The password is... PASSWORD..NO! Thank you for playing

Do you use your kids' names as a password? Your pet's name, that you talk about on your blog? You might want to rethink that strategy. Seriously. I have a friend right now in shock because she had an easy-to guess password. Someone hacked her gmail account. She lost everything. This includes her email, her blogs (which were on Blogger, owned by, who else? Google). What's more, her passwords were in a folder, in her gmail account. So, the person who hacked her has it all. She is left with nothing and is scrambling to undo the damage that can be done all over the Internet. Meanwhile, she is locked out of everything Google. Can you imagine? Another reason computing in the Cloud has me a bit a-skeered...Google owns my life.

It is easy to get lax, but here's the deal, from me to you. If you have a word from the dictionary as a password, change it, RIGHT NOW. I'll wait. ...

...are you back? This is why: there are programs that just run dictionary words and common numbers trying to hack your password. Make no mistake, there are people out there, right now, as I write this, trying to hack you. A combination of letters, numbers and upper and lower case characters are the best chance you have to keep those out who want in to your accounts. Go ahead, make use of that shift bar. Also, while I am on the subject, make a new password for every single service you use online. I know it's a pain, but this way, if someone gets into one, they don't necessarily get into everything.

I know, I know..it's hard to keep track of that many passwords, but you have some options. If you are on a Mac, you have Keychain to help you. You can store passwords, but also generate them as well. On a PC, you can use Password Safe, an application that you download and use locally. It creates files for your passwords, and a master password to protect them all. What's more, it is open source, so you don't pay anything for it. As for what you find on the Internet, I would be very, very wary of any online password meters. How do you know that your password is not being snarfed? Keep it local! It's also smart to write those puppies down in case you have a hard drive crash. This actually happened to me in July, and I lost half of my passwords. Luckily, I did have most of them written down, and backed up.

I don't want to hear that you have been hacked, so change that password. Change it often. And store your passwords locally, not ONLINE where they can be hacked. Your online identity, treat it the way you would your bank information. Treat it the way you would your first born child. Guard it.

Consider this my public service announcement to all of you. Much love. Peace out.

T, who changed mine the minute I heard about this

Is Your Mama a Llama? Ask iPhoto

Image via CrunchBase

Dear Apple,

While you know I love you and love being in the middle of this torrid affair, I have a bone to pick with you. My husband, JNerd spent the day on Saturday setting me up on the latest Apple OS, Snow Leopard. Even the name is freakin' cool, I know, right? Compared to "Vista" I mean, come on? Which is sexier? Sleeker? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. It makes me a little bit hot. But. I am still miffed at you.

I have been waiting for some of the new features of Snow Leopard. It comes with updated versions of iLife, which is everything I use on a daily basis for my computer. Especially iPhoto. I love flickr and facebook integrated in my iPhoto, makes things easier. I especially was looking forward to the face recognition technology. The idea of not having to tag all of my photos was a pretty cool prospect. I know, it has a learning curve, and it has to learn my photos, but, I think it has a bit to go. It consistently missed my youngest daughter's face. But that's trainable, ok. But when it comes to my son? You have it ALL wrong. I present the following examples.

Here is a picture of JBear, with a llama.

Here is another picture of JBear, with a llama.

THIS is not, in fact a picture of JBear:

The name has been changed to protect the innocent, but you did, indeed, i.d. him as a llama. While it is true the child likes llamas, more than most people, he is in fact, a human being. His mama is NOT, nor has she ever been, a llama. It's like comparing streetcars to bicycles. Please make a note of it.

T, who still loves you

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You would have an iCrush too, if it happened to you

So you want to know where I have been, right? I mean, you love me and miss me and you have to know what I am doing with myself, yeah?

Sadly, my computer, he went boom. Or rather, crash. Or Floop. Or a ton of other onomatopoeias to describe, "Rip out my heart and stomp it into the ground while losing ALL of my data." It was ugly.

On July 4th, my computer, he wouldn't boot, he was slow. So I called tech support at Apple (after trying to repair and verify the disk on my own.) The tech took me through a few higher-level fixes, and finally, after two hours, I got this message:

could not repair disk after three tries. Disk fail.

It was ugly. BUT, it was under warranty...Well, there was nothing left to do but make an appointment with the Apple Genius and see what could be done.

His name was Jordan. He had sweet, dancing eyes. And he was quick to smile. Had I been about twenty years younger, I'd have fallen for him. As it was, I was at his mercy. He had my baby. I brought him (ok, it) in, laying him it on the bar, taking my place at the hipper-than-thou counter. There was my name, up on the screen, it was my turn. Time for him to work his Apple Magic. I raised my eyes anxiously, as I handed him my Macbook. Be gentle. "Tech support said hard drive, " I said. He smiled and said, "Yes, that's what it sounds like." He licked his lips. Eying me seriously: "It can't even find the partition. Definitely the hard drive. He clucked his tongue, sucking it a bit. Needs a new one."

