’s time now to upload your profile picture and write something about you.
Build Your Circles

Next thing that you should do is, build up your circles and invite others. But to know what really circles are, read below:
Circles are different set of groups, or lists with different permissions. You can add your contacts in these circles to make sure that you don’t share your information with those who shouldn’t see them.
You will get updates from contacts that you have added in your circle. Just like twitter, you start getting updates from those whom you follow
Contacts in your circle will not get your updates, though they will be invited – but they can deny any incoming requests.

By default Google offers following circles to you, of course you can create more with ease
Friends
Family
Acquaintances
Following

You can simply mouse over them to read what kind of circle it is and sharing settings.


Adding Contacts to Circles:
Click circle button (right on top middle – or where the red arrow is in above image)
Go to "Find and Invite" tab
Here you will be suggested with contacts that you may want to add in your circles, drag and drop them in below circles… simple as that
Note: Suggestions will be those contacts that you recently interacted with on Gmail
Want to add someone who is not in suggestions: There’s a button “Add a new Person”, click on it – type email address and you are done.

So you are almost done with basic settings and this is the time to go out and say Here I am!
Posts and Stream

You must be familiar with wall posts on Facebook, here Google calls it stream. And for me, the most loveable feature of Google+ is to get stream from specific circle.

• Select stream from any of your circle and updates from only those will be shown from the circle
• You can Share a post from your stream, comment on it +1 it (kind of liking a post)
• You can post an update, using the box given on top of stream – exactly like facebook has;
• Post any thing you feel like, you can add videos, pictures, links and so on
• You can edit posts later on, delete them, mute them and so on
• You can select circles or contacts that you want your post to be shared with.
• You can disable resharing and/or commenting

Hangouts

Hangouts is the coolest feature of Google Plus, it will let you start a video conversation with as many friends of yours as you like.

Simply click the “Hangout” button available on right sidebar or visit this link: plus.google.com/hangouts

You’ll be taken to a "green room" where you can select circles or individuals to add in your room (video chat).
Sparks = Interests and Likes

Visit the Sparks menu from left sidebar and you will find featured interests. Don’t worry, you are not bound to like them. Search your interests and while adding them, Google+ will give you content suggestions that you can share on your wall, stream in fact.

Once again Google+ allows you here to set which circles you want to share with and it works the same way as described for the post.
Turning Off Email Alerts

By default, Google+ will email you for every post, comment, +1 or anything that happens and is related to you.

This may irritate you – so simply visit Google+ settings from the Options menu which you can find at the extreme right of black bar – codenamed the “Sandbar”, you must have noticed it appearing from few days.

Manage Your Friends Circle

Manage your circle / group of friends on Facebook is becoming easier.

A new site called Circle Hack uses a drag-and-drop format similar to Circles on Google+ that lets you organize your Facebook friends into lists quickly and easily. Four Facebook engineers built the site, though it is not an official Facebook product, according to TechCrunch.

The new site does a pretty fair imitation of the Google+ Circles feature. Like Circles, the page is divided into two parts. Up top are all your Facebook friends represented by their name and profile picture on a contact card. Below your friends is the area where you create new circles. Each section has its own scroll bar and you can even resize each section by clicking on the dividing line between the two areas.

Here's how you get started.

Log in to your Facebook account and authorize the site just like you would any other Facebook application. Then just start dragging your friends into the circles below. You can organize people individually or you can select multiple people at once. Circle Hack even includes a similar paperclip graphic to Google+ that shows how many people you're dragging into the current circle.

Once you have a circle organized click on the "Create list" link that appears in the center of your new circle to name it. After that, you're done and the next time you open Facebook, you'll see the newly created list as an option in the "Friends" section and in your privacy settings.

There are some limitations you should know about.

Circle Hack does not let you delete a friend list and you cannot remove someone from a list once you've added them. To do that you'll have to open Facebook and edit your new lists there.

The official way to organize your Facebook friends into smaller lists is a little bit harder to use than Circle Hack. You have to click the "Friends" icon in the left hand column of your Facebook home page. Then click on "Manage Friend List" and then on the next page click on "Create a List." In the next pop-up window, you start clicking on your friends' names to add them to your new list.

Whether you use Facebook's official friends lists method or Circle Hack, to get them to actually be useful you have to either customize your privacy settings or your privacy controls for each individual post. This part Circle Hack can't help you with.

