Facebook is an online social networking service that can connect you with friends and family. Over the years, Facebook has changed and has become something entirely new and unique that goes beyond just social contact with people you know. New services and features have brought up a lot of privacy concerns that are making people wonder if sticking with Facebook is really worth it.

People normally find Facebook to be a fun place to share information about their life with other people, but there’s a lot of information even prolific users probably don’t know about Facebook. The biggest concern relates to privacy. There are many ways your information can be compromised because of convoluted privacy settings on your account or because your friends are setup to share information about you. The new system called Open Graph and Instant Personalization automatically provide websites outside of Facebook with your information -- unless you specifically go in and turn it off.

These changes over the years have even prompted DownloadSquad’s Jason Clarke to cancel his Facebook account. This is quite unheard of for an online writer of a tech website.

Will I be cancelling mine? I’ve thought about it -- but since I’ve taken an active role in managing my online identity and keep on top of my Facebook privacy settings, the use of Facebook is worth the risk for me. For now. Is it worth the risk for you?

Hopefully if you’ve followed some of those previous links you now have a much better handle on your privacy settings. If you didn’t, please do so now because many of these settings change as services change -- and you aren’t notified or asked about the option, you’re automatically opted in.

Even after setting all your privacy settings to be locked down just as you wish, you can still run into people who suck at Facebook. Unfortunately, there isn’t a setting for that.

As a reward for reading through all that dry information, here’s the Facebook Song:

UPDATE: Facebook has updated its login security today. So at least that’s a little better.

Hit up the full page to get 1080 super duper hirez Muppets.

UPDATE: This video is nomiated for 2 Webby Awards! Go Vote!

This is all done using a function called magnet links. This allows you to join a torrent swarm without truly using a torrent file or a centralized tracker. TPB has converted all of their torrents to magnet links. TorrentFreak has a good article about the changes. This is why many people will be commenting about “problems” at The Pirate Bay. It’s not a problem but a change – a major change for the site but for most people it won’t affect them much at all.

Many of the popular clients can already use magnet links so the change won’t mean much for those using Azureus/Vuze or uTorrent, but those using the popular client Transmission on OS X and Ubuntu may have to grab a different client for use with TPB (and uTorrent is still working some bugs out of magnet link usage).  You can also try Magnetiser, a Firefox extension for using magnet links.

Other sites may be switching over as well (torrentz.com site started with a trackerless system), especially with TPB’s considerable influence on the peer-2-peer community. Hopefully client development will quickly include the magnet link function.

TL;DR – it’s a change. Grab a client that works with magnet links and The Pirate Bay will be back to normal for you.

UPDATE: Transmission devs have already stated they are reworking the new 1.8 version to include magnet link function. That was fast.

The fix was presented quite some time ago actually but I only just came across it and it has made watching online video so much more pleasant – and it’s an easy fix.

1. Open Firefox and in the Location/Address Bar type in about:config and hit Enter.
2. You are now looking at some of the advanced functions that can be customized.
3. In the “Filter” line at the top of the list (where your cursor should already be blinking) type in session and it will automatically reduce the listings.
4. Now find “browser.sessionstore.interval” and double click it.
   That number is how many milliseconds between the times that Firefox saves your current browsing session in case of a crash and 10000 milliseconds equals 10 seconds – the same amount of time between video freezes.
5. Change that number to something different. 300000 is 5 minutes and 120000 is 2 minutes. I actually switched mine to 600000, which is 10 minutes, because I don’t worry about session saving much.

That’s it. You should now have much smoother video playback at YouTube.

UPDATE: With HTML5 being used at YouTube and Vimeo now, it would be beneficial to switch to an HTML5 compatible browser such as Chrome and Safari (at the time of this writing). Firefox will be supported on those sites soon as well.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a happy Kindle 2 owner. The availability of titles, being able to read manga scanlations, and the 3G basic internet access have made it completely worth the purchase price for me.

Is it right for you?

If you browse around blogs or comment threads about ebook readers you’ll see a wide range of comments about their value and it may be difficult to make a choice. I’m hoping I can help a little bit.

Let’s start by setting the expectations for an ebook reader. It is designed to easily read and store text information in a portable format. That is it. In other words – it’s an electronic book. It sounds strange to say that because it seems redundant but it really needs to be emphasized.

Now let’s say what an ebook reader is not – it is not a portable media player, it is not a mobile phone, and it is not a portable computer.

