Having kids in the computer age presents a lot of challenges that parents didn’t have to deal with years ago. Among them is the fact that hard core pornography is just a couple of clicks away. Depending on your operating system of choice there are zillions of programs you can buy to “filter web content”, but a parent has to shell out for the program, get it installed, then configure it, and it only works for the computer on which it was installed. There is a simpler way to block content, which will work for all computers on your “network” (all the computers in your home or business), which can be managed at a single place, and will even provide reports on what sites are being blocked which is completely free and fairly easy to set up.
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I noticed a few days ago that Facebook search was no longer returning anything from their own service, only the web. In other words, if you search for something in the search field, you’ll get a bunch of items out on the web that match your terms but no facebook pages. I’ve found a bunch of other folks have noticed the problem, but there hasn’t been any official word from Facebook about a problem as far as I can dig up.

I tested in FF and IE, and interestingly actually got a return when I clicked on “Pages” in IE *once* for some things, but couldn’t make it work again.

So for those of you who aren’t using Buzz (yet?) and in an attempt to keep stuff I write about in one place, I gathered up some of the posts I’ve made on Buzz for this story. I don’t know if I’ll keep using Buzz or not, and if I don’t I’d like to have a copy of this stuff somewhere. I use my personal website much like a Doogie Houser electronic journal while I use Facebook for sharing links and videos I find interesting, but how I might use Buzz is still kind of in flux. Things I write on my personal blog are automatically included as “notes” on Facebook, so folks I am connected to over there will be able to see the kind of things I’ve been posting over there. Since Buzz is integrated into gmail (where I spend a lot of time) and a lot less bloated with ads and other stupid app clutter, it seems to lend itself much better to serious conversations than facebook does so its possible that I’ll want to figure out some kind of automated method to integrate those conversations happening on Buzz back into my own site (I like to archive stuff I write so I can reference it later). Sounds like RSS would be the perfect solution but of course Google doesn’t make an RSS feed for my Buzz posts available… neither does Facebook – even though they both will happily use the technology themselves to suck in outside content.

The following posts are just my side of the conversation for posts I’ve made on Buzz since I started using it, to participate in the conversation fully – sign up and follow me there!
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OK so what Facebook DIDNT tell you about thir new privacy settings thing is that they have made a deal to sell all the information you have marked as public to the Google and Microsoft Bing search engines. That’s right! Unless you’re careful, everything you have ever posted on Facebook may soon get indexed. When users are first presented with the privacy settings page, the default is to share almost everything – meaning that if you aren’t careful all the crap you thought was private will instead be available instantly to get indexed by a search engine. Folks are already in an uproar about the new settings, but Facebook is a business and plans to make big bucks off of your content, and you can bet that Google and Microsoft aren’t willing to pony up big cash for altruistic reasons either. Facebook kindly reminds you that you can change the privacy settings later, but of course, by then it will already be indexed.
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I use Google Mail for a lot of reasons, despite the privacy concerns of allowing a search giant like Google to store and index all of my email. Just like any of the other free email services like Hotmail or Yahoo my email is always accessible no matter where or how I happen to be accessing the internet at the moment. These services also make it possible to change your ISP (AOL, Cable, Verizon, etc.) and not lose your email address. But what if your free email service suddenly goes under, is bought out and changes the terms of the deal, or becomes unreliable and you need to change? Does your email suddenly all go away? Who owns your email? I subscribe to the philosophy of keeping a local copy of my email as a backup and for reference.
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