Category: Websites

Facebook privacy… IT’S THERE AND IT’S GOOD!

Databases / Law / Technology / Websites

I can’t take it anymore… I keep hearing people talking about how Facebook is "sharing all your information" or why they closed their account because it’s not private or how unsafe it is… Facebook’s privacy settings are GOOD! There’s LOTS of options that have been there for a LONG TIME. But, typical of a lot of web users, they don’t READ. Yes, READING is an important part of using the web. Especially if someone is going to complain or cry "foul!" My Facebook profile is pretty open. I …

Microsoft Live ID system fails again…

Customer Service / Microsoft / Technology / Websites

About a year and a half ago, I wanted to transfer my XBox achievements and credits to my primary Microsoft Live ID account. Sadly, I was told that it was impossible. About a year after my frustration with the XBox Live ID issue, I decided to spend more time using my Microsoft Zune player. When I first got it (about about two years earlier,) I was required to sign in with a Microsoft Live ID to track my music purchases and plays. But now, I wasn’t using that …

Zune on Facebook

Microsoft / Software / Technology / Websites

In January 2010, I spent far too much time trying to find the "Official" Zune Facebook fan page. There were three Fan pages, two of which had almost 30,000 fans. However, I wanted to be join the official Microsoft owned/run/sponsored Fan page. Sadly, there was no way to tell which of the three was created by Microsoft. I had been a fan of the two larger fan pages, but they had pretty much stagnated at 25-30k fans for many months. So, while I was working at Microsoft, I …

Google’s ‘Sidewiki’ feature…

Blogging / Customer Service / Microsoft / Software / Technology / Websites

Back in the mid-1990’s when I was working on the MSN Engineering team at Microsoft, one of the projects we started to work on was a tool that would allow people to post comments about web pages "on" the webpage. That is, it was a feature in Internet Explorer very similar to the "Comment" feature in Microsoft Word. As with far too many Microsoft products, they started it, then shelved it. I was really excited about it back then because of the great potential for true customer service …

Why doesn’t YouTube have a charge-for-play model?

Technology / Websites

I’ve been saying for quite a while that YouTube should have a “charge-for-play” model, where they get a cut of each transaction… just like PayPal or eBay or Amazon or any number of other companies… Yes, I know they are working on the advertising model, but it would be so easy for them to put together a package for content creators who want to SELL their videos to consumers. There are plenty of content creators out there who would LOVE to have a charge model via YouTube. No, …

Change your password – Microsoft Passport / Live ID / Hotmail breach…

Technology / Websites

Around October 1, 2009, about 10,000 Microsoft Passport / Live ID / Hotmail username/passwords were posted to the web by a hacker who got the information from "phishing" emails. "Phishing" is a VERY low-tech way of getting people’s usernames and passwords – they ask you for it. Yeah – seriously. When you get an email from your bank or hotmail account (or just about any site that uses a username/password) that asks you to confirm your username and password via email, you can be SURE it is a …

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