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Delicous has managed to destroy itself in a single day. That's impressive by any standards, but I really think that they've done it. Users are complaining that they can't log in, and then when they do they're finding missing tags, no RSS feeds, the search function has been wrecked, tag bundles have disappeared, and that's just for starters. What do we get in return? Something called 'stacks' which are not interesting, novel or indeed new. At all. Plenty of other people have been doing them for ages.
The Delicious page over at Facebook is where most people are venting their spleen, and I've yet to see one complimentary comment. I really didn't think it would be possible to screw a service up that badly so quickly, but the new owners have managed it with stunning success. If you're looking for an alternative, and didn't jump ship last year, my blog post back then provides 28 alternatives to Delicious - I'll be going thru them to make sure that they still all work, but it's there in the meantime. I've had diigo as a backup for the last year, and I moved across today, lock stock and barrel. I suggest that you look around yourself!
If you're annoyed by Google's decision to hold onto your search history for a few months, and/or you really want to search in privacy, you could try Startpage which does the following:
* No IP address recorded.
* No record is made of your searches.
* No identifying or tracking cookies used.
* Powerful SSL encryption available.
* Free proxy surfing available.
* Praised by privacy experts worldwide.
* Twelve-year company track record.
* Third-party certified.
Have you noticed that you're now apparently eavesdropping on conversations that your Facebook friends are having with their friends who are not your friends? I've noticed this a couple of times recently, and it's quite uncomfortable, as I'm seeing conversations going back and forth which are clearly not designed for public consumption. What's causing it, and what can you do about it? I've been doing some digging and found a good explanation over at Sophos Naked Security. If what I say doesn't make sense, nip across there and try it a second time - as with anything Facebook, it gets complicated quite quickly and I'm not even sure that I've got my head around it properly.
The problem arises from the fact that there's a 'Friends of Friends' option when you post stuff - which you choose either explicitly, or which is set in your privacy settings. When you go to post a status update, check the following:
Before you post, check the box to the left of 'Post' and see what's in it. If you make something public then it really IS public, but we all know that, right? If your setting is Friends of Friends, then any of your friends friends can see what you're writing, and that could potentially be thousands of people. If you're posting from a list - that is to say, you've created a list of contacts and you're viewing that list, your post defaults to that list, rather than everyone. I think. You need to change the setting to just Friends.
Alternatively, or as well, you need to go to your Privacy option (top right) and choose to control your default privacy. You should see a page like this:
I have mine set to Custom, but that's just my choice. Click on Edit Settings for anything and everything and change as appropriate - pay particular attention to anything set to Friends of Friends or Public and consider changing them to Friends. You CANNOT affect the eavesdropping effect on other people if they have set privacy to Friends of Friends. You can only affect YOUR settings. If you find that you're listening in on other conversations that you'd rather not, I'd suggest a gentle comment to say that the discussion is actually semi public, and was that intentional?
If you're reading this and having an OMG moment because you realise that you've made something public that you really shouldn't have done, there is a solution. Scroll further down the privacy listing and you'll see this:
Click on the link and you'll be able to manage visibility. However (with Facebook there is always a caveat!) this will affect ALL of your old posts. The only other approach is to go back to the conversation and change the privacy on each posting. Simply click on the link in the top right hand corner thus:
You'll also be able to see how far the post is going if you simply hover the cursor over the posting:
Now, this post is shared between me, Sue, my friends and her friends. I can change that by simply clicking on the link and changing the privacy setting.
Are you confused yet? If you are, well, that's because that's how Facebook wants you to be. The simple answer is to change ALL your privacy settings to Friends. And tell all your friends to do the same thing. What Sophos are suggesting is to post the following to your status: "If you don't want your actions broadcast to everyone via the news ticker/News Feed please set your privacy to 'Friends' and ask your friends to do the same."
Now, you may think that you've already taken care of the problem if you've posted this to your status:
"Please do me a favor and move your mouse over my name here, wait for the box to load and then move your mouse over the "Subscribe" link. Then uncheck the "Comments and Likes". I would really rather that my comments on friends and families posts not be made public, thank You! Then re-post this if you don't want your every single move posted on the right side in the "Ticker Box" for everyone to see!"
