Anne Francis Web Design

Have you seen that “So-and-so read an article…” in your Facebook news feed, and it’s something really incriminating?

Peter read an article.
“How to hide an affair from your wife.”

Ouch.

Where does this come from? One of the latest types of apps that have emerged on Facebook, social news readers. These apps automatically post to your Facebook friends everything you read on the related news site. So for example, if you have installed the Washington Post Social Reader Facebook app, EVERYTHING you read on the Washington Post can appear in your Facebook friends’ news feeds.  This seems like a serious invasion of privacy, with inadequate forewarning for the users who enlist.

Though it is brilliant for publishers to push their articles out into Facebook’s viral atmosphere, maybe you don’t want people to know you just read about how to eradicate back warts.

Good news is, there’s ways to avoid this and ways to adjust if you haven’t avoided.

Here’s how people get into this fix. Lets say you see that your friend read an article and you’re interested in reading too, and you click on the article in your Facebook news feed. If you aren’t taken to the article but instead arrive at the app installation page where it asks you to install and allow it access before you see the article, stop. Probably you should evacuate.  But, if you want to allow a particular news app access to your news feed, and would like control over the news stream nightmare, just adjust the app settings (or remove it altogether).  Here’s how:

Log in to Facebook. In the top right hand corner is a downward facing arrow. Click on it.
Click on Account Settings.
In the left-hand sidebar click on Apps.
Click the Edit button next to the app you want to edit and adjust accordingly.

It’s highly recommended to once in a while go into your Facebook settings and see what apps you’ve installed and remove those you don’t use or recognize. You’ll be surprised what’s lurking there.

• Use an inform­at­ive tone. You’d be sur­prised how much traffic flows to your web site when people are try­ing to find inform­a­tion. If you have cre­ated an art­icle topic that people are inter­ested in with the proper search tags, you will build hits to your web­site and poten­tially build busi­ness. Research a topic that is part of your busi­ness product or ser­vice. Be sure to acknow­ledge sources for your information.
• Keep your con­tent clean and simple. Avoid using too many com­plic­ated words that con­fuse the reader. Writ­ing should be honed down to the few­est num­ber of words that get your point across. For­cing a reader to muddle through long win­ded descrip­tions is a sure way to lose their interest. Work on per­fect­ing a writ­ing style that is friendly and fun. Use humor if pos­sible to keep a light tone.
• A good art­icle begins with an intro­duc­tion. Next provide the inform­a­tion that was out­lined in the intro­duc­tion. Bul­let points are an effect­ive way to keep your con­tent inter­est­ing. Some authors provide using short para­graphs. Insert­ing sub head­ings also adds interest to your art­icle. Fol­low up with a con­clu­sion that reviews some of the inform­a­tion in your content.
• Use descript­ive adject­ives to liven up your writ­ing. Don’t for­get the similes and meta­phors. Similes use “like” and “as”. For example “She ran through the woods like a gazelle.” Or “He was as slow as molasses.” A meta­phor describes a noun as if com­pared to another object dir­ectly. For example “My Dad is a bear in the morning.”
• Be sure to provide links at the bot­tom of your art­icle to ensure more searches to your web­site from search engines. Joomla provides a simple method to add links or tags in the K-​2 exten­sion for art­icle writ­ing. Don’t for­get to update the meta-​tag title, descrip­tion, and keywords.

Util­iz­ing these tips should make writ­ing your con­tent easier and your res­ults more effect­ive.

As we use WordPress for more than blogs, sometimes we set up categories to display things on a website we don’t necessarily want to show up in our Feedburner Feeds. I had to do this today and ran into some info online that didn’t work for me so thought I would post in case it helps anyone.

If you know the numerical IDs of the WordPress categories you’d like to exclude you’re almost there. If not, visit the Dashboard and in Posts>Categories click the Category you’d like to omit and note the cat_ID=XXX in the url (web address) field at the top of your browser (where XXX represents the numeral, it can be any number of any length). Do this for each category if you have more than one. Lets say for this exercise the IDs I want to omit are 2, 109 and 300.

Log into your Google Feedburner account, click on the Feed Title you wish to edit, and click “Edit Feed Details” at the top. In the “Original Feed” field you’ll see something like: http://annefrancis.biz/feed

My new feed url with the 3 categories omitted is now http://annefrancis.biz/feed?cat=-2,-109,-300

So add to the url — starting with “?cat=”, precede each cat id with a minus sign, and separate each with a comma. If I only wanted to omit category 2 my url would look like this: http://annefrancis.biz/feed?cat=-2

Met my sisterfriends at the casino last weekend for a girlcation (good times).  We were chatting with one of the craps dealers and after finding common ground in poker he told me what had happened Friday — PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker and others have been forced to block access to US players.  Enlarge the image to see the big nasty message you’ll see if you visit any of these websites.

