Facebook may cause break-ins say UK police

According to the BBC, a woman claims her house was broken into twice because of Facebook status updates that said they would be out of town. I have a problem with this. Are you dumb enough to put your home address on a social site? Then it's your fault.

I have no info on my page, other than my hometown (how else are people going to know who I am?). Not my address, not my phone number, not the name of the company I work for. That's my business. But then again, the people I'm "friends" with already know all this.

Facebook, of course, says that the risk is the same as sharing info in person or in an e-mail. Well, that's not quite true. In person you're sharing with one person. Sure, he can tell others, but I assume you only tell someone you know, not random strangers. But again, why have all this info online? I'm sure people go on Facebook & discuss an upcoming trip. But if your home address is not on the site, how is someone going to rob you? Think people.

Heck, some co-workers know what complex I live in, but not my specific unit. Some people just don't understand security.

Uploading photos

On Christmas my cousin decided that my Facebook photo was a bad one. Well, yeah, it's a photo I took of myself with my cheap prepaid cell phone. I held it a foot from my face & clicked. It's the same photo on here. Not great, but it's not like a really care that much.

But my cousin does. So he took out his much better digital camera & took a bunch of pictures, against a white wall, & in front of the Christmas Tree. Then I watched while he & his computer friend ( I think, by the way they talk, that he does IT work for a hospital) went about getting the photos on my page.

I sort of knew what you did, but I watched & learned. Namely, put the photos on my cousin's harddrive, then have me log on to Facebook, go on my page to change the picture. For other photos, so I could change to a non-Christmas photo, e-mail the photos to me. Those photos are still on my e-mail, but I can, of course, send them to "documents" or "pictures" anytime as long as I don't delete the e-mail.

Of course what I really need to do is get a digital camera. My cousin's friend also gave us a vacation slideshow last night by hooking up his laptop to the TV so we could look at his pictures from his family's trip to Egypt. It took them a while to figure out how to set up the slideshow, but once they did it worked fine. Of course another way to do this would be a CD or DVD, but since they traveled here from Southern California I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to carry photo CD's AND a laptop.

Eventually I will get the camera, but cost is a consideration. Isaw one in the paper for around $40 today, but it was a Vivitar, not a Sony or Canon, so I'm guessing it's a lower quality camera. We will see.

Reading e-books online

Yes, Google launched it's e-bookstore some time ago. Yesterday I found out about Project Gutenberg. What is that? It is a site devoted to public domain books. These can be downloaded to your computer or put on an e-reader like a Kindle.

But what kind of books? How about classic fiction like Dickens, Shakespeare, Tolstoy & DeFoe. Not exactly what a current reader wants to put on a digital device. Yes it's free, but so what? This is always going to be the problem with something like this. Do  I really want to waste space on my computer for Robinson Crusoe or Huckleberry Finn? Or would I like the chance to get newer material?

And, not being a geek, I want to know, can I even use a Kindle? See, my computer is a desktop, not a laptop. Therefore I don't have wireless in my house. A Kindle, or an iPad use WiFi on the cheaper models, & WiFi & 3G on the more expensive versions. But this is never explained in all the stories I see on these devices.

If this is the case, if I had one of these, I could only use them at the public library or the local mall, which has complete WiFi access. In other words it's totally useless to me or someone else who doesn't have a laptop at home. Yes, I can read an e-book online, but then you have the issue of LCD lighting. This is not the way to read a book. It's too tiring on the eyes.

I wish these companies would come clean on this. Borders is 5 minutes from my house, Barnes & Noble 10 minutes. Both are selling various e-readers, none of which are cheap. $150-$300 mostly, & probably not usable by me, unless I don't understand the technology, which I readily admit. But hey, I'm not the main target audience anyway. I'm too old.

Sports website rips off fans

I am a winter sports fan. I love the Winter Olympics, especially skiing. When the Olympics are not on, I still will watch World Cup races. Or at least, I used to. Last year & the year before I was able to follow the season on a certain website that carried all the events. You clicked on & watched an event from beginning to end.

