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Issue #49 | May 19, 2010
| office: 817.210.6177
Facebook | In-Store (un)Optimization
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Is Facebook a frightening privacy monster? Yes! Well, I mean no, not really. Actually, it kinda depends. We'll dig in deeper and find out more. The Nerd Herd wants $40 to "fix" my new computer, should I do it? I'll tell you why that's a waste of money.
Facebook, Securing Your Social Information [www.facebook.com]
Facebook has caught quite a bit of bad press as of late; some of it's deserved and some of it isn't as bad as it seems. If you ask the paranoid hold-outs they'll tell you Facebook is a virus laden cesspool of privacy violations. They're right. I mean, think about it, they do call it social networking for a reason. Anything you say or post on Facebook (or any other website) will be visible by other people; that is the whole point, after all. The art of privacy comes in the form of discretion. If it’s something you don’t want people to know, don’t put it on the internet. Sounds simple enough, right? Facebook does include several (over 170!) settings to allow you to adjust who can see what but that main rule still applies. ReclaimPrivacy.org offers you a quick, easy and free way to check up on what you’re sharing without going through all 170+ settings by hand. The virus issues can be avoided by using the “virus common sense” you already have from dealing with email. You can avoid most virus infections by avoiding links that take you outside of Facebook. That link to the funny video of the cat playing the piano could just as well be a virus; it’s usually best not to find out the hard way. Also avoid friending people who you don’t know in real life. There are certainly some strange people out there.
Optimized! (or not...), You want $40 for what now?
Buying a computer at the advertised price has recently become $40 more difficult. The reason is a $40 “tax” that several Big Box retailers are putting on their new computers. They call it optimization and they promise that it will increase the speed of your computer by 200%, make it invulnerable to virus infections, include every update ever released and be capable of time travel (I may have made that last one up, I think I saw that claim on their website but I can’t remember.) If you think about it you can find several problems with their claims right out of the box (even if you exclude the time travel one.) If it were possible to make computers 200% faster through software settings, don’t you think eMachines would have done that at the factory so as to have an advantage over competitors? The virus protection they install is nothing more than a 30-day demo from Norton that you can freely grab from Norton’s website and all recent versions of Windows download their updates automatically. In reality, what they do is delete a few desktop icons and install enough trial software to make even the top end computers perform no better than your old one did. The $40 “tax” allows them the opportunity to sell more software in the name of optimization. I’d pass on it if you can but the trick they employee is to pre-optimize every computer they have in stock. That usually leaves you no option but to pay their tax. I have found that a calm-but-strict discussion with a manager can usually locate a factory fresh unit even when the salesman can’t find one.
Final Byte...
“Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it.”
~Erin Bury
Sprouter Community Manager
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