edward spurlock

Check your Facebook privacy settings. Now!

MSNBC’s Helen A.S. Popkin goes step-by-step through Facebook’s recently changed privacy setting, giving what I think is very useful information about the settings changes that need to be made. This is NOT the useless “Un-check the ‘Allow indexing’” advice that’s currently making the rounds of email and Facebook Status messages. Setting your Facebook privacy settings correctly takes more time than unchecking a single box - but Popkin’s advice can help.

Spinning Continuing Education (home study) for instructors

TheraBand Exercise Balls at Amazon

Head First Web Design Book at Amazon

Born To Run - A Hidden Tribe… at Amazon

Julia Sweeney on letting go of God - TED talk

And check out WikiPedia’s External Links for Julia Sweeney

NLPConnections.com has an active NLP forum that looks interesting

How about this Strange Maps blog, eh?

Fisking is the “art” of making a point-by-point refutation of someone else’s argument on blogs and other Internet forums. The term is named after British journalist Robert Fisk - not, as you might think, because he practiced the tactic, but because he has often been the target of it.
I have a tendency to fisk others’ arguments myself - but gosh darn it, it just seems natural to write a point-by-point sarcastic destruction of really stupid arguments. I mean, so often these guys are just asking for it!

Foodies flock to Twitter-savvy food trucks

…more food trucks — a fast-growing food phenomenon in major cities, especially in the West — are using the social networking site [Twitter] to draw customers.

I suggested Twitter to the guy who delivers breakfast tacos to our building a few months ago, but he hadn’t even heard of it, much less thought about using it.

Other stories:

Microsoft reverses Windows 7 Starter limit

Microsoft was trying to force users of the Starter edition of Windows 7 to use no more than 3 applications at a time, or upgrade to a non-Starter edition? Does the term “screwing the pooch” mean anything to you guys at Microsoft? OY! Fortunately, they’ve dropped this idiotic idea.

U.S. military using Facebook, Twitter 

KABUL - The U.S. military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the Internet rather than in newspapers, officials said Monday.

When the Web Got It Wrong

A PC World (via msn.com Tech) story about the “telephone game” gone high-tech.

Michigan launches new Web site for seniors 

LANSING, Mich. - Michigan seniors can visit a new Web site to find information ranging from a guide to nursing homes to how to avoid scams.

Put Ad on Web. Count Clicks. Revise.

From the “Mad Men” era until now, advertising has been about a catchy tagline, an arresting image, the Big Idea. But Mr. Herman and his competitors are bringing some Wall Street-like analysis to Madison Avenue, exploiting the huge amounts of data produced by the Internet to adjust strategy almost instantly.

One of the skills needed by tech writers, bloggers, and podcasters is interviewing. The I’d Rather Be Writing tech writing blog has the Top 10 Worst Things SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) Say or Do.  I’d Rather Be Writing also has 10 Tips on The Art of Interviewing. The article references an article from the Poynter Institute — Some Useful Interview Techniques. Other articles from the Poynter Institute include The Bare Facts of Interviewing, The Zen of Interviewing, and The Interview as a Free-Form Art. Good stuff.