Here's the problem. This is the website for a channel that isn't carried on cable or satellite. Only as a digital subchannel. Why? I have no idea. This is the channel's owners decision, which IMHO is a really stupid one. It means that only people watching TV over the air have access to the channel, meaning a much smaller viewership base. Why would you do that? BTW- it's owned by the network that has rights to the Olympics. Figure it out.

Now to the website. You can no longer watch the video streams or the replays unless you pay . That's $4 for a single event (like today), $9 for the World Championships in February, or $30 for all 71 events. Who is going to watch all 71 events? I consider this to be pure unmitigated greed. It was free the last two years, what changed?

For the record, I can watch any college football game, any college basketball game & various soccer, rugby, & other events in their entirety on ESPN 3 without charge. I can watch every program CBS shows, primetime, daytime, late night, without charge. Just in the last two days I have watched on CBS' website a full episode of Letterman, a full episode of Craig Ferguson, & the most recent episode of Hawaii 5-0. I watched Manchester United vs Arsenal (1st place vs 3rd) on ESPN 3. What is this scummy, greedy networks problem?

This is what destroys the web. You want to have commercials, go right ahead. CBS shows commercials on the web. ESPN 3 doesn't interestingly enough. You just get the logo saying the broadcast will be back soon. Hmmm. I mean if this network wants to make money, here's an idea. Have your channel on cable & satellite. Duh!

Online store fails Christmas

I had three ways to shop for presents from one of my favorite retailers today.

1. Drive 20 miles to their closest store
2. Call on the phone to their very busy 800#
3. Go on their website & order that way

Well I tried the latter. Bad idea. Here's what happened. The company's catalog (I have different ones) says that I had until December 18 to order for Christmas. This is December 15. Therefore no problem, right? Not so fast. No matter what I tried to order this is what came on my screen:"not available for this date". This wasted an hour.

So finally I gave up & called on the phone. Person answering had no idea why it was doing that, but took my order. In fact it would be done today. Why was this a problem? Isn't online shopping supposed to be convenient? I wasted almost 90 minutes because of this nonsense. This was the first time I used this company's website & it will be the last. I've been buying stuff from this outfit for 25 years, but I am ready to take my business elsewhere. Seriously folks, if you want to do business in the internet age you need to get someone to write a website that works properly, & doesn't tell customers :"I don't want your business".

Free games on Windows

Once in a while I try to play a game on my computer. I will install free games only to find that they don't play very well. Why is this? I have installed racing games., Awful. Using your mouse doesn't work because you can't steer properly. Golf games? Stupid. I just installed one, only to find that they make impossible shots that you can't make, no matter how many strokes you take. One idiot course had you shooting up a ramp to get to the other side of a hill where the hole was. problem was the ball had to twist around once it got over the ramp. Is it a magic ball? So stay away from these nonsense games.

Gawker sites hacked

Over the weekend a hacker group called Gnosis compromised Gawker & all it's sites. It collected all the usernames of the registered commenters on all the sites Gawker owns. This would include Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Deadspin & others. Now I read the first two, but have never registered or left a comment, so I'm OK.

The problem is, of course, the hackers got hold of e-mail addresses & passwords. Now if it's only comments that's one thing. But if you use the same password at shopping sites, now it's a big problem. Check your credit card bills if that's the case.

Seriously, if you use the same password everywhere, well that's just dumb. Of course, the only site I have ever bought anything at is Apple. And I have a different password there than anywhere else. I blog here (obviously), but also on a sports site. Different username, different password. My cell phone providers website? Different username, different password. Three different e-mail accounts, different providers, different usernames, different passwords. That's what you're supposed to do. But heck, ther head of Gawker was using the same password everywhere. Duh!

Be very careful. The term "identity theft" didn't exist before the creation of the internet. There's a reason for that.