Patti on Good Morning America

Last week Patti headed to New York City for the first time with the ladies. My advice, "wear comfortable shoes and bring a camera". Patti one upped my advice by getting herself in front of someone else's camera.

On Friday morning, Patti sent me a 7:00am txt message: Patti I saw you and pam nice glasses and good kiss. After reading it a few hundred times, I gave up and called her. There was a lot of noise on the other end of the line but she explained that Connie saw her on Good Morning America and sent the txt. Apparently, I had missed the first txt explaining she would be on TV. Lucky for Patti and the rest of the crazy glasses ladies, Denver is two hours behind New York so I recorded the whole thing. Don't hesitate to drop me or Patti a line in the comments. Enjoy.

Facebook: tips and tricks

Here are a few things someone should have told me when I signed up:

Spam
If your friends have messages from you that you didn't write, review this page:

https://register.facebook.com/security

Your account may have been compromised by a fake email that appeared to be from Facebook. The email probably looked like an official 'you have a new friend' message but wasn't. Make it a habit to avoid clicking on email links albeit from Facebook or your bank. It is always safer and more secure to go directly to the address you know, logon and read the message there. To stop receiving various emails from Facebook see the 'Email' section below.

On this same topic. If you get a message from a friend that says go to a strange .com, I would avoid it. Their account may have been compromised. Be especially wary if the message isn't a link but the address spelled out phonetically. Facebook scans for harmfull addresses but can't detect them when they are spelled out.

Privacy
The number one reluctance to creating an account and with good reason. No one wants to have a drunken office party photo spread around the Intertubes. Facebook has been pinched on this in the past and have learned some valuable lessons. Every aspect of your profile can be shared or kept private. Get to know these settings:

Logon | Settings | Privacy Settings

Share only what you want to share.

Friends

The two basic sharing options are either share with 'Only Friends' or share with 'Friends of Friends'. Personally, I have set them all to Only Friends. There is probably a good reason someone is only a friend of a friend and not an actual friend.

Once you add a friend there is no turning back. By default settings, they will be able to see every status update as well as every comment you write. IMO, Facebook is a cool tool to share your life with friends online. Friending every person you have ever met defeats the purpose. Think long and hard before you friend someone from the office.

Logon | Settings | Privacy Settings | Basic

Email
By default Facebook will send emails about everything. I recommend you turn most of them off:

Logon | Settings | Account Settings | Notification.

Here you'll see a long list. I turn off all but "Has a birthday coming up" which is very useful and all the Events section. Make special note to turn off "Adds me as a friend", see the 'Spam' section above for more information.

Phonebook
One of the more handy features, the phonebook lists all of your friend's phone numbers (unless that have chosen to keep them private). When you or your friend updates a number it will be updated for everyone else too.

Friends | Phonebook

Please write me a comment with your facebook tips and tricks.

Silvershoe - flying stop motion

The guys at SilverShoe are at it again.

Subscribe to their YouTube channel. For the discerning eye, higher quality can be found here.

Bathtub III

This video was mentioned on my latest podcast obsession, "This Week in Photography" aka TWIP recently and whether you like photography or not--I had to share. Honestly, I'm not sure what technique the photographer is using other than time lapse but the stunning result is everything looks like miniatures. To see some of the photographer's other work check out his site:
keithloutit.com

For great photography tips and news check out the TWIP blog:
twiplog.com or find the audio/video feed on iTunes.

Here is another photo blog that in all honestly could win me a drobo just for linking to it. If you were to click on the link it would be sweet (for me): photofocus.com


Bathtub III from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.