Online Identity Anonymity

Take a second and answer the poll on the right side of the blog which should be up for the next week.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about privacy, identity, anonymity and other related topics on the Internet. I’m curious what other people’s thoughts were on the subject and would welcome any comments.

For most of my online activity I keep a slightly anonymous profile. For business transactions and shopping, I obviously use my full, real name, but for most forum posting and twittering, I use my username. I don’t post anything controversial or illegal and am rather tame (bordering on boring at times) with my blogging, forum posting, and Twitter tweets. I can’t think of anything I’ve ever done online that I’d necessarily want to hide.

What does scare me a bit, is the power of the Internet and Google to archive everything I’ve said or done online. Try using Google to search for your real name first, and then do a search for your most common usernames. The amount of information out there is stunning.

As a physician, I’m aware that many patients are starting to do Internet searches on their doctors. I don’t have any qualms with this practice and think it is reasonable for patients to know certain things about their doctors. Information like where the physician went to medical school, where they did their internship/residency/fellowship training, prior employment, scientific research they’ve done, license and board certification status, standing with various medical organizations and a host of other information can be useful to patients evaluating their doctors. On the other hand, personal information, family photos, comments someone may have posted on a forum about Windows XP or the Dallas Cowboys probably doesn’t need to be made available to a doctor’s patients.

How many of us have used a search engine to check out one of our dates? I know of one ex-girlfriend who would look me up on Google occasionally. Do we really want all this information about ourselves made public?

There are many occupations or hobbies where more exposure is better. I’m sure there are quite a few consultants who want their name and business splattered all over the web. That makes sense to me but what about the other, more private details unrelated to business. If you expect clients to research you or to discover you on the web, do you take steps to ensure they will only see what you wish?

I personally try to keep use of my full, real name to a minimum on the web, and keep it related to professional issues. My online handle or username I am fairly free with. There isn’t anything incriminating out there associated with either name, but I like to keep the two separate.

What are your thoughts on the issue of online identities, anonymity and privacy? Do you use your full real name frequently or do you use an anonymous handle? Do you keep more than one identity with different levels of anonymity? Are your usernames easily traced to your real name? Have you searched yourself online and found anything you wish wasn’t there? I’m very interested to hear people’s thoughts.

In closing, just remember - the Internet never forgets!

Cheers,

Jeff

ESPN Widgets

All you sportsfans out there who can’t get enough ESPN news and scores will be happy to learn that ESPN now has a collection of widgets available for use on your homepage or blog. There are a variety of different widgets for sports news in general as well as individual sports. They can be downloaded from widgetcenter.espn.go.com.

I don’t think I’ll be sticking them on my blog, but I will try them out on my various customizable homepages like My Yahoo and Netvibes.

Pownce Update

Over the last few days I’ve added most of my Twitter friends to Pownce and have about 25 people that I’m friends with (two way connection) and about 25 that I’m fans of (one way connection - either they haven’t bothered to log in and accept friends, or they don’t wish to follow me).

I have gotten updates from exactly 7 people. I have gotten private messages and replies to my posts. There have been a few general updates that I noticed across both Pownce and Twitter. The vast majority of the updates I’ve received have been from two “internet people”, tech news blogger and podcaster Cali and Mahalo guy Jason.

Most of the updates are small text messages (basic tweets) often with links and some but not all are shortened with TinyURL. One person posted an MP3 file and I posted an image just to try it out.

When clicking on the picture of one of your friends on the left side of the screen, you are shown their public updates, and all the public updates they receive. The most common thing I saw was this:

Which was the picture I posted over a day ago. Since I’m not the most prolific microblogger out there, this tells me that most people on my friends list aren’t exactly knocking themselves out using Pownce. Most of them have much smaller friends list than I do suggesting they haven’t imported friends from Twitter or another service.

I know it’s only been a few days, but Beta has been around for a while and Pownce certainly has been talked about for a good deal of time. I expect action to pick up slowly, but am a bit surprised that it hasn’t taken off quicker than it has.

I think the two main problems at this point are that Twitter has established the early lead as far as the messaging component goes. Where Pownce stands out it the ability to add other media such as files, MP3s, pictures etcetera. I get the impression that most users really haven’t figured out a way to productively use the added capabilities of Pownce.

One of my Twitter friends posted a link to her latest blog post, which was pretty bare bones, but at the bottom contained this image she was using for promotional purposes (there was a link provided as well).

What I’m wondering is: Why not stick this image in a Pownce post? Rather than just giving people a link to a page with the image on it, why not give them the image right up front in Pownce. I’m a very visual person and so using pictures and graphics is a good way to grab my attention.

