The Picture Shown Around the World

By now you may have heard about the sister of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg being upset over a picture posted on her personal Facebook account being posted on Twitter.  You may be asking how private those posts and pictures you put on Facebook really are. Apparently Randi Zuckerberg posted this picture so only her Facebook “Friends” could see it. Callie Schweitzer then posted it on her Twitter account. Callie Schweitzer while not a Facebook friend of Randi subscribes to her feeds and also is a Facebook friend of Mark and Randi’s sister. She apparently saw the picture because she is Facebook friends with the sister. Since her sister was tagged in the picture, Callie was able to see it. Callie thought that the picture was public since she subscribes to Randi’s posts on Facebook but this picture was not posted with access provided to subscribers.  It is not difficult to copy someone else’s picture that you see in Facebook. Click to open the picture and then right click.  An option to save will show among other options. Once saved, you can do with it as you wish including posting it to Twitter. On a personal note a friend of mine remarked how she was not able to download a picture of her and her daughters that her friend posted on Facebook. In a few seconds, I downloaded the picture and emailed it to her.

The protocol is to ask before posting someone else’s photos for others to see. Think of this as sending a letter to your friend who we will call “A”.  You do not expect that A will share the letter with others. A decides to share the letter with B and C. This is largely what happened here. The issue was not Facebook’s privacy settings but someone else sharing the picture above and beyond.  When you post to Facebook whether it be a picture, your writings, etc you should realize that it may be seen by those you did not intend to see it.  Note that while the picture was deleted by Callie Schweitzer, articles with the picture were posted online so it can be seen by all. I am using it in this article without compromising any confidences. And yes the man on the right side is Mark Zuckerberg himself.

The takeaway is to be careful of what you post on Facebook and other social media sites. Don’t put anything out there that you would not want to appear in a newspaper, seen by your boss, your parents, your children, etc.

If you have further questions about your privacy on Facebook and other social media sites I can be contacted at (917) 572-3468 or email me at mike@computerconciergeny.com .

My Facebook page provides information on the current goings on in the technology field. There are tips to better use your technology. For timely information, please visit and "Like" my page.

Computer Concierge NY LLC provides expert computer and technology services in the Queens, NY area. This includes Albertson, Bayside, Bayside Hills, Bay Terrace, Bellerose, College Point, Douglaston, Floral Park,  Flushing, Forest Hills, Great Neck, Jamaica Estates, Kew Gardens, Kings Point, Lake Success, Manhasset, Mineola, Munsey Park,  New Hyde Park, North Hills, North Shore Towers, Oakland Gardens, Plandome, Rego Park, Roslyn, The Bay Club, Thomaston, University Gardens, Williston Park, Whitestone and Other Areas in the Bayside, NY vicinity.  Our web services are provided worldwide.

About Our Online Distractions; Are They?

Recently I read a blog post on Bayside Patch where the writer mentioned that many of us have become addicted to the online world. There were some very valid points that the author brought up. That said there are also ways that being online has given us free time as opposed to taking away time.

We have become an information society where information is both available and demanded quicker. The killing of Osama Bin Laden and the death of Whitney Houston broke on Twitter before anywhere else. It used to be if you needed to do research you went to the library. Now you can do your research online. I can remember having to wait for the news to get weather and sports or dialing 976-1212 or 976-1313 which if I remember was a local call for charging purposes and the information I was looking for could be at the end. Today you can set alerts on your smartphone for the weather as well as the score of your favorite teams.  If we are not, we all should be lifelong learners. Google “opencourseware” and see all the free college courses available online. YouTube is a good source of educational videos as well.

It used to be that unless you ordered from mail order catalogues you had to spend time getting in your car and going to the store to buy what you were looking for. In this day of $4 a gallon gas, you can order going online any hour of the day from your home. You’re saving gas and driving time plus a lot of times the price is less than when you go to a store.

Banking online is also a growing trend. You can pay your bills online automatically saving the time of writing a check to the same payee every month for the same amount. Paying bills online is faster and less expensive (think stamps). You no longer have to write the same checks every month.

Text messaging has become a big thing with the younger generation. My sons do not want me leaving voice mail messages. They want me to leave text messages instead. Texts are quicker to read then listening to a voicemail. Grandparents have gotten on Facebook partially because that is how they find out what their grandchildren are up to. Our phone books and calendars are online. The list goes on.

Being online can be a saver of time and money from the standpoint of business travel. There is less of a need to travel for business meetings in many cases. Meetings can be done via Skype, Google+ hangouts or another online medium. Time and money spent travelling are saved because these meetings can occur online. This can give some businesspeople more family time.

Newspapers have fallen victim to the online world. The New Orleans Times Picayune will start publishing 3 days a week and will no longer be a daily paper. The news is more current online then the published version. Declining newspaper circulations are also saving trees as less paper is needed to reach the declining circulation.

I mentioned Skype earlier. If you are unfamiliar with Skype, it enables you to have a video conference with another Skype user anytime, anywhere without a time limit for free. Not only does it have business uses but people are using it to keep in touch with out of town friends and family. It is touching to see grandparents talk about and seeing them have a conversation on Skype with their out of town grandchildren. I know of a family who lives in New York who did a Passover Seder with family in Australia using Skype. The telephone company used to say, “Long distance: the next best thing to being there.”  In today’s word, Skype may be the next best thing to being there.

