Webrev 2010 Blog

Does this Screen Make me Look Fat?

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Maybe you've heard about the First Lady's work in fighting childhood obesity. While preventing a health problem that can be ultimately fatal for children is certainly a worthy cause, some are taking issue with the reasoning and methods used by this government program. I'll leave the political "Why is it the government's responsibility to watch your child's weight?" question alone for now. I'll also leave the "How about if you letparents decide what to feed theirown kids," retort out of this discussion. Really, I'm not even going to mention the "I don't even have children, so why should I have to pay to keep your kids from eating like pigs? dilemma faced by many of us.

Right now, I'm going to focus on the logic that TV and computer games (specifically the Sony Playstation) are half the problem.

Yes, it is likely that a lot of children spend a shocking amount of time in front of their "screens," as the program calls it. But how does this come about? In many cases, I would argue that it is because parents are looking for safe ways to occupy their children's time. When I was growing up, we were able to spend much of our free time outside, running around, riding bikes, walking back and forth to our friends' homes, and hangingout at themall. We no longer live in that world. Many parents no longer feel safe letting their beloved offspring run loose in public, due to the fact that the rights of child predators are now considered as important or more important that the rights of their potential victims.

So, here's a radical thought. How about if those in our government who want children to exercise more start putting their time and energy into making our streets safe enough for the kids to actually do that?

Also see: Michelle Obama ProgramBlames Sony Playstation for Making America's Children Fat

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

With much freedom, comes much responsibility.

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0500

As the great Garth Brooks once crooned, "Well, it was bound to happen, and one night it did."

The news most of you probably missed over the weekend, because you were busy with your families and BBQ's, was that Craig's List is no longer allowed to host the human trafficking industry under the guise of "adult services." Well, that's not the way the headlines are reading.

Actually, most of the web is pretty up-in-arms, spouting "first amendment" issues. Some are even using the reasoning that making these services harder to obtain boosts the black market (I'm pretty sure these services already were on the black market, but whatever). I'm big fan of the first amendment, along with the rest of the U.S. Constitution. Unlike some of my colleagues, however, I'm not thoroughly convinced that pornography, and many of the sub-categories thereof are given a free pass under the Constitution - particulary when said pornography ends up victimizing hapless women from third-world countries, and children.

The Crag's List admin, rather than simply disallowing advertisement for adult "services," however has decided to stage their own protest, by marking the section as "censored." Apparently, however, some advertisers are already finding a way around the new policies.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Friday Fun - Facebook's 'Apology'

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Well, folks, we've made it to Friday, again. We've been talking a lot about online security, and particularly Facebook privacy, lately - particularly how to adjust your settings to protect your location, and keep your name from being used to promote Facebook "features" without your permission. In all fairness, we wanted to give Facebook an opportunity to defend itself, but seeing as they're kind of busy with over 499,999,999 other members (approximately), we wondered how we would do that.

Fortunately Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, put his response on YouTube.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Looking through your eyes...on Facebook

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Have you ever wished you could see yourself through the eyes of others? Well, now you can - on Facebook, anyway. Once you think you have your privacy settings the way you want them, you can check to see how your profile looks to one or each of your friends. Here's how:

Once you're logged into Facebook, click on "Account," in the top righthand corner, then "Privacy Settings," on the drop-down menu. Near the center-bottom of the page, click on "Customize Settings," and make any adjustments you want to make. When you're finished, click on "Preview My Profile."

At the top of the page, type in any of your friend's names, and you'll see your profile the way it looks from that person's account. You can do this with one friend, or try it with as many friends as you want to, if you have different settings for different friends. If you're unhappy with how much or how little you are sharing, simply go back to "customize settings," and make your adjustments, then try again.

Also see: The Facebook archive, on the WebRev blog

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

What happens online stays online.

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0500

We've been talking a lot about online security and privacy lately, and I figured this was a good time to reiterate what we all really should know, but sometimes forget: There is no such thing as "privacy" on the web. Just like your mother used to tell you, if you want to keep a secret, you'd better keep it yourself. The web isno different, and in fact, it gives gossips and newsmongers a larger bullhorn.