Let's say you wanted to restrict a post so that only your new Facebook friends list could see it. To start, you have to click on the lock icon below your News Feed's text entry box and select "Custom" from the drop down menu. In the next pop-up window you have two choices: "Make this visible to" and "Hide this from." If you want to share something with only your specific list then you'd select "Specific people" under the "Make this visible to" section and then type in the name of your new list and hit "Save Setting." This is a one-time change, but if you plan to only share with a specific list or a specific set of lists you can check the "Make this my default setting" box in the lower left corner.

The other way to manage your friend lists is to click on "Account" in the upper right corner of your Facebook home page and select "Privacy Settings." Then click on "Customize settings" and in the next window you can select a variety of share options for things such as your wall posts, check ins, photos, email address and so on. You manage these settings pretty much the same way as a wall post. Just click on the drop-down menu, select "Customize" and in the next window decide on the people you want to make this content visible to and the people you want to hide it from.

Facebook's friends lists aren't as easy to use as Google+'s Circles, but Circle Hack takes a little bit of the pain out of organizing your Facebook friends. Give it a try, but just remember Circle Hack appears to be more of a fun application than an industrial-strength Facebook tool.

Social Network Sites

I am going to focus on social network sites as a case study, because they are still the most massive and relevant case study we can work with. (This might be changing soon with mobile but we're not there yet.)

First, you'll notice that I'm saying "social network site" instead of "social networking site." This is intention. While you might be off using Facebook and MySpace to network with business colleagues, high school mates, and the hotty that you think you might want to date, most teens are not. They're focused on their friends. They use these sites to connect to people that they already know from school, church, activities, summer camp, etc.

One of the most problematic mistakes adults make when trying to make sense of social network sites is to presume that kids interact on these sites just like they do. This ain't true. Teens are using this space as a social hangout with their pre-existing network.

There are four features of social network sites that are relevant for us here today:

1. Profiles. Social network site profiles are where youth write themselves into being. Think of the profile as a digital body. Up until this point, you are an IP address and an IP address can't be dolled up for show and tell. With a profile, a teen can express who they are. Keep in mind the audience. This is about showing off to known individuals. Thus, when teens saying that they're 95 and from Christmas Island, they know they're not and their friends know they're not. They don't care about data accuracy for the system - they care that their friends get a sense of who they are. Profile decoration is akin to decorating one's bedroom wall or locker (back before that was a fire hazard). It's all about self-expression for friends.

2. Friends. Social network site Friends are not the same as your closest and dearest. There are all sorts of reasons to list others as Friends, not the least of which is because it's socially rude not to. Don't assume that when people indicate that they are connected on this system that they like each other. One way of thinking about Friends is as intended audience. This is who teens think that they are hanging out with. Of course, this is also Ground Zero for psychodrama - there's nothing fun about having to answer the question "Are you my Friend, Yes or No?" from someone you know but don't care for.

3. Comments. Most adults look at the comments on teens' profiles or Wall and get all uppity. Sure, the conversation typically boils down to "Yo, wazzup?" "Not much.. you?" "Nothing... I'm bored." "Me too." But be honest with yourself - those conversations that you just had in the hallway about the weather... were they so much more meaningful? I don't think so. All of this is a process of social grooming. It's a way of acknowledging one another and connecting while also letting everyone in the room know that you're not a pariah. I mean, imagine if we all went into the hallway and stood by ourselves and didn't make small chat. Wouldn't we all feel really awkward? Right. So think of these Comments in that regard. Teens know how to have deeper conversations - this just isn't where those necessarily happen.

4. New Feed. When Facebook launched the News Feed (and MySpace copied it), microblogging emerged on social network sites. These "status updates" provide a reverse chronological stream of the state of being of one's network. Many of these are mundane notes, details about food, comments on life, the universe and everything.

Most of you are familiar with this kind of structure through Twitter. Many of you have already send a bazillion Tweets today - we've all been watching them. But before you go thinking that you're down with the kids, let's get one thing straight: according to Pew, the median age of the Twitterverse is 31. That's right: this ain't kids' world.

Take a moment.. Do not assume that youth will adopt every new form of social media. In fact, they won't. There are very good reasons for why they don't use Twitter, not the least of which has to do with the fact that their parents think it's cool. Of course, Ashton Kutcher might change this. But for the most part, teens aren't here and aren't humored with being this public.

