The reality is that while Facebook’s new privacy settings are actually pushing people to share more of their personal life, we simply can’t just drop the social networking site. Right? Right, especially if you’re addicted to your online life—and if you’re an online marketing professional who wants to keep tabs on what the masses are up to.

Anyways, it’s harder to be private on Facebook, and Facebook is a sort of must-have these days. Both are currently facts of life, so reading Yahoo’s recent tips on improving your privacy on Facebook makes sense. Aside from reminders that some parts of your Facebook profile will always be public, the favorite part of my article is the section on hiding yourself from public searches:

There is a section for “Search” under Facebook’s privacy settings page, which is accessible from the top right corner of the Web site under “Settings.” If you click the “Allow” box next to “Public Search Results,” the information that Facebook deems publicly available (such as photo, fan pages and list of friends), along with anything else you have made available to everyone, will show up when someone looks up your name on a search engine such as Google. The stuff you’ve limited access to in your profile will not show up.

Do you have your own way of limiting public access to your personal information on Facebook? Other than simply deleting your Facebook profile, of course.

Select markets have enjoyed access to the Nokia N900 for quite some time now, which was why I was happy to finally try out the Maemo-powered phone. “Phone” though is such a mild name for the N900. While it continues the Linux-based legacy of Nokia’s previous Internet tablets, a key difference is the inclusion of a SIM slot and thus telephony and wireless broadband functionality. Here’s a 3-minute video of me fumbling with the N900, as featured on Technograph.
As you can see, the N900 benefits from its powerful ARM processor, handling multiple apps with ease. I just wonder though what …read more

It’s not the week leading up to Christmas, and retailers are ramping up their promotion campaigns, hoping they catch shoppers trying to fit in some last-minute Christmas shopping into their busy schedules. So they make sure the market knows all about these bells and whistles.

Like engravings on iPods. It’s a great way to personalize Apple’s popular media player for a friend or loved one. Just in keep in mind that it’s impossible to return an engraved iPod!
Makes sense actually: Except for those who originally bought them, these engraved iPods have virtually no resale value, and Apple definitely can’t provide refurbished …read more

Feel free to call me an old fogey who’s slowly turning into the harrumphing adult, the kind who was irritating when I was kid. But when did kids start thinking that sending “nude or nearly nude” photos of themselves to friends was an ok thing to do? A probably late news report summarizing the trend:
It’s like what JayeCuevas on YouTube said: “hey i have an idea! DON’T TAKE THOSE KIND OF PICS IN THE FIRST PLACE! now there’s a concept”. In any case, even adults need to learn that keeping a record of incriminating pics or text is simply asking …read more

The home page of goo.gl, Google’s new URL shortening service, claims that it’s “not for broader consumer use”. But thanks to Alexandre Gaigalas, who created a third-party goo.gl URL shortener, that’s not true.
Visit http://gaigalas.net/lab/googl, type in any URL and press “Shorten” to get your very own goo.gl URL!

Thanks for the tip Andry!

A quick face-to-palm worthy moment: The Register reports on a company suing Apple, Microsoft, and other big operators like Sony for infringing on their patent—or the “standard activation software used by a vast array of software”.
Consider this your monthly dose of patent trolls (BetaNet LLC in this case) seeking to profit off the hard work of others.

A development that will surely worry Barnes & Noble execs at best, and force the book retailer to come out with a firmware/software update at “worst”, a group of developers have managed to turn the nook e-reader into a sub-$300 web tablet—with free 3G access via B&N’s network access.

The process, which predictably violates the nook’s warranty and user agreement, first involves removing the e-reader’s internally stored 2GB microSD card. The next step requires connecting this card to a PC running Linux or Unix, editing an initialization file, and simply replacing the word “disabled” with—you guessed it—”enabled”.
However, that’s not the end …read more

Just in case you missed them, two rumors about the upcoming Google Phone (AKA the Nexus One, Dream, or the HTC Passion). From Android Guys:
Here’s the price: $199 unlocked in stores. $100 rebate online if you have an active and old Google account. That $100 rebate is either to buy it $99 online from Google’s online phone store, for using on Android Marketplace or for using on any Google Checkout stores. Can also be used for T-Mobile or AT&T pre-paid Data SIM card service at $29 per month, no contracts required.
From Reuters:
The phone, manufactured by HTC, has a number of …read more

Out of the 6000 plus fans of the Tom’s Hardware Facebook page, 94% are probably males (this according to the page’s admin, who I know personally). That’s no surprise, but I’d still like to see more women getting into computer hardware. This isn’t another drool-induced rant pleading for hotties to turn into geeks and spice up our socially-challenged online lives, mind you.
Nothing makes a community livelier than diversity, and geek circles desperately need a woman’s touch. So how do we get more women drooling over specs and components? Here’s my five-step plan.

A few weeks ago, right until the Black Friday-Cyber Monday retail orgy, Microsoft was selling a 3-pack of Office 2007 Home and Student edition at a discount. Pretty good on the surface, until you ended up on Microsoft’s shopping page, and see that there was an “optional” $10 addition to the final bill.

In any case, three licenses of Office 2007 Home and Student edition are still available at a discount, though at a higher price of $110 (compared to the previous discounted price of $90). That’s a bit below $40 for each license, the only limitation being that the three …read more