Simply providing location services isn’t really what has everyone up in arms though. Places also allows others (people you’ve “friended”) to “tag” or check you in at a location. Now that could be a bit scary. I sometimes post on Twitter or Facebook if I’m attending a particular event (or if I’m stuck in an elevator at the Chamber of Commerce moments before giving a seminar). Don’t laugh. It happens. But what if I’m being stalked by Angelina Jolie or Sela Ward? I may not want them to know where I’m at. Okay, go ahead and laugh. But it could happen.

Of particular concern with most people however, is the fact that this service is turned on by default. Facebook does have some privacy settings in place, and this makes it unlikely that you’ll accidentally disclose your whereabouts, but the default settings do not prevent others from “tagging” you without your knowledge. In fact, even if you don’t use Places and and leave your phone at home, your Facebook friends could still make this public knowledge unless you actually login to Facebook and change this setting.

Turning this on by default is a colossal gaff in my humble opinion. This really needed to be a user decision. But Facebook is used to privacy issues. I’m interested to see what the new movie “The Social Network” reveals concerning their policy making. Being the 800 lb. gorilla in social networking, I suppose they can afford to thumb their noses at us.

Although modern mobile devices automatically track your location via the GPS chip or tower locations, that information is not generally available except to emergency services. For a mobile application to report where you are, you generally have to install and enable that functionality, and are typically asked to confirm that you want to let the device disclose your location, a sensible precaution.

Facebook privacy settings do let you control who can see if you’ve checked into a location. Again, by default your Facebook friends can see, but you can broaden that to “friends of friends or “everyone.” (But why would you?) A more useful feature is that you can also limit it to individuals or groups. You could create a group names Golf Buddies, and reveal your location only to them.

The good news? According to the Facebook Blog, you can now access your Facebook privacy settings from any web device, including most cell phones. You might want to log in and do that right now while you’re thinking about it, and it’s especially important for parents to talk with their kids about the safe use of location services.

For those of you who are new to the web, Craigslist.org is basically an online classified ads bulletin board – kinda. It’s really much more, depending on how you use it. I’ve heard Cragislist described as one of the seven wonders of the web. You can use it to find your dream job, get a date, buy concert tickets and sell your car. Unlike traditional classified ads, it’s free to use (for most everything) and much easier, too.

So how does it work? Just go to the main Craigslist site at http://www.craigslist.org and pick your nearest big city. This is a Global resource, so you’re sure to find a Craigslist city near you. Don’t worry if you think the nearest location is too far away – everyone in your area is in the same boat, and most people ‘tag’ their listings with a locality anyway. Once you’ve selected your local site, see if any of the categories will help you narrow your search. If so, select it and begin searching – otherwise you can enter your search term directly from the home page, although this method sometimes yields too many results.

Craigslist Search Tips

Craigslist has a pretty good site search functionality which is unusual – most site searches are worthless, but if you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for, try this instead. Do a Google search. Go to http://www.google.com and simply type this into the search bar:

site:http://yourcity.craigslist.org/ your search term

for example, site:http://nashville.craigslist.org/ geo metro convertible

Obviously you’ll want to replace the location with your own city, and your own search phrase, but this search works pretty well. I was recently looking for a specific used car which got notoriously great fuel mileage. Unfortunately, there are very few of these cars on the market and very few for sale near Murfreesboro – but I was willing to travel for the right deal. Craigslist doesn’t provide for multi-location searches, so using the method above, I simply changed the city to surrounding cities and bookmarked the search for easy retrieval later. However, if you don’t have time to do searches, and are familiar with RSS feed readers – there is an easier way.

Make RSS work for You

So, maybe you want to be alerted to a new job posting, or pounce on a great deal before anyone else. Just set up the search you want, and run it. Then, head to the bottom of the page. Tucked in the lower right corner of every search results page is an RSS link. Alternatively, depending on your web browser, there is an orange RSS button located on the far-right side of the URL bar. Click it to subscribe, and you’ll get matches sent straight to your feed reader. So instead of searching over and over for new listings, the results come to your reader as they happen. If this is not fast enough, you can also have RSS results texted to you on your mobile phone. Yahoo (and Google, I think) allow you to set up text alerts for RSS feeds.

