Testing a photo

Microsoft's Free Windows Live Essentials Beta Debuts

Microsoft's Free Windows Live Essentials Beta Debuts

By Jeff Bertolucci, PC World, Jun 24, 2010

The new Windows Live Essentials beta will be available for public testing starting Thursday, according to Microsoft. A collection of free Web-oriented applications and services for Windows Vista and Windows 7 PCs, Live Essentials is currently available in English, French, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, or Spanish.

You can download the beta here. (The beta wasn't live as of 10 a.m. U.S. Pacific, although it should be available sometime today.)

Live Essentials programs include Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, Writer, and Messenger. The new beta connects these apps to online services from Microsoft and other providers, including social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Linkedin; popular blogging tools like Spaces, WordPress, and Blogger; online storage and photo/video sharing sites including SkyDrive, Flickr, YouTube, and SmugMug; email sites such as Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail; and Microsoft Office Web Apps, Redmond's new online productivity suite.

In addition, the new Windows Live Sync feature synchronizes your files across multiple PCs and on cloud-based (online) servers. Sync's new remote desktop feature also lets you access your PC via the Web.

 

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Twitter

I hope no one thinks I am ignoring their requests in Twitter.  I keep a protected account in Twitter and I have been experiencing this for almost the past two weeks.  I receive an email saying that I have a new Follower Request at Twitter.  When I click on the link, the page is blank.   If you are experiencing this, post a reply at the link below so they can keep track of who is affected by this.

Empty Follower Request Page/Trouble Following Private Accts
Marc May 12
Do you have a protected account ?
If your are receiving new follower notifications via email, but your page appears empty when you go to http://twitter.com/friend_requests, what you are experiencing is a known issue.

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Will there ever be a “Facebook for Dummies” Book?

There is never a dull moment at Twitter.  Just yesterday someone asked, “When are they going to publish a "Facebook Privacy for Dummies" book.”  My reply was that I would bet on never, but this got me thinking about all that has been written already about Facebook’s current Privacy challenges and we already have a book. 
Here is the history of their ever changing Privacy Policy.
Evolution of Privacy Policies on Facebook – a Panel Chart in Excel

By Chandoo, May 13th, 2010
There is a chart called “Evolution of Privacy on Facebook” going around on the web. The chart made by Matt Mckeon, a developer in IBM’s visual communications lab has created quite a stir in the interwebs.

More……
Here is an article on what Facebook passwords not to use.

20 passwords to never use on Facebook
By Josh Smith, May 14th 2010
Excerpt....
In addition to those poorly-chosen passwords we've come up with our own list of 10 words or phrases not to use as your Facebook password.

• Employer info
• School name
• School mascot
• Names of groups, artists or shows you "Like" on Facebook
• Spouses name or birthday
• Banking passwords
• E-mail password
• No dictionary based words -- even those in a different language
• Pet's name if you post captioned pictures to your profile
• Anything you might answer in a Facebook quiz

Creating a strong password doesn't have to be a chore or difficult to remember. Simply adding a number and a punctuation mark greatly increase the strength of a password. You can also use a phrase, condensed to a string of words and numbers, as an easy-to-remember secure password. For example, "WalletPop is my #1 Personal Finance Blog!" becomes the "Wim#1PFb!".
More…….

and….
This article is jammed with links to more information on Facebook Privacy.  First, to convince people that they are sharing information with the world there is Openbook.org and Zesty.ca.  It links you to an article about how to delete your Facebook account.  If deletion is something you choose not to do, it includes a chart that maps out how to find all the hidden Privacy settings in Facebook.

Facebook Privacy: Secrets Unveiled
By JR Raphael, PC World, May 16, 2010
Excerpt....
Thanks to a couple of handy new tools, you can now check out exactly what Facebook is telling the world about you -- and about everyone else. First up is Openbook, a project created by three computer geeks from San Francisco.  Openbook lets you search through Facebook's publicly available user data to find out what everyone is saying.
Excerpt....
So what to do? You can always say so long to Facebook, of course. Or you can choose to stay with the site and simply be vigilant about protecting your privacy. It isn't easy, but it can be done.
You can see what Facebook shares with the world about you by using this free tool at zesty.ca; just input your Facebook user ID or account number (found by looking at the URL for your Facebook profile page), then click through the fields to see what's actually public. The tool won't take into account info that could be shared by applications or Facebook's "instant personalization" feature, but it's a start.
After that, get ready to dig. This daunting chart breaks down all of the categories of settings you'll need to review (hint: be sure to clear out a couple hours of your afternoon). This story provides a slightly less overwhelming summary of the main settings you should revisit. And this one goes through some additional steps you'll want to take to address the aforementioned new "instant personalization" options.

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Now you have the start of a “Facebook for Dummies” book.  That is of course until it changes again because change is the only constant in life or in Facebook Privacy.

I just wanted to add that this will help you manage the instant personalization feature on Facebook.

ReclaimPrivacy.org

This website provides an independent and open tool for scanning your Facebook privacy settings. 

and-

The scanner operates entirely within your own browser.

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Bkis Blog » Skype – New target of the worm spreading via IM

This worm uses social engineering techniques that trick users into thinking the link (URL) is only to a picture (JPG).  It comes from people you know that have been infected and is spread to everyone in your Skype or Yahoo Messenger friend list.  Please be careful if you use Skype or Yahoo Messenger.

An analysis and screen shots can be found here.

Bkis Blog » Skype – New target of the worm spreading via IM