Results tagged “facebook” from Birmingham Mail - Technobabble

According to a new survey which just arrived in my inbox, we're all becoming 'Netspressives' - which basically means socially useless and only able to communicate online.

The (admittedly rather limited) report found that half of us spend more time talking to friends online than on phone or in person and find it hard to express their feelings in the real world.

In a tragic coincidence it was today revealed that Little Britain star Matt Lucas' former partner Kevin McGee, 32, (both pictured right) was found dead in his Edinburgh flat by police, after leaving a message on the social networking site Facebook.

McGee reportedly chose to post: "Kevin McGee thinks that death is much better than life."

A quick google search reveals a host of people who have left suicide notes on Facebook before killing themselves.

I remember reading years ago a short story in a science fiction collection about the unlikely scenario in a little populated world where people were just living alone, communicating via computers, and a prospective meeting of another person causes feelings of terror in the main protagonist.

It was a sad reflective piece, but, the truth seems to be even more tragic and bizarre - where people at the end of their tethers feel only able to express their feelings to electronic friends.

Yahoo, which commissioned the survey (admittedly small - only 1,050 nationwide were asked) have put up Psychologist Jo Hemmings to say: "The stereotype is that Britons are typically unexpressive people, but the rise of online communication has highlighted that this isn't true - we just need the right outlet. This study shows that the online world is acting as our self-expression release valve and 'Net-pression' is an important daily act for millions of Britons".

Staff at PC World and Currys are the latest to come a cropper for mocking their customers on social networking sites.

The workers used Facebook to post discussion boards about 'really stupid customers' and branded many people who use their stores as 'ignorant'.

According to some of the posts, some customers deserved to be 'punched' and others should have cattle prods shoved into tender areas.

It is, of course, not the first time something like this has happened.

Virgin sacked 13 staff after they branded passengers 'chavs' on Facebook, and posted comments questioning the airline's safety record.

In the case of PC World, the comments of their staff are somewhat thrown into context by a survey which arrived in my in-box today.

Which? Computing found that people should avoid stores like PC World when buying computers, and the countrywide chain received a very poor 42 per cent customer approval rating.

Currys and Comet fared little better with 45 per cent, with Staples only managing 51 per cent.

Customer score is based on a combination of overall satisfaction and endorsement - the likelihood of purchasers recommending the supplier to a friend.

DSGi, the company which owns PC World and Currys, said: "We are extremely disappointed with these results, especially as we have a programme in place which focuses the entire business on the customer and on improving customer service."

So who's to say the workers aren't right? Going by the satisfaction survey, you'd have to be stupid to buy a computer there!

According to a new book, failure to reveal your personal details on networking sites such as Facebook is "tantamount to social suicide".

Matthew Myron, a graduate from the University of Portsmouth, has written a book, What is Privacy?, based on the findings of his research into online privacy.

He says people feel under pressure to divulge details about themselves on networking sites out of fear of becoming a social outcast.

Social networking sites are like internet shopping for burglars with users revealing details about their home and whereabouts to complete strangers, an insurer warned today.

Users of sites such as Facebook and Twitter are putting themselves at risk of being burgled by revealing too much personal information, according to Legal & General.

Research found that 38% of users of social networking sites have posted updates about their holiday plans, while 33% have told people they are going away for the weekend.

Nearly a quarter of people have also discussed their travel plans 'wall-to-wall', meaning they have no control over who reads them.

A version of the social networking site Facebook is being developed for the latest Apple iPhone, it has emerged.

Software engineer Joe Hewitt wrote on his Twitter page: "Just uploaded Facebook for iPhone 3.0 to the App Store for review. :)".

'There but for the grace of god....'

The perils of forgetting who your facebook friends are were brought home for one user recently.

A worker called "Lindsay", updated her status with "OMG I HATE MY JOB!!"

She went on: "My boss is a total pervy ******, always making me do ****stuff just to **** me off!! ******!"

Unfortunately for her said boss was a facebook friend and his response was: "Hi Lindsay, I guess you forgot about adding me on here?"

"Firstly, don't flatter yourself. Secondly, you've worked here 5 months and didn't work out that I'm gay? Thirdly, that 's**t stuff' is called your 'job', you know, what I pay you to do. But the fact that you seem to be able to f**k up the simplest of tasks might contribute to how you feel about it.

