Connect with Facebook?

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Maria Langer

Think twice before clicking that button.

This morning, I followed a link from one of my Twitter friends to an article on PCWorld.com about the growing popularity of ebooks. The article made a statement I didn’t agree with and I wanted to comment. The comment area had two options:

Sign in to the PCWorld Web site. This requires an account on the PCWorld Web site, which I did not have or want.
Connect with Facebook. After a long internal debate, I have begun using Facebook again.

I clicked the Connect with Facebook button. A window like this one popped up in my Web browser. Since this was the first time I’d tried to connect to a site with Facebook, I decided to actually read what was in the window.

And I was appalled by what I read.

Here it is, just in case you can’t read it in the screenshot:

PCWorld is requesting permission to do the following:
Access my basic information
Includes name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends, and any other information I’ve shared with everyone.

  In other words, not only does PCWorld get access to my name, but it also gets access to quite a bit of personal information, including my gender, affiliations, user ID (for tracking, I wonder?), and list of friends. It can also access “any other information I’ve shared with everyone,” which could include hobbies, interests, favorite books and movies, etc. In other words, I’d be giving PCWorld a wealth of information about me.

Whoa. Exactly why would I want to give PCWorld access to this information? Certainly not for the privilege of entering a comment on its Web site.

I clicked the Don’t Allow button to get out of there, then attempted to set up an account. Apparently, it’s impossible to set up an account on PCWorld without subscribing to one of its electronic magazines. It has over a dozen of them and none of them interest me in the least.

That got me wondering why I was wasting precious time from my day to add content to PCWorld’s Web site.

So I closed the window and got on with my life.

At least it gave me something to blog about.

What I hope readers come away with from this story is this: think twice before “Connecting with Facebook.” You may be sharing your private Facebook information with organizations that really don’t need it.

The Facebook Decision

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Maria Langer

Unhappily sitting on the fence; here’s why.

A while back, I wrote “Why I Suspended my Facebook Account.” I just reread it and it still rings true. But Facebook has again gotten in my face and I need to make a decision.

Facebook has proliferated to the point where it’s impossible for anyone in business — especially the business of writing computer-related content — to ignore. It’s everywhere. “Friend me on Facebook!” has become the robotic chant of businesses and individuals all over the country. I have tried to play the part of South Park’s Stan but Facebook continues to intrude on my life.

Recently, I discovered that Facebook had created a community page for me based on my Wikipedia entry. The opening paragraph states:

Our goal is to make this Community Page the best collection of shared knowledge on this topic. If you have a passion for Maria Langer, sign up and we’ll let you know when we’re ready for your help. You can also get us started by suggesting the Official Facebook Page.

So I have become a Facebook “topic.” I don’t know if I should be flattered or horrified.

(And, by the way, if you have “a passion” for me, I’d love to know. ~~My husband might be interested, too.~~)

My Current Career Situation

Meanwhile, my dual careers as the creator of how to books, articles, and video training material about computers (which I’ve been doing for 20 years) and helicopter charter operator (which I’ve been doing for 5 years) are suffering along with the economy.

Print publishing — especially of computer how-to material — is dying a slow and painful death. The widespread availability of the same content — usually for free — on the Internet is destroying book sales. Just about anyone can use Google to find the answer to a computer or software question online. (That doesn’t mean the answer will be right, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone.) There are numerous blogs, including one of mine, that provide how-to information with the same step-by-step instructions I built my writing career on for free.

This is what publishers are competing with. They know it and they try to fight back by stressing the simple fact that their content is being created by experts. But no one seems to care. Why spend $20 on a book that might answer a question when you can spend 20 minutes with Google and the World Wide Web and get an answer for free?

As a result, most of my books are not being revised. The most recent casualty to this trend was my Excel for Windows Visual QuickStart Guide which I have been revising since I wrote the first edition for Excel 95. Look all you want for an Excel 2010 edition — you won’t find one.

The world of helicopter charters is even more shaky with the economy the way it is. My last season in Arizona was dismal, with very few good charters — certainly not enough to pay the bills. The agricultural work I do during the summer months is a lifesaver for the business. Without it, I’d likely have to sell the helicopter and close up shop.