Unfortunately, this doesn't work. It looks as though it has, but it hasn't. As Sophos say "This option stops you seeing when other people have broadcast a message to a wide audience. It does *not* stop your actions being broadcast by your friends!"
So - remember - not 'Friends of Friends' - change everything to 'Friends'.
We're not done yet I'm afraid. Now, you may be surprised to wander onto a webpage and see that one of your friends has liked it. How does that webpage know? After all, you don't have Facebook open in a tab do you? Unless you SPECIFICALLY log out of Facebook, you're still logged in. Closing the tab, closing the window, turning your browser off and on doesn't do it. You have to choose to LOGOUT of Facebook. However, that used to work. It doesn't any longer. An Australian techie has discovered that Facebook is tracking you, even if you DO log out. rather than deleting its tracking cookies, the site merely modifies them, maintaining account information and other unique tokens that can be used to identify you.(More on this story at http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/facebook-tracks-you-even-after-logging-out-20110926-1ksfk.html#ixzz1Z9AnZPEr)
So, if you visit a webpage that has a Facebook button or widget on it - it will know who you are, and is sending data back to Facebook. This builds on the concept that I mentioned the other day when talking about the passive sharing of information, only they've taken it to an extreme and in my opinion entirely unethical stage. The only way that you can get around this is to delete every Facebook cookie on your browser AND then to use another browser just to look at your Facebook stuff, and nothing else.
Welcome to 1984, just a few years too late.
In my previous post about Facebook in which I presented a work around for the whole tickertape disaster, I put forward the idea that they might be doing something rather more devious. I've spent much of this evening poking around reading stuff and here's an interesting thing.
Suppose you like reading about - oh, I don't know - disaster new items, celeb gossip, things that you enjoy, but would rather your friends didn't know. We all do it now and then - the juicy item on the front of a red top that we buy just to see who did what to whom when. Innocent enough. However, what if the person next to you in the carriage looked over your shoulder and then stood up and announced to the entire train carriage 'This person is reading a story about celebrity xyz!' you wouldn't be keen. Well, get used to it, because if you're not really, really careful, that's exactly what Facebook intends to do.
There's a really good story over at RWW on this which is worth reading, but let me expand a little more. There's a bunch of new apps/pages coming to Facebook, such as the Guardian app and one from the Washington Post. Both of these are doing something very interesting - the mere act of READING an article posts it as news. There is no 'Liking', no recommending - the simple fact of reading the specific article is all that's needed to tell everyone - not just your friends exactly what you're reading. Look at the FAQ from the Washington Post: "Once you're in the app, everything you read will be visible to your social network. On Facebook, you scroll through your friends' status updates and view photos - now it's just as easy to check out what they're reading... Everything you read within the app will be published to your Facebook network and the WP Social Reader app itself."
Over on the Guardian app page we see something similar. "Can everyone see what I read? The Guardian Facebook app is a "social reading" environment. Your Facebook friends will be able to see links to articles you have read within the Guardian app environment, and you will be able to see what they have been reading. We think this will help people discover content that they might be interested in." So that's a yes then. Of course, they're at pains to reassure you that everything is fine and dandy. "On any page, at any time, you can simply click the "Remove from timeline" link." So it's an opt out process, rather than an opt in process. And how long is it going to be that easy, I wonder? Given the complexity of Facebook options, this'll disappear into the morass real quick.
So, the effect is going to be that if you decide to use the app not only will what you read be shared with your friends - pretty much like it or not, it is going to clog up their news feeds or tickertape app, your news feed is going to get really messed up, and you lose control over your reading privacy. I'm not really into the whole 'it'll be a better experience for you' line, since actually it won't. If for no other reason that I'm not entirely sure that I DO want to know which of my friends are keen to read about which celeb is shagging which other celeb. 'Too much information' springs to mind. It's a real shame to see the Guardian getting involved with this sort of malarky - I had thought better of them. Of course, this is only the beginning of the story. I can easily see the day when simply remaining logged into Facebook and visiting other sites is going to get your browsing history spread around to everyone else. So what's the idea? Why is Facebook doing this sort of stuff? I think it's because people are sharing less and less with everyone, and more with select friends, lists and groups. Facebook thrives on openness, learning from their cattle (sorry, users) so that they can throw even more advertising at us. There is a constant striving towards inclusion - 'See what your friends do! You should be the same! You must do whatever your community does! You are not a free man, you are a Facebook user!'