"And lastly, you also seem to have forgotten that you have 2 weeks left on your 6 month trial period. Don't bother coming in tomorrow.

"I'll pop your P45 in the post and you can come in whenever you like to pick up any stuff you've left here. And yes, I'm serious."

Easily done - many of us have added people, promptly forgot and six months later posted something which causes offence.

The whole issue brings the issue of how to keep your private life just that.

People seem happy to live their lives in full glare of all and sundry - most not even bothering with even the most rudimentary privacy settings.

And they are also more keen on adding to their 'friends' tally without properly thinking about potential problems.

Do you turn down your boss' friend request and would it be rude not to request them to be your friend?

Making the right decision could save you from the sack!

Facebook is to buy content-sharing website FriendFeed in a move that could make it even easier for users to keep track of their friends' movements.

The deal was revealed in a blog yesterday by Friendfeed founder Bret Taylor, who stated that the firm "accepts Facebook friend request".

Social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace encourage teenagers to build "transient relationships" that can leave them traumatised and even suicidal when they collapse, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales warned today.

Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols also expressed concern about the rise of individualism in society.

He described footballers who break their contracts to move to other clubs for bigger salaries as "mercenaries" and said moves to loosen laws on assisted suicide were particularly worrying.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband today defended the next head of MI6 after details of his personal life were posted on social networking website Facebook.

Pictures and private details of Sir John Sawers, who will take on the post in November, were revealed on an easily accessible profile page of his wife, Lady Shelley Sawers.

The page was taken down after the Mail on Sunday informed the Foreign Office. The Liberal Democrats called for an inquiry into the matter, while senior Tory MP Patrick Mercer said Sir John had left himself open to blackmail.

MODERN dating in the digital instant age.

Young people today face some tricky decision making thanks to the ubiquity of online social networking sites, making going out with someone a process fraught with even more uncertainty.

For example: At what point do you update your Facebook relationship status? Too soon might seem presumptuous and needy - wait too long and you seem disinterested.

In order to gain insight into this, I interviewed a young colleague who, as Jane Austen, might put it, is 'out' in society (although as a journalist he's not in possession of a good fortune).

His basic take was that he wouldn't change it from 'single' until he absolutely had to - and commented that it was considered 'bad form' for the man to change his first: "Always let the bird do it".

So is Facebook acting as a Trojan horse for all manner of strange things - including some which want to rob you blind?

I recently blogged on a problem I was having signing out of my Hotmail account - and the error message (https://ssl.facebook.com/accept_token.php) seemed to suggest that the well known social networking site might be behind the problem.

I contacted the Hotmail Live team and in a reasonably short time they came back with potential fixes - one of which was asking if I had added the Facebook module to Windows Live Hotmail (I hadn't - or at least I hadn't personally done so.)

I've been having problems each time I try to log out of my hotmail account from my home computer.

On every occasion I was getting the following message:

"Signing out

You're signing out of the following sites:

MSN Account Services

https://ssl.facebook.com/accept_token.php

If we can sign you out of a site, appears next to its name. If we cannot sign you out of a site, appears next to its name.

If we couldn't sign you out of a site, click Try Again to try signing out again.

When you're done, click Done."

(I've posted both image and text in case people searching need help finding the solution)

I've discovered it's solved by deleting all private data from your internet browser (except saved passwords).

Does make you wonder what's causing it though - it seems lots of people are having the same issue, and as it was solved by deleting cookies etc, it seems to suggest it's something nasty which has been downloaded.

Given Facebook's obsession with giving access (see blog below) to all and sundry to ALL your private data, and given the hotmail error message specifies facebook, who's to say that popular social networking site isn't responsible?

I've raised it with the Hotmail technical bods and I'll report back if they come up with a reason why this is happening.

A *LOT* of people use Facebook applications.

They all seem harmless fun, in the main, such as chosing your 'top five' in all manner of subjects, taking quizzes and suchlike.

On the other hand there is a side to these programs which many people don't seem to consider.

You are allowing a third party, not connected to Facebook, access to all information you place on the site.

I see some people are getting their knickers in a twist over plans which could see the government monitoring social networking sites like Facebook in the fight against crime and terrorism.

Some, such as Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake are concerned, and he said: "It is deeply worrying that they now intend to monitor social networking sites which contain very sensitive data like sexual orientation, religious beliefs and political views."

I suppose one question is: has anyone who choses to live their life in public got any claim to privacy any more?