What are your experiences? Do you have any Craigslist Search tips or tricks? Share your Craigslist shortcuts in the comments section below.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Apple – kinda. Last December, I invested in a MacBook Pro – which I’m still trying to learn how to use. It’s not as easy to ‘Switch to Mac’ as they’d have you believe. Still lovin’ my iPod, though.

The iPhone glitch (and before it, the Palm Pre glitch) have proven to validate a relatively new mantra of mine, which I adopted earlier this year and continue to implement. I’ve declared 2010 the year of “Simplify”. Yep, that’s it. I’m trying to incorporate “Simplify” into everything I do, with varying levels of success (so far).

As it applies to mobile phones, I’ve committed Geek Heresy, getting rid of my Smart Phone and embracing my Dumb Phone.

Here’s why. Since Smart Phones came into existence, I’ve owned all manner of the beast. I loved that they’d allow me to do all kinds of cool things, like synchronize the contacts, appointments and some documents from my computer. I also liked the applications or ‘apps’ as they’re called now, the games, and so on. In the early days, the apps weren’t as plentiful, but they added functionality to a device you could carry around with you.

Looking back, I rationalized the need for the latest and greatest smart phones as being critical for work, and if I’m to be honest – they were more of a novelty than a necessity. Still, it was nice to have a GPS I could carry on my belt. Unfortunately, the closer they come to being a replacement for a laptop, the less functional they’ve become as a phone – the original reason we lug them around!

Additionally, I found myself increasingly frustrated with the apps themselves. While I could do a lot of the same things on my smart phone as I could on my laptop, many times the functionality was limited by the processing power of the device, or by the data connection. So the smart phone could barely do the job of the laptop it was aiming to replace, and it was getting worse at the primary function of being a phone!

I just needed a phone to be a phone.

When I swore off the Smart Phone, I looked for a replacement, initially thinking one of the old style candy bar shaped phones that have served me well in the past. I was introduced to Straight Talk Wireless, which offers a number of dumb phones. I then thought, “What about a camera?” – so, not being able to survive without one – even if I can count the pixels on one hand – I opted for a classic Motorola Razr. It’s a flip style phone with a camera, and not much else. Perfect. And while it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, I am able to do much of what I did before via web applications like Utterli or Ping.fm that I can call or text from my dumb phone.

Now, not only do I have NO overpriced contract, my monthly phone bill is about $35, less than many carrier’s data plan, and much less than my old Smart Phone bill.

I just hope they don’t revoke my Geek membership.

Well….. they say they do. But let’s think for a moment. If you’re hosting your website with one of these “el-cheapo” outfits that promises you the moon for only four dollars a month and whose support center is located somewhere between Calcutta and Tibet – how much time do you think they’ll invest in server backups or data recovery?I’ll relate my own rather painful and personal experience. As a Web Designer, I contracted with an Alabama firm for hosting, along with the requisite service package. Imagine my horror when about 60% of my websites disappeared inexplicably! During a scheduled electrical upgrade to the data facility, there was an unplanned power outage. Upon reboot, it was discovered that some equipment was damaged – as well as the backups. I immediately moved several affected websites to a new host, restoring them from my own backups, but a few more had to be completely rebuilt from scratch. How embarrassing. Realizing I could no more depend on a hosting company to recover my data than I could the weatherman to forecast Sunny and 74 degrees this weekend, I set out to create an effective and affordable “backup” back-up plan.

Here’s what I do.

Start with a good hosting firm
Backup Your Website Locally
Do It Again – On a Pocket Hard Drive or USB Key
Do It Again – In the Cloud

Okay, you could probably get away with doing it on a hard drive OR the cloud, but I do them both I’ll never again worry about restoring a website!

Start with a good hosting firm.

