Friday, December 11, 2009

Facebook Privacy - New & Improved?

The latest Facebook Privacy announcement has raised a lot of concerns among users and privacy experts alike. Unless you have already seen the privacy wizard on facebook (or ignored it, as many have) you are likely to see it as soon as you sign in your facebook account.

While the new privacy setting are suppose to make it easier for the user to control his/her information, the recent changes are drawing a mixed reaction from the audience. Here are the 5 key areas of concern:

Search Settings:Many users are complaining that the option in the search settings to turn their profile 'public' has been now turned on, although many seemed to have specifically turned it off years ago. This has recently been done in order to make info on facebook more accessible to search engines and if you don't want to have a public profile, do yourself a favor and make sure that your index settings are 'off'. Just go to Settings>Privacy Settings>Search to check if you are being indexed or not.

Personal Information: Seems like under the new privacy setting of facebook your 'private' information is no longer private. That's because facebook doesn't think that it should remain private anymore. Turns out that most of your information including your profile picture, friends list, gender, fan pages, location and networks will be turning up on the search results after all.

Friends List: Turns out that while you can still control the list of friends from appearing on your profile page, it's privacy setting is no longer available on the privacy page. See the small pencil icon right above your friend's list? Well, it turns out that you need to click on that and uncheck the 'show my friends on my profile page' option, if you want your friends list to remain private.

Password Protection: Seems like facebook tried adding another layer of protection to your account! When you try to change your privacy setting you will be asked to give your password one more time before you can make any changes. However experts are confirming that this isn't quite working out as it should. They are still have timeout issues in this area.

More Control: Where facebook is taking away some of the control from its users, it is also giving you a lot more control in some places. For instance, now you can even control who sees your latest updates and shared content. Don't want some of your friends to see your latest update? Customize it! ;)

Word of Advice: Check your facebook privacy settings immediately!

Facebook's latest privacy setting are getting a mixed reaction from the audience. And yes, there are things that you might want to delete from your Facebook account now (since it will show on your profile otherwise), it just goes to show that anything you put on the internet is public in the end. Maybe Facebook's latest privacy settings are not such a bad thing after all, as it will surely make you think twice before sharing anything on the internet again.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Quotes from the Golden Compass (the Northern Lights)

I started reading the Northern Lights by Philip Pullman a few days back and I was mesmerized by the intensity and dept of the novel. Like Harry Potter (or perhaps it's wrong to compare as both are classics in their own regard) the Northern Lights (also known as The Golden Compass) bewitches you from the very first line and takes you on an interesting journey in Lyra's world.

Some of the dialogues of the characters and the narrative itself (at places) offers such dept in thought and philosophy that one can't help but begin to ponder upon it. And the concept of daemons is not only clever but completely fantastic. Truth be told, we all have our own daemon we fight against or listen to and Philip Pullman very intelligently gives these daemon of ours the character and essence that gives them a persona of their own (but nevertheless of it's owner). These daemons are but only our inner conscience... the little voices in our head that speak to us.

All that said and done, here are a couple of quotes from the book the Golden Compass:

"...there are two worlds: the world of everything we can see and hear and touch, and another world, the spiritual world of heaven and hell. (There is possibility of) the existence of numerous other worlds, like this one, neither heaven nor hell, but material and sinful. They are there, close by, but invisible and unreachable."

"(It is) the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old."

"There's no tongue that's so tied, when tying's needed, as the one that babbles most bewhiles. Babbling covers a lot of secrets."

And those of you who have read the book will love
the movie. However those of you who have watched the movie without reading the book will not only be lost in places but will end up being disappointed.