Twitter's New Tweet Button For Websites

Twitter added a new feature for website owners yesterday. The Tweet button allows you to embed a small pieces of code in your site that  will allow twitter owners to tweet your page to their followers, big deal you say... I can already do this, true but the difference in this button is that it embeds your twitter username in the tweet and launches a new overlay page that then keeps the reader on your site. A small but powerful step forward for site owners, IMHO. See twitter's video explanation:

...and here it is, give it a click!

Tweet

Twitter's Deceased-user Policy

I guess when you are a social network you have to consider these things. Twitter, as reported by cnet's  Josh Lowensohn, has apparently created a policy on how it should deal with the passing of users. I had not even considered that there should be such policies but it makes a heap of sense. What should happen to the musings of a loved one? Will it be a painful reminder or a testament to the life and times of the individual? When my grandfather passed away over a decade ago he left behind years of journals, I'm not sure which relative ended up with them or what there fate was. It's obvious that we are living in a very different world than my grandfather grew up in, in our world we have the opportunity to leave a little bit of ourselves behind for future generations to ponder and perhaps gain a bit of insight into who we are (where). Our legacy may very well be our 140 character thoughts, our blog posts, our YouTube videos, and the things we've "Liked" on Facebook. I hope that all of these services have or will develop deceased-user policies to preserve and protect our identities.

If we are notified that a Twitter user has passed away, we can remove their account or assist family members in saving a backup of their public Tweets.

Please contact us with the following information:

1. Your full name, contact information (including email address), and your relationship to the deceased user.
2. The username of the Twitter account, or a link to the profile page of the Twitter account.
3. A link to a public obituary or news article.

You can contact us at privacy@twitter.com, or by mail or fax:

Twitter Inc.,
c/o: Trust & Safety

795 Folsom Street, Suite 600

San Francisco, CA 94107
Fax: 415-222-9958

We will respond by email with any additional information we might need.

Please note that we cannot allow access to the account or disclose other non-public information regarding the account

http://support.twitter.com/groups/33-report-a-violation/topics/122-reporting-violations/articles/87894-how-to-contact-twitter-about-a-deceased-user

foursquare Superuser To The Rescue!

An honor has been bestowed upon me, one that I really hadn't realized that I had received until I was comparing accounts on foursquare.com with a few co-workers. It seems that I am a Superuser and with this comes super powers... well not really but I am able to help foursquare maintain their data regarding their venues. Dare i say it? "With great power comes great responsibility"... you knew I would!

So, what is a Superuser and how do you become one? (like a lot of foursquares's badges they are quite secretive about how to achieve them). We were able to do a quick Google search and ascertain the following: 

"Superusers are regular users who’ve been hand selected by the Foursquare staff to help maintain the venue database.

There are two types of superusers, Level 1 and Level 2. Level 1 superusers have the ability to edit any venue, including name, address, map pin location and tags. They can also suggest duplicate venues to be merged and mark venues as closed.

Level 2 superusers have all the abilities of a Level 1 superuser, but they can also complete merges suggested by other superusers and add categories to venues. To merge venues, they use a special interface that shows both venues to be merged. They can choose which information to keep from each venue page, but they cannot choose which map pin should be kept. This is why it’s important to choose the location with the best map pin when suggesting venues to be merged.

A Level 3 superuser option exists which allows those superusers to create and remove venue aliases. Due to the potential for abuse, however, this level has never been awarded is only awarded very rarely." http://aboutfoursquare.com/faq-what-is-a-superuser/

The biggest issue I've had with foursquare to date is that I can be standing in the doorway of a venue and be told that I'm hundreds of meters away, I always just chalked that up to my phone or provider but now I am able to see and correct the issue for all foursquare players and the power in the universe has shifted on the side of good! May the foursquare be with you. (Sorry, but I crack me up some times.)

European Commission Lobbies, And Gets, One Charger For All Cellphones

Starting in 2011, most cellphones sold in the European Union will have a single charger compatible with most devices. So far 10 major hardware providers including Apple, Motorola, Samsung and Research In Motion, have signed on to a pact that would mean no more proprietary connectors incompatible with other phones. It would appear however that the rest of us will have to wait some time before the companies jump on board in North America and elsewhere. Without the power of government behind such a move the manufacturers are slow to make change happen and 3rd party vendors do not wield enough clout to push for change. The current practice is wasteful and inconvenient and perhaps the Euro experiment will cause the phone manufacturers to see the benefits of a single standard. One can only hope!

Sources: CNN and Europa press release

Second Spacewalk Aborted - Third Being Considered For ISS Crew

The second of two space walks planned to replace a faulty cooling pump had to be called after astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson could not get one of the four pressurized ammonia hoses to come off the disabled pump. The crew struggled to get the forth hose loose but had to reconnect it as "A fair amount of ammonia leaked out, forcing them to set aside time to get any traces of the toxic substance off their spacesuits."

Wheelock and Caldwell Dyson where forced to go back to the air lock, to inspect their suits and equipment for ammonia crystals. While none was found, the precautions where necessary, extending the spacewalk to eight hours and three minutes which NASA confirmed was the sixth-longest spacewalk ever.

