If you missed my webcast last week, you can catch the replay here:
http://learn.gotoassist.com/042412-NA-G2A-IT-WBRARC-SM
(A brief sign-up is required in exchange for free access to my presentation, which is about 45 minutes long including Q&A.)
If you have any questions or comments I didn’t answer here, please feel free to leave them in the comments below.
A big thanks to GoToAssist for their sponsorship.
Klout is an online service that purports to rank your influence in social media, based on your activity on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites.
It has the germ of a good idea. I check in occasionally because the results are occasionally interesting and sometimes outright hilarious. In the latter category: Klout says, and many of my friends agree, that I am an expert on Typos.
So today, when I signed in after receiving a weekly summary email from Klout, I got a pop-up window asking me to connect with my Facebook credentials. Fair enough—if it’s going to assign me a score based on my Facebook activity, it needs to see what I’ve been doing, right?
But this is what I got instead:
Yes, Klout had gone through my Facebook address book, found 50 names that didn’t appear to already have Klout accounts, and offered to send a “Klout request” on my behalf. I clicked Cancel.
It offered to do the same thing yesterday, and I clicked Cancel then too.
At least they asked, and to their credit it was clear exactly what they wanted to do.
I hate this crap. I am annoyed when one of my Facebook friends spams me with requests like this. I would be horribly embarrassed if something like ever went out under my name.
So, Klout, please tell me you understand that this is really stupid behavior and you won’t do it again.
Until you do, your Klout score has dropped to 0 for me.
PS: Yes, I know about Klouchebag.com.
This morning on Twitter, a group of us were talking about Microsoft’s just-announced plans for Windows Live.
During the course of that conversation, several of us who are in the business of blogging started an animated conversation about how we create and publish blog posts.
So my question to you is this: What tool (or tools) did I use to create this blog post? Can you tell from what you see on this page?
I found a graphic on Apple’s website that needed fixing:
Here’s the long version:
Flashback malware exposes big gaps in Apple security response
Apple’s been astonishingly successful with its Mac hardware in recent years. The dark side of that success is the attention they’ve begun to attract from online criminals.
Apple and its customers got a hint of what was in store with last year’s Mac Defender outbreak. This year, a much larger and more disturbing outbreak has infected more than 600,000 Macs with a piece of malware called Flashback.The entire Flashback episode has in fact exposed Apple’s security weak spots.
A lot of what Apple is learning about security today will show up in future editions of OS X and iOS, as the company presumably gets smarter about writing code. But what about the 60 or 70 million current Mac owners?
They have a right to expect much more of a security response from Apple than they’re getting now. As an Apple customer myself, I believe Apple deserves four key criticisms of its current approach to security.
Pretty tough dilemma for Apple, actually. In order to deal with current security threats, they have to communicate about them with customers. But a key piece of the Mac image is that this just doesn’t happen to them.
So far, protecting the Apple brand has won out over protecting Apple’s customers.
The new, significantly expanded edition of Windows 8 Head Start is all done and ready for you to read. This book isn’t a “gee whiz” overview for Windows newbies; it’s a thoroughly tested, carefully edited, and professionally produced guide written especially for the millions of enthusiasts, developers, and IT pros who’ve downloaded Windows 8 looking for a head start on Microsoft’s new operating system.
It’s available in DRM-free PDF, EPUB, and MOBI formats, which will work on any Kindle, Nook, iPad, or PC.
If you bought the previous edition, this is a free update. Go to FTDXBooksOnline.com, log in to your account, click your order history, click the order number for your previously registered purchase, and download the new edition. (You’ll find instructions for adding it to your device here.)
You can buy the new edition directly from us for $9.95:
That purchase gives you all formats in a convenient single download, with multiple EPUB and MOBI files optimized for different devices.
If you own a Kindle device, you can get the Kindle edition from Amazon.com:
The Amazon download is also DRM-free, and you can download it directly from Amazon onto any Kindle device you own, with no restrictions. Register your purchase at our website to download the other formats.
The new edition is now available on the Nook store as well. Look for it on Apple’s iBookstore very, very soon. I’ll update this post when it’s ready.
Thanks for your support.
Walt Mossberg, today:
Mac users have only the rare virus to contend with, while Windows users must worry about hundreds of thousands of potential attacks.
Me, earlier this week:
How many distinct strains of malware are in circulation today? If you said hundreds of thousands or millions, you’re way off.
Guess which one of us actually has facts to back up our statement?
It seems to be a chronic problem at that establishment, where facts are in perilously short supply.