While our online activity can be a distraction, it also can save time as well. Yes we have become addicted to the online world but so much is going on in today’s world that occurs there. I think we all have seen people together in a public place keeping busy on their phone rather than interacting. Is it necessary? Personally I can remember growing up playing in the park and playgrounds with friends and enjoying being outdoors. I am concerned when instead of enjoying our parks and playgrounds, young people are indoors playing games on their Wii, Xbox or another video game console. For those who feel the need to check their email or texts while connecting during dinner maybe a compromise is in order. Perhaps check to see if the call, message or email is something of a truly urgent nature. If not, it can wait. If it truly is urgent and by this I mean an emergency then yes take the call, answer the text or whatever. Otherwise use the time to connect with friends and loved ones.

If you are interested in learning how to better use your technology and save some time of your own call me at (917) 572-3468.


Computer Concierge NY LLC provides expert computer and technology services in the Queens, NY area. This includes Albertson, Bayside, Bayside Hills, Bay Terrace, Bellerose, College Point, Douglaston, Floral Park,  Flushing, Forest Hills, Great Neck, Jamaica Estates, Kew Gardens, Kings Point, Lake Success, Manhasset, Mineola, Munsey Park,  New Hyde Park, North Hills, North Shore Towers, Oakland Gardens, Plandome, Rego Park, Roslyn, The Bay Club, Thomaston, University Gardens, Williston Park, Whitestone and Other Areas in the Bayside, NY vicinity.  Our web services are provided worldwide.

Why I Am Not Following You On Twitter

Twitter is a very prominent social networking and microblogging service. Those using Twitter have people they follow and people who follow them.

There are those people who I will follow when I see that they are following me. There are those I will tend not to follow. The reasons I do not follow someone are entirely not personal.  The person could be a very good person. These reasons are not absolute as I have made exceptions. Some reasons for not following someone are:

1. They have less then 10 tweets. I like to get a feel for what the person is like before following. With few or none tweets of their own, I am unable to grasp what they are about. Do their tweets align with their profile? 
2. Someone not having a profile or the profile does not tell me about them. Who are you? What are you about? I would like to know about you if I am to follow you.
3. A person seems to be tweeting on an almost ongoing basis. There are those who it seems are constantly on Twitter tweeting what appears 200 times daily or so. Twitter is about conversation and in a conversation there is an exchange of ideas.
4. Tweets consistently showing the same link. The person is spamming on Twitter. 
5. Their interests do not match what I am interested in. Let's say a person constantly tweets about Newton's 3 Laws of Motion. This is a subject that would make me not inclined to follow. That said, I did once make an exception for a follower who I had no intent of following. They did however list me and mentioned me on a Tweet.  I must admit they charmed me into following them and I am glad to follow as whoever tweets for this Twitter handle is a really nice person.
6. Their tweets are all about them and trying to plug their product and/or themselves. Similar to #4.  
7. "Tips on making money" is in their bio. Again it is about them. We all want to make money but at least be subtle about it. 
8. Someone who follows many people and hardly anyone follows them. A lot of times this ties in to having few or no tweets.  
9. They do not have a link to their website or blog in their profile or just as bad the website link in their profile does not work.  
10. They seem to argue rather than discuss. Twitter is about an exchange of ideas and not I am right and you are wrong. Further 2 people can have different approaches to an issue and both be right.  

While there are other reasons, these are the main ones.  For those not having many tweets and/or no profile, I want to know more about you before I follow.  

Anthony Weiner and Twitter

This is not going to be a political post. I do not get political on this blog. However there are times where politics and tech related issues intertwine and this is one of these times. This blog is from a tech perspective and I will not issue an opinion of Congressman Weiner one way or another politically.

Congressman Weiner admitted yesterday that he had tweeted lewd pictures of himself. He supposedly is one of the more tech savvy members of Congress. I have made mention both on this blog and on Twitter the need to be careful of what you put out on the internet especially social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. A lot of what you put out there in cyberspace is out in the open for all to see. Congressman Weiner who again is tech savvy should have known this. Unless your tweets are protected or you are sending a direct message to someone, any tweet you make is there and cannot be considered a secret in any way, shape or form. When I tweet, I realize this. If I make a grammatical error or another error guess what? It can be seen by anyone and does not put me in the best light. Anyone with internet access can see them by simply doing a search on Twitter. A lot of my tweets can also be found by doing a search on Google or another search engine. Since he admitted that he sent it, I cannot understand how Anthony Weiner as a user of Twitter could not think that somehow the Tweet of him in his underwear would be hush hush. If he intended to send a direct message, he should have been extra careful knowing the implications of the tweet in question. Also keep in mind that anyone using Twitter has the ability to retweet a tweet to their followers and of course that is there for all to see. So for argument's sake, if Charlie Sheen who has over 4 million followers was to retweet Weiner's infamous tweet all 4 million plus of his followers will see it. Sheen's followers can then retweet it to their followers and you can see this all spiraling.

Let me respond about hacked passwords here as Weiner initially said his account was hacked. You need to have a safe password. I have blogged about the need for a safe password in previous posts. Please see the link which also has links to related posts. http://mklubok.blogspot.com/2010/09/password-protection-revisited_29.html. You also need to be careful of phishing schemes.

In this day of social media, Google, Facebook, etc., we need to be careful of what we put online. Anything you do online in a public forum can be obtained by others. A few years ago I signed an online petition that photography in New York City subways not be banned. One time when doing an online search of myself, it came up. Anything I put on my website www.computerconciergeny.com is not between friends but for the whole world to see. This means that not only what you put on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter do you need to be careful about. You need to be careful about EVERYTHING you put online that is not an email or text message. Yes the recipient of an email or text can share that with others. But that also holds true for what you tell someone verbally or in writing.