I looked down. "Can you fix it? I need it by the end of the month, I am due to take it to Chicago." He winked at me. "Oh we will definitely have it happy by then! It will be done in 4-6 days. We'll get you all fixed up. You can't be without a computer longer than that!" I stifled my cougar impulse. It was natural to be grateful. This was my computer, after all.

"Just be gentle with it, it is pristine, it has been in an after-market case." "His blue eyes twinkled, "I noticed that, clearly a lot of care is taken with it. Not a fingerprint on it. We'll put this baby straight into a foam sleeve, don't worry. I'll take care of everything. He flashed me a reassuring smile and met my eyes across the top of the bar. I'll be gentle, I've done this before."

And just like that, I fell in love with an Apple Genius.

P.S. Ok, so I can't really be in love with the Apple Genius, because I am in love with my husband. The paper in my birdcage, my man, JNerd, he saved almost all the data that my computer tried to eat as the hard drive went south. He saved the pictures, and the Keychain, (which means I can find all my stuff and passwords from like forever). He saved my blog posts, and my writing and images and most everything else. So, there really isn't room for the Apple Genius. Just don't tell him that...I want him to want to do good things for me.

P.S.S. well, not for me, for my computer.

P.S.S.S. which really, when you get down to it, the two are the same.

P.S.S.S.S. me and the computer.

P.S.S.S.S.S. I am not really a Cougar, I just apparently play one on my blog.

T, who is counting the days

Watch This Before It Disappears! (worth it, really)

No telling when this will be pulled on YouTube, so watch now. A couple of years ago, I found this amazing acapella music group called Straight No Chaser. I spent a couple of hours watching their stuff and just being in awe. They have a hilarious rendition of 12 Days of Christmas, but the original, where they performed on stage, after being up for a few YEARS, must have been pulled recently. The musicians themselves put it up, but they cut an album in October so there may be contractual issues. In any case, I found another performance of it:

I was BEYOND thrilled to find out they cut a Christmas album in October, and I bought it on iTunes. LOVE it. Really. If you like good Christmas music, you have to buy this, it is a favorite of us all now.

>What Christmas music do you especially like?

T, who really, really recommends this CD

Spore, That's Like a Small Thing in the Atmosphere, Right?

No post tonight...I'm evolving. I'll let you know what I think.

T, who saw a friend play, and thinks it looks awesome

Technorati: Spore, videogames, timewasters

Music to Twitter By

comic by geekandpoke

Have you heard the new twitter song? That's right, friends, we have our own song. Don't you feel special?

You're No One if You're not on Twitter

This is part of a challenge that @ihatemornings is doing. how can I not love him with a name like that? The group has to write 50 songs in 90 days. I am highly impressed, since I barely manage a couple of posts a day!

Yay, JB! May you be the next JoCo!

T, who thought you should know

Technorati: independent_music, geekiness, twitter

I Knew Google Was Messing With My Head!

I know myself pretty well. I know what I am good at, and what I need help with. And truthfully, I cannot find my way out of a paper bag. Given a choice between two directions I will almost always pick the wrong one. I have lived here for sixteen years, and I still get the freeways confused. I finally figured out for the 91, East is RiversidE and West is West LA. Beyond that, I get confused if I am at all the least bit distracted. It's not my fault though...I never learned. I grew up in a small city, where we did Landmark Navigation: turn right at the 7-11. But here? You can't do that...WHICH 7-11? So, I had to learn a new way to get places. Sometimes, I will use my JPS, which is really just a frantic phone call to my husband asking, "Where am I?" He will look it up for me, rescuing me from certain aimless wandering and anxiety attacks. I am calling him less often, though, and being more self-sufficient. Especially since I found google maps.

Most of the time, it works...but sometimes? Sometimes Google Maps doesn't get it right. And really, this explains everything! Why in the quest for the park I am meandering through the construction site, the suburbs and probably hell, itself.

I knew they were out to get me!

(if you aren't reading XKCD, you are missing out!)

T, who isn't a complete geographic idiot

How about you? What are you good at? What do you need help with?

Technorati: Google_maps, xkcd, comics geography directions

Scraping the Bottom for SEO

Chances are, if you are a regular at Twitter, you are aware of the mystery of the strange followers with "tweets" that don't make any sense. You know the ones: Maggie668 (not a real account) starts to follow you. You click over to see who she is, and find a picture of a girl, probably a party girl. She's cute. What does she have to say? Her tweets don't make much sense, they are in four languages! The ones in English are barely coherent. What's going on here? Is she drunk? This account is most likely a bot "scraping" tweets off the public timeline, and attributing them to user in question. How many people is she following? How many follow her? And Why would anyone do this? Bottom line? Money. Isn't it always?