So why are they here? What are they doing here? The first thing to understand is that there's social pressure to be where your friends are. This ain't new. It's about the mall, about the school dance, etc. You don't exist if you're not where your friends are.

Of course, just because teens want to gather with their friends doesn't mean that social network sites are the ideal place. Often, being offline together with friends is much more preferred.
danah: If you could choose between hanging out with friends or being online with them?

But they still have good reasons for getting together online with friends, not the least of which is because they aren't allowed out. Teens often turn to them because they don't have other spaces in which they can gather with peers.

Of course, at the end of the day, social network sites are a great hang-out place, a great place to coordinate, and a great place to share. In fact, there's a lot about the way in which youth interact here that signals that it's just like any other public space. Now here's where we need to think about structure. How are these environments similar or different to other public spaces?

Learning about Social Networks

First, I want to make it VERY clear that sociality has learning implications. Youth engage with others to work out boundaries, to understand norms. This is how they learn power and authority, how they learn the networked architecture of everyday life. It's easy to eschew this, to argue that this is irrelevant, but most people spend a decent amount of their time working through social issues as a part of being an adult in this society. We talk about it as "politics" usually but it's about people. And teen years are where this is worked out.

It's also important to note the ways in which we need to learn to learn. Social media is connecting educators and learners in new ways and this too is extremely important. Consider, for example, this quote where a teacher helps a student in the off-hours on her MySpace:
"Pleeeeeeeeeeease tell me why pre-calculus is important to me..."
Mr. C: "... You're not learning this stuff because you need it every day as an adult... The reason is that studying these things (precalculus, Shakespeare, ... whatever) helps you get good at learning how to learn. And that, you will definitely have to do for the rest of your life. That's practically all we do as adults..."

Of course, that doesn't address where and when technology is useful in the classroom. We all know that technology can be useful in education purposes. Many of you are deeply invested in bringing technology to the classroom. I'm speaking to the choir on this one.

But I want to make one thing clear... Just because youth are using social media doesn't mean that it can fit well into the classroom. It needs to be thought through pedagogically and y'all need to understand how it's being used in everyday life before bringing it into the classroom.


Since we're using social network sites as a case study, let me point out one of the places where they FAIL miserably. On social network sites, you have to publicly list your Friends and you have to have the functioning network to leverage it. What happens if you're an outcast at school? Does bringing it into the classroom make it worse? What happens if you're forced to Friend someone who torments you because you share a class? And then you have to face that person in your "private" space online as well? Bringing social network sites into the classroom can be very very tricky because you have to contend with social factors that you, as a teacher, may not be aware of.

While I'm hesitant to introduce many forms of social media into the classroom directly, I think that it is critical to see how they are reshaping information flow. This is actually where tremendous innovation opportunities emerge.

We all know that youth are searching for information in totally new ways so I'm going to skip over that. But they are also sharing differently. Sharing of information is very different in a world of bits where it's easy to make a duplicate and still retain what you originally had. Pointers have value and sharing information can create memes. Needless to say, youth are leveraging social media to share with their friends and peers. Now, most of what they share might be pure gossip, but teens also share links, references, ideas, and original content.

Of course, while adults are increasingly using sophisticated tools to aggregate and disseminate information, youth are predominantly not. Teens are not familiar with RSS feed readers or aggregators like Del.icio.us. Again, just because you use these forms of social media doesn't mean youth do. For the most part, teens are primarily sharing through IM and their SNS of choice. Or simply by word of mouth.

In the same vain, most teens live and breathe open systems like Wikipedia but have no idea how these systems work. They are typically told that Wikipedia is bad rather than being taught how to make sense of the information that is there.

Many of them are producing their own content without a critical understanding of remix or user-generated content. They're experiencing the blurring between consumption and production but they don't have a framework to make sense of this or to understand how to respond to attacks on their practices.


For all of the attention paid to "digital natives" it's important to realize that most teens are engaging with social media without any deep understanding of the underlying dynamics or structure. Just because they understand how to use the technology doesn't mean that they understand the information ecology that surrounds it. Most teens don't have the scaffolding for thinking about their information practices.

