Two completely disparate topics but my brain generally jumps from topic to topic almost randomly.

First, I listened to a great podcast this morning discussing how social media companies need to start thinking about ways to leverage the portable social graph.

Second, are short URL services harmful to search rankings? Google uses the context of the text of an anchor tag to help identify the landing link. URL shortners generally aren’t inserted into anchor tags. Also, since URLs are redirected, does it effect backlinking?

I hate dumping stuff needlessly into landfills. I had an old PC sitting in my basement for two years because I didn’t want to get rid of it.

I recently discovered that Staples has an electronics recycling program that allows you to bring in old PCs and for $10, they will dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way. For me, it was worth the money.

I just came across The Electronics Recycling Superguide on the PCMag website. They talk about Staples and BestBuy recycling programs. They also highlight some online trade-in programs that will give you gift cards for your old gear.

The Consumerist website noted that Facebook recently changed their Terms of Service (TOS) so that they now effectively own all of the content you post on their site. I verified this on their Terms page. I’ve copied the relevant section below.

You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.

While I’m not a lawyer, what I read in this is if you post content, like a song you’ve written and performed, on Facebook then you’ve relinquised your ownership rights and they are free to use it as they wish.

Sort of scary and maybe an argument for distributed social networking, something I’ve been thinking a lot about in the last few weeks.

I came across this on Overstock tonight. I find a few things amusing about this picture. First, I appreciate that I’m only being charged a dollar for shipping but if I paying close to 100k for a watch you think they’d throw the shipping in for free. Second, there’s only one left. Who’s buying this stuff online?

History has shows that as the public adopts new media, savvy politicians are quick to embrace it. FDR used radio to sell his New Deal, many argue that Nixon lost to Kennedy due to his poor appearance on televised debates. So it is in this election season as candidates try to figure out how to use the Internet and other new media outlets to get out their message. Recently, EA announced that Barak Obama has placed advertisements in the game Burnout Paradise. While this might not be the first time political ads have appeared inside a video game it certainly shows how far the video game has come as an advertising medium.

I just downloaded the recently release Open Office 3.0 productivity suite. On first launch of the software, I was prompted to register the software in order to help Sun determine the global market share. I didn’t mind doing this so I clicked the Register button. What transpired was a very long process requiring me to fill out a form for the Sun Developer Network, receiving a registration email which I then had to validate. After this registration process was complete, I still had to go back to the original Open Office registration page which, in the end, didn’t actually work. Sun in one stroke ticked me off before I had a chance to even see the software. I’ve given up my time and my email address and our mutual goal (registering the software) wasn’t achieved. Not a great first impression and very poor customer service. However, it is valuable to reflect on this experience when designing your own software.

The point is, determine what the most significant thing that you want your users to do and give them the shortest path to achieving this goal. Goal driven design is nothing new and agile developers tend to already think this way. If Sun’s goal is to determine market share, here is one alternative to the process.

1. “Do you want to register now and help Sun get a snapshot of the global market share of Open Office.org”, Yes / No
2. Clicking Yes takes you to a simple form that asks for email address and password and a submit button.
3. Customer fills in email address and password, clicks register.
4. Sun could then send a single email to me explaining the benefits of the more full fledged program. If I do not choose to opt-in to the full program then Sun still has what they want, a registered user of Open Office, with minimal hassle on my part.

On further thought, Sun could make this simpler:

1. On first launch, ask the user if they would like to provide feedback to Sun.
2. If the customer agrees then on each launch, send a ping to Sun’s database with information on who is using the software.

This is a gross example but represents some real world UI lunacy we are often faced with. Make sure you give your customers the easiest path to achieving their goals.

For those who like to fact check, as it turns out, the 3 million dollar overhead projector mentioned by Sen. McCain in the debate was in fact a replacement planetarium projector for the historic Sky Theater.

To clarify, the Adler Planetarium requested federal support – which was not funded – to replace the projector in its historic Sky Theater, the first planetarium theater in the Western Hemisphere. The Adler’s Zeiss Mark VI projector – not an overhead projector – is the instrument that re-creates the night sky in a dome theater, the quintessential planetarium experience. The Adler’s projector is nearly 40 years old and is no longer supported with parts or service by the manufacturer. It is only the second planetarium projector in the Adler’s 78 years of operation.

Science literacy is an urgent issue in the United States. To remain competitive and ensure
national security, it is vital that we educate and inspire the next generation of explorers to
pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Senator McCain’s statements about the Adler Planetarium’s request for federal support do
not accurately reflect the museum’s legislative history or relationship with Senator Obama.

• sorry missed the HH. Wanted to watch debate #

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Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, is interested in electing the candidate who will be best for the economy. But along the way he has learned the iron law of the political marketplace: there is an excess supply of political blowhards, and there are far too few unbiased experts. Even worse, it is hard to sort out just who is an expert and who is a blowhard.

But Scott had an ingenious insight:an anonymous survey of leading economists might yield an unbiased snapshot of the opinions of professional economists. He paid a survey company to survey over 500 members of the American Economic Association, and he just released the findings.

When you create an website account and give someone your password you are entering into an unwritten agreement with them that says they will keep your password safe and their network secure. This includes encrypting the password in their database so that if a breach occurs, the passwords are still protected. With the most recent examples of poor security on commercial websites I decided it was time to revisit my password scheme.

I treat passwords differently depending on the website I’m using. Some passwords are for websites that I don’t necessarily care about, others like banking and financial sites I use a stock set of unguessable passwords. The throwaway passwords are fairly unique but follow the same algorithm so once someone guessed one it wouldn’t be difficult for them to go around to other sites, guessing others. The important passwords I generated years ago and only are used on sites where it’s critical for me to keep my private information safe. The problem with my super secret passwords is I only have a few I can remember. If their is a security breach on a website than these passwords I am opening myself to potential theft.

The key for me was finding a way to creating unique secure passwords. I googled and came across three great tools for helping me with this.

The first, SuperGenPass, is a password generator that works inside your browser via a bookmarket. With it, you only have to remember one password. It will use that one password to generate unique passwords on each website you visit. It uses a mathematical formula to generate the password. However, it’s one-way so that someone can’t apply an inverse equation to get your original password. I’ve tested this on the three major browser (IE, Firefox, Safari) and it works great.

The second, Passpack, is an online password manager. Sometimes it is necessary to generate passwords that SuperGenPass can’t handle such as PC logins, bank PINs, etc. Passpack allows you to store them safely in an online vault so that you can retreive them from any PC.

Finally, the third is not so much of a tool as a methodology. You must have a great unguessable password in order to protect your identity. Most people can’t create their own unique password. Using computer based random password generators are ineffective because computers are deterministic and can’t really generate true random numbers. Diceware is a website that shows you a process to follow to create truly unique passwords.

All of these tools will help you get a handle on securing your digital identity. At a minimum, a combination of SuperPassGen and a password generated via Diceware will offer more protection than most people have.