BKaF – Brad Kovach and Friends

Okay, so this kid comes up to me and admires my original Powerbook G4 on the first day of school. I mention that it is my own personal machine, and I can tell this guy is really into computers and technology and anything with a circuit board inside of it. He asks if I have ever installed Linux on a computer and if I had considered installing it on one of the Clamshell iBooks. I’m thinking, you know that would be worth a try. Time marches on and we install Mandrake Linux (Remember that distro?), and we can’t quite seem to get it to work, but at least we tried just to say we did. We used Claris Home Page like it was the best thing since html, and shoveled snow in our spare time. That was the world when TechTV ruled, Buddy Hackett and Bob Hope died, and Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl. These were the salad days if you will, and they are but a distant memory to BK and his followers, readers, compatriots, cronies, entourage, etc. At the heart of it all was this guy, who was just trying to make a living, and carving his place on the web for the kids. Does anyone else remember 7th grade that year? Time flies Class of 2008, time flies. I remember you all well. Peace! NH

Silke recommends Calvin and Hobbes and the Dog Kick. Remember… recommend videos, and I’ll put them on my site for you!

 

 Robot Chicken - Calvin and Hobbes: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Dog Kick: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

So,

This weekend, I went to Bozeman, Montana, for a bit of college auditionage. I got to drive up with some really nice people, eat some interesting food I’d never had before, and sleep in the Rape Motel.

I’m a fairly large, capable young man, who could defend himself if need be–

Man, who am I kidding?

I stayed at a hotel called the Lewis and Clark. It was really high class. Look at this picture:

If you look closely at one of the mirrors, you can see what appears to be a window. But, that is not a window. That is the door. A creepy glass door that allows all of downtown Bozeman to see me in my skivvies when I get up in the morning.

Sure, there’s curtains to cover the window, but what would have happened if a chain smoking bartender from Fiji had decided to come in, beat me up, and steal 20 bucks out of my wallet?

 I’m not ready for the real world.

-Tom

When I redesigned my website, I had anticipated a design that was color centric. I wanted the colors to be changeable so that the site’s look wouldn’t become stale. I want to know what you think…

Making it to Digg/Popular is the dream of many. Traffic spikes, thousands of visitors, and poor planning can cause catastrophic failure if you don’t plan carefully. Here are 10 tips to make sure failure isn’t an option.

Disclaimer: This is what I’ve heard. I’ve never been Dugg.

Infrastructure

1. Have responsive servers

A responsive web server is crucial to serving visitors. Lethargic websites repel visitors, and ultimately you lose the Digg. If a request hasn’t been cached, it needs to be generated quickly, and the only way to do that is with a powerful server. My web host, hostrocket.com, guarantees that my web server has 4.4 ghz of processor and at least 2 gigabytes of RAM. That should do it. If you can, Gzip content.

2. Have bandwidth

A responsive web server is nothing if your “tubes” are plugged or are small. If your host is capping your bandwidth, you’re screwed. If you have lots of media, you’re definitely screwed. My host claims redundant OC-3/OC-12 lines.

3. Cache, cache, cache!

WordPress users especially! Database driven websites will grind to a halt when they make Digg/Popular. If you cache your site, your database servers won’t take a significant hit. Most content management systems include or have caching systems available. Drupal has caching built in. WordPress users should get the wp-cache plugin and LEAVE IT ON.

4. Mirroring

If you have a video, and you’re pretentious enough to host it yourself, do the world a favor and upload it to a video sharing site, like YouTube or break.com, and then link to it from your page. They have bandwidth to supply streaming video to thousands… you don’t.

It also doesn’t hurt to visit your site on caching systems like Coral before you make Digg/Popular. Simply add .nyud.net after your domain. My website, for example, would be http://www.bradkovach.com.nyud.net on the Coral network.

Design

5. Reveal your feeds

If you have an RSS enabled site, show it off! Use the ubiquitous feed icon… Make sure your HTML declares that you have an RSS feed to light up feed finders in all modern browsers.

Put this between the <head> </head> on all pages.
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="[website
title here]" href="[link to RSS feed here]" />


6. Make your site easy to navigate

All the basics should be on your site. Make sure clicking the logo takes you to your home page. If there are dropdowns, make sure the user knows before he or she mouses-over. Add chronological context so that by “going left” users know that they are visiting older context and “going right” is newer content (or vice-versa).

Search is a must. If your CMS doesn’t do this, use Google SiteSearch. It’s free.

Make sure your website works in all major browsers. At least cover the big four: IE6, IE7, Firefox, and Safari.

7. Make Digg buttons available

If your users are coming from Digg, make it easy for them to support your content. Use Digg Tools to make sure your content has a Digg button that works.

Writing

8. Be cheeky

Digg users appreciate sarcasm. If you have opinions, let it show. Make sure diggers know that you are addressing THEM. Diggers also have tendencies that they go crazy over. Ron Paul and Apple gossip are categories that make people salivate/soak undies. The video game phenom Portal is another excellent topic.