This is where the confusion (and sometimes contention) seems to come into play with ebook readers. Some people want them to be more than their design allows. Remember, its main design function is to make a large library of text available in a small, electronic format that is easy to read. Any thing else is just a perk.

If you are looking for a portable media player, I recommend the iPod Touch or a PSP. If you are looking for a mobile phone I recommend the iPhone, a Blackberry, or a G1. If you want a portable computer then I recommend a netbook – perhaps a Dell Mini or Asus Eee PC. All of those devices can display ebooks (one way or another) but can also do other things that you may want to do that can’t be accomplished with a dedicated ebook reader.

One thing those other devices cannot do though is display text in a comfortable reading format with extensive battery life. If that is your priority then the ebook reader is for you!

Unfortunately, it is hard to debate the readability factor until you use an ebook reader extensively. You don’t notice how different it is using the dedicated display type of an ebook reader (commonly called e-ink) versus a screen on a computer or portable media player. It’s a very drastic difference.

Now, the other major factor to consider with an ebook reader is the number of books you read. Ebooks are generally cheaper than the published version of the book so you can save money in the long run. This really is only true depending on how you do your reading. If you only get books from your local library then this is not going to save you money (nor save shelf space for that matter). If you read a book every couple months then this is not for you either. If you are an avid reader or like to have books with you regularly then an ebook reader is probably a good investment for you.

The last question then, if you’ve decided to get an ebook reader, is which one do you want? This is tricky and I’m not going to answer for you. The popular ones are the Amazon Kindle and the Sony PRS series. A little less known but gets very good reviews is the BeBook. They each have different features and price options so be sure to comparison shop.

An excellent source of information about the different ebook reader options are the MobileRead Forums. They provide a ton of reviews, references, and a very active community that will help you make an informed decision. They also keep up with the latest trends so it may be good to wait on a purchase for an upcoming release (like the WiFi enabled BeBook due to be released soon).

Either way you choose make sure it’s a choice that’s right for you and if someone else chooses differently – let it be up to them. Personally, I think it’s very cool to have so many choices on how we can travel with our media be it Kindle, a PSP, or a Dell Mini – or a combination of them all.

If you have any further questions or want more details, feel free to comment and I’ll be happy to elaborate.

UPDATE: A friend recently wrote up their experience with trying out an ereader for the first time. Read her review on Murmur.

Via Current

Also found this video showing the first appearance of the Death Star in San Francisco:

via Current

So how do we accomplish this amazing feat? Actually, very easily. The program to use is called Mangle.

Mangle does an awesome job of converting images to be optimized for the Kindle display and processed to work correctly with the navigation system of the device.

See for yourself. The following image was converted using Mangle and loaded onto my Kindle 2. The left side image is the original, the middle one is the converted, and the right side image is displaying on the Kindle 2. Click on the thumbnails to see the original sizes.

So as you can see it looks pretty darn good. You can see a couple other examples at the Mangle website.

Mangle runs as a stand alone executable so you can run it directly with no installation necessary. It’s a very basic layout so it’s very easy to use. You pick either a set of images or a directory of images, click the gear icon to get it started, tell it where to put the converted images and then it converts them for you. That’s it!

Once it’s converted, you will plug in your Kindle and create a folder on it called “pictures”. Put the new book you created (the folder with all the images) into the Pictures directory and you are all set. It should show up in your book list using the name of the folder as the title.  If you don’t see it, press Alt+Z to refresh the listing.

You can also use Mangle to convert pictures into a photo album or convert pictures to use as custom screen savers.

Yes… custom screen saver. It requires hacking the Kindle a bit but is very easy and can be reversed. Go to the Kindle 2 Screen Saver Hack wiki page at MobileRead and it will walk you through using it. The image you see above is one of my custom screen saver images.

This program works on Windows and Linux and is free to use. Feel free to post any questions and I’ll be happy to help out.

UPDATE: The Kindle 2.3 update breaks the screen saver hack. The updated version can be found at JYA’s site.

UPDATE 2: The Kindle 2.3 update has some new image viewer options. For some it has caused issues and for others it has not. If you have any issues, the new PDF support has worked pretty well for manga. IrfanView does a good job of converting the Mangle converted images to PDF (process: thumbnail viewer->select all->print to PDF using CuteWriter).