There are several good hosts, but in my opinion, Rackspace is the gold standard, and it comes with a matching price tag. To make it even better, I utilize their “Cloud” service – so my websites exist on several servers in multiple data centers, so even when an issue develops, the affected machine’s data is quickly replaced by the replicated data on another server. Kinda like the Borg, for you Trekkies. While not completely infallible, website downtime is minimized.

Backup Your Website Locally

If you publish your website to the web with software like Dreamweaver or Expression Web, you likely have a “backup” copy locally already, it’s the one you edit on your computer. If you publish your website utilizing an online service, it may have a backup utility that will compress your website for download. If so, just download the backup file to your computer.

If you don’t have these options, your host should offer FTP access which will allow you to download your website.

I automate the backup process for all of my sites with software. You might try SiteVault, a program that once set up, will automagically back up your website on a schedule that you determine. In the event of a website loss, (or if you just want to restore a previous version) you can restore the entire website with a few clicks. It even works on database-driven websites.

Do It Again – On a Pocket Hard Drive or USB Key

So, what happens if you website goes down – AND your computer is hosed? Many victims of the recent flooding lost everything – including their data. If your website is backed up on a USB key or Pocket Hard Drive, no worries. Store it away from your computer in the event of a disaster.

Do It Again – In the Cloud

Well, this might be a bit redundant – but that’s the name of the game, right? Utilizing an affordable online backup/storage service like SugarSync or JungleDisk, you can access your backed-up website from any internet-connected computer.

Of course, in order to be effective, you must actually do the backups. This means establishing a routine – I’d advise doing it weekly at a minimum. It’ll be worth the investment of time should you ever experience a website loss. Of course, MY clients don’t have to worry about this. Wink, Wink.

While there are a plethora of software add-ins that extend the functionality of the software, few are as useful as Replay Telecorder for Skype.  I’ve often wanted to record phone conversations or even video conversations for use in other applications or just for review.  While Mac users have had this utility for some time, only recently have PC users been able to record Skype video in a  side-by-side window.

So, let’s look at some of the uses for this technology.  Replay Telecorder can record cellular phones, regular calls, and SKYPE to SKYPE calls.  I think you’ll get the most of this product by recording your video calls.

For businessmen and women, this means you can record important conference calls or distribute saved calls to your organization.  You can also use the recorded call as the meeting minutes.  Other business uses might include training sessions, company announcements, employee interviews, and group brainstorming sessions.  A great way to create persuasive case studies is to interview users of your products or services on video.  You can then take this recorded video and send it to online video sharing sites like YouTube.  Or simply display it on your website.  This is also a great strategy for client testimonials.  Nothing sells you like video.

Some non business uses for this video recording software might be to record Skype video conversations with your family.  While you’re at the annual family reunion, you can record Skype calls from faraway loved ones and share recorded calls with family and friends that can’t be there.

It’s also great for playing back important phone calls to get all the details.

This is also great software for bloggers.  I love to create content from expert interviews.  Using Replay Telecorder and SKYPE, I simply make a Skype video call to my expert and start recording.  I send my video recording away for transcription, and within hours I create a blog post that contains video, audio, and text.  This makes consuming content incredibly easy for web visitors as they can watch, listen, or read the article.  Including the text is also very smart if you’re practicing search engine optimization.

For podcasters Replay Telecorder for Skype is equally useful.  You can record guest interviews for your podcast with ease.  As described above, you can take the recorded video and split the audio for use in your audio only podcast.  For video podcasters you can select from various video options like picture in picture, side-by-side, local webcam only, or remote webcam only.  You may also select recording to individual files for further editing.

While SKYPE is a great communication tool, it is add-ins like Replay Telecorder for Skype that make it a fun and effective tool.  For a free trial version of this software, visit http://www.kenivey.com/recommends/

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – wants to help you leverage technology to reach your goals.  Contact Ken for a free initial consultation to see how the web can work for you.  His website is www.kenivey.com

So what is PodCamp? Here’s how the promoters put it. “If digital content is truly king, then PodCamp Nashville is a royal playpen for digital enthusiasts all unto its own. It’s Nashville’s top event for sharing expertise about new media creation, distribution and promotion-an opportunity to find your digital voice.”

