Facebook is gone
Just for the record, I deleted my Facebook a while back, that’s why you can’t find me there anymore. Too much high school drama even though I am no longer in High School.
Why my Facebook is Private
If you’re my friend on facebook, or twitter, you’ll notice my facebook profile is next to barren and a lot of things set to private, and I still think I have too much stuff on it. There are a couple of reasons for this.
- I don’t see a need for that much information about me to be floating around on the Internet. If you haven’t seen all the articles about would be or ex-employers finding something on employees pages, well you’ve been living under a rock.
- I had a good friend who I had trusted, use my facebook information against me, most of it was private.
- If you haven’t seen the new facebook terms of service, you should. While some people are getting overly paranoid about it, it’s still important to know that they have the rights to what you put on their site. EDIT: While facebook has returned to the previous TOS, the point still stands, do you read the TOS? Do you know what websites can do with your information? Maybe you should
- The least important to me, but most annoying, is targeted ads. I really didn’t realize it until Bev and I got engaged, but every ad is targeted to you. Ingenious really, but I don’t want any ad company with that much information about me. Silly me for giving it to them…
- And finally, app requests. Note, this is different than apps themselves, it’s the automated requests is what I hate. I don’t fucking care. Yes, there are some fun, interesting aps, but none that you sent me. There is a search box for that. If you really want me to do something , send me a personal message, I’ll think about it.
So, by all means, be my facebook friend, chat it up, I love meeting new people, I just don’t want to get burned somewhere down the line. Facebook is a wonderful tool, but you must be smart with it. If you want to see what you can do to increase you privacy, check out this awesome article on protecting your privacy on facebook at Lifehacker. Also, I would check yourself out on People Search to see if you have any old accounts that you have forgotten about that need to be deleted. Aparently I had a friendster account at one time…
Qik for mobile. In case the world doesn’t see you enough.
Qik is a awesome program that lets you record (and live stream) video from your phone, upload it online, and update a number of social media sites, all seamlessly and simple.
I’ve seen quite a few twitter users that are on Qik, and never really had a phone that would support it. Recently, I retired my company Blackberry Curve, and opted for a Blackberry Bold. Since the Bold is 3G + WiFi it was much better suited for Qik. Current Qik is supported on a pretty wide range of smartphones (including the iPhone) as well as a ton of Nokias. Supported Devices.
Qik then is downloaded on the phone. A super simple interface will then title, tag and then start your video feed. This will start to stream live on Qik’s website. Once you stop it will upload the movie in it’s entirety online.
You can integrate a number of sites into Qik. From their website you can add twitter support and youtube (the 2 I did). If you want facebook support, you actually have to add a facebook app to do so.
It’s that simple to start live streaming video from your phone, and keep your social web apps updated automatically. I did a post earlier chronicling how it’s a pain in the neck to get Qik onto WordPress.com, along with a video of the new car.
p.s. My Qik account is here, add me!
Why aren’t you using Pidgin yet? (with Facebook chat!)
This post is for my less tech savy friends (I’ll go easy on you!). If you are still using separate programs for AIM/MSN Messenger/MyspaceIM this is for you. If you want to use facebook chat without having to log into facebook’s website, this is also for you. Pidgin solves all these problems and wraps them into one easy to use, customizable program.
Pidgin has been around for a bit, and those who had used trillian should be familiar with the concept, all of your messangers in one spot. You can see from their website that out of the box it supports a slew of messengers, and i’ll show you how to add facebook to the list. Don’t worry, you can hold my hand…
1.) Download Pidgin and install. It’s fairly simple, just hop over to pidgin.im and hit Download. Obviously install, I recommend going ahead and installing the dictionary for spell check support.
2.) Go ahead and install the Facebook chat plugin found here (For the curious, their website can be found here). Start up pidgin (Mine did crash the 1st time, so don’t freak if yours does the same) and it should automatically bring you to the following screen, if not click ‘Accounts’ > ‘Manage Accounts’ on the top of the screen.
3.) Your’s won’t look like that, it’s okay. Go ahead and click Add, select the messengers you want (We’ll use facebook).
4.) This should be pretty self explanatory, but here’s a screen shot just in case. Go ahead and put your email address and password in there and hit save. Make sure there is a check box next to your account on the account screen (Picture #1) and close. You’re online friends should be showing up, and you can start to chat away!
The next steps. You saw in the 2nd screen shot MyspaceIM was already in there, along with other popular services, add whatever you need, and they’ll automatically login when you start pidgin. You can even update your facebook status by clicking ‘Accounts’ > ‘Facebook’ > ‘Update Status’. Some of my twitter friends should note that you can find a twitter plugin here. It will update your status according to your tweet history. Last.fm friends you can add a plugin that will change your status according to what you scrobble, add it here.
If you guys have any questions, let me know, I’d be glad to help you out!
Doctor Sound's Murmurs 