Curiosity will still probably suck me into following your link, but placing an image up front grabs my attention and makes me take a closer look.

I think this is where the strength of Pownce will come in, but the people behind Pownce would be wise to get the word out there before other competitors start catching up. If they were able to better demonstrate how Pownce’s unique features can be better used, they might generate more of a buzz.

For straight text, quick updates, and TinyURLs, I like Twitter. I don’t see Pownce replacing Twitter, since Twitter has more experience under its belt, a much higher user base and much more more traffic.

If you would like to increase Pownce usage, and get more use out of it, start thinking outside the box a little. I know it often takes a momentous effort to get friends and clients just to warm up to new things like Twitter, and it won’t be easy, but I think there could be potential for the mutli-media microblog.

If you’re really connected to the Internet these days, you’ve probably got a Twitter account, a Flickr account and maybe you’ve even started using Seesmic or Utterz as well. Why not start putting some of that content up little by little on Pownce? Record a short MP3 message and post it. Put the latest picture of your nephew doing something silly up, whatever strikes you.

If you are promoting something, trying to get more traffic to your website, trying to get friends to join you for a night out or whatever, why not throw some multimedia advertising out there? The poster displayed above is a good example of something you could stick in a Pownce post. If you have any graphic talents, instead of just providing a link, how about a link and a logo? With a little thinking outside the box, or a slightly different approach, Pownce could be a cheap and easy way to get attention or at least add some flair to your microblogging.

Cheers,

Jeff

Pownce - A Quick Look

A few days ago Pownce went from closed beta to completely open. If you’re not familiar with it, Pownce is a social networking and microblogging site. It is found on the web at Pownce.com. There are a few similarities between Pownce and Twitter, and a few notable differences.

If you are completely unfamiliar with some of the concepts of social networking and services like Twitter and Pownce, I’ll give a quick rundown. The first thing you need is friends. Pownce lets you search for other uses by name, or you can quickly import your friends from places like Flickr, Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL mail, and Yahoo mail. This will send out a friend request, allowing you to follow their public posts and if they accept your request, will allow them to follow you and allow you to see content designated for friends only.

Once you have a network of friends and fans (a fan is a one way friend, you’re following someone, but they aren’t following you), you are ready to start Powncing. You can post short messages, similar to a blog, and all of your friends and fans will be able to see what you’ve posted. Likewise, all of your friends latest updates will be displayed as well.

This is pretty similar to Twitter, allowing you to post random thoughts, updates on what you are doing at the moment or whatever strikes your fancy. Right now, it doesn’t look like there is support for IM integration or SMS integration, which for some is a big draw of Twitter.

What makes Pownce cool, and possibly more useful than Twitter, is the ability to share other types of media, such as pictures, videos, music and even files.

Here is a post with an MP3 file in it. You can listen right from the browser, or download to your computer.

Here’s an example of an attached file in a post

There are various other types of files and media that can be attached, and it looks like a great way to blog your favorite new music, pictures, videos or whatever else you are into.

Right now my circle of friends still relatively small and only about 1/4 of my Twitter pals are on Pownce at the moment. Many of those that do have accounts don’t seem to use them with as much frequency as they use Twitter. I think the number of people using Pownce and the frequency with which they use it will increase shortly, once people start seeing what you can do with the service. If the Mahalo Multisubmit extension takes off, we’re likely to see a lot more Pownce traffic as people submit their posts/tweets/pownces to multiple sites simultaneously.

I like Twitter for the rapid fire conversation and IM-like atmosphere, but Pownce has a great deal of potential for posts with a bit more depth to them, and looks like a great way to share things other than just text. It may even get me to start taking more photos and posting them online from time to time. I like the idea of sharing music (legal, free music of course) as one of my best sources of new music comes from friends.

Pownce is free to sign up for and there is also a pro account available for $20 per year, which gives you a bigger file upload size and a few other features. I’m currently using the free, basic account happily.

Check it out and let me know if you come up with other cool ways to use it. I’ll be adding my Pownce links and a button to my blog soon so feel free to check me out there and show off your stuff!

Windows Live Writer - Image Fixes

First of all, special thanks to Joe Cheng for his quick reply to my last blog post. I’m impressed that one of the developers on the Windows Live Team found my tiny blog post and offered help with my problem in less than 24 hours since it was published. Talk about great service!

Below is an image taken with the same program and settings as before, with the tweaked Windows Live Writer settings.

This screencapture was taken with the same program (Gadwin PrintScreen) using the same settings. The image is being saved as a GIF file. Taking a closer look at the options in the image properties sidebar of Windows Live Writer, it was originally set to use a dropshadow as the border by default. Changing this setting to “None” or “Inherit from weblog” immediately changed the quality of the picture. It was evident right away in the Windows Live Writer screen and should be evident when published to the blog.