From what I understand, there’s been a federal law prohibiting banks from accepting funds from, or transferring funds to “known gambling sites”. A special code was supposed to be used by these companies in transactions identifying them as gambling sites so banks could deny accordingly.  Allegedly these sites used some creative workarounds. And addition to the federal law, states have their own online gambling laws. Washington, of course, taking the “no online gambling” stance. Due to a court battle lost by some brave gambling soul who was hoping to change all that last year (nice try), Full Tilt and some other sites denied access to Washington State players they had previously let in. I quoted an article below with some useful links for anyone who is in the position of being more than curious… (see original article at onlinepoker.net)

Notice: View Poker Sites Still Accepting USA Players

Following the culmination of a year long grand jury probe, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker have now been forced to block access to their sites for all US players.

US Congress introduced the UIGEA in 2006 making it illegal for their citizens to gamble online but nevertheless many poker rooms still continued to target and operate in the US market against the law.

However, not only have three of the world’s biggest poker rooms now suspended their US operations but the sites’ creators are also facing a range of charges including illegal gambling, money laundering and bank fraud.

Thus far, the poker companies have had 76 bank accounts in 14 countries shut down, interrupting the flow of billions of dollars to their sites. According to authorities, the sites are accused of disguising gambling payments and deceiving banks into processing the money by creating fake corporations and web sites claiming to be selling unrelated merchandise, such as jewellery and golf balls. Apparently around a third of these payments would then show up on the poker companies’ books as revenue.

As U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara explains, the defendants “concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits.”

The US government has now determined to go after more than $3 billion in money laundering penalties, and have so far arrested 11 people who could each face at least 30 years in jail. These men include PokerStars’ Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate, Full Tilt Poker’s Raymond Bitar and Nelson Burtnick, and Absolute Poker’s Scott Tom and Brent Beckley.

As the crack-down on online poker continues, US poker players have been waking up to the reality of not being able to play at their favourite sites. In the meantime, the defendants seem to be denying any wrong doings and assuring their customers their deposits would be kept safe.

For instance, a PokerStars statement read: “Please be assured player balances are safe. There is no cause for concern. For all customers outside the U.S. it is business as usual.”

In the meantime, US players can visit this page to find a list of poker sites still accepting usa players.

Here’s something my friend Tami emailed a couple of months ago, I saved it to share.  And for the record, my parents didn’t call me into the room to change the channel on the TV for them.

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning… uphill… barefoot… BOTH ways yadda, yadda, yadda.
 
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it.

But now that I’m over the ripe old age of 30 (ok maybe 40), I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. You’ve got it so easy!  I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia.

And I hate to say it, but you kids today don’t know how good you’ve got it.

When I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet!! If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog. There was no email!!  You had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen. Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there, and you had to pay money for a stamp to make it all happen.

Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass!  Nowhere was safe. 
 
There were no MP3′s or Napsters or iTunes. If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself; or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!  There were no CD players. We had tape decks in our car. We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when finished, and then the tape would usually come unwrapped rendering it useless. Cause hey, that’s how we rolled.

We didn’t have fancy crap like call waiting. If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that’s it! Beep-beep-beep, and you had no idea they had tried to call.
 
There weren’t any frickin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn’t make or receive a call. You actually had to be out of touch with your “friends”.  OH MY GOD!!!  Think of the horror.  And then there’s TEXTING.  Yeah, right.  Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are. 

And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either. When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was.  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent…you just didn’t know!!!  You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister. (We had “party lines”. It’s one way to get to know your neighbors real well.)

We didn’t have PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3D graphics. We had the Atari 2600 with games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’.  Your screen guy was a little square!  You actually had to use your imagination.  And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen… forever.  And you could never win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died (just like real life)!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on television. You were screwed when it came to channel surfing, you had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!!  NO REMOTES!!!  I remember getting called into the parents bedroom just to change the cannel for them.
 
There was no Cartoon Network, you could only get cartoons on Saturday morning.  Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little ratfinks!  (Yep Saturday mornings where great)

We didn’t have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that. I remember our first microwave…. baked potatoes for months.

And car seats – oh, please. Mom or dad threw you in the back seat and you hung on.  If you were lucky, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last moment if they had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for being a pig and calling “shotgun” in the first place.

See!!  That’s exactly what I’m talking about, you kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled rotten.

You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before.

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd