Cyber Imprints

I just discovered that I can send text messages to cellular phones through Gmail. I made this discovery after my brother sent me a SMS using his Gmail account. This new functionality of Gmail is cool because it will enable me to send urgent messages to anyone on my contact list in case that they are not available online.

The text messaging service of Gmail reminds me of Chikka, which I used when I was a college student. Chikka is a software that can be downloaded and installed on computers for free. Chikka enabled people to send few text messages from their computers. People replying to Chikka from their cellular phones are charged at a rate higher than what is charged on phone to phone text messaging. Chikka is useful back then but it seems like that the app did not become popular, possibly because of the limitations and the expensive charge of their services. I don't know if Gmail text messaging system will gain popularity amongst cellular phone users or Gmail users. But one thing is sure, the text messaging is a useful functionality of Gmail.

Using Gmail text messaging service is easy. All you have to do is to type the phone number on the space located below the “Send SMS” label on the left side of the Gmail window.
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Press “Enter” after typing the phone number. This window will show on your computer screen:
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Type-in the name of your contact and press “Save.” A window will pop up at the lower right of the screen. You can now send SMS to your friend from your Gmail. All you have to do is to type in your message on the pop-up window and press “Enter.” This is as easy as sending message when you are chatting online.

The text messaging service of Gmail gives Gmail users 50 free text message for each day. The recipients of your message will be charged with the usual fees when they reply to your message.

I am glad that Gmail thought of this new service. This will be very useful during emergency situations when I need to send text messages but I have zero balance for my cellular phone load.

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The chat box is one of the cool features of Facebook. Once you are logged-in in your Facebook account, you could send and receive instant message from your contacts and friends. And just like other chat boxes, like in Gmail and Yahoo Messenger, Facebook chat can also use chat emoticons or smileys. Facebook chat emoticons are not just ordinary smilies. Facebook has a load of cute chat emoticons that you could use to spice up your chat or you could use to amaze your friends.

Some of the Facebook chat emoticons that are available are the usual emoticons like the :-), :-(, and :-P. A variety of Facebook chat emoticons can also be used and some of them are animals like the penguin and shark.

Here are some Facebook chat emoticons:

I just came across this list of Facebook emoticons on one of my friend’s Facebook wall. It is good to use, especially, to “WOW” your friends.

So, what could you say about the Facebook chat emoticons? They are quite cool right? Now is the time to amaze your friends. And while you are at it, add me as your friend in Facebook.

For more Facebook chat emoticons, go to this website.

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In the previous post, I talked about some ways to ensure the safety of your Facebook account from hackers and identity thieves. Now, we will talk about some things that a Facebook user should/must not do on their Facebook accounts.

As the Facebook increases its popularity in the Philippines, peculiar news related to this social networking site are becoming more common. I heard of a news report of a woman who complained to the police that someone is scattering her naked photos online. She admitted that she uploaded her naked photos so that her foreigner friend in Facebook could see it.

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There other news like that and many of those incidents could have been avoided if they just followed these tips:

News today is abuzz with a certain Mai Mislang, who is a speechwriter of President Noynoy Aquino. Mislang was in hot water after posting tweets that takes pun of Vietnam during the president’s state visit at that country. Mislang’s tweet not only shamed herself but also shamed the president, who is now out defending her.

What happened to Mai Mislang is also applicable to all Facebook users. Never post status or comments that you will be ashamed of in the future. Never post status or comments that is incriminating and might be used to sue you.

Before posting anything, always think what your love ones or even your children (or grandchildren) will think of you once they read those posts.

I talked about a certain woman who is now ashamed because somebody is scattering her naked photos in the Internet. The rule of the thumb is to never upload any of your private photos in Facebook, especially those photos that shows you naked or doing private “activities.”

Facebook may have security features that you could use to restrict the persons that could view your private or naked photos. However, always remember that there are times when bugs and other problems arise in Facebook that could disable these security features and will leave your private or naked photos exposed to the public.

There are so many applications in Facebook. Some offer fun games and other give perks to the users of that application. There is catch with those applications, however, because these applications will always require you to let the application access all of your personal information, even those that are protected by security settings.

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Be wary of these Facebook applications because phishers use these applications to gather personal and private information and sell those information to interested buyers.

Join Facebook just for the fun of it and don’t place detailed information of your life there. In the address info, placing your current city and country would be enough. Don’t place your full address. 

Facebook may require you to place your cellphone number and e-mail address. That is fine because that is a requirement, but you must make sure to adjust your privacy settings so as to keep those information from being seen be people other than your friends.

Also, don’t overshare information. Your contacts or friends might want to know your thoughts or what you are doing, but I guess it is not ok to put in Facebook that you are in the CR and defecating. You should also remember that your Facebook wall is open to all of your Facebook contacts. Never post anything that is just intended for a few people. You could always use private messaging for those things.

Many people became victims of criminals in Facebook because they are too trusting. Wake up! Their many posers and pretenders in Facebook. The profile picture that you will see may not be the actual person who owns the Facebook account. Many sexual predators befriend women and children in Facebook and lure them into meeting up with them.

Be careful with the people you meet in Facebook. Don’t give your 100% trust to anyone in Facebook if you just met or befriended that person in Facebook.

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These are just few things that you should not do on Facebook. Of course, there is so much more things that you should avoid. If you have more of these things in mind, don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

Noise to Signal Cartoon came from GetElastic.