Captchas are simultaneously the greatest and worst things ever invented.
CAPTCHA is short for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart. The term was coined in 2000 at Carnegie Mellon University,where these little challenges you face when you try to do something on a web site were born.
The idea is to build a test that proves you’re a human, not a machine, by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot.
That’s essential, in a world where bots (no relation) are trying to take over everything on the Internet that involves money.
The trouble is, captchas are frequently too hard for mere mortals, with text so distorted that even the most human of humans can’t pass.
Here, for example, is a Ticketmaster captcha that I saw just seconds ago:
I can kinda sorta make that out, but it’s not easy. And that’s one of the easier captchas I’ve seen lately.
It’s gotten to the point where I frequently have to refresh the captcha three or four times before I get to one that I can actually read.
Which is why I was so glad to see this program from Microsoft Research:
ASIRRA
Asirra is a human interactive proof that asks users to identify photos of cats and dogs. It’s powered by over three million photos from our unique partnership with Petfinder.com.
Asirra (Animal Species Image Recognition for Restricting Access) … works by asking users to identify photographs of cats and dogs. This task is difficult for computers, but our user studies have shown that people can accomplish it quickly and accurately. Many even think it’s fun!
Here’s what a typical test looks like:
I had no trouble with this test, in stark comparison to text captchas.
Which do you prefer?
Google just announced a whole slew of changes to its search algorithms, a total of 50 changes in all.
If you’re a search geek, you’ll be impressed at the level of attention that goes into this stuff. And the codenames are interesting and diverse: “Blackboard,” “Cosmos Newsy,” “IceMan5,” and “Maestro, Maitre,” for example.
But this entry stopped me cold.
More relevant image search results. [launch codename "Lice"] This change tunes signals we use related to landing page quality for images. This makes it more likely that you’ll find highly relevant images, even if those images are on pages that are lower quality.
Yeah, the codename for this project was Lice. Ewwww. Was the team working on this feature being punished?
Oh look! Another Flash Player update to plug another critical security hole…
As I note over at ZDNet, this is the 21st such update in the last 22 months, and the third in the last six weeks.
For most of us, being completely Flash-free isn’t an option, and ignoring those update prompts can be hazardous to your personal security.
Fortunately, help is at hand.
What makes this week’s release different is that it finally includes an automatic updater, so you no longer have to worry about manually updating this ubiquitous utility.
The new feature is included in version 11.2.202.228. Here’s what you see in the Flash settings Control Panel app after installing the latest update.
To check which version of Flash Player is installed on your PC, visit this page:
If you don’t have the most recent version, download it here:
But watch out for extras that Adobe might try to install along with Flash Player. The manual installer often includes browser toolbars, virus scanners, and other potentially unwanted software. And these days Adobe is selling ad space for a “system optimizer” that will find nonexistent “critical problems” on your PC and try to scare you into paying to “fix” the errors.
I’ve got the ugly details here:
Adobe’s latest critical security update pushes scareware
One way to avoid the entire sordid mess is to use the free Flash installer at Ninite:
https://ninite.com/flash-flashie/
Adobe gets enough bad press for the security flaws and performance problems associated with Flash. The fact that they pull stunts like this suggests they just don’t care about their reputation.
The insanely popular Harry Potter books are about to be released, finally, in digital formats.
Pottermore, the store that will be responsible for selling the new titles, is taking some genuinely innovative approaches, according to this report in Futurebook. This is my favorite part:
[T]he e-books will be DRM free: DRM will only be applied once they are pushed through to a Kindle, or Nook device, or loaned to library users via the OverDrive system – but customers will also be able to download a basic DRM-free ePub version. Readers will be able to securely "push" the digital books to up to eight devices concurrently. That’s pretty flexible and shows that the Pottermore folk want to digital reading experience to be as seamless as the print example.
[…]
[Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne said]: "Harry Potter books are already pirated extensively: my view is that the one thing we [should] learn from the music industry, is that one of the best ways of fighting back against piracy is making content available to consumers at a platform they want to purchase it on, and at a price they are willing to pay, and if you do that most people will instinctively want to buy it."
The company also has done “groundbreaking deals” with Sony, Google, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. Amazon’s official announcement has details:
Customers will find it easy to search and find books in the Harry Potter series in the Kindle Store. They can visit the detail pages for the books and will be directed to the Pottermore Shop where they will have the option to purchase the titles and seamlessly push them to their Kindle Library, and to every Kindle device and Kindle app a customer has.
The only company that refuses to budge is Apple. What a surprise.
Ed Bott 