It's critical to realize that just because young folks pick up a technology before you do doesn't inherently mean that they understand it better than you do. Or that they have a way of putting it into context. What they're doing is not inherently more sophisticated – it's simply different. They're coming of age in a culture where these structures are just a given. They take them for granted. And they repurpose them to meet their needs. But they don't necessarily think about them.

Educators have a critical role when it comes to helping youth navigate social media. You can help them understand how to make sense of what they're seeing. We can call this "media literacy" or "digital literacy" or simply learning to live in a modern society. Youth need to know more than just how to use the tools - they need to understand the structures around them.


You need to understand what they're doing and why. Most importantly, you need to not reject what they're doing or fetishize it.


The modern world is certainly filled with neat new gadgets. Today's youth are certainly embracing many of them. Yet, at the end of the day, what they are doing is a lot like what previous generations were doing, inflected by the dynamics and features of the technology. So how do we face the next generation living and learning with social media?

We start by opening up a dialogue. We start talking to youth about what they are doing and why they are doing it. We ask them to teach us about the technology while we guide them with the knowledge that we have through experience. We start co-operating and engaging with the shifting nature of everyday life.

At the end of the day, the biggest disruption brought on by technology has nothing to do with the youth themselves, but with the way in which it forces us to reconsider our position of power as adults. We cannot simply tell it like it is; we need to re-learn how to learn and how to evolve with the changes all around us.

Facebook losing control against Google

Google Inc will begin allowing users to personally endorse search results and Web pages, its latest attempt to stave off rival Facebook Inc while trying to jump onboard a social networking boom.
The so-called “+1″ button will start to appear alongside Google search results for select users, letting people recommend specific search results to friends and contacts by clicking on that button.
Eventually, the feature may begin to influence the ranking of search results, though that is only under consideration. Results are now ranked via a closely guarded algorithm.
The world’s leader in Internet search is battling to maintain its share of Web surfers’ time and attention, which is increasingly getting taken up by Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. But it has struggled to find its footing in the nascent market.
Its last attempt to create a social network – Buzz — has not fared well. A flood of complaints about how Buzz handled user privacy cast a pall over the product. Google announced it had reached a settlement with regulators under which it agreed to independent privacy audits every two years.

With the new +1 buttons, Google aims to counter one of Facebook’s most popular features. The new feature comes nearly a year after Facebook began offering special “Like” buttons to websites, creating a personalized recommendation system that some analysts believe could challenge the traditional ranking algorithms that search engines use to find online information.
Maintaining its role as the main gateway to information on the Internet, is key for Google, it generated roughly $29 billion in revenue last year — primarily from search ads.
While Google remains the Internet search and advertising leader, Facebook is taking a larger and larger portion of advertising dollars. Google said that +1 recommendation will also appear in the paid ads that Google displays alongside its search results.
In its internal tests, Google found that including the recommendations boosted the rates at which people click on the ads. Eventually, Google plans to let third-party websites feature +1 buttons directly on the pages of the third party.
Google’s Matt Cutts, a principal engineer for search, said the +1 buttons were part of the evolution of Google’s own social search efforts, rather than a direct response to Facebook’s Like buttons.
Currently Google is not using +1 recommendation as a factor in how it ranks search results — a user only sees that a friend recommended a search result if the result would have turned up in a search based on Google’s existing ranking criteria. The company is evaluating whether to use +1 recommendation as a ranking factor in the future. 

