Locking Down Your Facebook Timeline is...Difficult

So, Facebook Timeline is coming real fast, and there's nothing you can do about it.  But you can make (most) of your Facebook private and/or unseeable -- it'll just take you a really long time.

Facebook Privacy! My favorite subject.

Learn how to do it with my article over at PCWorld --
Facebook Timeline Privacy Tips: Lockdown Your Profile

Yeah, unfortunately it looks like the only way to really "lockdown" your profile is to go through every single post that you've ever made and hide or delete them individually.  Hopefully Facebook will give us a way to hide entire years in a single click in the future, but for now this is what you gotta do.  The good news is that it's not...that...tedious.  Open up some Hulu and get clickin'.

Password Safety: Keep Secret Question Answers Safe

Many websites, such as online email accounts, have a password recovery program, in case people forget their passwords.  These recovery programs are usually in the form of a "secret question" -- in other words, if you forget your password you're not allowed to reset it unless you can supply the form with the correct answer to your secret question.

Because we're working with forgetful people here, the secret question is usually something easy -- such as "What city were you born in?" or "What is your mother's maiden name?"

Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are not always a secret.  I first discovered this when I was about 10 years old and I had a Hotmail account.  My secret question to reset my password was my dog's name -- and guess who also knew my dog's name?  Well, my obnoxious older brother did, and so he quite easily "hacked" into my email account by correctly answering the secret question and changing my password.

Former VP candidate Sarah Palin also discovered this a few years ago, when her Yahoo! Mail account was hacked using information from a Wikipedia article about her.  So yeah, if you're giving the correct answer to your secret question, your email password may not be very secure.

So how do you avoid that?  Easy -- come up with another answer.  To make it easier (for you) to remember and more difficult (for hackers) to guess, pick one answer and always use that answer, no matter what the question is.

For example, if you decide the answer to your secret question will be "pineapple," then use that answer even if the question is "What is your mother's maiden name?"  Now all you have to do is remember that one virtually unguessable answer. 

I like to mix it up sometimes, and pick different secret questions (if I have to choose a question from a list; if I can write my own question, I just write "the usual") every time -- but my answer is always the same.

Needless to say, this will only work if you don't forget the answer to your secret question.

Quotes: CES 2012

Ain't no party like a...Lenovo party.

"You know what would be great? If we could find a bar inside a casino! Do they have those here?"
-- Ginny, responding to the question of what to do when half the crew wants to drink and the other half wants to gamble. In Las Vegas.

Social Networking Tip: Disable Facebook Facial Recognition

In order to keep myself on track, I've decided to post at least one "themed" post each day.  Today is Sunday, so this is Social Networking Sundays.  OMG...my alliteration is so great.

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You may have heard about Facebook's facial recognition scandal.  In fact, I wrote a rather popular article about the entire thing last June -- Why Facebook's Facial Recognition is Creepy.

Basically, here's the deal: Facebook is using rudimentary facial recognition technology to make suggestions for tagging.  In other words, when you upload a photo of your friend Lisa, Facebook will use its not-so-impressive facial recognition skills to try to place who is in that photo.  If it successfully recognizes Lisa, it will suggest that you tag the photo as "Lisa."  If you confirm, and tag the photo as "Lisa," you are essentially telling Facebook that it guessed correctly, and Facebook can then tweak its algorithm to better recognize the next person.

And so on, and so on.

Now this may not sound super-creepy right off the bat.  After all, Facebook is only using this technology to tag your friends in pictures -- it's not exactly handing over confidential biometric information to the government, right?

Wrong.  Well, not totally wrong -- as far as I know, Facebook is not handing over biometric info to the government -- but wrong that it's harmless.  Because, you see, Facebook's facial recognition may totally suck at the moment, but it's getting better every day.  How?  People are uploading billions of pictures and tagging their friends, or telling Facebook how to recognize different people from different angles, in different lighting scenarios, with different backgrounds and hairstyles and clothes on.  Each time someone tags a photo of a person, Facebook can look back into its database full of pictures of that person (let's say, "Lisa") and compare how that person has changed in the newly-tagged photo.

Eventually, Facebook's facial recognition algorithm should be able to very accurately recognize people -- perhaps so accurately that it will only need one other photo of that person to be able to recognize them.  And, well, that's a big problem.

I'll let you speculate on why that's a problem.  Meanwhile, here's how to disable Facebook's facial recognition -- at least for the moment:

1. Log into your Facebook account and navigate to your Privacy Settings by clicking the arrow next to your name in the top right corner of the window, and then clicking "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down menu.