It seems like daily we hear stories of some now-famous person beinghumiliated by photos or videos of themselves during their younger, wilder days, being posted online - like this crazy stunt by our current Vice President(Aww, Joe, you're so crazy!Ha ha!). The ones we don't hear about in the national news, of course are the TRULY humiliating ones, like some job-seeker's or college applicant'ssexting adventures showing up on MySpace or YouTube.

Then, of course, not all online embarrassment comes from drunken parties or ill-advised dating games. Some of us, who like to blog or be active in the social networks just have stuff online wasrelevant at the time, but several years later makes us appear hot-tempered, silly, or like really, really, bad spellers. Sometimes this stuff can be deleted, and sometimes it cannot. The problem is that even if we have access to the site this stuff is posted on, and can deleted it (or can convince the site owner to delete it), the search engines often store it in a "cache" for an indefinite period of time (unless, of course, you delete your stuff in error, and need the stuff in the cache, in which case the cache will be deleted within hours - Murphy's Law, don't ya know).

If this has happened to you, you can try getting it deleted using instructions like these, but you'll have to do it on every search engine individually, and good luck with that. You're better off to just start posting good, current material like crazy, and getting your online friends to link to it, to push your "good" stuff to the top of the search engine results pages, and hope no one does an in-depth search (to page two, three, or four) of those search results).

Better idea? Remember that what happens online stays online, and guard your digital reputation with care.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Facebook - AGAIN with the privacy?!

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

It's been awhile since I had a Facebook privacy scandal to write about...let's see about three months? (Oh, and speaking of Don't Use Friend-Finder, Facebook is STILL telling your friends you used that insidious feature, whether you did or not.)

So, what's up, now? Well, remember how I told you that Facebook was going all Foursquare? At the time, it didn't seem there would be a major privacy issue, because it was (still is) an opt-in (aka "check in") feature. The problem new users are running into is that once they check in, they are not always aware that ALL of their friends can see where they are.

For some people this is not a problem, but it can take others off-guard. They may not even realize their profile could be poppling up on the phones of people they had forgotten were on their friends' lists (say...parents, children, significant others, exes, secret stalkers...). The default is set to "friends only," and "yes" on the "people here now," info. You have to opt-out of the second one - and this includes if your friends have tagged you as being "here" (wherever "here" is). Please note, there are two boxes review and check for Facebook places, as shown below. To get to this box, click on "account," in the top-right of your screen, then "privacy." then "customize settings."

This is one of those features that can be a lot of fun to use - IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. If you don't, you might get caught in an awkward situation, so educate yourself.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Are you a Web-Addict?

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Well, it's official, and it even has it's own acronym: IAD (Internet Addiction Disorder)

According to some experts, online activity can be as addicting for some people as alcohol or drugs. The research is so new that it is still difficult to diagnose or treat:

..Some theories to explain addiction disorders are rooted with behavioral explanations, psychodynamic and personality explanations, sociocultural explanations, and biomedical explanations...The behavioral view is that the individual functions under B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning...In which the subject can either be rewarded positively, negatively, or be punished for their course of action. An example of it would be an individual who has always been too timid to met new people and make acquaintances. For this individual the Internet would represent the means to experience love, hate, satisfaction, and fulfillment without interacting face to face with another perso...A rewarding experience that could become reinforcing in itself.

[...]

...The people who log on to utilize the chat rooms are evidently looking for social acceptance, while the ones who create a role playing persona are eager to be accepted as themselves...Yet the primary step to take in the pathto recovery is to accept and not refute, a defense mechanism mentioned by Freud Sigmund called “denial,” that one might be undergoing Internet Addiction. Once this obstacle is conquered the treatment can be performed healthier than it would have otherwise been with patients who rejected they suffered from any kind of disorder....(more on AllPsych)

What, exactly, consitutes a web-addiction is still a bit subjective (How web dependent are we? Internet addiction by the numbers.) The Center for Net Addiction has provided a quiz for web users to take to find out if they may be addicts.

Of course some people aren't taking this so seriously. For most of us, this "addiction" can be cured by shutting off the computer, going outside, and meeting someone.

see more Funny Graphs

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Is Facebook Dangerous?