Basic's of Facebook

So, you are new to social networking. If this is the case, then you will no doubt be wondering how on earth you operate the social networking maze that is Facebook.
Fortunately, this site is actually really easy to navigate and utilize once you are made aware of the basic functions that this site has to offer.
The good thing about Facebook is that it allows you to keep in contact with all of the people in your life on a day to day basis. Let’s take a look at some of the most basic functions.
First, you are going to want to learn about your wall. Every Facebook user has a wall built into their profile. This wall is used for your friends to comment on, your status updates, and links and images that have been sent to you.
As well as this, any pictures that you have been tagged in will be displayed on your wall. Your wall is essentially the focal point of your profile, which is why it is important that you understand what it is and what it does. So, now we have gotten that out of the way, what’s next?
Your news feed. The feed is probably the most important thing about Facebook. Your news feed is where your friends status updates and activity on the site is displayed. For example, if one of your friends has updated their status then it will be displayed on your news feed which is on your home page.
It will also show when your friends write on other people’s walls, comment on pictures or links, or add new pictures and videos. This is the page that you will see first when you log into Facebook. By switching between top news and most recent you will be able to see different information.
The next thing that you need to know about is the ‘like’ function. So, imagine one of your friends has updated their status to something that you find funny. Instead of telling them, you can click the ‘like’ button which is displayed under their status. This will then be displayed. If you like a band, then you can like them on the site.
If you like a saying or a quote then you will also be able to click the ‘like’ button. The same principal can be used for pictures or videos.
These are the three basic functions that you should definitely know about before you sign up to Facebook.
As you can see, the basic functions really are quite simple to understand, and very simple to use.
These will help you on your way to connecting with the people in your life and making the most out of the technology on offer today. As long as you know these things, the rest is fairly easy to figure out once you become a regular Facebook user. It will all click into place on its own and you will see how great this site can be if you know how to use it. 

Social Media Learning

First, I want to make it VERY clear that sociality has learning implications. Youth engage with others to work out boundaries, to understand norms. This is how they learn power and authority, how they learn the networked architecture of everyday life. It's easy to eschew this, to argue that this is irrelevant, but most people spend a decent amount of their time working through social issues as a part of being an adult in this society. We talk about it as "politics" usually but it's about people. And teen years are where this is worked out.

It's also important to note the ways in which we need to learn to learn. Social media is connecting educators and learners in new ways and this too is extremely important. Consider, for example, this quote where a teacher helps a student in the off-hours on her MySpace:

Of course, that doesn't address where and when technology is useful in the classroom. We all know that technology can be useful in education purposes. Many of you are deeply invested in bringing technology to the classroom. I'm speaking to the choir on this one.

But I want to make one thing clear... Just because youth are using social media doesn't mean that it can fit well into the classroom. It needs to be thought through pedagogically and y'all need to understand how it's being used in everyday life before bringing it into the classroom.

Since we're using social network sites as a case study, let me point out one of the places where they FAIL miserably. On social network sites, you have to publicly list your Friends and you have to have the functioning network to leverage it. What happens if you're an outcast at school? Does bringing it into the classroom make it worse? What happens if you're forced to Friend someone who torments you because you share a class? And then you have to face that person in your "private" space online as well? Bringing social network sites into the classroom can be very very tricky because you have to contend with social factors that you, as a teacher, may not be aware of.

While I'm hesitant to introduce many forms of social media into the classroom directly, I think that it is critical to see how they are reshaping information flow. This is actually where tremendous innovation opportunities emerge.

We all know that youth are searching for information in totally new ways so I'm going to skip over that. But they are also sharing differently. Sharing of information is very different in a world of bits where it's easy to make a duplicate and still retain what you originally had. Pointers have value and sharing information can create memes. Needless to say, youth are leveraging social media to share with their friends and peers. Now, most of what they share might be pure gossip, but teens also share links, references, ideas, and original content.

Of course, while adults are increasingly using sophisticated tools to aggregate and disseminate information, youth are predominantly not. Teens are not familiar with RSS feed readers or aggregators like Del.icio.us. Again, just because you use these forms of social media doesn't mean youth do. For the most part, teens are primarily sharing through IM and their SNS of choice. Or simply by word of mouth.

In the same vain, most teens live and breathe open systems like Wikipedia but have no idea how these systems work. They are typically told that Wikipedia is bad rather than being taught how to make sense of the information that is there.

Many of them are producing their own content without a critical understanding of remix or user-generated content. They're experiencing the blurring between consumption and production but they don't have a framework to make sense of this or to understand how to respond to attacks on their practices.

For all of the attention paid to "digital natives" it's important to realize that most teens are engaging with social media without any deep understanding of the underlying dynamics or structure. Just because they understand how to use the technology doesn't mean that they understand the information ecology that surrounds it. Most teens don't have the scaffolding for thinking about their information practices.

It's critical to realize that just because young folks pick up a technology before you do doesn't inherently mean that they understand it better than you do. Or that they have a way of putting it into context. What they're doing is not inherently more sophisticated – it's simply different. They're coming of age in a culture where these structures are just a given. They take them for granted. And they repurpose them to meet their needs. But they don't necessarily think about them.