2. In the Privacy Settings menu, find "How Tags Work" and click "Edit Settings."

3. In the "How Tags Work" menu, click the setting that says "Tag Suggestions."

4. Change "Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded" from "Friends" (the default setting) to "No one."

5. Save all of your privacy settings and get out of there -- you're done!

This article was last updated on January 29, 2012.

Why Books are Here to Stay

PCWorld recently published an article on how to "Lose Your Unwanted Books" by going digital.  I love David, but reading this article made me sad!  Unwanted books?  What unwanted books?  My books are like my children.

Okay, that's a bit over-dramatic, but you get what I mean.  Now, don't get me wrong -- eBook readers, such as the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook are great, especially if you travel a lot.  They can hold thousands of books at a time, they have excellent battery life, and it's really easy to find the book you're looking for, thanks to search options.  Plus, I'm a huge advocate of technology in general -- so why don't I like eBook readers?  Here are a few reasons:

1. eBooks are Expensive

I know -- you can get tons of eBooks for super cheap or even for free.  But the reality is that most eBooks are priced right around the MSRP of their physical twins -- and they really shouldn't be.  After all, an eBook has virtually no production costs, right?  Meanwhile, real books are getting cheaper and cheaper, because bookstores keep going out of business.

2. Real Books Have Excellent Battery Life

Okay, so the latest Amazon Kindle with Wi-Fi has one month of battery life, based on half an hour of reading each day.   The Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch has two months of battery life, based on one hour of reading per day.  Every book I have ever picked up has FOREVER battery life.  Even if I accidentally drop them in the water while I'm taking a bath.

3. Libraries Are Awesome

This is about 1/6 of my book collection. Check out those pretty color-coded shelves!

Public libraries and private libraries are awesome, and a heck of a lot more attractive than one digital eBook reader.

4. You Don't Really Own eBooks

Penguin recently pulled a bunch of its eBooks from local libraries, because it was afraid of potential piracy.  You know what that means -- if Penguin can pull eBooks from local libraries...it can probably pull eBooks from your personal eBook library, as well.  Imagine what could happen if the "powers that be" suddenly decide that a book is controversial or "dangerous" and all we have are digital copies...

5. Digital Books Promote Illiteracy

Hear me out on this one.  When I get sick of a book, or I need to clear some space on my shelf, or I happen to have two copies of the same book, what do I do?

I donate my extra books to my local library, or to charity.  That way, other people -- for example, underprivileged kids or people who can't afford to buy books at full retail -- are able to enjoy them.  For example, the Salvation Army near my house offers 50 percent off books (and other items) on every third Friday of the month.  That means that you can pick up paperback books for about $0.35 each.

But with eBooks there is no "extra stock."  When you get sick of an eBook, or you no longer need it in your library...you delete the file.  Nobody else gets to enjoy that eBook, unless they go purchase it for themselves at full retail price (unless they happen upon a sale, of course).  The Salvation Army doesn't take digital donations, as far as I know.

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Don't get me wrong -- eBook readers are great for traveling.  And for reading while lying on your side in bed when you're too lazy to turn pages.  But that's about it.

Notes: CES Unveiled

If you're not familiar with CES, here's how it works:  the actual show, that is, the Consumer Electronics Show aka CES, lasts four days.  The show floor opens on Tuesday morning and closes on Friday at around 4 p.m.

However.  In reality the show goes from the Sunday afternoon before the Wednesday opening to the Sunday evening after the Friday closing.  There are a ton of press conferences, press events, booth previews, other previews, people trying to sell stuff, people trying to get stuff out there, there's ShowStoppers and Digital Experience and all sorts of events where I get free food.  That's how they placate me -- free food.

Anyway, today (Sunday) was CES Unveiled, which is the official preview of CES.  Er, yeah.  It's basically a three-hour mini-CES for the press and industry analysts to go around and see what they will eventually see on the show floor (and some things they won't see -- some companies only exhibit at CES Unveiled).

So here's what I saw:

- Tobii: Eye-tracking/eye-control input system for laptops, arcade games, and desktop computers.