Considering the reference to “Pod” in the name, one might infer that the event is dedicated to the art of Podcasting, which means creating web content as a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication. A few years ago, when PodCamp was introduced to the Nashville area, that was true. The event has begun a transformation of late, and podcasting, while still a relevant part of the all-day event, has been largely de-emphasized in favor of a more social media promotion-based syllabus.

PodCamp is billed as an “un-conference” in that it’s more interactive than a traditional seminar. I often find I learn more from the audience questions than from the speakers presentation. Being immersed in social media, an integral part of web design and online marketing (my profession), I find myself thinking that everyone knows what it’s all about, like how to use Facebook or Twitter to build business or create loyal clients – even in a down economy. But this is not the case.

PodCamp is attended by all sorts of folks – many geeks like me, but I’ve also noticed an influx of music industry executives (and their minions) all hoping to take advantage of the popularity of social media – and the power it wields to take a virtual unknown to star status.

I was approached by a promoter whose client took an unusual approach to musical stardom (you’d recognize his music if you watched the soaps – which I don’t). He’s marketed himself to television producers, writing music for TV, and is now shooting music videos for an upcoming album. His producer was well versed in traditional promotion, but was unsure how to engage his clients growing fan-base in the social media arena. I was able to point him in the right direction, and I’m sure we’ll have fun with this part of his new promotion strategy.

Social media – like any effective promotional effort – needs to be planned, implemented and managed. Many of the questions I heard revealed a void between what Facebook or Twitter fans would tell you – and the reality of marketing in the digital age. “Build it – and They Will Come” just doesn’t fly any longer.

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – wants to help you leverage social media to reach your goals. His website www.midtntechnology.com

Remember, you are awesome. If nobody else will tell you that, I will.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks.

Netbooks have been the best-selling segment of the PC market during the recession — because they’re cheaper.  Contrary to perceptions that everyone is buying them because they’re highly mobile, a recent consumer survey found that 60% of buyers never took them out of the house.

Google is trying to create an OS built around “Software as a Service” that replaces applications a user might run on their own computer with applications that run on ‘cloud’ servers.

Here’s the latest from Google, released in an official blog post dated 11/19/2009:

Today we are open-sourcing the project as Chromium OS. We are doing this early, a year before Google Chrome OS will be ready for users, because we are eager to engage with partners, the open source community and developers.

Although they’re releasing it to the open-source community, it won’t be available to consumers until this time next year.

First, it’s all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs.

Second, because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn’t trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer.

If the system detects something peculiar, it will restore the affected areas from the cloud.

Most of all, we are obsessed with speed. We are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds.

Chrome OS will not support slower traditional hard drives.  Instead, it will only feature smaller, faster, solid-state drives (SSD ) and rely on the cloud to store documents and photos, meaning you can forget about keeping your giant music collection on one of these babies.

Chrome OS could be the ultimate OS when it arrives – but will Google also pull 50,000+ applications out of thin air to make it a comparable tool to Windows? No matter how great it is, it’s only as good as the software it utilizes.  As an incentive to developers – because it’s based on a Web browser, every app developed for Chrome will also run perfectly on Windows or the Mac.

It begs the question – Are browsers and web applications mature enough to replace traditional software?

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – wants to help you leverage technology to reach your goals.  Contact Ken for a free initial consultation to see how the web can work for you.  His website is www.kenivey.com

You don’t have to be internet or computer savvy to utilize this alternate way of enjoying your favorite television shows right from your home computer or laptop. The sites and software are plentiful and the benefits are many. Naturally there are also drawbacks, but first let’s focus on why this new age way of television watching is stealing customers of cable and satellite across the globe.