For the sake of curiosity, I’m posting the same picture below with the default settings (using the dropshadow).

Definitely not as sharp. If you are using Windows Live Writer, and are inserting GIF image files, be sure to check the properties and don’t use the drop shadow border. Also, make sure to check the bottom of the image properties sidebar and save the new settings you select as default, to prevent the problem from recurring.

Thanks again Joe, and hopefully this will help out a few others as well!

Cheers,

-Jeff

Blog Image Woes

I’ve been a bit disappointed with the quality of the images that have been posting to my blog. I’ve been taking the pics with Gadwin Printscreen lately. When I view the images on my computer, they look fine. When they appear on the blog, they look terrible. Lately I’ve been using Microsoft Windows Live Writer to post to the blog. It has quite a few neat features that are handy, but I think this program may have been contributing to the problem. When it publishes an image to your blog (with a Blogger account, not sure about WordPress or others) it puts two copies of the image in an album. One copy is normal, good quality while the other is the poor quality image that gets displayed on the blog.

When posting to your blog from the web, uploaded images are also placed in a Picassa album, but this time only a single, good quality image is saved, and there is no second, reduced quality image. Here is a screenshot I just took and posted using the web interface.

I have no idea why Windows Live Writer is creating two images and selecting the lower quality image to be included in the blog post, but it is very annoying. I’ve tinkered around with the program looking for a option or setting to adjust but could not find one.

The end result is that I now know how to get better quality images on my blog, and will be uninstalling Windows Live Writer as soon as I’m finished with this post. Edit 1-24-08: Thanks to some quick help from Joe (see comments) this issue has been resolved! Check out the comments below and my next post for more details on what the problem was and how to fix it!

Avoid Opera Web Browser

In my last blog post, I tried to keep an open mind and not be overly critical of some of the shortcomings of various web browsers. I even decided to give Opera another try, to see if I could set it up as a viable alternative to Firefox. One reason I like having a second browser available is so I can maintain two separate cookie profiles, and be logged into a website with two different accounts simultaneously.

I’d like to go on record and official tell everyone to stay the heck away from Opera. It simply doesn’t work.

In addition to the numerous bugs and crashing issues illustrated below, it’s not nearly as configurable as Firefox with extensions. If you use cookie managers, adblockers, or script blockers in Firefox, you will be extremely disappointed with Opera. It requires a great deal of effort to get Opera to even come close to some of the capabilities of FF with these addons, and even then, the result is far from optimal. Get used to lots of ads and annoying scripts if you plan of sticking with Opera.

Now, on the the main problems.

Previously, I had problems with MSNBC.com freezing up. Sure enough, checking on the Opera forums, several other users complained of the same problem. I mentioned this to a few friends and the response was simply “Well, it’s Microsoft - they probably did something so that it only works with Internet Explorer, so you have to use their browser.” I’m not buying this logic, and even if it’s true, you’d hope that the developers of browsers like Opera would figure out a workaround. MSNBC.com works just fine with Firefox by the way.

A major issue I had before was Google pages not loading. If I would try to navigate to a Google service that required a log in, the screen would flash a blank white repeatedly, and there would be some message in the status bar about trying to load the page. This would continue ad infinitum. No error message popped up, no warning of what was wrong or why the page couldn’t be loaded, just a hung-up browser with a blank screen. This happened on Google. Of all the websites out there that people may visit, I’d rank Google pretty high on the popularity list. If your browser can’t handle Google, it’s close to useless. I think the programmers working on Opera might want to try using Google in the future when they test out the latest builds of their product.

I think the problem was in the “only accept cookies from the sites I visit” setting, as I was eventually able to get Google to work. The issue is that there was no redirection to a page telling me cookies need to be enabled, or error message that popped up. If cookie permissions aren’t set properly in FF or IE, you usually get redirected to a page telling you what the problem is. Opera, unfortunately just hangs up and needs to be closed. Not an ideal way to deal with the problem.

Lastly, Opera completely crashes in a few instances. By crashing, I mean that the entire program and all other open windows become completely unresponsive. The only way to recover is to open up the task manager and close the application. This is completely unacceptable and should illustrate to anyone exactly why Opera should be avoided at all costs. For me this happened on at least two different web pages, including Myspace.com.

