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Hacktivism – Recent History 2012 [Infographic]

Saturday, February 25th, 2012

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The history of hacktivism may be short but it in the last year hacktivists have been very active and rather successful.

From the take down of Tunisia government websites by the hacktivist groups Anonymous to the hacking of Sony’s Playstation Network (PSN), the World has gained a new respect for the power of digital warfare.

An infographic (posted below) was recently published by WikiBon.org that covers the entire history of hacktivism starting in 2011.

As our lives, economies and governments become more entrenched in the digital world, activist groups will continue to use computer based methods of protesting such as hacking to make their point.

Although not necessary “hacktivism”, the Wikipedia “blackout” protest over the SOPA and PIPA bills is just another example of how successful online proclamations can be.

Hacktivism History Infographic

Google is Taking Over the World 2012 [Video]

Friday, February 24th, 2012

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//
// Google Taking Over World

Since its launch in 1996 Google as quietly emerged as the most versatile company in the technology industry.

In this video Anson Alexander discusses the different services offered by Google (also listed below) and how Google has avoided anti-trust claims thus far.

As Google continues to enter new markets and innovate at an exponential rate, the questions begin to arise as to whether or not Google can and will “take over the World”.

List of Google Products and Services: Google Search Google Chrome GMail Google Docs Google Calendar Google Sites YouTube Google Automated Car Google Heads Up Display Glasses Android Operating System Google TV Google Analytics Google Adsense Google Adwords DoubleClick for Publishers Blogger Orkut Google+ Google Earth Google Energy ($40 million in wind farms in North Dakota) Google Translate Google Wallet Google.org (To raise awareness for climate change, poverty and public health)

How to Manage Email Overload [Infographic]

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

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As we advance further into the 21st century, managing email overload continuously becomes a higher priority task – especially for business and companies.

Most companies rely on email to foster communication both within and outside of their organization.

When, however, does the use of email become counterproductive to an organization’s success and how can one manage their email correspondences to find the perfect balance between too many emails and not enough emails?

Luckily, an infographic (posted below) was recently published by OnlineITDegree.net that provides both statistics on how prevalent email overload really is and a helpful flow chart that can help you decide when you should and when you shouldn’t send an email.

The email overload statistics are embedded within the flowchart so I’ve extracted the most important facts in the list below.

Email Overload Statistics: Managers spend up to 20 hours per week reading emails. The average employee receives 200 emails per day. Of those 200 emails only 20 are important (36 spam, 144 irrelevant). Almost 10% of employers have fired someone for non-work related emails. Fighting spam at a 1,000 employee company can cost $3 million / year. The typical office workers spends 13 hours a week sending 110 emails per day. Businesses lose $650 billion per year due to unnecessary emails.

Manage Email Overload Infographic

How Google Docs is Useful and Helpful? [Video]

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

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I’ve already produced a number of tutorials on Google Docs but this is my first article/video specifically dedicated how Google Docs is useful and how Google Docs is better than Microsoft Office.

There are a number of factors that separate Google Docs from other word processing platforms and I explain those factors in the short video below.

If you have experience with Google Documents, I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments section below!

The Future of Technology 2012 [Video]

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

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Future Technology 2012

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After the announcement of the Google Heads Up Glasses today, I felt it was a good time to film a short rant on where I think technology is leading us.

We can already ask our phone any question we want with Siri, we’re going to be able to see situational information about the environment around us with our glasses pretty soon and you better believe we’re going to have nano bots traveling through our bloodstream to help out our white blood cells in the near future.

What does this mean for life in 2020? How about in 2050?

Facebook User Statistics 2012 [Infographic]

Monday, February 20th, 2012

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Facebook has been causing a lot of chatter amongst its users lately for multiple reasons. The social media giant recently began rolling out the controversial Facebook Timeline update to all of its users. Facebook also recently filed for its initial public offering.

Despite all the buzz and recent changes, Facebook remains the most powerful social media platform available and in order to understand just how influential the service is, all one needs to do is take a look at the user statistics of Facebook so far in 2012.

An infographic (posted below) was recently published by Infographic Labs that provides us with a great overview of Facebook’s current user base.

The infographic includes information such as how many users Facebook has, how many user per country Facebook currently has, daily averages for user activity on Facebook and financial information regarding the company.

See also: 5 Ways Facebook Will Change After Going Public

Facebook User Statistics Infographic Highlights: Facebook currently has 845 million active users. Facebook accounts for 1 out of every 5 pageviews on the internet worldwide. Facebook users share over 100 billion connections collectively. Over 50% of the population in North American uses Facebook. 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook daily. There are 2.7 billion likes every single day on Facebook. 57% of Facebook user are female (43% male). The social media giant has 425 million mobile users. The average Facebook user spends 20 minutes on the site per visit. Mark Zuckerburg currently has a base salary of $500,000 but is worth over $17.5 billion. Facebook nearly doubled its revenue in 2011 by making over $1 billion ($600 million in 2010).

