Posts

Suggested Improvement to Facebook Groups: Searches, Categories, Timelines and Hashtags

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Here is a follow-up on this earlier post  where I suggested that Facebook add amenities to their "Groups" feature such as "search" and "categories". Thankfully, they implemented the search feature but we're still waiting for a day when group administrators (admins) will have the power to really order and prioritize the posts on their forums via categories and other means. Also, sadly, Facebook's group search feature can't seem to search beyond a limited time-frame or number of entries, depending on whether the entry was made in a comment or in a post. Illustration by Dr Ajao In another post , I commended Facebook on introducing the Timeline feature which serves as a categorization feature of sorts based on time. As long as anyone vaguely remembers what time a post was made, it can be more easily found via the timeline feature. A timeline feature should be highly appreciated by admins if also applied to Facebook Groups, the same way it h...

Man of Steel and the Billion-Dollar Movie Club

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This is the second major post in what is going to become the Billion-Dollar Club series tracking the Box Office performance of movies that came out with enough hype to justify some expectation of reaching a billion dollars in worldwide ticket sales. Well some expectation on my part at least. These movies are tracked in comparison to the progress of other movies that made it to a billion. I've added a few other outliers to round the number to the top 20 movies worldwide. While the spreadsheet I'm using features the current top 20 movies, I'll only be tracking progress in relation to movies of my choice. The next major tracking after "Man of Steel" (MOS) will be "Avengers 2" or "Man of Steel 2"...whichever comes first. If I get a special request to include a movie that could do some box office damage, say "Pacific Rim" or something, then I'll oblige. Otherwise, it's the flagship caped supers all the way. MOS started it...

Suggested Improvement to Facebook Group Admins

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I'm back again, and Facebook (FB) should listen this time because they end up implementing my suggestions anyways. For shame! FB does not allow one to send messages to only the administrators (moderators)  of a group. The closest FB comes to this is a feature available to only small groups. What does FB mean by "small groups"? Apparently only groups with 50 members or less count as small groups. This won't do FB. We're not able to move as fast with our four-hundred-or-so-member groups because we can't rally the administrators (admins) conveniently. Imagine having to create a new message list of recipients every time you want to reach twenty group admins (Yes some groups need that many admins...even more).  I guess, once one has created such a message the hard way, one could keep that message thread going indefinitely, instead of needing to create a new message and painstakingly repopulating the recipient...

I said it...about Google!

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I said it blatantly in a post  a year and a half ago that "Nobody is as well-positioned to benefit from the proliferation of the internet like Google is." Google's decision to provide free WiFi to one of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the US seems to be proof of that. Many businesses make a profit DESPITE providing free internet access to consumers. Google will probably be the first (if they aren't already) to make more money BECAUSE they provide free internet access to consumers. It's like a car dealership knowing of someone who wants to buy a car (and can afford to make regular car payments). They could probably afford to pick that person up at his home and chauffeur-drive him to their lot to see their latest selection. Other businesses are able to provide that free ride to that car dealership BUT they don't sell cars. They're hoping that while that person is driving off the lot...

Pastors and Private Jets.

This is obviously a sore topic. I do not condone pastors embezzling money. I do not condone pastors using church funds for personal gain (save their allotted salaries). I do not condone pastors being selfish and/or greedy. But that's where my outrage ends. I do not have a knee-jerk negative reaction to a jet acquisition…not until I know all the facts. I do not believe that because one is a pastor, he cannot be well-to-do. There are poor pastors, and there are rich pastors. There are poor doctors and there are rich doctors. There are poor and rich engineers, lawyers, musicians, Danfo drivers, and even presidents! Wealth is not a function of one's occupation. Too many factors come into play, such as investment and/or business savvy, inheritance, use of valuable property (both material and intellectual), use of goodwill and social networks. A pastor of a church where many of the congregants are rich will drive a better car than one where the congregants are poo...

Facebook: Scammers Tactic: Dating/Relationships

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If you've never checked the 'Other' segment of your Facebook inbox, you're probably not missing much. However, when I checked mine I found out that the 'Others' folder is the place Facebook sends messages that pages I've liked have sent to me. Well the pages send these messages to all their fans but they might as well have been to only me. Facebook treats the 'Others' folder as a kind of spam folder that you could decide to ignore outright, or clean up since it's possible an important mail could make its way there.  I will not complain about Facebook's 'spam filtering' because I think they try to err on the side of caution. This blog post is going to focus on messages from people that say they saw your profile and would like to pursue some sort of relationship. I've found most (99.9%) of these to be from scammers. By now, this is not a new tactic but it has replaced the slightly older tactic of claiming they are stranded in a...

e-Mail Hacked? Changing Password is Not Enough!

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A couple of days ago, a friend's e-mail address was compromised by scammers. They got access to her e-mail account and sent e-mails to her contacts (impersonating her) with the claim that she was stranded in foreign land and needed urgent financial aid. We discovered that the fraudsters had changed quite a few of her e-mail settings to make their scam keep working for them even after my friend would have changed her password! I learned quite a bit from the experience and I have a few (pre or post) cautionary measures to share. If you suspect that your account has been hacked into, here are some tips that should be very useful (especially if you use Yahoo Mail).  Change your password ! Luckily, many times, the hackers don't change your password in order to reduce your likelihood of suspicion. They know that if you're not able to log in, you're likely to contact your e-mail provider. The good scammers allow you to keep logging in, business-as-usual. Changing your pa...