Web Browser Comparison

When it comes to web browsers, there certainly are plenty of options out there. Internet Explorer has two main versions seeing popular use, IE6 and IE7. Personally, I find IE6 to be a decent no-frills browser. IE7 by itself adds tabbed browsing, but implements it poorly. The default layout in IE7, like many of the latest Microsoft projects, is slightly different than past versions, which feels a bit odd to me. Without the customization of Firefox, IE7 just doesn’t cut it for me. Most addons available for IE7 are commercial, which in my case means I’ll never try them. There is one notable exception, IE7Pro - a freeware addon that adds a great deal of customizability and functionality to IE7, including a spellchecker a greasemonkey-like scripting interface, customizable tabbed browsing, adblocking and many others. If you are going to use IE7 as your main browser, you need this addon. It can be downloaded from http://www.ie7pro.com/

Firefox is the number one alternative to Internet Explorer. It is hands down the most customizable browser on the market if you consider the numerous addons available. The basic package is fairly customizable out of the box, but there are several addons that are practically indispensable. Just about any addon you can think of is out there. Some people complain that the latest version of Firefox is a system resource hog, but I personally don’t notice it on my 3 year old laptop. My informal tests show it to be just as fast as IE and others. If you are looking for an alternative to Internet Explorer, this is probably your best bet, and is my personal favorite.

The third most common browser in use is Opera. I want to like Opera, I really do, but there are a few niggling things that really get me. Firstly, for novice users it’s not necessarily intuitive to set up. I’ve got a very bright friend who loves the browser but even after using it for a few months still asks me how to configure certain settings. The folks at Opera claim that it’s the fastest of the major browsers, but I honestly can’t tell the difference. The layout of the browser is probably the most customizable of any out of the box, but Firefox can be further tweaked with various addons. I’ve run into a few bugs with Opera, such as extremely slow loading of MSNBC.com, and a hang-up when trying to go to any Google page (turned out to be due to cookie handling, but the fact that the page wouldn’t load at all even to give me an error was disturbing). Although these bugs are few and far between, they happened to me with two very popular web pages. I’m hesitant now to fully embrace the browser for all of my important business. The number of widgets or addons available for Opera is impressive, although a bit tricky to find exactly what you are looking for. I think Opera could be a viable alternative to IE, and worth a try, but the few bugs I’ve discovered make me suggest you take it for a test run before fully switching over.

Flock is a new browser that is based on the Gecko/Firefox engine. It is similar to Firefox in many ways, with a few notable changes. The focus of Flock is to integrate with various social networking websites. There is a friends sidebar which provides updates for your friends status. The browser nicely integrates with things like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and various blogging platforms. This blog post is being composed from Flock using the special blog editor function (which opens a window with various blogging tool buttons and options). Flock is fairly new and only time will tell if it takes off. Because of it’s Firefox origins, it seems to do the basics fairly well. If you use social networking sites and applications frequently, you should definitely check out Flock.

The last browser worth mentioning is K-meleon. It’s a stripped down, no frills browser based on the Mozilla/Gecko engine. There isn’t a whole lot to it, and there aren’t many addons or special features, but it may appeal to those with simple needs who are looking for a low-profile browser.

A Look at Twitter

I recently discovered Twitter and quickly developed a fascination with it. If you aren’t familiar with it, Twitter is a web application that lets you post 140 character updates to the web. You can follow other people’s updates and others can follow yours. You can update from the web, from a local application, from a cell phone, email, or IM.

After expanding your circle of followers and followees, it becomes apparent that Twitter is a bit of a close-knit community. It quickly became apparent to me that the people I was following were following each other, and their followers were following me and I was following them etc.

One person described twitter as being “incestuous” referring to the way everyone in this family follows each other. It’s an interesting phenomenon.

What people use Twitter for varies greatly. Some people do just update what they are doing at the moment, while others use it to direct people to their latest blog posts. Many people like posting random thoughts and commenting on the random thoughts of others. It also serves as a nice IM client, sending messages to all your friends and followers who happen to be online.

Twitter is frequently hampered by technical issues and often goes down for short periods of time. As things get ironed out, I can only see more and more people using the service and think it has enormous potential in the workplace (as more than just a time-waster).

-Jeff

Steve Jobs Speaks and the Internet Dies

Steve Jobs gave his keynote speech at Macworld today and many websites and bloggers who attended provided live updates, many including pictures.

On a majority of the big name sites, the blog feeds quickly timed out when trying to connect, and several other websites went down. Twitter was near perma-crashed for a while. Sites like Engadget and it’s sisters were completely tanked. Apparently few people had the foresight to see this coming, or the resources to adequately prepare for it. It’s funny that it happened during a Macworld speech. I wonder if bloggers and major networks will be just and bandwidth crippled during the upcoming US presidential elections, or other important events.