digisqueaks

your digital shadow

// July 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // online, social media

Brian Solis, blogger at PR 2.0, never ceases to produce interesting posts. Opening my RSS reader today, I came across one titled Casting a Digital Shadow; Your Reputation Precedes You. Not the most information-intense article, but a good overview of keeping your online identity in check. He gave some great examples of people being fired from jobs (or not being hired) because of information or photos they had posted on Facebook, Twitter, or some other social networking site. He states in the post that CareerBuilder.com recently completed a study in which

The professional network asked 2,500 hiring managers whether they
search Facebook or other social networks to discover information about
prospective employees. An astonishing, but not unexpected, 38-percent
of respondents said yes. In comparison, only 22% of hiring managers
acknowledged searching social networks in 2008.

He later cites another survey done in 2006 where 77% of job recruiters had used search engines to do background checks on candidates.

I’m always so surprised when I see Facebook friends post pictures of themselves wasted at some party or complaining on and on about work when I know their employers are just as experienced in social networking as they are. I’ve stressed that they should be aware of the backlash their posts could have, but they say, “Oh, they’ll never see it.” Or even better, “They don’t care.” I don’t bother going into it, but inside I’m screaming, but what about that boss 5 years down the road? What you post on the internet is there…forever. Even when you delete things they are often archived or cached. The last boss I had openly said that he’d checked out all of the job candidates on Facebook before he hired me.

If you’ve never given thought to how your online identity can affect you or your think anyone warning you is feeding you bull, do yourself a favor and check out Casting a Digital Shadow; Your Reputation Precedes You or do a simple search for similar articles.

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Tags: facebook, information, internet, networking, online, people, social networking, twitter, work

great Mac|Life article – calling all Mac geeks

// March 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // apple, applications, online, tech

In the past year, there’s quite a few magazines that I subscribed to. A few are worthwhile while others don’t really cut it. One of the ones I am planning on renewing is Mac|Life. It’s usually got great articles, great reviews, and just enough ads so that you don’t find yourself flipping through 5 pages between every article. This month’s cover article was: 50 Things Every Mac Geek Should Know. It’s probably a good thing that I can honestly say, I actually learned quite a few things that I didn’t already use on my Mac. Here’s a few of my favorites with the corresponding numbers from the article.

#9 Spotlight Can Do Math – Definitely didn’t know this one. I always find myself opening Calculator to perform calculations. Apparently OS X Leopard has a built-in feature where you can simply press Command-Space to pop open Spotlight, start typing in an equation, and press Return. Tada!

#13 Safari’s Private Surfing Is Not So Private – Fortunately, I don’t use Safari anyways, and my computer is my personal machine. BUT, if you are often at work, school, or some other public place, and enter pages you may not want people knowing you enter, this may be helpful. Private Browsing actually stores your preferences so anyone (boss, IT, etc.) can see your history by using the Terminal and typing: dscacheutil -cachedump -entries Host . You can purge this by typing this into the Terminal: dscacheutil -flushcache

#15 How To Reset Your iPod or iPhone – Okay, so I already knew this one…but since it’s extremely useful if you have an iPod touch or iPhone (and something I’ve had to use numerous times), I’ve included it. Just press and hold the wake/sleep button (top of device on the left) and the Home button at the same time until the Apple logo appears. Let go and let it reboot. (For clickwheel iPods it’s the Menu and center buttons at the same time.)

#18 Play Tetris In The Terminal – This is awesome . (1) Launch Terminal, (2) Type emacs and press Return, (3) Press Escape, then type x, (4) Type tetris

#20 The Dock Is Cool, But It Ain’t Perfect – Add A Recent Items Stack: (1) Open Terminal, (2) Type defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’ and press Return. Type killall Dock and press Return, (3) When it restarts, Control-Click to customize….or….to make dock icons magnified really big if you have them really small, just hold Shift-Control when you mouse over them.

#32 The Finder’s Not the Only Way to Access Files On Your Mac – Shares info on the app Path Finder ($39.95) which you can use as a replacement Finder with more features. Cool.

#33 Zap Your PRAM – Delete your parameter RAM: (1) Shut down the computer, (2) Turn on the computer, (3) Press and hold Command-Option-P-R before the grey screen appears, (4) Release once the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.

#36 Use Encrypted Disk Images to Hold Super Secret Files – (1) Launch Disk Utility, (2) Choose File > New > Blank Disk Image and enter a name for your image. Notice where it is going to save and change if necessary, (3) Select size, (4) Choose 128-bit AES encryption from the drop-down, (5) Choose read/write disk image from Image Format drop-down, (6) Create.

#45 Use FSCK If Safe Boot Isn’t Enough – Reboot your Mac while holding down Command-S. At the command-line, type: /sbin/fsck –fy. Let it do its thing. If you get: ** The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK, then everything is good. If you get: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****, then keep running FSCK until you get the first message. When you’re done, type: reboot, in the command-line prompt. Your Mac will restart.

#46 Fix Startup Issues With Safe Boot – Hold down the Shift key when you start or restart. Once you do that successfully, restart it in normal mode.

#48 Essential Third-Party OS X Utilities – PRODUCTIVITY: Quicksilver (free beta), AUDIO: Audio Hijack Pro ($32), MENU: FruitMenu ($12), ICON: CandyBar ($29), BACKUP: Déjà Vu ($24.95), CLEAN-DESKTOP: DragThing ($29)

#50 Play Snake in the Terminal – (1) Launch Terminal, (2) Type emacs and press Return, (3) Press Escape, then type x, (4) Type snake

And that’s that. Again, these are just a few of my favorites or ones that I find especially helpful. Here’s the link for the official Mac|Life article.

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Tags: apple, apps, browser, downloads, gadgets, geek, helpful, installs, Interface, iPhone, IT, macworld, online, OS X, remote desktop, software, tech, tools, web

reduce your cable bill, part I

// February 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // applications, online, tech, television

Part I – Hulu – You probably saw their commercial during the Super Bowl coverage. (Awesome commercial by the way if you haven’t, check it out.) Hulu is by far my favorite online source of television shows and movies. It was announced in March 2007, but only made its public US access debut in March 2008. Since then it’s really started to pick up speed. For more history, you can check out the Wikipedia article.

Hulu is powered by Flash which is very convenient since almost everyone has Flash installed on their computer. Not only can you view Hulu on your computer, but with fairly recent PS3 firmware updates, you can view Flash media at full screen on your TV through your PS3’s built in web browser. In the past few days there’s also been a lot of talk about Flash coming to the iPhone/iPod Touch which could mean that a Hulu app is right around the corner.

Besides being so easily accessible, Hulu has a great selection of clips and episodes. Miss an episode of a show you love that aired last night? More likely than not, it’s already posted on Hulu, ready for you when you have the time to watch it. Nice, huh? Hulu not only has full episodes from various seasons, but it also has clips of shows (for that bit you missed that everyone is now talking about), commercials (such as the ones that appeared for the Super Bowl), or feature-length films.

Once you start to play a movie there will be a timeline on the bottom for easy navigation, as well as a menu on either side with various options such as ‘full screen,’ ‘pop-out,’ or ‘lights out.’ You can play media at Hulu with out an account, but if you’d like to set up a queue (or view any mature-rated shows/movies), an account is as simple as giving your name and email address.

If anyone’s interested, Hulu has put together a nice video walkthrough.

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Tags: applications, browser, convenience, Flash, Hulu, media, movies, online, PS3, shows, streaming, television, TV, web