Benefits of Watching TV Online
Why would anyone want to watch television on a computer screen instead of on their TV? Here are a few reasons:

• Save money – keeping some extra cash in the pocket has motivated many a cable/satellite customer to switch to watching TV online.  Websites that offer television viewing are often completely free or ask for a low monthly or annual membership payment. No cable or satellite company can come up with a special to beat these savings!
• No commercials – well, almost. You may have to watch a message from a sponsor, but they are far shorter than commercials and some sites only have them at the beginning of the video, while others have a sponsor’s message in particular increments during the show.
• Convenient – when you get home from work, the latest episode of your favorite series is right there waiting for you. Whenever you’ve got the time, you can enjoy your favorite shows – and pause and rewind them.
• Selection – Aside from watching the latest shows on television online, you can find many shows that are no longer broadcasted on TV channels.

Drawbacks of Watching TV Online

Like all good things, watching television online has it downfalls. After hearing its benefits you may be wondering what’s not to love about making the switch, here’s what:

• Quality – high speed internet and a computer in perfect working condition are essential when viewing TV shows online, but even the best internet connection can have problems with slow or choppy playing of shows.
• Waiting Period – you may have to wait a few days to watch your favorite show’s latest episodes, until they become available online.

So there you have it, the good and the bad of internet television watching. If you think you would enjoy and benefit from this modern method of entertainment, here are some places to start watching your favorite shows (old and new) today!

• Hulu.com
• Netflix.com
• Fancast.com
• Comcast.com (ironic, isn’t it?)
• ABC.com
• Fox.com
• CWTV.com
• CBS.com
• Lifetime.com
• MTV.com
• History.com
• Youtube.com
• iTunes
• ChannelChooser.com

Today, every network has a website and you can usually watch that network’s regular shows whenever you want via their site. You can check your local tech stores for more information on software that will turn your PC into a TV for you and your friends to enjoy anytime!

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – wants to help you leverage technology to reach your goals.  Contact Ken for a free initial consultation to see how the web can work for you.  His website is www.kenivey.com

Keywords count

Just as with other types of search engine savvy, the keywords you use so that you are seen by real-time search engines have a big impact, too. Use relevant keywords in your titles and in your updates. For example, you could be writing content for your “Widget X” website and the latest and greatest product updates, so you can update what you’re doing on social networks like Twitter, too.

This real-time inclusion helps your subscribers and customers feel “in the know,” which is going to bring them closer to you and make them more likely to check you out and stay on top of things — and thus keeping them loyal to you, which also means more cash in your pocket.

What keywords should you use?

Just as with any search engine search, your Tweets or status updates should include those relevant keywords. That way, someone searching for content on those keywords is going to come up with your updates or your Tweets — which in turn will lead them to your site. Remember, if you want people to find your updates, you need to use the proper keywords so that they can keep finding and following you just because they’ve put those keywords into the real-time search engine.

What do you like about your favorite “Tweeter”?

If you follow someone on Facebook or Twitter, and just maybe they happen to be a little bit “famous” (even if they are simply an expert in their field and not a celebrity), what do you like about following them? You like the intimacy of being able to see up close what that person is doing, right? And just maybe, that makes you feel a little special, right?

You can use that to your advantage with your own followers. Even though yes, of course, the ultimate goal is to get people to go to your website and give you more business, it helps if your customers (and prospective customers) feel like they know you, too. So it’s okay to cultivate followers simply because you want them to follow you and not necessarily because they’ll become customers — although of course, they almost certainly will. And again, the best way to help these people find you is to use the proper keywords.

A learning curve?  Sure

As with “the good old days,” when we were learning about keyword optimization for regular search engines, so, too, is there going to be a learning curve when it comes to real-time searches. The thing is, though, if you get ahead of the curve, you’re also going to be the one to reap the benefits. So get in on real-time searches now by using the proper keywords in your updates. It’ll bring you a lot more visibility, a lot more traffic, and a lot more customers.

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – wants to help you leverage technology to reach your goals.  Need to know what YOUR keywords REALLY are? Contact Ken for a free initial consultation to see how the web can work for you.  His website is www.kenivey.com