A recent survey by Pew Research and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center of 895 technology stakeholders and critics shows 85% of respondends agree with the following statement:

“In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a positive force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future.”

I agree too, however you have to keep in mind that with the positives come negatives too. I would keep in mind the following:
- Allocate time for online usage and watch your time carefully.
- Watch your privacy when setting up online accounts and use only trusted and reputable sites.

To find out more about the study, click here.

Regards.

BBC wrote today, after facing increasing criticism from not only US consumer groups, but also European Union data protection officials, who describe the recent privacy changes as unacceptable, facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is pledging easier privacy.

Many have even pledged to quit Facebook. QuitFacebookDay.com, an anti-facebook site is encouraging it’s visitors to quit Facebook by May 31, 2010. Already at the time of this writing over 14,000 have pledged to quit.

I strongly recommend you to visit ReclaimPrivacy.org to take a look and update your privacy if you need to. ReclaimPrivacy.org offers a free and easy to use tool that will scan your Facebook account’s privacy on facebook. Privacy Scanner will display in color coded tags, how secure, (and/or not so secure) your settings are. Even if you are not concerned about privacy, I strongly recommend you to check it out. It will remind you as how the world looks at your personal data.
And while you there, check out the story by Consumer Reports titled: “7 Things To Stop Doing Now on Facebook”

Regards.

Surprisingly there are many password cracking software tools. I assume these were made for ethical use of lost passwords or someone who left her/his job and no one can unlock the computer. The problem however is when these software tools fall in the wrong hands…

To better protect your online investment, you will need to do a little of planning that can bring you far ahead from most online users.

In general your password security will depend on your general caution about protecting your assets. This is the same like leaving your car in the parking lot of a busy shopping area, or even in front of your house. Do you leave it locked or unlocked?

Whether your answer is locked or unlocked, I invite you to keep reading my post and hopefully be aware to better password protect your online assets:

Here is my list:

1- Don’t choose a short password:

I have seen many websites checking and validating for a minimum of 8 characters. That’s great, because it turns out that the time it takes to crack 8 character password is exponentially more, than a 6 character password. I would even suggest a 10 character password and for more sensitive information go even for 15 of more characters.

2- Don’t pick words that relate to you:

Don’t pick family members names, or even a city you live in or phone number or a hobby or anything else that is easily to be guessed about you. Just pick words that are not related to you. Remember, popular social sites and blogs encourage people to write a profile, so if you write you live in … and you wife’s and kids names are …. and graduated from …..

This information could be easily guessed, if you use any of it to create your passwords.

3- Don’t pick easily guessable words, numbers and/or patterns:

I have done this before, with words like: bulldog, goldfish, coffee, 123456, asdfg, abcdef, abc123, 911, ….

4- Don’t  store your password on your laptop or online

If you can’t remember and have to save you password, save it in a file offline. I would save it on a writable CD or a flash drive that can be easily detached from your laptop. I don’t like online sites or software that helps managing passwords. I feed safer just doing it the old fashioned way, writing them on a little booklet that I keep in a safe place.

5-Include numbers, capital letters and symbols

Try to always incorporate all letters in your password, not only lower case. The chances that a brute force attack will find your password will be of a magnitude of 10 thousands more difficult, than with just using lower case characters. It is a statistical truth that you want to be aware of to better protect you accounts.

6-Consider changing your password at least once a year

I have seen big corporations enforcing policies of changing passwords every 90 days, but I don’t think this helps a lot since an attacker will need only minutes or even hours time to crack your password. You will need however to change your password, just to make sure it is not found or stored in a place that someone can find.

7-Make sure your Antivirus software is up-to-date.

Always make sure your anti virus is up-to-date and gets updated constantly, otherwise switch to a different software. Make sure the software checks the incoming email and scans the attachments as well and never download any attachment unless you know the sender and trust the attachment too.

This is my list, did I miss anything? Let me know.

Regards.

A survey by Edison Research reveals that for the first time more Americans would give up television over the internet, if they had to choose of course. 49% would give up television versus 48% would give up internet. Just 9 years ago the same survey showed the opposite. 72% will give up internet versus 26% give up television.

Regards.

Online money management has become a method used by many. At work, I always see my colleagues going to either their bank, brokerage accounts, or just checking the stock market on a frequent basis.
No matter what your New Year resolutions is, the internet makes it easier to start your search. Of course remember their are a lot more resources in the libraries, that haven’t yet made it online. The internet is a good place to start however, just be cautious to  turn to known and reputable sites and use your common sense to stay away from trouble sites.

Have you done something about using the internet more safely? Read about McAfee here.

To read more about the study from Performics, please go here.

Regards.

My blog has witnessed more visitors this year, and it has been a rewarding experience for me to be able to help many for hosting or web presence and blog related inquiries.

Best wishes for an exciting 2010!

I first started with a Yahoo email and then added Gmail, but still keep my Yahoo email, which started to collect emails that I don’t really like to read..

Gmail offers a lot of features. My favorite one is being able to send email using “Send mail as” feature. This feature allows me to send email appearing from multiple accounts, and is a great way to organize my emails and respond to all of them from one single account.

To read more check it out here.

Regards.

I personally favor women’s choices here, as I think usability can add a lot of value to a site and bring repeat visitors. A while ago, I mentioned easy steps that I think every site owner and specially WordPress site owner should consider. Check it out and let me know what you think. (7-key-features-your-wordpress-blog-should-never miss)

So, what is your wishlist?

To read more about the recent study, click here.

Regards.

A recent study by Nielsen online reveals Social Networks ahead of personal email use.

Social Networks are also growing twice as fast as any of the other main sectors of the internet. Orkut in Brazil has the largest online members of any other network in the world and Facebook has the highest average time per visitor.

To learn more check on the report “Global Faces and Networked Places” in pdf.

Regards.

I think it is worth it to have your own domain, rather than just create a blog or a site with a free provider. If you can get your firstnamelastname.com or just your lastname.com that would be great.

The 3 reasons I think why you should have your own personal domain are:

1) Maintain your web presence:

Having your own domain name versus hosting your site on a free provider reminds me with the argument of owning a house versus renting it. These days owning is not a good idea, but it is worth it for the long term.
Owning a domain name will assure that you will keep it, even if you have to move from hosting provider to another hosting.

2) Friends and others will find you easier:

Search engines will not give attention to websites hosted by free providers, like they do with your own domain. Many sites that are hosted by free hosting providers are not even indexed by some search engines. On the other hand, if your domain name includes a keyword, it will be indexed and your friends can find you easier this way.

3) Acquire a unique email address:

This is my favorite. I always like people’s emails who are like: firstname@lastname.com. Isn’t that better reflecting who you are than just firstname.lastname@yahoo.com?
If you can get your lastname.com or .anything else, you can add emails for other family members, like yourson@lastname.com, …

Do you have a personal domain name? I hope you are convinced that you need one right now?
For a small fee that you pay for your own domain name before it is taken away. You will end up getting long lasting benefits that will payoff in the future.

Check out availability of your domain name and register it right here.