And I’m not the only one in this situation. Helicopter operators and flight schools have gone out of business all over the country. Most people simply don’t have money to spend on things they don’t really need. Who needs to fly in a helicopter? Very few people.

Enter, Facebook

And then there’s Facebook, sitting out there, presenting itself as a free way to make contact with potential readers, video learners, and helicopter passengers. A marketing tool, waiting to be used. Like a worm sitting on the grass, waiting for the a bird to snatch it. But is there a string attached that will drag me down into a hole?

I could reactivate my Facebook account. It’s easy. All I have to do is log in. Everything is there, just where I left it.

Of course, I did strip out all my personal information — or whatever information I could — to prevent it from getting into the hands of people I didn’t want to have it. I’d have to build that back up, selectively, to make a real profile page.

Then I’d have to build pages for each of my careers, keeping them up to date. I’d have to visit them regularly to keep in touch with my new “friends” and respond to their comments on my “wall.” I’d have to accept friend requests from strangers and then struggle to figure out which ones were real people and which were spammers trying to sell me their crap. I’d have to find new people to friend. I’d have to post on my wall and their walls. I’d probably have to fiddle around with the never-ending collection of applications, trying to figure out what they do, how they work, and why I should use them. I’d have to build a presence for myself on Facebook, in a community I have no desire to be part of.

I’d be going through the motions just to satisfy fans and mollify editors. I’d be playing the game because it was expected of me. I’d be spending hours of my life every week on a marketing tool that might get me a handful of new readers and video learners but would more likely expand the audience for the free content I already put on the Web.

Time is one of the most valuable things I have. My freelance lifestyle gives me more time than most people have. But I don’t want to waste it. I’d much rather spend it on things that are important to me, learning or doing something interesting, something worth remembering, worth writing about, worth sharing.

Is Facebook any of that?

There’s more to my life than writing on virtual walls and tending to imaginary farm fields.

I don’t want to sell out.

The Pilot’s Alphabet

Posted on June 13, 2010 by Maria Langer

Words representing letters.

The other day, a new Twitter friend (@mpowerdesign) tweeted:

WTF? Whiskey-tango-foxtrot! I didn’t know there was an actual “military alphabet.” Dad never told me! http://bit.ly/biyLQT

I replied:

It’s used in aviation, too.

This was news to her, which kind of surprised me. I idiotically assumed that everyone knew that pilots used these special code words. But I’m obviously wrong. And, at this point, you might be wondering what the hell I’m talking about.

Meet the “Pilot’s Alphabet”

I’m referring to the ICAO Spelling Alphabet. Wikipedia offers a good basic description:

The ICAO spelling alphabet, also called the NATO phonetic alphabet or the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet, is the most widely used spelling alphabet. […] The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) alphabet assigns code words to the letters of the English alphabet acrophonically (Alfa for A, Bravo for B, etc.) so that critical combinations of letters (and numbers) can be pronounced and understood by those who transmit and receive voice messages by radio or telephone regardless of their native language, especially when the safety of navigation or persons is essential. The paramount reason is to ensure intelligibility of voice signals over radio links.

In other words, pilots say words to represent letters so there’s no chance of being misunderstood. These words are universally used so all pilots know them. The table here lists them all, along with their all-important pronunciations. Note that not all are properly pronounced the way you might think — Quebec is a good example.

Although this is officially known as the ICAO Spelling Alphabet, it has been adopted by a number of other organizations, including NATO, the FAA, and ANSI. @mpowerdesign’s link to militaryspot.com identified it as the “Official U.S. Military Alphabet,” which is accurate only because the U.S. military adopted the ICAO Spelling Alphabet. The same goes for me referring to it as the “pilot’s alphabet.”

How It’s Used in Aviation

If you read this blog regularly, you might recall me referring to my helicopter as Zero-Mike-Lima. That’s because the last three characters of its N-number (like an aircraft license plate, painted on in big numbers and letters) are 0ML or zero, mike, and lima. When I identify myself to air traffic control, I call myself “Helicopter Six-Three-Zero-Mike-Lima.” The controller can, at his option, shorten this to the last three digits (Zero-Mike-Lima) and, if he does, the subsequent exchange between us will include just those digits. I use those digits as a sort of name for my helicopter.