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Driving to work this morning, I was listening to one of the morning radio shows, and the call-in theme of the day was people calling in to say how their lives had been ruined by Facebook (mostly women, whose husbands have had affairs originating on Facebook). Apparently, the inspiration for the show's theme was this hit list of 69 teenagers in Columbia, on which three have already died. Clearly, this is horrific, and shocking, and our hearts go out to the families involved, as well as the other 66 kids on the list. But is Facebook to blame for this? Is Facebook to blame for destroying marriages?

Were there no murders happening before Facebook? Were people not committing adultery? Yes, of course, in some ways, social networking does make it easier to meet people online, and, that would include potential partners to cheat with. Social networking sites like Facebook also provide a public forum for those wanting to threaten others (as in the hit list).

However, these things were happening before Facebook was developed. I would suggest that sites like Facebook might also make it easier to identify and prosecute those guilty of murder. It provides documentation of the chronology of events. Facebook makes it easier to identify those people in our lives who could be potential "stalkers." Basically, it gets a lot of things out in the open that used to be difficult to find.

In short, Facebook is a tool. Just as guns can be used to hunt food for our families, or murder innocent people, Facebook can be used for good or evil. Let's focus our anger on the criminals, not on the venue.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Google Voice giving Skype some real Competition?

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I've used Google Voice for a long time, as a way to protect the privacy of my actual home phone #. I love it. It can be used as a stand-alone voice-mail service, or it can be simply forwarded to one or more phones. But it just got even better.

Now, you can make calls from your computer using Google Voice - for free within the U.S. and Canada (rates apply to international calls). It's easy. You'll need a Google account, of course (does anyone seriously not have one of those? Come on! If you use G-Mail, when you're logged in, in the lower left column, you'll see a "Call Phone" link with a little phone receiver. Click on that, and follow the instructions. Or, just go to voice.google.com, and sign up from there.

I tried it - the sound quality is great, and it's simple to use. Go try it!

Also see: Mashable: Google Brings Voice Calling to Gmail and TechCrunch: Google Voice Integrated into Gmail. Make and Receive Calls from the Browser.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Life was so much simpler in the '80's (We didn't have to worry about

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Oh, sure, we had to struggle to find our crush's phone # in the white pages (a particularly painful experience if our beloved's last name was "Jones," or "Smith,") and then we had to get past whichever parent answered the phone. But at least we didn't have to worry about whether or not it was OK to "text" a break-up message. (We weren't actually using "text" as a verb back in the good ol' days.)

Kids these days have so much more to worry about. Take these people, for example (note the blue sunglasses):

I'm not sure if the people in this video are experts on texting, but Jennifer Maughan has a some good advice, on Life 123, as does The Feature. Come to think of it, the more things have changed, the more they have stayed the same - good manners and common sense still apply.

Ok, now, speaking of the 1980's, can someone please tell me where I can get a pair of those giante blue sunglasses?

Also on the WebRev blog:

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Find a Good Movie

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Want to go to the movie theater this weekend, but not sure what to watch? Here are some of my favorite movie sites.

Movies.com is good for a comparison of show-times in your area. The downside is that there is SO MUCH stuff on the site that it frequently doesn't display correctly in some browsers, and has an annoyingly-long download time (especially on mobile phones). There are fairly decent reviews, although I almost never agree with them. There's also lots of information about what's available on DVD and for downloading at home.

I LOVE Flixter on my Android (there apps for other smart phones, too). The site provides showtimes, cast and character info, previews, and reviews. I've found it to be quick, and user-friendly. The reviews are by Rotten Tomatoes - and are funny, but again, I almost never agree with them.

IMDb.com is great for figuring out who that actor is, and what else he or she has been in. This site is near the top of nearly any Google search for the name of a movie or actor. There's even a mobile version (m.imdb.com) for when these ~~arguments~~ discussions occur in the car (make sure a non-driver looks the info up - don't surf and drive)!

I've found that Facebook is really pretty good for figuring out whether a current movies is "worth it," or not. Why? Because you'll be able to get the opinions of your friends and family, whose movie taste you might be more familiar with. Plus, most new movies have a Facebook page, and you can get more information there.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Making your 404 Page Work for You

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The "404 page," is the page that is displayed on a website when someone clicks on an invalid URL or a broken link. All it usually says (and really needs to say) is "oops," or that the page you're looking for is not found (that doesn't actually make sense, but that's what lot of them say).