9. Use lists

Lists obey the f-shaped pattern and help your visitors get through your content quickly. Diggers are busy people. Make sure you help them speed through the internet. Don’t consume their time. Unless you have games.

10. Think it out

A well constructed article will be organized. A little pre-writing goes a long way. I have this list scratched out in a Moleskine cahier that never leaves my desk. It isn’t much, but it helped me organized the flow of my article. Diggers are know-it-alls. They appreciate good grammar and a spell-checked document. Proofread and find mistakes.

In Parts One and Two of my series on The Demise of Facebook, I looked at Facebook’s background in general, Facebook’s infrastructure choices up to this point, and how its users have paid the price.

Security and Privacy

Facebook touts its security and privacy as a big feature. Part of Facebook’s appeal comes from the fact that you can “use privacy settings to control who sees your info.” (Quoted from Facebook’s homepage).

Facebook, although diligent in keeping information from the public eye, has lax policies regarding usage of private data within the company. A recent scoop by tech-gossip aggregator Valleywag exposed that “Facebook employees can (and do) check out anyone’s profile.”

Facebook employees can also cross-reference profile views, by perusing a list of profiles a user has viewed. Surprisingly, the privacy policy, which every user agrees to, doesn’t forbid this practice. Hypocritically, if you send a user a copy of a profile, it’s a privacy policy violation, which have previously been punished with cease and desist letters! When Facebook says you can “use privacy settings to control who sees your info,” they mean that you can use privacy settings to control who (of people that don’t work at Facebook) can see your info.

Facebook openly admits to objectionable data aggregation practices. Facebook’s privacy policy states that “we may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile” (Facebook’s Privacy Policy). Translation: “we might stalk you using newspapers, blogs, instant messenging services, and other users of Facebook to help people stalk you faster.” They harvest data? This stalking process needs a cool name. Like Beacon.

Facebook Beacon

To clear up misconceptions, I need to explain some terminology. Opt-in and Opt-out are words used to describe security practices. When a service is said to be opt-in, it means the user chose to partake in the service. Users can OPTion IN. When a security practice is opt-out, it means the user is automatically enrolled/subjected/interacting with a service, sometimes without knowledge that they were. Users can OPTion OUT from their enrollment.

Facebook Beacon, akin to Platform in that it allows 3rd party integration with Facebook, was originally opt-in without a chance to opt-out. When a user would make an action on non-Facebook websites, such as a purchase, information would be sent back to Facebook, without the user’s consent.

Facebook Beacon has raised significant problems. During the 2007 holiday season, Overstock.com customers noticed that their purchases were being aggregated to Facebook… which is bad if you’re buying for a Facebook friend, or spouse…

Sean Lane’s purchase was supposed to be a surprise for his wife. Then it appeared as a news headline – “Sean Lane bought 14k White Gold 1/5 ct Diamond Eternity Flower Ring from overstock.com” – last week on the social networking Web site Facebook.

Without Lane’s knowledge, the headline was visible to everyone in his online network, including 500 classmates from Columbia University and 220 other friends, co-workers and acquaintances.

And his wife.

Facebook backs down in privacy case

It’s not all bad, though. After exposing the online habits of millions of users without permission, Facebook apologized to users, and will now allow them to opt-out. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for Beacon’s intrusiveness in a press release on Facebook.com. Curiously, after the apology, Beacon has remained opt-in by default. Millions of naive users are having information aggregated about them. I suggest you turn it off.

Turning off Beacon

1. Go to the privacy page
2. Select “edit settings“
3. Check “Don’t allow any websites to send stories to my profile” and click “Save.”

Update: Respect

I had this in my notes, I just forgot to add it.

Facebook may be the most fun you’ve had online. I’ve had a blast using it. Facebook is hoarding your data. People upload photos, events, their lives, etc. to Facebook. Good luck getting it back. Facebook makes it difficult, if not impossible, to cancel your account. You can “Deactivate” your account, but it’s there… waiting… for you to come back and rejoin Facebook. You can deactivate, but Facebook has all of your photos, comments, demographic information, and your online life archived… for whatever reason.

According to Facebook’s Privacy Policy, “Individuals who wish to deactivate their Facebook account may do so on the My Account page. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of Facebook.”

Even continued requests to Facebook support yield endless hoops to jump through. In the hilarious article 2504 Steps to closing your Facebook account, Stephen Mansour proves that it is nearly impossible to close a Facebook account. His email banter with a customer “service” representative proved it:

If you do want your information completely wiped from our servers, we can do this for you.

So he deleted everything. However…

[Facebook] apologize[s], but you have not completely deleted all of your information. You still have incoming and outgoing messages, wall posts, mini-feed stories, friends, and contact information remaining on your profile. Once you have completely removed all information from your account, I will permanently delete it for you.

Facebook doesn’t respect your data. They hoard it. They profit from it. Without it, they wouldn’t be worth a recent $10 billion investment from Microsoft.

Citations

• Facebook employees know what profiles you look at
• Facebook | Privacy Policy
• Facebook backs down in privacy case
• Announcement: Facebook Users Can Now Opt-Out of Beacon Feature
• 2504 steps to closing your Facebook account