UPDATE 3: After speaking with Amazon customer service and tech support it seems the “developers” have decided that any use of the built in image viewer is considered a hack and therefore note support. After bothering them over and over about it though I was told an image viewer would be developed in a future release. I’m assuming that it will be part of the new active content  that is coming to the Kindle (think “App Store”) and the recent release of the Kindle KDK (Kindle Development Kit). This could easily mean a dedicated comic book reader as well.

UPDATE 4: Looks like the latest update for Kindle (2.3.3) corrected many of the view issues. The images are refreshing correctly now. Settings still aren’t working exactly right but at least the viewer is working again.

UPDATE 5: Kindle update 2.5 didn’t do anything to help with the image viewer (though it does seem snappier). The new PDF functions also don’t help much with reading manga or graphic novels on the K2 (but the Kindle DX does work pretty well with PDFs).

All previous entries and blog listings and posts will automatically redirect to the correspoding blogpost and hopefully RSS feed here.

There may have been a comment or two that was lost but feel free to re-comment.

There will likely be a couple changes here and there as I get thing working to my liking so please bear with me as I work through some of these fun new toys at my command. If you notice anything that is broken please let me know!

Thank you for your patience.

No… not cola or soda. POP is a function of web mail that allows you to access your email from another place besides that company’s web interface. So what does this mean for Hotmail users? Well it means you can switch to Gmail with ease because you can still get your Hotmail emails after you switch! It makes the transition much easier.

If you are interested in switching then head over to the How-To Geek for detailed steps to swap your Hotmail/MSN/Live account for a Gmail account. Once you have setup your email then it’s time to go through some of the other Gmail switching tools like contact and email import. Check Lifehacker’s article about the Gmail switching tools for more details.

Why switch to Gmail? My main reason is that their spam filtering is top notch and there’s just something about the different options and tie-ins with other Google services that it has become extremely useful. A good example is a function they just added to allow Picasa, Flickr, YouTube, and Yelp to be previews in the email itself. Check out the Official Gmail Blog post about this update for more details. Look through some of their other posts to see some of the other recent updates and features.

The other feature I like but is hard to grasp for some new users of Gmail are the function of labels instead of folders to organize your email. Labels show up as links on the left of the Gmail interface similar to how folders would show but they work differently. Instead of moving an email to a specific folder, it can be assigned a label – kind of like applying the folder to the email instead of the email to the folder. The advantage of this is that an email can have multiple labels without having to be duplicated in order to be in multiple folders. Lets go over an example.

Pretend I run an anime viewing club (whee!) and I order Cowboy Bebop The Movie for an upcoming viewing. I get an email confirmation from Amazon about my order. I apply the label “Orders” and the label “Anime Club”.  Now I can find that email if I click on Orders or if I click on Anime Club. If I used folders it would only appear in one or the other. Add the power of Google search and I can do a quick search to show me all my emails that are labelled both Orders and Anime Club and I can see all my anime club orders!

That’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as organizing is concerned and luckily the Gmail help is very good at working you through all of these options. Another good place to check for getting the most out of Gmail is Lifehacker’s directory of Gmail tips, tricks and hacks.

Sorry about all the text of this post (the links have lots of screenshots though). To make up for it here’s a couple videos to watch that may brighten your day just a bit:

Cute (awwwww factor 11):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kinda Dirty Funny:

Click here to view the embedded video.

UPDATE: Gmail has now also added an “Undo Send” function that allows you to recall a message within seconds of sending. A very useful function for those accidental sends.

Here’s a quick video overview of the service:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The good thing is that you can be selective on who can see your location and you can turn it on or off as you wish. I can see a few useful functions though and hopefully it will have a few more fine tuned controls as it matures.

You can install it into an iGoogle page using this link or go to http://www.google.com/latitude from your mobile phone.

UPDATE:
Privacy settings are more advanced than I originally thought.  Here is a good video about the privacy levels available:

Click here to view the embedded video.

PS3

XBOX 360

Wii

Each console has features that the others don’t and it is those specific features that will make your decision for you. Looking through the Ars Technica run down will give you an excellent overview of the different options and will give you access to the details. Be sure to keep an eye out at Ars Technica for their holiday gift guide as well to find some of the best deals.

UPDATE: The Ars Technica 2008 Holiday Gift Guide is up now.

I’ll be interested to see what happens. I’m glad they are using Webkit as I think it’s one of the best and fastest rendering engines around. Unfortunately, I wanted more from Safari than it could give me so have switched back to Firefox. No matter what happens, having another well backed browser pushing for web standards can only be good for the rest of us.