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That statement surprised me because even simple people in the Philippines are already hooked up with Facebook. Now, the trend is the continuous rise on the number of Filipinos opening an account on Facebook and it is estimated that the trend will continue in the coming years. In the Internet shops in my village, I noticed that people are giving more time to the Internet (specifically Facebook) than the popular online games.

The rise of the number of Filipino Facebook users also lead to an increase of identity theft and account hacking. I have seen many news items about it and many people are unaware how to protect their Facebook accounts.

Keeping your Facebook account from being hacked is easy and there are simple ways that you could do to prevent it.

A small check box (with the label “Keep me logged in”) could be found below the “email” field. Make sure that you had it unchecked before logging in to your account. You must do this precautionary measure whenever you are using other people’s computer, or a shared computer, or when you are surfing in an Internet café.

If you keep the box checked, then your account will not be logged off even if you close the browser or even if you turn the computer off.

Aside from unchecking the box, you must also make sure that your browser is not saving your login information.

Hackers can do many things when they know some of your personal information, specifically your email address. By default, Facebook displays most of your personal information on your Facebook profile publicly. Everyone, even those who are not on your friends’ list, can see your e-mail address.

To restrict people from seeing your personal information, you must heighten your privacy settings. You could do this by clicking on the “Privacy Settings” link, which could be found on the “Account” tab on the upper right corner of your Facebook page.

The “Privacy Settings” link will take you to a page that lets you control what information you want to be shared publicly, to your friends only, or just known only to you.

Aside from auto-saving, browsers also store the history of the pages you viewed while surfing the Internet. So, when using Facebook, it is advisable that you clear browsing history and private data before leaving the computer shop.

For Firefox, click Tools >> Clear Private Data. A window will pop up and will ask you what information you want to be cleared. For Internet Explorer, you should click Tools >> Delete Browsing History. For Google Chrome, click the wrench symbol found on the upper right corner of the Google Chrome Window and then click Options. A window will pop out on which you should click the Under the Hood Tab and click on “Clear browsing data...” button.

I have a friend on Facebook who wants to give her password to me so that I could manage her account whenever she is not online. I did not accede to what she wants and told her not to give her login information to anyone.

Your Facebook account is your personal page and you should be the only one who could access it.

This is the most obvious way of preventing your Facebook account from being hacked. However, I have encountered in many Internet cafes that some people forget to log off their accounts.

Remember that turning off the browser is not an assurance that your Facebook account will be logged out. Always make sure that you log off your Facebook account.

When creating a password for your Facebook account, it is better that you use both numbers and letters; and capital and non-capital letters. This will make your password hard to be guessed by would be hackers. 

Also, create different passwords for your different accounts. Use different passwords for your Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, etc. so that if one of your accounts was compromised then your other accounts will be safe.

If you doubt that your Facebook account was compromised, then you should change your password immediately. It is better to be sure that your Facebook account was safe than otherwise.

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So there you have it, some of the tips that you could use to protect your Facebook account. If you have more tips, then please leave a comment.

I also wrote an article related to this in Ahab Reviews and Tips, which give tips on how to prevent identity theft when surfing in an Internet cafe.

Google Reader is one of the useful tools created by Google. I use this tool to show me all the updates of the all the websites and blogs that I follow all on in one page. Before I discovered Google Reader, I usually do bloghopping to check if the blogs of my friends are updated. Bloghopping is time consuming because I visit all the blogs even if they do not have new updates. Sometimes, I consumed hours bloghopping, which sacrifice my time for other activities.

Google Reader change all that. Updates from my favorite websites and blogs are delivered in real time and all of those are collected in one application. You could also read those updates directly from Google Reader and without going the the blog or website. Google Reader was able to do this by getting the RSS feeds of the blogs that you are reading. However, there are some blogs that do not have RSS feeds. For those kinds of blogs, Google Reader uses the "track changes feature."

The "track changes feature" monitors blogs and alerts users of Google Reader that an update was made on the blog. However, Google decided to deactivate this feature last September 30, 2010.

As a remedy, users can use a tool to convert Google Track changes feeds to Page2RSS feeds. For instruction in converting feeds, visit the Google Reader Blog.

Now that this feature was removed by Google, I will have a hard time checking up on some blogs that do not have RSS feeds. I do hope that Page2RSS will be useful, but I prefer that Google Reader return the track changes feature.
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As a blogger and as an Internet addict, I have many accounts on many social networking sites. I have an account in Twitter, Facebook, Multiply, Friendster, and Plurk, not to mention my e-mail addresses and other website for blogging and other activities. The sheer number of accounts is overwhelming especially if you are like me who have two accounts for Facebook and Friendster and four e-mail addresses. I have a personal account and an account for blogging in Facebook. I have an e-mail for blogging, an e-mail for work, and another e-mail address for personal matters.

Managing these accounts poses some problems and one of these problems is if you want to open those accounts simultaneously. In your browser (be it Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer), you can only open one Facebook, for example. Even if you open another tab, it would only show the account

So how can you open your multiple accounts simultaneously?

The only trick is to have more than browser in your computer.

I, for instance, have two browsers in my computer. These are Firefox and Google Chrome. I open one of my Facebook and e-mail accounts in one browser and then I open my other accounts in Firefox.

There are also other browsers out there if you want to open three, four, or higher number of accounts simultaneously. All you have to do is to download those browsers. Here are the browsers that I usually use (click on the link to go to the download page): Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera.

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