The Facebook ethos is everyone can see everything.

People complain about the CCTV culture in our towns and cities but then stick up pictures of themselves wearing hardly anything or drunk out of their skulls.

A lot of people seem unable even to make the most rudimentary privacy settings meaning all their information, pictures and videos will be available to anyone.

And don't forget, if you die in a bizarre and horrible fashion, The Sun, (or *ahem* your regional paper) may well illustrate the story with a picture of you. Drunk. From Facebook.

The problem with all this government snooping is that they WILL end up misusing the legislation.

Other anti-terrorist measures have led to octagenarians being ejected from Labour Party Conferences and then arrested, and councils using the laws to monitor if people's wheeliebin lids are open more than an inch, along with many other examples.

Below: Would you want this to be your epitaph? Some people's privacy settings suggest they wouldn't mind if it was.

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A chum asked me today for advice - his mother-in-law has sent him a friend request on Facebook.

So what to do? To refuse would clearly have a lot of potential pitfalls.

But saying yes also causes problems. The point of social networking seems to be that everything's out in the open.

Write a dirty joke on someone's wall, launch a foul mouthed (yet friendly) tirade or link to a dubious Youtube vid and chances are your staid MIN will get the hump and think you're some kind of deviant. And then probably make your life a misery (or more so in this case).

You can, of couse accept the request, and then subtly remove it, which is what I suggested to him.

Facebook sends you a message saying you've been accepted as a friend, but not one when you get canned.

So all is well - unless, of course, she tries to visit your profile, or send you a private message.

And if she's really evil and cunning as only a mother in law can be, she might have installed the unfriender.

This nasty and vindictive application tells you when you have been removed from the list of friends by someone.

Let's just hope that his MIN isn't that expert at Facebook, and, er, doesn't read this blog!

I used to love the William Gibson 'Cyberpunk' novels.

Set in a near future of high technology and crumbling society they seemed to represent a possibly accurate vision of what might come to pass, with corporations ruling the roost.

Of course, they were successful not just because they were about the technology and science fiction. At the heart of each such as Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive was a well written thriller.

In this genre, cyberspace was where people met each other electronically - and they did so by 'jacking in' - plugging a cable into a cranial socket in their bonce

Social networking was a bit more hard work in this vision of the near future and I suppose it's now unlikely to come to pass.

With facebook, twitter, ever more hi-tech mobile phones, and so on all providing a mass of easily accessible, user friendly and instant communications technologies, it's hard to imagine surgery ever playing a part in everyday networking and conversation.

Perhaps Cyberpunk is dead - shame really as I'd trust the brain as a bit of hardware more than my error prone computer. Mind you if it crashed after a virus...

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Below - one vision of the future which may never come to pass - everyman communication cybernetics.

Spammers are increasingly targeting social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, computer experts warned today.

Growing numbers of cyber-criminals try to trick users into revealing passwords so they can hijack their personal profiles and send out messages promoting everything from pornography to medication.

New figures from IT security firm Sophos also reveal that the UK is now the world's 10th worst offender for relaying spam.

Some 2.7% of all junk e-mails came from compromised computers in Britain in the last three months of 2008 - up from 2.5% in the same period a year earlier.

The US retains its crown as global spam king, being responsible for relaying 19.8% of unwanted e-mails between October and December last year.

Interesting new statistics from Ofcom about people's habits during the current multimedia explosion.

For me the striking thing is that people aren't changing their habits much - just doing more.

The report shows that Consumers spent 429 minutes, or more than seven hours a day, watching television, listening to radio, surfing the internet and making fixed-line and mobile calls in 2007, compared with 423 minutes in 2002.

This is an incredibly huge sounding amount, although I suppose you've got to take into account people will probably be doing other things, including driving, at the same time.

You might have thought traditional pursuits such as the simple telly would have seen a huge decline as a result of the increased platforms on offer.

But no - in 2007, 218 minutes a day were spent watching television, compared with 224 in 2002 - not a great deal of difference.

So basically social networking on the internet, texting, sending video messages, streaming your tedious existence pointlessly over the net through bambuser and so on is all in addition to whatever radio, tv and phone calls you were doing before!

You see those people over there in the corner? You probably don't recognise them, but they're your family. Go on, try and talk to them. Perhaps even go out somewhere together. Oh - someone's written a pithy comment on your Facebook wall. Better reply. Chance gone.