Facebook User Statistics 2012 Infographic

How to Stop People From Leaving Your Website or Blog [Infographic]

Sunday, February 19th, 2012

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If you run your own website or blog, you probably already know that there are a number of factors that contribute to its success.

Controlling your website’s bounce rate is a very important aspect of managing a successful web presence. The bounce rate is the percentage of people that view one page on your site and then leave.

It is very important to have a low bounce rate because it is much easier to direct a user that is already on your site to another page on your site than it is is to attract an entirely new user that is not currently on your site.

See also: Does Social Media Return a Positive ROI for Businesses? [Infographic]

If you’re readers are typically viewing 1 page on your site and then leaving, you can easily increase the number of pageviews by getting your readers to view a second page on your site instead of leaving immediately.

In order to manage your blog’s bounce rate, it is important to understand the reasons that a person leaves a website to begin with.

Luckily, an infographic was published by KISSmetrics that presents us with a great overview of why a user leaves a webpage.

Take a look and hopefully it will help increase the retention rate on your site!

Stop People From Leaving Website Infographic

Summary of Why People Leave Websites: Bad Navigation

Make sure that your navigational links are easy to find, consistent across all pages and clear in regards to where they will take the user.

Too Many Ads

This tip may seem a bit obvious but you would be surprised at how many websites scare users away immediately by spamming them with excessive advertisements. Users understand that in order to cover the costs of running a website, some ads are necessary – make sure you’re not crossing the line and getting to greedy however!

Bad Content Structure

Make sure that your content is easy to read, consistent and user friendly. Most importantly, make sure that your users can find what they’re looking for without having to dig too deep.

Obtrusive Use of Audio and video

Having audio and video content that loads and plays automatically is big no no when it comes to publishing content online. It may cause your page to load slower, it may embarrass users who are in a public setting when audio starts blasting out of their speakers and it may take away from other content on your site. Give the users the choice of when they want video and audio to played and when they don’t.

The Registration Requirement

Although having users register for your site can help with your newsletter campaigns and help with collecting user demographics, it is one of the main reasons that a user will leave site. Requiring registration for certain content is okay but make sure that it is clear to the user what content requires registration to view and what content doesn’t.

Boring Content / Boring Design

First impressions on the web are just as important as first impression in person. If the user is not impressed with your content on their first visit, the chances that they will return are greatly reduced. Make sure that your content is valuable and solves a problem for the user.

Poor Legibility

Playing around with fonts and colors can be fun but it can also be distracting and frustrating for your users. Make sure that your content is easily legible. If the user has to work to read your content, chances are they’re going to look for the answer somewhere else.

Lack of Frequency

Fresh content is a very important factor in regards to increasing user retention rates. If a user lands on the homepage of your site and sees that the last article published was 6 months ago, chances are they’re going to write the entire site off as not being updated and less reputable. Publish often!

How Facebook Timeline Will Change Lives

Sunday, February 19th, 2012

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Facebook Timeline Change Lives

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Now that almost everyone has received the Facebook Timeline update, I’m ready to publicly declare some of my own opinions on the update and some of my predictions as to how Facebook Timeline will change lives in the future.

Before I really get in to why Facebook Timeline is so revolutionary, I would like to preface by noting that there are some obvious privacy concerns with Timeline and there can be a creep factor involved if you have not properly configured your Facebook profile.

See also: How to Prepare Your Facebook Profile for the Timeline Update

All the creepiness beside however, Facebook Timeline is a really really powerful tool. I have been using it since September and I love the opportunity it provides in regards to looking back at my own life as well as the lives of those close to me.

Effectively Gauge the Direction of Your Life

As you become more active with Facebook Timeline, you can more easily see the evolution of your life, the accomplishments you’ve reached, the friends you’ve met and the places you’ve traveled. It really gives you a better idea of how you’ve arrived at whatever point in life that you’re currently at.

It also allows to take a look back and better understand how the decisions you’ve made have shaped the direction of your life. Many people say the best way to prepare for the future is to look at the past – with Facebook Timeline you can do that in your very own life.

Your Great-Grandchildren Will Appreciate Facebook Timeline

I don’t usually bring my personal life into my blog posts but for the discussion of Timeline I am going to make an exception.

My grandfather died more than a decade before I was born. I’ve heard stories of him and seen him in a few photographs. Other than that, I don’t have a great idea of who my grandfather really was as a person. If he had kept an active Facebook Timeline (impossible at the time), I would have a much better idea of who he was.