In aviation, letters are also used to identify airports. So Phoenix Sky Harbor would by PHX or Papa-Hotel-XRay and Wenatchee Pangborn would be EAT or Echo-Alpha-Tango. Charted intersections and VORs also use letters and, thus, these codes. A pilot might use this extensively when filing a flight plan or receiving a departure clearance.

Towered airports use letters to identify the automated traffic advisory system (ATIS), which is generally revised and re-recorded hourly. At the beginning and end of the recording, the recording identifier will be stated — for example, “Deer Valley Tower, Information Juliet” or “Advise on initial contact you have Golf.” When a pilot makes his first call to the tower, he needs to include the ATIS identifier, so a call might sound like this:

Deer Valley Tower, Helicopter Six-Three-Zero-Mike-Lima, 10 miles north, landing west helipad with Juliet.

An airport’s ground control will also provide runway exit and taxi information to airplanes using these code words for letters. For example, they might tell an airplane to exit at “alpha-four” or use “taxiway charlie.” I don’t hear much of that because I don’t generally talk to ground control.

@mpowerdesign asked if I had to memorize it. I guess I did. It didn’t take much doing, though. The words are used so often in aviation that you kind of absorb them when you communicate. I make a special effort to keep them in my mind by using the same letters when I need to spell something out to someone — for example, “A as in alpha, B as in bravo” instead of using whatever words come to mind like most people do.

Expand Your World

At the end of our short exchange, @mpowerdesign tweeted:

Geez…you learn something new every day! See, this is why I tweet… :-)

And I think that sums up one of the reason I participate in Twitter. By following a variety of people with a variety of interests from a variety of places all over the world, you can’t help but learn new things, just by participating in Twitter conversations. It’s one way to expand your world.

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of yet another lengthy blog post here on An Eclectic Mind. If you got this far, you must have gotten something out of what you read. And isn’t it nice to read Web content that isn’t full of annoying ads?

How about doing something to show your appreciation? I’d love it if you’d add a comment at the end of this post to share your feedback with me and others. But I’d really love it if you’d visit my Support page and chip in a few dollars to help cover the cost of hosting this blog and motivate me to keep writing new, interesting content. It’ll only take a moment and I really would appreciate it!

Got a Keyboard? Use it.

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Maria Langer

Comment

A blog post should be more than just screenshots of what other people Tweeted.

This morning, as I sat drinking my coffee, I began my usual ritual of checking out some of the links tweeted overnight by the people I follow. One of them was about the iPad. Interested in the iPad as my future ebook reader, I followed the link.

I wound up on a blog post that consisted primarily of screenshots of Twitter. The blogger had posted a question on Twitter about the iPad and then sat back and captured screenshots of the responses as they were tweeted.

I call that lazy blogging.

It was also extremely tedious to read. So tedious, in fact, that I stopped reading after the first scroll down. I did continue scrolling to see if there was some content added by the blogger, but there was so little of it that I wound up simply closing the browser window and getting on with my day.

And then I realized how much it bugged me that there was someone out there passing off screenshots of Twitter responses as a blog “post.”

There is so much crap on the Internet today. Huge quantities of it. I don’t “surf” the net. My Web activity is limited to looking up things I need to know about and following what appears to be interesting links that I receive from friends and business associates verbally, via e-mail, and via Twitter. I don’t want to spend my day wading through the crap online. I want the good stuff.

A blogger should not simply regurgitate what’s readily available on the Web. If I wanted to know what Twitter users thought of the iPad, I’d use Twitter’s built-in search feature — which is also part of Nambu, my preferred Twitter client — and set up a search. I’d then read the results myself. I don’t need to go to a blog to read the same stuff. As screenshots, for Pete’s sake! Hell, if I were at home with my miserably slow Internet connection, the damn page would have taken five minutes to load!

