While this could be seen as another day-in-the-life update, the warning came with an interesting twist:
Do note that while we are recommending users move away from Adobe Reader, we are not recommending any particular replacement.
…Instead, we recommend users to find their own Adobe Reader replacement.
This way we get more heterogeneous userbase, which is a good idea security-wise. Nobody wants to repeat what happened with the great IE —> Firefox switch. As 40% of users switched to Firefox, about 40% of the attacks switched to target Firefox.
Monocultures are bad.
In the new world of online social, more and more people using the same tools, putting us all at risk as hackers and attackers move towards the natural migration of popularity. Monocultures are bad as they open the door to mass risks. read more
Lots of folks have lots of reason for feeling we’re on the outside.
It’s almost overwhelming. The world can seem to be one huge tribe and we can seem to be the only one who’s not a part. Of course, that’s flawed thinking. Ever met a group of people who could agree on anything huge for very long? The whole world is too big to hold a meeting about who belongs.
It’s not how the world sees you. It’s how you see yourself that counts.
When I was young, my mother taught me to choose my friends wisely. As an innocent, I thought this meant I should pick better, smarter people, i.e, the popular kids. While it is important to be known by the “known” people, what she explained was a bigger principle. You are judged by those you keep company with.
Among all the social media tools I’ve been exploring in this series, this is one of the most important ones: understanding the influence others have on you to help define your social influence.read more
Lloyd Budd of A Fool’s Wisdom has asked a very important question in this economy and techno-world we currently live in:
Working on a small project with a friend is a great opportunity to check out tools in other parts of the web development stack. I’ve been interested in trying out some of the software project management services and software.
…Likely the best approach for this project would be to first identify our needs and wants and then work through the available web services to find the closest matches.
Like Lloyd, are you stymied as you look at all the available web services, especially in the fast growing open source market, that will meet your needs. read more
@loic: Twitter is broken and we all know it. But we muddle along anyway. Bring us better tools so we can view groups we care about.
Scobleizer – Robert Scoble
The list of web-based services, open source, free programs, and social media tools for today’s businesses is impressive, but incomplete. It included Remember the Milk task management system, Woopra live web analytics, OpenOffice, Google Docs and Calendar, FreshBooks for invoicing, expenses, and time-tracking, SlideShare, Audacity audio recording and editing, YouSendIt for sending files free up to 2 gigs, and Oovoo the video messaging, conferencing, and chatting service. A great collection of outstanding free services, but what’s missing is more interesting. read more
I recently joined a social networking site called Twitter. The reason that I joined is simple. However the reason that I have stayed and made a conscious decision to become as Twitterer myself, is what has led me to this BLOG.
…After lurking for a while (not in a creepy context, simply observing) it occurred to me that I had encountered in Twitter a bona fide community of individuals bound together by common interests and occasionally, ideals….
I feel like I have found part of my tribe in my online community, my Tweeple, so to speak. It is my intention, in the days and weeks to come, to lean on my online tribe for the kind of support, advice, and good humor that any man can expect from one’s community…
In the most recent post on “Twitter traffic according to Hitwise,” Hitwise reports that the UK, USA, and Australia show a dramatic increase in Twitter usage and visits.
Let’s start with the UK. Twitter.com is the 291st most visited website in the UK. Internet traffic has increased by 974% over one year, see the graph below.
Traffic to Twitter from Australia has also grown significantly, 517.9% up over one year, as shown on the graph below.
…A few days earlier an analysis of Twitter traffic in the USA was also published. According to Hitwise, Twitter.com attracts more visitors than Digg. Twitter is ranked #84 in computers and Internet category, one place before Digg, ranked #85.
In April of 2008, Heather Hopkins at Hitwise analyzed the statistics of Twitter traffic to determine if this social interaction and microblogging service had hit the main steam for acceptance. Her research and analysis found that while it was increasing in usage and acceptance, Twitter ranked at 439 among “Social Networks and Forums” and was ranked at 4,309 for all types of websites. read more
As part of my ongoing series on exploring social media tools, I’d like to take a look at the usage of curse words on the web, specifically those tracked by Cursebird.
Adult Content Warning: The following includes words that may offend some. Consider yourself warned.
A lot of SEO and web strategies specialists spend a lot of time tracking keywords, search terms, hashtags, and other frequently used words and phrases across the web, especially those used in social media tools. Cursebird takes this research a step further. read more
Yesterday, Twitter was used as a real-time news conference podium by the Consulate General of Israel in New York and featured on their Israel news and commentary blog, Israel Politik. In this ongoing series on Exploring Social Media and Social Media Tools, the politics in issue are not up for discussion, but the manner in how this popular social media tool was used to great a Q&A forum for discussion of a current event is worth discussing.
Called a Citizens’ “Press” Conference on Twitter, from 1300 – 1500 EST on December 30, David Saranga, Israel Consul of Media and Public Affairs in New York, answered questions regarding the situation in the Middle East regarding Israel and Gaza and all parties involved. Questions were submitted to their Twitter account, @IsraelConsulate and attempts were made to respond to the questions through the 140 character limit, with those requiring lengthy answers would be posted on the Israel Politik blog.
There were no rules, other than the typical “play nice” and all questions were welcome from any and all angles. While Mr. Saranga was the host of the Twitter event, I’m sure he had a lot of help from his staff at the Consulate to respond to the flood of questions.
Within a very short time, the “edited” version of the Twitter conference was posted in sections on the Israel Politik blog. They explained what they meant by “edited” as: read more
Yesterday in Exploring Social Media: The Power of the Link Needs Content, I introduced the most powerful social media tool in the world, the link, and explained that unless you have make the link direct people to valuable and useful content, you are shooting blanks. The link makes a lot of noise with nothing to show for it.
The impact of linking to yourself is magnified in value. When you email or publish a link to something you wrote, recommending it, you are telling the world:
I know that which I write about.
I am an expert in the subject.
I have the experience to back up what I’m writing.
This is the best I can do.
Do your links qualify?
When you contact a blogger or anyone to encourage them to link to you, do you keep these things in mind? Are you offering your best work? Does your blog or social media tool show the world you are an expert in this?
If you have the proof behind your link, then maybe your failure is in the presentation of that link, especially when directed towards bloggers, the most capable of spreading the word far and wide about you and your blog. read more
F-secure reports on security vulnerabilities with Adobe Reader and Foxit Reader for reading PDF files. 