A third spacewalk is being considered.

Source: CBC

WikiLeaks Insurance Policy

WikiLeaks has been in the news a lot as of late for the leak of some  77,000 secret U.S. military documents about Afghanistan that the site posted in July. Yesterday the US Defense Department demanded that WikiLeaks hand over all documents belonging to the Pentagon and issued a strong warning saying "The only acceptable course is for Wikileaks to take steps immediately to return all versions of all of these documents to the U.S. government and permanently delete them from its website, computers and records," and that "If doing the right thing is not good enough for them, then we will figure out what other alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing," department spokesman Geoff Morrell said. "These documents belong to the United States government. They don't belong to WikiLeaks. They don't belong to anyone else."

In an interesting twist however a 1.4 gigabyte encrypted file called "insurance" was posted to the site and WikiLeaks Editor-in-chief Julian Assange told the independent U.S. news network Democracy Now! that “I think it's better that we don't comment on that,” according to the network's transcript of the interview. “But, you know, one could imagine in a similar situation that it might be worth ensuring that important parts of history do not disappear.”

I wouldn't want to be in Mr Assange's shoes right now, he's in a real life cat and mouse game and he's staring directly into the jaws of the biggest cat he's ever seen. Good luck!

Sources: The Globe and Mail, CNN

The End is Nigh For Google Wave

I fondly remember receiving my invite to Google Wave, having craftily used my social networking prowess to connect myself with someone in an earlier timezone who would then pass along one of his treasured invites and I would wear it as a badge of geek cred. I, was one of the lucky few (hundred thousand) who were invited to the game during the first wave of invites, and it felt good. I talked it up amongst my colleagues and guarded my invites, choosing carefully who I would allow into the wonder that was Wave. I did so to: (a) keep the club to a select few trusted friends and (b) make sure the invites where in the hands of others who would also take great care in choosing who they would invite. Those early days were good and we used Wave to collaborate on such things as where to go for lunch and as a back channel for office bitching sessions and Dilbert cartoons. The funny thing is that my initial select few eventually choose new career paths and the one tool that had kept us all together while we worked within feet of each other quickly fizzled to the point where I can't recall the last time I have logged in, it's been months. As we put distance between us we reverted back to e-mail and text messages and Wave no longer became relevant.

It seems as though Wave failed to ride the... no I'll not go there. Wave failed to capture the attention of the masses the way that gmail did, using the very same tactics that Google used to launch that product with much success. In a blog post yesterday on the Official Google Blog, Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow wrote "...Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects." 

Perhaps we will see the features we loved in Google Wave in the rumored new Google social network "Google Me" as it was referred to by Kevin Rose of Digg fame when he let the cat out of the bag on This Week in Tech and via twitter. One has got to think that Kevin has credible sources and I'll be anxiously awaiting my opportunity to snag me one of those invites!

French Security Firm Warns Of Apple IOS / PDF Vulnerability

French security firm Vupen has reported a vulnerability targeted at Apple products running IOS, namely the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, that could allow hackers to take control of your device. The scam is an old one, lure users to a malicious website planted with an infected PDF document. It's been done before on PCs but this is the latest in a string of attacks aimed at Apple's popular mobile devices. It would seem as though Apple is feeling the pain long suffered by Microsoft, it's tough being at the top!

Apple is looking into the claim.

Credit: The Globe and Mail

Patch Tuesday Features USB / Shortcut Bug Fix

When I logged into my pc this morning I received the typical Windows update message and thought little of it. This update however addresses a critical issue publicized in mid July that has been dubbed the USB or Shortcut Bug. The bug was initially being exploited through the use of USB thumb drives and was thought to be limited in scope but, according to this BBC report, has been gathering steam since details of the exploit were published on July 17th. More disturbingly the target of the attacks appears to have been "aimed at the software control systems for critical infrastructure such as power stations."

If you do not have automatic updates turned on it is advisable to visit Microsoft and download this update. While I'm pretty sure you are not running a power station, the flaw in Windows would allow unauthorized access and control of your pc should you acquire the bug. Aaron Heibert at Tom's Hardware offers some friendly advice regarding how to protect yourself from this and other such attacks.

Let's be careful out there...

United Arab Emirates To Block Blackberry E-mail

The U.A.E. has indicated that it will begin to block Blackberry e-mails and text messages in October, citing security concerns. It's a twist of fortune for Research in Motion who scored a big win when security officials in the US allowed then President Elect Obama to keep his Blackberry but has run a fowl of the Arab states. The issue that the U.A.E. and other countries in the Persian Gulf region are having is that the highly encrypted messages make it difficult for government to monitor communications.  

“The U.A.E. has never been a place that offered much in the way of electronic privacy,” said Jim Krane, author of “City of Gold,” a history of Dubai. “The government makes no secret that it monitors electronic communication, including text messages, phone calls and e-mail. The revelation that secure BlackBerry data is frustratingly out of the government’s reach only confirms this.”

The burning question for me now is how will the stand be viewed by consumers here in the Western world? I would have to think that this is a plus for RIM here, but then again how many of us make our decisions based on such criteria?

Credit: New York Times