Google Plus – Android app and Invites
Posted by BA on Jul 1, 2011 in Android, Google | 25 comments
I’m sure you must have heard about Google+ by now, it’s yet another social network by Google. It feels that they are palnning to do it right this time, let’s see how good it will be in the days to come. All we can do is jump in, try using it and give our feedback. So first thing first, how to get into Google+.
How to get invited to Google+
If you do not have an invite yet, just leave your comment here and I’ll try to invite you to the network right away.
How to invite friends to Google+
Once you are in, its simple to invite friends. If you do not have any invites explicitly available, just create a stream (your new status) and add more people to share with, type in all the email address you want to invite here and as soon as you press the “Share” button, everyone listed will get an email invite.
How to get Google+ Android app
Simply go to http://m.google.com/plus from your Android browser. This should work for most of you. If your market says it’s not available, dont panic, you can get the APK file right from one of the links below. Download the apk file, load it up on your phone’s memory card and open it to install Google+. Do leave a comment if this works for you 
Facebook Unblocked in Pakistan – Flickr still not accessible
Posted by BA on May 31, 2010 in Internet, Social Networking | 10 comments
According to the local court’s original order, social networking site Facebook has been unblocked by PTA, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. The site was blocked due to the blasphemous page titled “Everybody Draw Muhammad day” that has offended Muslim population all across the globe. In addition to Facebook, Flickr the photo sharing site, Youtube the popular video sharing site and Wikipedia were also blocked. Youtube and Wikipedia were unblocked earlier but Flickr has still not been unblocked.
Bangladesh has also blocked Facebook throughout the country on this weekend, though Pakistan authorities have unblocked the site according to the court’s order. ISPs throughout the country have already started unblocking Facebook though telecom companies have not unblocked BIS services yet on the BlackBerry devices. Facebook is one of the most popular apps on BlackBerries in Pakistan.
Read MoreFacebook Pages go even more Weird – Fans become Likers
Posted by BA on Apr 21, 2010 in Internet, Social Networking | 26 comments
I already wrote a post on Facebook Privacy when it comes to Facebook pages and becoming fans. So if you became a fan of a page, the page can access quite some information of yours just as your friends can do. Isn’t that bizarre? Actually Facebook wants to try to make public, more and more ifnormation about the facebook users. Obviously, it cannot do it right away, so they keep changing their privacy policy and the way this site works.
Here is another weird change that eventually deceives the users. From now on, Facebook pages will not look for fans anymore. This is another trick Facebook is playing to bring more fans to the pages eventually. Fans will now be replaced with Likes. Huh? What does that mean? Well, if you click “Like” under the name of any Facebook page from now on, you will be added to the “Fans” of that page actually. Well, to be tricky, they don’t call them fans anymore. They call them the people who like this page.
So if you see a page for your street’s corner grocery store or a 1960 model car you liked in your childhood and you click “like” , you are added to the fans. Anything that is posted onto that page by the owner of the page as well as the fans (pardon, likers) of that page will start showing up in your news feed making your facebook experience more cluttered and messed up.
So, either you accept that fact that you’ll have more messed up Facebook experience due to these pages from now on, or you simply stop “Liking” things on Facebook.
Nokia C3, Nokia C6 and Nokia E5 coming soon
Posted by BA on Apr 14, 2010 in Handsets, Nokia | 34 comments
Nokia announced three new phones with social networking and Internet focus. These three phones are targeted at three different markets and all three of them have a full Qwerty keypad.
Nokia C3
Nokia C3 is the first ever qwerty Nokia based on Series 40 with a home screen access of social networking tools. Nokia C3 is a low end device with a 2.4 inch screen, wifi capability and a 2 mega pixel camera and is expected to hit the market in the second quarter of this year. Yes you can find it pretty soon and it’ll cost around EUR 120.
Nokia C6
Nokia C6 is a symbian phone with a slide keyboard, 3.2 inch touch screen and a high class 5.0 mega pixel camera. Obviously the handset is positioned high and it will be available very soon as well. As early as early May I say. The estimated cost of the handset will be around EUR 300.
Nokia E5
The third phone announced is an E series business qwerty phone with business customers in mind. Access to corporate email like Exchange and Lotus notes is the focused feature and the phone will be available around August 2010 with an expected price tag of EUR 240.
If it’s been a while you’ve upgraded your Nokia phone, this announcement by Nokia gives you an opportunity to upgrade to a latest handset that matches your needs and fits in your budget.
Read MoreFacebook Pages can access all your posts
Posted by BA on Mar 16, 2010 in Uncategorized | 36 comments
Are you a Fan of something on Facebook?
Facebook privacy policy has been creating some stir out on the web already. Like every Facebook user, I have been trying to be careful when posting things on the Facebook. Moreover, I have created friend groups. As I have pre-defined access levels assigned for each of these groups, all I have to do is to add all my friends to the appropriate groups. Moreover, I make sure I do add new friends to a group too. In this way, everyone has an appropriate access level in my friend’s list.
Pages are your friends and they have all the access
I was shocked recently when I figured out that all the pages I am a Fan of, are showing up in my friend’s list. Wow, what is that supposed to mean? Well, anything that is posted on those pages are posted on my profile and everything I post on Facebook will also appear on that page’s feed too. So if you think posting your family photos is safe because you know who has access to that post, you are mistaken. The photos will actually get posted onto the Page you are a fan of. Facebook does give you an option of adding a newly added friend to a group, but ironically when you Fan a page, there’s obviously no reason of adding the page to a group. Hence all your posts are visible to the Page you are a fan of.
How to fix that? From your Facebook home page click on Account -> Edit Friends . You will see the list of your friends. You will be surprised to see that the pages you became Fan of, are showing up as your friends. You can either click the small cross next to the name to remove yourself from being the Fan of that page, or you can add this Page to one of your Friend’s Group to give similar access level.
Now it adds one more step for me, if I become a fan of a page, I should go set its privacy setting too to make sure my content dont openly get posted to these pages.
Everything you post is visible to everyone in your Networks
Then you have Networks that you have joined. Your college, school, locality, city networks and so on. By default, your posts and content are public to these groups as well. That means, everyone from your old school whose group you joined, can view your content. Crazy, is’nt it? Make sure you revoke this access from Account->Privacy Settings-> select each of your online item and set its access level. Yeah, I know its tedious but that’s how Facebook wants it. They want it all to be public.
Posting and Privacy Guidelines
In general, one should follow these guidelines to ensure you are not compromising your privacy:
- Don’t post anything online that you think should not be posted in public.
- If you post something online thinking it is appropriate for now, think if it will be appropriate to stay online in the future? If not, just don’t post.
- And then what you post online, make sure you have absolutely clear privacy settings defined. This is tricky because you’ll have to be as efficient as a watch dog to keep updating them for every new user joining your network and things even get worse with every update of the privacy policy of social networks.
Happy social networking. Keep your private content private!
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