- Parrot Asteroid: An update to the Asteroid in-vehicle Internet system, including three new after-market systems, complete with touchscreen functionality and 3G connectivity.
- Sculpteo: An app that lets you take a photo of your face and then have it printed -- in 3D -- on a ceramic vase.
- Eers: Custom-fitted earphones that are ready to go in just five minutes.
- OnStar: Is opening its API up to third-party developers.  Trying to stay relevant as the OEMs get more and more on-board with in-vehicle communications systems.
- Qooq: A tablet specifically designed for the kitchen, of all places!
- Kivic: An in-vehicle entertainment system that can be taken out of your care and placed in your living room.
- Escort Live!: A social network that crowd-sources speed traps using radar detectors and a smartphone app.
- Cadillac CUE: Cadillac's in-vehicle linux-based system that will debut soon...or so they say.

...And a few other things.  I'll be checking out the Eers custom-fitted earphones in the next couple of days so I can let y'all know how those work out.  But for now I'm going to grab me some sleep -- because I have a feeling that I will need to take it where ever I can.

CES 2012

Well, it's that time of year again -- the time when the entire tech industry descends on Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show.  As part of the tech industry (and a lover of Las Vegas), I will naturally be in attendance.  This year I'm working almost exclusively for my main mag, PCWorld, and I'll be covering a couple of beats.

My main beat is Car Tech -- Ford is expected to have a huge presence this year, and Mercedes is giving a keynote speech, so PCWorld decided to try and get on that bandwagon (we don't normally cover Car Tech, so there's no dedicated editor).  As for my extensive knowledge of cars, well, I do...drive them.  Actually, I know a little about cars -- my uncle worked for Ford for over 30 years, and most of my family is from Motor City.  But that's all the "non-tech" stuff -- I drive a 2004 Ford Mustang convertible, so I know very little about fancy in-dash systems with touch-screen-voice-control and cloud connectivity.  For what it's worth, my Mustang has a power inverter (just installed it today) and pink street glow.  Check it out:

I know it looks purple here, but it's actually pink.  And it changes colors!

Here's a view of the inside:

Looks a little more pink here.

I know -- hardly techie, but still AWESOME.  Anyway, that's the extent of my car tech in my actual car, so this should be fun.  I did recently attend the Silicon Valley International Auto Show and check out some of the more high-tech cars -- Ford included -- to get a feel for the beat.  Because I'm such a champion that I go the extra mile by attending cool tradeshows that are happening five minutes from my home.  I did learn something fun from the California Highway Patrol booth: Street glow, ala my Mustang, is totally legal, as long as it's not red or blue facing to the front (because those are cop colors).

My second "beat" is "Geek Tech."  In other words, I'm expected to traverse the show floor and find fun, geeky items that will fit PCWorld's Geek Tech blog, which is run by the totally awesome and astonishingly patient Nick.  Geek Tech covers all things nerdy and awesome, so I'll likely be looking at robotics, mind- and eye-controlled devices, and any booth that has people blowing things up.  Also: PC case mods, funky chargers, floor-cleaning robots that double as synchronized dancers.

My last beat is, of course, being really awesome.

Anyway, be on the lookout for my CES coverage -- like a champion, I will be posting here, PCWorld, Geek Tech, maybe Cosmo, and I'll be on Twitter/Facebook/Google+ (? maybe ?).  I do have a new phone, after all, so I have to learn how to use it!

Wish me luck and let me know what you'd like to see at CES!

Unlimited 4G Tethering...on Verizon

I dropped by the Verizon Wireless store today to check out the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus.  I was so wooed by it (not really, but my Droid X was looking pretty shabby) that I bought it (oh yeah, also my plan was due for an upgrade).  Anyway, here's some good news: Verizon is having a 4G phone sale (the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was $250 with "upgrade" pricing), and they are still doing the "double your data" special until January 15.

Even better news?  If you happen to have a grandfathered-in unlimited data plan, you can get unlimited tethering -- or "Mobile HotSpot" -- functionality for an extra $30.  Sure, it's $30 on top of your $30 unlimited plan, for a grand total of $60 per month, but that's still a pretty good deal -- assuming you use a lot of data, that is.  The cheapest Mobile HotSpot option right now is 6GB for $50 (Mobile HotSpot data is not doubled under the "Double Your Data" special).  Considering I have a ton of video to catch up on and no broadband (we're in the middle of moving), this is not bad -- not bad at all.

The catch is that you will need to sign up for the Mobile HotSpot option with your grandfathered-in unlimited data plan in a Verizon Store.  If you try to sign up for it online you'll be forced to change your data plan to a limited plan, and you won't be able to change it back.  So as long as you get a Verizon rep to add it for you, you'll have unlimited HotSpot goodness.