Obviously when posting on your Timeline you need to be conscious of what you want other people to know about you and what you don’t. Once you hide all of the stuff that you want to keep private, you’ve got an autobiography containing rich media content for the world to see.

Imagine if your relatives from 200+ years ago had Facebook Timeline profiles! How cool would that be?

Facebook Timeline or similar services will serve as great ways to remember loved ones. If you’r parents are on Facebook, you know that your grandchildren will know so much more about their great-grandparents than you know about your own.

Facebook Timeline could be displayed at wakes and funerals to remember the passing of loved ones. I also anticipate that Facebook will offer a way to publish your Facebook Timeline profile into a print version to have a hard bound autobiography of your life.

Final Thoughts on the Future of Facebook Timeline

As I mentioned earlier, the creep factor that comes along with Facebook Timeline is something that one needs to be aware of. Make sure you group your friends into different groups and post your status updates to only the groups that you would like to have access.

Once you get a handle on managing your privacy on Facebook Timeline, you can then sit back and enjoy all the benefits it allows. The older I get, the more interested I become in the lives of my passed family members and by keeping my own Facebook Timeline profile, I am confident that those who come after me will have a way to gauge who I was as a person, what aspects of life I was most interested in and what I enjoyed the most in life.

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!

12 Interesting Computer Facts for 2012 [Infographic]

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

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If you’re one of my regular readers then you know that I absolutely love statistics and facts – especially when they’re related to computers or technology.

I was recently sent an infographic (posted below) by Remark that provides us with 12 fun and interesting facts about computers in our modern world.

See also: Apple iPhone Evolution [Infographic]

The facts mentioned in the infographic range in topics from the history of the computers to statistics on human use of computers.

12 Interesting Computer Facts: Over 6,000 new computer viruses are released every month. The first computer mouse, constructed in 1964, was made out of wood. The average human being blinks 20 times a minute – but only 7 times a minute when using a computer. The first electro-mechanical computer was developed in 1939. By the end of 2012 there will be 17 billion devices connected to the internet. 5 out of every 6 internet pages are porn related. Over 1 million domain names are registered every month. With it’s 800 million interent users, Facebook would be the third largest country in the World. The first hard drive was created in 1979 and could hold 5MB of data. The nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra video card contains 222 million transistors. 20% of online viruses are released by organized crime units. The engineers who developed the IBM PC were known as “The Dirty Dozen”.

Interesting Computer Facts 2012 Infographic

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How to Disable or Remove Facebook Timeline

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

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Delete Disable Remove Facebook Timeline

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Since the public release of Facebook Timeline there have been mixed user reactions regarding the update but one of the most common questions related to the new interface is how to delete, remove or disable it.

Although I understand why many people are asking this question, I regret to inform all of you that no matter how hard you search for a solution, there is no way to get rid of Facebook Timeline.

It is a global change that is being rolled out to every single Facebook account and Facebook user.

I do have some suggestions and tips for those of you who are upset about this drastic change to the Facebook user interface.

Prepare and Protect Your Facebook Timeline Profile

When Facebook Timeline was first released for developers, I wrote a tutorial on how to prepare your Timeline profile. I highly recommend you take a look at this article. One of the main aspects of Facebook Timeline that users are upset about is that, when the feature is first enabled, your privacy is compromised.

This tutorial will help you protect your privacy while using Facebook Timeline and it will help you prepare your configure your profile so that only information you want to be available, is actually available.

Change Visibility of Old Posts Facebook

Try Out Google+

I have been using Google+ since it was released for beta testing and, although I actually do like the Facebook Timeline update, Google+ is a great option for those who no longer want to be a part of the Facebook community. The interface is much simpler in comparison to the Facebook Timeline interface and Google+ integrates will all of the other Google Apps services.

I’ve written lots of Google+ tutorials so if you’re really that upset about the direction Facebook is headed, create a Google+ account, add me to one of your Google+ circles and never look back!

Google Plus

Delete Your Facebook Account

If you’re really that upset about Facebook Timeline then you can always “stick it to the man” and delete your Facebook account altogether.

I personally have not gotten to this point yet but I know many people are considering it. Before you decide to delete your account it is important to realize that you will not be able to recover your information. If you have pictures, comments or other Facebook activity that you would like to be able to access at a later date then do not delete your account.

Delete Facebook Account

Be Patient and Keep an Open Mind

There is no doubt that there are some privacy concerns with Facebook Timeline. Once you configure your visibility for past posts and become acquainted with the new interface, Facebook Timeline is really pretty cool. It allows more personalization and being able to look at your life in a timeline format is really quite interesting.

Try to keep an open mind with Facebook Timeline and learn as much as you can about it before quitting Facebook altogether. Once you’ve gotten familiar with the new interface you may be surprised how much you end up enjoying it!

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