Educators have a critical role when it comes to helping youth navigate social media. You can help them understand how to make sense of what they're seeing. We can call this "media literacy" or "digital literacy" or simply learning to live in a modern society. Youth need to know more than just how to use the tools - they need to understand the structures around them.

You need to understand what they're doing and why. Most importantly, you need to not reject what they're doing or fetishize it.

The modern world is certainly filled with neat new gadgets. Today's youth are certainly embracing many of them. Yet, at the end of the day, what they are doing is a lot like what previous generations were doing, inflected by the dynamics and features of the technology. So how do we face the next generation living and learning with social media?

We start by opening up a dialogue. We start talking to youth about what they are doing and why they are doing it. We ask them to teach us about the technology while we guide them with the knowledge that we have through experience. We start co-operating and engaging with the shifting nature of everyday life.

At the end of the day, the biggest disruption brought on by technology has nothing to do with the youth themselves, but with the way in which it forces us to reconsider our position of power as adults. We cannot simply tell it like it is; we need to re-learn how to learn and how to evolve with the changes all around us.

Nokia Kinetic Concept Phone: Release Date and Specs Not Yet on this Earth

The mobile phones of today’s generation are more high tech and offer various options to mobile consumers and well accompanied by great features as well. It is not so surprising that the mobile world has been filled with a lot of amazing phones that can do a lot of things, which seems to be impossible before.

Lots of new concepts have been incorporated in the latest mobile phone releases that basically give mobile consumers more convenience and a great mobile experience. One of these concepts is that of the Nokia Kinetic.

Magical, spontaneous and undirected, these may be the three words, which perfectly describe Nokia Kinetic. The NokiaKinetic is a mobile phone that appears to be simply delightful to use. It makes activities such as receiving a call, text message, e-mail or alarm a more fun experience by turning digital information into kinetic movement.

The concept of coming up with Nokia Kinetic is simply amazing. And this amazing concept came from British designerJeremy Innes-Hopkins. The Nokia Kinetic comes with an electromagnet located within the base of the phone, which enables the shifting of its weight that causes the phone to stand up and do some playful movements.

Aside from its prominent base which is seen to be the most captivating feature of the Nokia Kinetic, it also very exciting to use. With a gentle tap, it can dismiss a call or cancel an alarm. With this action, the phone will now return to standby mode. Another interesting thing in this Nokia Kinetic is that it can gradually sit up upright upon the arrival of a new message or incoming call to notify its owner. It really sounds amazing isn’t it?

Basically, the Nokia Kinetic is just a product concept and apparently, there is only a slim chance that some of its ideas will be used in a future Nokia product. However, this concept only shows that more mobile phone designers continue to strive harder and come up with something new to offer. It only justifies a lot of future development in mobile devices. We can also say that at this age and time mobile phones has been man’s newest best friend.

This may not be the first that a mobile designer could have; surely lots of new and unique ideas will still be coming up in the future. Let’s just wait and see if the Nokia Kinetic will be put into reality one of these days.

IT leadership challenges and solutions

Takeaway: Information Technology management can be a hard job. This Article provides you with a look at some personnel-related challenges and how you might mitigate them.

Let’s face it, managing a herd of IT pros isn’t always the easiest thing in the world. Between tight work schedules, short deadlines, egos, and life in general, there are a lot of ways that the apple cart can get knocked over. Although I’m far from being a perfect manager, here’s how I try to handle specific situations as they arise. This method is effective if the team members are mature. If the team is made up of younger, inexperienced members then a list of possible activities should be available for them and guide them through the options. When the team is involved with the decision making, the members are empowered and more likely to participate. This will lighten up the load of management.

IT pros don’t always punch a clock

The challenge: Typical management challenge, but with some added twists. Many, if not most, IT pros are exempt, meaning that they don’t get paid by the hour. They are paid to get a job done, not to do routine line work. In addition, many IT pros tend to have to work at odd hours to accomplish maintenance tasks and upgrades that can’t be done during business hours. Further, just like many human beings, life sometimes gets in the way of IT pros, and they need to occasionally juggle a bunch of both professional and personal priorities. This can lead to absenteeism or odd working hours or requests to work from home at times.