A blogger’s job is to both inform and provide analysis. A summary sentence at the top of 20 screenshots that simply says, “Many people think lack of multi-tasking is a deal breaker,” doesn’t do much for me. And I certainly don’t need to see those 20 screenshots. I get it. You’re not making this up. All these Twitter users said it. I guess it must be true.

And it’s immensely ironic that this post was retweeted. As if it had value. WTF?

My point: if you call yourself a blogger and want to add something of value to the Web, dust off your keyboard and use it.

How Some Bloggers Abuse Commenters

Posted on December 16, 2009 by Maria Langer

And why this ruins things for the rest of us.

This morning, I got a junk e-mail message from a blogger I’d met on Twitter. And I’m pissed off about it.

How I Was Violated and What I Did about It

I followed this guy on Twitter for a short time and wound up on his blog, where I posted a comment. As anyone who comments on blogs knows, an e-mail address is required to comment, so I entered mine, as I’ve been doing without problems (or spam) for the past five or so years.

This blogger, however, was different. He evidently harvests the e-mail addresses from blog comments and uses it to feed his self-promotional e-mail list. The spam e-mail message from him arrived this morning when I collected my e-mail.

To say I was furious is an understatement. In my opinion, this blogger has violated my trust — and likely the trust of all other commenters on his blog. He’s used my e-mail address without my permission in a way that’s unacceptable. He’s a spammer, pure and simple, and should be subject to the same penalties as any other spammer.

(As if anyone’s actually enforcing the new anti-spam laws.)

Here’s the message he sent; I XXXed out the identifying information so I don’t send any customers his way:

Did you enjoy the free video on the 6 ways to make money on the internet?
How would you like to win the entire XXX System absolutely free?
All you have to do is recommend the system to a friend via a twitter to enter.
We will be giving away 20 full XXX system accounts between now and January 20th.
Click here to enter!
XXX Media Group | XXX | Lincoln, NE 68516 | US
Unsubscribe from future marketing messages from XXX Media Group

Call me an idiot, but I clicked the unsubscribe link. (They say that doing that often just confirms your address and spreads it.) The link sent me to the Bronto Web site, which is evidently the software this jerk uses to send his spam. It supposedly unsubscribed me. But it went a step further — it offered a complaint link. So I clicked that and filled out the form.

I also forwarded the message to spam@uce.gov, which is something I’ll be doing with ALL spam I receive from now on.

Then I went to Twitter and reported the jerk as a spammer there.

Why This Hurts Legitimate Bloggers

I’ve been blogging since October 2003. That’s six years now. My blog has accumulated thousands of comments from readers. All of them entered what looks like legitimate e-mail addresses. Are they? I don’t know. Other than a few notable exceptions when I wanted to network with a specific person — Miraz Jordan, who wound up co-authoring a book with me, comes to mind — I haven’t tried using them.

I don’t spam my commenters. I appreciate their input; they make my blog better. Why would I violate their trust and start spamming them via e-mail? Why would I make them less likely to contribute their comments to my blog?

So you can get an idea of how annoyed I am about this asshole.

Imagine a first-time commenter who happens to comment on this jerk’s blog. He feels good about adding to the conversation and is ready to do it again elsewhere. But then he gets spam from this jerk. He realizes that putting his e-mail address out there on the Internet can get him all kinds of spam. So he doesn’t do it. Maybe he starts putting fake e-mail addresses in his comments — making him impossible to contact if the blogger wants to for a legitimate, non-spam reason. Or maybe he simply stops commenting at all.

All because one jerk is harvesting commenter e-mail for spam purposes.

What You Can Do about It

The best thing anyone can do about spam is to report it to the authorities.

If you receive spam on Twitter, use the Report For Spam link on the user’s profile page. Do it every time you receive Twitter spam.

If you receive e-mail spam, forward it to spam@uce.gov. You can also visit the FTC’s Spam Site to learn more about how you can reduce the amount of spam you get. And while you’re surfing out on Government sites, visit OnGuard Online for real information about how to protect yourself and your computer from Internet fraud.

But whatever you do, don’t stop commenting on blogs. Most bloggers appreciate your contributions and won’t betray your trust.