For the full details on the Google Chrome release check out Blogoscoped’s full coverage – the info is in comic form so it’s easy to follow and not nearly as boring as many software tech specs. There’s also some good pictures and videos at TechCrunch.

UPDATE: Google Chrome has been released for Windows and there’s much to-do over the browser even on zero day. Here are a couple links.
Lifehacker’s First Look
Downloadsquad’s “Why Google Chrome Really Matters”
BBC News First Impressions
FactoryJoe’s Rundown on Chrome and the Future of Browsers

I’m also looking forward to the PSP-3000 (3rd generation) which is due out on October 15th. The only real update is a mic and a much nicer screen. That nicer screen may even been worth the price of upgrading – depending on the PSP Homebrew options.

PSP homebrew is hacking or modding the PSP to allow it do things beyond its initial design. The most common reason for modding the PSP is to play games off of the memory stick instead of off game cartridges (UMDs). Playing games this way saves on battery life and allows you to carry around multiple games without carrying around a bunch of UMDs. It also allows you to install other applications called emulators that make it possible to play other console games like Super Nintendo and Playstation games on the PSP. There are also programs for IM, YouTube, media streaming and bunches of other things. This turns the PSP into a very capable device. The trick is performing the actual modification. It can be tricky to pin down the exact process but thanks to a helpful guide at Gizmodo for reference, I was able to get some instructions together that actually work quite simply.

Materials needed:

• Tool Battery (required to perform the actually modification)
• PSP Slim (model PSP-2000)
• Memory Stick (at least 256MB)
• Computer running Windows XP

The Tool battery allows access to the underlying operating system (called firmware) of the PSP and is used to change the official firmware to the homebrew firmware. It will cost about $30 shipped. You can actually make your own but it’s really worth it to just buy the battery. You can then sell it on eBay or Craigslist – or just hold onto it in case you need to redo the homebrew someday in the future. If you’re confident after this guide you can charge your friends $20-$25 to do the homebrew for them (standard going rate).

Windows XP is required because the EasyInstaller runs a batch file that doesn’t quite work in Vista and isn’t compatible with Mac/Linux.

Software needed:

• Official Sony PSP Firmware 4.01 (all available official versions here)
• Homebrew Firmware 4.01 m33-2 (see below for other download links and updates)
• TotalNewbi EasyInstaller (See Updates Below!)

The latest homebrew version of the firmware at this time is 4.01. The officall firmware at this time is 4.05. Stick with 4.01 until Dark Alex updates his firmware. If you already have the homebrew firmware as of 3.80, then the ‘Network Update’ on the PSP will actually update the custom firmware with the latest homebrew firmware from Dark Alex. So when a 4.05 or newer homebrew comes out you’ll be able to get it as a regular update. Kinda neat ‘eh?

Homebrew Installation:

1. Charge both your standard and Tool battery to 100%. The Tool battery charges a bit differently. With the PSP plugged in and on, take out your regular battery (after it finishes charging) and insert the Tool battery. The reason for this is that if you boot with the Tool battery installed it will go into the special service mode we need to do the flashing and we don’t want that yet (and it won’t charge).
2. Take out any UMDs in the PSP.
3. Extract all of the downloaded software to folders on your desktop. You should then have 3 folders: the EasyInstaller, the official firmware, and the 4.01 M33-2 firmware.
4. Connect your PSP to your Windows XP machine and turn on USB Connect on the PSP. Backup any data you want to save from the media card. You can do this step while the batteries are charging.
5. Once you have saved your data, and with the standard battery installed (not the Tool battery) you can run the Start.exe program in the EasyInstaller folder. This will go through the process of setting up the media stick to load the first part of the homebrew firmware. Follow the onscreen instructions as it formats your card (leave the “name” blank when asked and you can accept default options). You will be asked to eject and insert the media stick a couple times during this process and it will format the card twice. When you get to a menu with 5 choices, you’ll want to choose number 4 to perform the Universal Unbricker which will load the 3.71 firmware. It will be done after the “write MS Boot Code” is complete and you see some credits.
6. Turn off the PSP. Disconnect the PSP from the computer and unplug the AC power. It is now time to use the Tool battery and update the firmware. Take out the standard battery and while holding the left shoulder button, put in the Tool battery. Be sure it is in firmly (hold the battery in or put the cover on). If the PSP doesn’t start up immediately then flip the power switch on. When the power light is green, you can let go of the left shoulder button. You may or may not see a menu at this point. Don’t worry if you don’t, just hit the X button to load the custom firmware and you should see the memory card light start flashing (the wireless light might flash too). This means it is loading. The PSP will turn off when it is done. You are now in possession of a homebrew PSP. It’s time to update it.
7. Put in the standard battery now (put the Tool battery away – we are done with it) and plug in the power and power it up. Now you’ll want to either format the memory stick (in the PSP menu options) or save that “magic” memory stick and put in the memory stick you are normally going to use and format that one. You are doing this to be sure you have the correct folder structure for the Homebrew usage. Once that is done, connect it to the USB cable put it in USB Connect mode.
8. To upgrade the firmware to 4.01 M33-2 you will need to go to those other 2 extracted folders. Take the 401.pbp file from the official firmware folder and put it in the 4.01 M33-2\Update folder. Now you will copy the Update folder to PSP\Game folder on your PSP memory stick.
9. Now that it’s copied over, you can disconnect from USB and then you will go to the Game section of the PSP and then Memory Stick. There you should see the update option to update to 4.01 M33-2. Once it is done you are finished. Your PSP is now updated to 4.01 M33-2 custom firmware. You now own an updated homebrew PSP.
10. To clean up, it is a good idea to format the memory stick via the PSP system menu and then you can rename your PSP and start putting your settings the way you like. You can also restore your backed up music, photos, game saves, videos, etc.

