Facebook does it again... ugh

Facebook has changed the homepage feed layout again. It's a bit frustrating because I am not seeing all of my friends updates (I have about 500 friends) and the updates are missing comments, etc. It was bad enough when they switched it the last time - I couldn't find my events, would get 30,000 Easter Egg application updates (alright, maybe it was more like 29,382) and I would miss updated comments to my posts.

So, in my zeal to fix something they don't believe is broken and after begging/stalking the Engineering team last time for a change to the way feeds are displayed, I am going to *attempt* to write my first facebook application - a "Custom Feed Filter".

Here's a wireframe of how it will work:


So I am starting with a Facebook developer account through Joyent Cloud that gives free FB application hosting for developers for free for a year. (Can't beat that!) Granted, if the app is popular enough, I am *hoping* FB will just add it to their functionality - which, even though I am doing this for free (for my friends and myself who hate the new layout), I figure it's my social media civic duty to help.

I found a wonderful step-by-step developer guide, and off I go! Will let you know the progress...

People as "Honeypots": Tricking the Scammers at their own Game

Everyone has a few old timers in their families - or even young paranoid ones - who are not tech savvy. Save a few random forwarded joke emails, they won't read the news, don't buy anything online or know how to use tech tools that are free and easier to use than their spyware-laden, sluggish MS applications.   They maybe too embarrassed to ask someone how to use it or too scared to share their personal information, or worse yet, naively share their personal information.

My uncle, former co-owner of an old-school east coast marketing/polling firm, has been bored since retirement.  He hasn't picked up a hobby, and to the best of everyone's intentions to help direct him to a hobby or heck even a p/t job, he just stays bored.  So, he apparently has been teaching himself about the internet - the hard way.  He fell for one of those 419 scams.  This was recently too, only within the past year, so to believe everyone knows about these scams and not to follow them, obviously is not the case.

According to the FBI, internet fraud rose 33% last year - keeping in mind, these are only crimes that were actually reported to the IC3 division. Many crimes remain unreported, due to embarrassment or even a lack of knowing where and how to report such crimes. Although it may be plain to see for an avid (or average) Googler, people who do not know how to use the net's tools or where to look on a page itself to find relevant information, get lost in the vast forest of text and colors on most websites.  Surprisingly, countries who are our allies where these scams originate, such as Nigeria, make no effort to punish and seemingly condone such activities.

Enter 419 Eater.

419 Eater is not unlike the internet security tactic of creating decoys or "honeypots" to collect virus/trojan/hacker information.  Joining their grassroots coalition, the average Joe/Jane can trick these scammers at their own game.  Using free email addresses, "would-be-victims" can create aliases they can use to trap the scammer.  The point?  Wasting their time, as they tend to focus on one victim at a time, for weeks or months on end.  Arrest is, of course, optimal, but once the schemer's months of time, energy and money is wasted tracking a false lead, hopefully, they will leave the business of scamming willingly.  Karmic debt is paid and all is right with the world.  

Now, you have to be very careful when dealing with these people of course, but if you're retired from your 90's dot com boom success, bored and know the internet well, here's a fun hobby for you.  Beats knitting, doesn't it?

SOFA on Viewfinder

Finally found the episode with the organization I help with: SOFA (Southern Ohio Filmmakers Association)...  and yes, believe it or not, I'm a poor interview in front of a camera.  I probably could have used a couple shots of tequila before I went on.

CETconnect Video | Video on Demand |Viewfinder - Southern Ohio Film Association


Posted using ShareThis

Learn more at: http://www.sofanetwork.org

Character Assassination and online harassment: How to protect yourself

So about a year and a half ago, I made the mistake of dating someone I shouldn't have.  After we broke up about 3 months later, he has since harassed me on the phone, via text, created fake accounts on YouTube, and email.  I am hoping this will help someone else deal with at least *some* of online harassment/defamation.

1.) If the person has created a harassing/slanderous site, more than likely it should fall under the hosting provider/domain name providers anti-harassment/anti-defamation policy. If you have the web address, do a "Whois" search on the domain name in question (domain name is in the format: domainname.com or domainname.net or domainname.org etc, without trailing characters. This will get the host/domain providers contact information.

http://ws.arin.net/whois

Enter the domain name in question in that form at the top of the page and click "submit". This will bring you back the companies hosting the site and where the domain name was registered. You can contact them directly and they should suspend their account immediately for free.

2.) If the person is using a Yahoo, Hotmail, or other free email service, you can report them via an abuse page the site should have.
For Yahoo!: http://abuse.yahoo.com
For Hotmail: http://hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/dasp/ua_info.asp email: abuse@hotmail.com

3.) If they are using a forum/board, you can contact the site owner directly and have the moderator take the offending message down.

4.) For social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, there should be a "Report" or "Flag as Inappropriate".  Someone from the site's security should email you back regarding the user and their account may be suspended.

5.) File a police report.  Electronic communication harassment and cyber-stalking is real.  Protect yourself legally...

I hope this helps someone else, I had to learn this stuff the hard way - hopefully, you won't have to.  Victims of cyber bullying shouldn't have to hide to feel safe from cyber bullies.  If they can do it from behind a keyboard, what's to say they won't act on it in person...

Inauguration version 2.0

So I went to inauguration with 1.8 million of my closest friends. The idea was to do a documentary, blog about it, and do streaming video via ustream.tv. I built the site and added a channel on ustream, and found this great site where you can stream from your phone! www.qik.com which would have been perfect... if I had a Blackberry Curve and didn't have a Palm Centro. Oh well. It was still an amazing experience, technical difficulties aside. Really, what I should have done in retrospect was the day after the election, reserved a room in downtown DC walking distance to the Capitol.

There were a good 40-50 other 1-3 person documentary teams floating around as well, many doing interviews with folks in different languages. For as large of a crowd and how crazy packed it was, everyone was really nice and polite (except the hotel we got last minute, but that's another debacle...), which was awesome and I didn't worry about my equipment then getting stolen. Damaged, yes, but not ripped off. My equipment: Panasonic HVX200, shooting in HD 720 24pn. I rented additional equipment from the Camera Dept here in Cincinnati including 2 16gb p2 cards and a wide angle lens adapter. I forgot my lens cap, but no damage was done to it. Had plenty of batteries, but navigating the crowd was a pain. I wish I would have caught up with my friend/colleague Stephanie who was in from NYC to help me shoot it.

Dumping the footage, I didn't get as good of stuff as I was hoping. I didn't have time in between shots to white balance, and it shows. I was hoping to have a full feature, but at this point, I am thinking I will have to go back and get pickup shots and change the theme of it to get any kind of usable content.

But it was history. We met some awesome people and had amazing conversations with complete strangers. It was like a big family reunion because everyone was so friendly and kind (well when they weren't rushing around) but even then folks would stop you if you dropped something and hand it to you. There will never be another event like it. And I was grateful to be there to see it.