First a quick crash course. What is the most popular Internet buzzword right now? SEO or Search Engine Optimization. There is a ton of money to be had out there for people who are good at it. Companies will pay to to raise their page rank in the search engines. The higher the rank, the earlier you appear in the Google results. It isn't enough to google esoteric terms. You want to be associated with keywords that define you, your brand and bring visitors to your blog or business website. It is all about who drives the traffic. This is where Twitter comes in.

Say "Joe" comes in and starts an account at Twitter. He gets a couple of followers, but really doesn't follow many people. In his account, he has a link to his website. Meanwhile, new accounts start popping up all over, usually female, with names like Brittany, Maggie, Karen. The accounts have no links to any outside sites, so it is impossible to check out who they are. They post content but that content is really from the public timestream in order to appear to be tweeting. At first glance, everything seems fine. They follow a ton of people, a percentage follows back. Here's where it gets confusing. Stay with me, now... Once they have a great many followers, they all follow "Joe". Joe's website, an online gambling site,or a monetization site, jumps exponentially in its SEO. Every follower of "Joe"and friends of followers of Joe now gets to display Joe's link. It's right there in the picture bar. This is potentially thousands of indexed links for search engines. Now, the originator of Joe's account goes back to prospective clients and says, "Hey, I can raise your rank", and points to Joe's website. Little companies trying to break through believe it and pay money to increase their SEO. With the scraper bot, the originator of Joe's account wins clients. This is really just another form of spamming.

Why does it matter?

1. They are stealing your data. The things you say to your friends are harvested into someone else's account and passed off as their words. If you are a frequent user of Twitter, this affects you. Don't believe me? Go to summize. Enter your Twitter name, or even some keywords for things you have tweeted. What do you find?

2. They are using Twitter bandwidth in order to scrape your info. You know our friend the Fail Whale? We see him more frequently due to the heavy use of scraper accounts. That hurts us all.

3. It's just bad Netiquette. yes I hate that word, too. But it is much easier to type than "Internet Etiquette.Which I typed anyway...well, now I am too lazy to go back and kill "netiquette." Just like you don't use someone else's bandwidth to host pictures unless they allow it, what the scrapers are doing is effectively stealing.

So What Can You Do?

1. BLOCK scraper accounts. Keep up with new followers, block suspicious accounts. If enough people block the user, it alerts Twitter, and they investigate the account.

2. Don't blindly follow. Check to see who you are following, and why they are following you.

3. Contact Twitter and ask they to address the issue of scraping. I know Twitter has enough in the water right now, that Whale barely floats. But if they are going to grow, they need to figure out how to deal with these issues. Twitter at its best is a Community. As a member of the community, you and I have a responsibility to better it and work towards improving it.. Nothing Orwellian here, simply a little Good Neighbor practice.

By blocking these followers, we all benefit. Less scrapers mean less down time for Twitter. Their servers are less taxed. Now, I know, if you are like me, the ego boost of watching that number go up on the righthand side of your page is something you like. I love getting new followers. But if the followers in question aren't real human, but bots who care nothing for your wit? Why bother? It says nothing about me or my ability to entertain. The bots will follow anyone. My numbers dipped a bit when I blocked the bots, but now the people following me are, well, people who might actually want to hear what I have to say.

In the end, those who game the system will always game the system. But at least we send a message tweet? that we are on to their game and that it won't happen on our watch.

T, who is glad that is settled

*many thanks to GeekMommy for helping me figure this out

Technorati: twitter, SEO, search_engine_optimization, social_media

So Now That You Know What I Do With My Time

13 Reasons I like twitter Better Than facebook

1. 140 characters...short and sweet

2. When you add a friend, you don't need permission

3. you can have followers without having to follow them

4. it is just about instantaneous, so you can have conversations

5. NO applications to download!

6. no spam (you can always block a follower)

7. With twitpic, you can add pictures

8. has a great interface, and with free software like twhirl and Twitterrific, you can update from your desktop; sites like twittervision, twistori and Tweet Wheel give new perspectives

9. Don't have to hold your friends hostage to interact with the site

10. CONTESTS! pbloco, twittertowin, etc.

11. can update or check updates with your mobile phone

12. interesting links can be sent and clicked upon..can feed your blog URL through

13. Community, the best part.

T, who loves the social media thing

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Comments are LOVED! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others' comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Technorati: Thursday_Thirteen, meme, social_media

Geeks of a Feather

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

T, who knows it's genetic

Technorati: geeks, family,