Brian Junyor The Blog

David Armano posted a great little Top 10 list regarding social media's dirty little secrets. Number 2 resonated with me the most, as about half my followers on twitter are trying to sell me something without engaging me. I take issue with number 10 however, I am still a sucker for top 10 lists.

The full list is worth a read.

2. Most social media is bad marketing/PR
Few organizations really want to engage with their customers. It's just easier to slap together a blog, Facebook fan page or hire someone to tweet about your products and coordinate events that hopefully generate buzz. Participation is hard.

This is going on my netbook today [Asus Eee 1000H]. I have been testing out Windows 7 (for fun) and now it's time to get serious. I was thinking openSUSE, but after reading some of the compatibility issues, ubuntu for netbooks looks like the winner.

Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix

Your new netbook operating system

UNR has been tested on the following popular models. You can test your netbook's compatibility by running UNR as a 'live' image on the flash drive before installation.

Now I will have three machines on my desk that run three different operation systems: OSX, Windows Vista, Linux. I should get extra nerd points.

I'll post an update after the installation is complete.

Nate Anderson at ars technica does a write-up on the FTC's upcoming ban on "robocalls." His post was also mentioned on CNN in an article on the same subject.

The Federal Trade Commission next week will make automated robocalls illegal for most telemarketers. Still, the list of exceptions mean that the calls will go on, because charities, politicians, banks, and telcos can continue their prerecorded pitches.

A bit underwhelming, we'll see how quickly that changes.

The much hyped built-in malware protection into Apple’s Snow Leopard upgrade appears to be nothing more than a XProtect.plist file containing five signatures for two of the most popular Mac OS X trojans - OSX.RSPlug and OSX.Iservice.

The Danger of Quizzes

With each question in the ACLU's Privacy Quiz, you're not only told what information a quiz author can see - you're shown it. For example, after answering the first question, you learn that almost everything on your profile, even if you use privacy settings to limit access, is available to the quiz. Then, a graphic is shown which reveals selected information retrieved from your profile including hometown, groups you belong to, events attended, favorite books, and more.