If you're like CNET, you can be nice to your readers, and add a search screen, and of course add some Google ads (because EVERYONE loves to click on ads when they're already irritated about clicking on a broken link, right?).

You can also make your 404 page into something similar to a flash page, which gives your reader options for finding what they're looking for on your site, like we've done here at WebRev, and like uxbooth.com has done (see their tips for making your own, here).

You could go the funny route, too. Google Images has literally hundreds of great (well, some are great) examples, here. Here is one of my personal favorites, a post from ICHC, which is usually about cats, but this is priceless:

Also see:

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Facebook goes all Foursquare

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

As wediscussed earlier this week, Foursquare is apopular location-based social networking site (See Foursquare - So everyone can know where you are ALL THE TIME).By "popular," I meant: "I can't believe this start-up got more 100,000 users," NOT: "They're about to putFacebook, which has almost twice as many users as theUnited States has legal residents, out of business."Actually, Foursquare has less than 1% of the number of users that Facebook has, according to most of the reports I've seen, but Facebook had to jump in on the action, anyway. Thus: Facebook Places.

Actually, it's mostly only available to iPhone users at the moment, but the idea is that if you want everyone to know where you are (and see if you have any friends nearby), you can go on touch.facebook.com, and click "check in," then follow the instructions. You'll also have the ability to tag any peeps who might already be traveling with you.

The good news about this is that (for now, at least), this is an opt-in feature. Does this mean that Facebook learned a lesson from it's open graph fiasco? Or that it simply didn't want to make a bunch of people mad right before its movie hits theaters? We'll probably never know for sure, butfor now, if you don't want to participate in Facebook places, you don't have to do anything. Maybe.

Also see: A Field Guide for using Facebook Places (Mashable)

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

What did they say?

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I've beendiscussing the finer points of the definition of the slang term "square" (used in the social, not geometric sense), and have had the opportunity to view several "urban slang" online dictionaries. These can be particularly helpful in understanding up with anyone born prior to 1985 (it's almost like they're speaking an entirely different language).

Anyway, here are a few good ones.

UrbanDictionary.com is a user-generated website dedicated to keeping up with the dynamics of linguistics (i.e. "urban slang"). It's saturated with ads, but for most slang terms, will provide at least four-five reasonably-thought-out definitions by users. This obviously does not replace your Webster's dictionary, but can give you a pretty good idea of what people "think" the words mean.

TheSource4YM.com/TeenLingo is a youth-ministry oriented site, and has an online dictionary to help youth workers figure out what the kids they're working with are talking about.

Wiktionary has a slang category, and is formatted much like the Wikipedia website, which has been become familiar to most of us. It is also user-generated.

Finally, Answers.com, another user-generated site. If you use the search box at the top, and type in "Slang: Word" (and replace "word" with whatever term you're looking for), you're likely to get some good definitions.

Also see: Deciphering Internet Acronyms

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.

Watch TV Online

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I often dream about getting rid of my cable. I really can't, because there isn't any comparable competition in my area for home internet or television, it's still just a pipe-dream. Still, it's fun to explore the options, and there are more and more options for watching television via the Internet (no, these options won't LITERALLY replace your cable or satellite yet, but they might be a good option for traveling or outages). Here are my three favorites.

Hulu

Hulu.com is a great place to watch TV and movies. No download is needed, and many of the episodes can be embedded on your website or blog. Plus, there are fewer commercials than on regular TV. They even have HGTV episodes, and who doesn't love that?! (That's a rhetorical question.) Plus, they have archives dating all the way back to the late 1940s for some shows. Very cool.

Spreety

I like the navigation on Spreety.com. You just click on your channel or genre, the shows are alphabetized. The ads get a little crazy on this site, but like Hulu, the shows are hosted on the site, which means downloads are usually not necessary (as long as you have the player - if you don't the site will recommend one for you), and the episodes can be embedded elsewhere. The video viewing space is a bit small.

FanCast

Fancast.com site doesn't have as many options, yet, but shows promise. These episodes they do have are also hosted online, and FanCast has fewer commercials and ads like Hulu. The video viewing space is larger than Hulu or Spreety - almost the full size of the screen. Very nice.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail)is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.