The difference between homebrew and standard firmware isn’t immediately obvious. I didn’t really notice much change other than a bit faster bootup and I could use the 4th brightness level while using battery (an option reserved for when on AC power). The other new feature is a recovery mode. If you hold down the right shoulder button when you boot up you’ll get a text menu with options for customizing some of the features of the PSP. I would recommend leaving this alone. The only time you may have to use it is for some games that load from the memory stick; there is a UMD setting on that menu to change occasionally for some of these games.

So now you have this cool new system and what can you do? Well that’s a lot of information and this guide was already pretty long, but here are a few things to get you started.

• SNES Emulator instructions
• PSP Homebrew applications
• Convert your PS1 games to play on PSP
• PSPISO.com (lots of helpful info and games)
• PSP Wallpapers (usable on standard firmware too)
• 8GB memory stick (recommended model/brand)

There is a large PSP homebrew community and by checking out different sites and forums you can find lots of other things you can do with your modified PSP. A word of warning though – some of the things like emulator games or pirated games are illegal. There are Fair Use rights on them but be aware of the rules. If you do want to go back to the standard firmware it’s really easy … just run the official firmware installer available from the Sony PSP website.

Couple of tips:

• Hold down the right shoulder button when you turn it on to get to the firmware settings screen
• Change UMD load type to “Sony 9660 -no UMD-” to load downloaded games (in firmware settings)
• Turn off the Sony boot logo to speed up startup time (in firmware settings)
• Name video files in sequential order if you want them to play one after another (good for TV episodes). File – 101, File – 102, File – 103, etc works well for season/episode numbering.
• Keep video file names short so you don’t have to worry about scrolling names
• If you use multiple memory sticks, make a small printout of what is on each one and keep it in your case (I always forget what games and multimedia are on which memory stick)

Good luck and have fun! If anything comes up or something was unclear please let me know in the comments. I’ll try to provide updates as they become known to me.

UPDATE (10/10/2008): The Dark Alex site now provides links to the official firmware and here is the english specific section of the forum. You can follow developments at his new blog and at PSPWIki. Also, the PSP-3000 has negated the battery exploit so don’t expect to load custom firmware on the PSP coming out on the 15th (at least not for awhile). It is being worked on so keep an eye out.

UPDATE (10/17/2008): Version 5.0m33 is now available here and at official download page. I have updated to 5.0m33 without issue (your customized settings will be erased but all memory stick data will be fine – though backup just in case).

UPDATE (04/09/2008): The TotalNewbi EasyInstaller is not really working right now. Use Rains Ultralite MMS Maker and follow the directions at the link. I’ll update the full post here once I get a chance to test it out. Be sure to get the latest version of the homebrew to use with this installer.

UPDATE (05/08/2009): PSP 3000 has been hacked. Expect homebrew firmware installation to be available in the near future.

Click here to view the embedded video.

UPDATE: Video has been corrected (there was an error in reference to Kansas).

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can find out more at the official site.

Thank you Randy.

UPDATE: Here is a shorter ‘reprised’ version from his appearance on Oprah.

Click here to view the embedded video.