My take: So what? To me, as long as the job is getting done, I don’t care where the person is working from or when they’re doing it as long as their long-term situation doesn’t lead to degraded work performance. I routinely allow the people who can to work from home when life throws them a curveball. I also tend to be relatively generous when it comes to vacation approvals and requests to adjust hours when necessary. The reason is simple: When I’ve had to ask a member of my staff to make an adjustment for the College’s benefit, they almost always step up, even if it presents some difficulty for them. The least that I can do is to return the favor. It’s a give-and-take that simply needs to be respected.

As much as I hate to say it, there does need to be some oversight to make sure that flexibility isn’t abused in a way that reduces overall productivity.

 The solution: Be flexible. Trust, but verify.

My staff needs to be in the know

 The challenge: Ensuring that staff knows everything reasonable in order to help them do their jobs better.

The very best team building game should foster interest and awareness in ethical organizations. Concepts such as fair trade, sustainability, corporate social responsibility and the likes should be tackled during the activities. Most people don’t have the least idea what these concepts stand for. Team activities and discussions should make these principles clear to people and make social responsibility more pronounced than by just reading the theory behind it.
This is also true for the company’s mission statement. People would savor a new mission statement when they know more about it. Discussions should make it clear what it means instead of it just a bunch of words written by someone at the head office.

 With the exception of the stuff that I really can’t talk about, I don’t hide things from my staff, whether it’s good news or bad news. For example, if we were in a situation in which enrollment numbers were showing weakness, I’d step up and tell my staff. To me, having that kind of information helps them to frame their own decisions, and there might be some great ideas for mitigation from the group.

 Obviously, there are limits to how much I can really say sometimes, but I’ve never understood management that held back critical business metrics from the staff. Although I’m sure that no one wants their people to walk around constantly worried if things are a bit sour, potential solutions can come from many places.

 Of course, I don’t tell them everything. To do so would both bore them and be a complete waste of their time. So, the challenge is making sure they know what they need to know.

 The solution: Find a balance and stick to it, but most of all, make sure your people know what they need to know.

Policy isn’t always policy

 The challenge: Blind adherence to what is considered “policy” is akin to saying “I was just following orders.”

 I almost hate to use the word “policy” any more when, in fact, I believe that the term “guidelines” is much more meaningful. It’s obvious that some policies are and must be set in stone — fraud-related policies, for example. However, what most people consider to be policies, I look at as a standard operating procedure only when it makes business sense. For example, suppose you have an equipment-lending policy whereby staff members can borrow equipment for a work-related purpose. In order to provide the best possible support, you request 48 hours’ notice in order to pick up equipment. Nine times out of ten, that “policy” is probably perfectly adequate, but there is always that one request that comes in that makes your policy look really stupid.

Employers are considered socially irresponsible when they are apathetic to the concerns of workers who have partners or started their family young. Strong work commitments can put pressure not only on the employees but also on their families and partners. Big multinational corporations would require their employees to travel and stay away from home. Ethical socially responsible organizations must minimize these trips to not make things worse at home.
If possible, invite families and partners to company outings and team buildings to gain their loyalty and support. Companies should stay away from staff-only events. Employer’s liabilities from these types of situations are unclear but there are principles such as social responsibilities that are in play.

 In other words, if you allow people to hide behind a crazy policy as a way out of making a decision, you’re doing something wrong. I’ve seen it happen far too often, and the results are almost never positive, although the person that was able to hide behind a policy didn’t have to lift a finger.

 In some cases, an exception to “policy” needs to be made. IT staff members must feel comfortable making exceptions when it makes sense, and it’s up to you to let them know when it makes sense — in general — or at least be available if there really is a question. Obviously, if you’re providing exceptions for every instance, something is wrong; perhaps your policy is poor, your culture doesn’t lend itself to full adherence, or the IT staff is providing too many exceptions. That said, make sure your staff can and does make exceptions when it makes sense. Also make sure to understand that every exception requires additional time to handle it, but, sometimes, it’s simply the right thing to do.

 I will admit that I tend to err on the side of customer service — maybe too often. I want to make sure that we do our absolute best to serve, but at the same time, our guidelines are a function of available resources, so sticking a bit closer to guidelines when possible is helpful.

 The solution: Make sure your people know where they can and can’t make on-the-fly judgment calls. If they blow it, tell them, but don’t reprimand unless it becomes an ongoing issue.

 This one is, by far, the hardest for me.