If people think that Facebook is bad now, it's shortly going to get a whole lot worse, and you/me/we will have even less privacy. That really worries the heck out of me, and it should really worry you as well.
Quixey is a genius resource. If you're looking for an app for your browser or smart phone, this has just become one of your very best friends. Type in what you're looking for, limit to the resource that you're interested in, read the little summary and then click on the link to go and get it.
If you're into apps for your smart phone or iDevice, then you're going to be very happy indeed. Cracking little engine. And yes, it does also do games as well. Since it also includes priced as well as free apps keep a hold onto your wallet!
Regular readers will know that I really like the Blekko search engine - with the use of slashtags it's possible to do a range of really interesting, exciting things. They've come up with a new wheeze now, which is search engine monte, and I've linked to the page for you to play: blekko | librarians /monte Here's a screenshot if you're desperate though:
Simple concept - just whack in the search you want to run, followed by a space then /monte and you'll get three columns. Choose the one you like the best and see what happens when you click:
You can of course do this for any search that you like - lots of uses that I can think of. See if you really DO think Google has the best answers, try it as an icebreaker, test results across engines and so on. This is nice and quick, but if you like the concept but not execution, try BlindSearch instead, which does the same thing.
OK, so the Facebook monkeys got out of the cage and messed up your feed, my feed and the feed of most of the planet it seems. Tickertape boxes, recent stories, total mess, right? Your screen may look something like this:
We've got that damn annoying tickertape box (1) which is one of THE most irritating things I've seen on Facebook - this is a reminder of those marquee scrolling bars from the bad old design days of the late 90s. Then you've got some damn stupid recent stories thing (2)that's about 3 days old and which aren't stories you're interested in at all. Then you have, hiding in plain view, a solution - your lists at (3).
Click on the lists option - it should break open on the screen to give you a listing. Yours will be different to mine, but don't fret.
Now, you can either click on one of the list options, in which case skip on an image or two, or you can click to Create a list.
Give your list a name of some sort.
Then click on 'Manage list' and 'Add/Remove Friends'.
This'll pop you up a list of your friends. Simply click on the ones that you want to add to the group. If you don't have a lot, and want to get back towards the 'old style' Facebook page, click on all of them. If you have thousands of friends - well... sorry. That's a lotta clicking, but you shouldn't be so damn popular should you? When you've populated your list, save it. Then go back to your Facebook page and click on the list. This is what you'll get:
We now have a nice little news stream (1) for what everyone in the list (ie. all your friends or subset thereof) are up to, no recent stories rubbish and just a list of members (2) where the tickertape was previously. Keep clicking no to the list suggestions and get rid of those and it'll be even neater.
In future, just click on the list you created, or any others that you have put together. You'll feel happier.
And so, that's the end of the story except... while we'll all running around doing stuff like this, and getting all annoyed and excited about it, I wonder what exactly Facebook is REALLY doing in that backroom of theirs? Cos y'know.. call me paranoid if you like, but this just looks like diversionary stuff to me. I don't know if it's the new Timeline thing they're threatening, or something else, but keep out an open eye!
via www.jove.com
This isn't of any direct relevance or interest to me, but I had a very nice email from the publishers and so I thought it was worth passing on the details of it to those librarians with an interest in the subject matter. They're very keen to talk to librarians, and that's always something to be encouraged!
Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is a peer reviewed, PubMed indexed journal devoted to the publication of biological, medical, chemical and physical research in a video format.
The Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) was established as a new tool in life science publication and communication, with participation of scientists from leading research institutions. JoVE takes advantage of video technology to capture and transmit the multiple facets and intricacies of life science research. Visualization greatly facilitates the understanding and efficient reproduction of both basic and complex experimental techniques, thereby addressing two of the biggest challenges faced by today's life science research community: i) low transparency and poor reproducibility of biological experiments and ii) time and labor-intensive nature of learning new experimental techniques.
The complexity and breadth of life science research has increased exponentially in recent years. Research progress and the translation of findings from the bench to clinical therapies relies on the rapid transfer of knowledge both within the research community and the general public. Written word and static picture-based traditional print journals are no longer sufficient to accurately transmit the intricacies of modern research.
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