So, I just spent the last two hours on the phone with a friend of mine who’s facebook account was hacked tonight.  Unfortunately, we made a few mistakes that I will talk about in a bit so you don’t do the same.   The interesting thing about this is that it is happening more and more often.  Don’t believe me?  Just Google “my facebook account has been hacked” and see how many thousands of pages come up.  The real disturbing thing is, not only will you find victims– but “how tos” as well.

Now, this of course is to be expected– this is what hackers do.  They see a challenge and rise to it.  Hacking facebook is no different than hacking into school records, medical reports, phishing for bank or credit card info, except that the penalties are not nearly as harsh.  Malicious hackers do it for fun, for the challenge, to prove a point, & in some cases to get a job.  A job you ask?  Really?  Well, if a hacker can prove there is a problem with a system, in many cases they either know the solution or can establish one with little effort.  Companies hire both convicted and “reformed” hackers all the time for security positions.  I recently saw an article on Monster.com with tips on how to make a hacking hobby into a career. Read more…

Jeff H. Internet, Technology Facebook, Hacker, phishing, Social Media

Happy Star Wars Day! I have been too busy to post any new news, but I couldn’t let today “May the 4th” pass by without mentioning it.  So, “May the Forth be with you”

Jeff H. Internet, Technology, good movie Nerdcore, Star Wars, Starwars Day

Those of you who have been reading my little blog for a while know I am an avid Apple fan, and when i stumble upon a new trick or tip I like to share it.  Last night we had some friends over and my wife wanted to show them the Susan Boyle clip on YouTube –believe it or not, they had not seen it yet.  I didn’t want to go through the pain of hooking up my MacBook Pro to the TV and my wife’s PC in the kitchen was already shut down, so I pulled it up on my iPhone via the YouTube app.  Needless to say the iPhone is good for a lot of things, but showing a video to a group is not one of them.  I don’t have an Apple TV (I have an Xbox and several iPods so I never really saw the need for one), but I do have Apple’s Component AV cable hooked up to my 42″ LCD TV.  I use the AV cable to watch movies that I have loaded on my iPod Classic.  So, not knowing if it would work I plugged my iPhone into the cable and restarted the clip– it worked perfectly.  I guess I should have realized I could do this from the get go, but I never really had a need to hook my phone to my TV to watch YouTube.  The resolution was decent & the sound quality superb.  So, if you find yourself in a situation where you want to show web based YouTube content to a few people– grab your iPhone and either Apple’s componet or composite AV Cable (each $49 at apple.com) and stream away.

Jeff H. Apple, Internet, Technology, iPhone iPhone, Susan Boyle, Tips, YouTube

GameFly after a complete overhaul of their website launched a new Trade-In program.  The process is very simple. First, log in to your GameFly account.  Second, click on the trade-in link. Now, enter the UPC codes for the games you want to trade in.  When you are ready, click submit and it will give you the trade-in value for your games.  At this point you will be prompted to print the instructions, packing list, & shipping label.  That’s it simple.  Now, the price you are given is only good for a limited time, so you have to make sure that GameFly receives your game by the deadline they give you.  Also, you are responsible for your own shipping, so take that into consideration when you are selling your games– it may be worth more to you to just run down to your local used game store & pawn them there.  I just started the Trade-In process on three games I had lying around and will let you all know how it goes.

*****Update 4-24-09*****

I received notice that GameFly accepted all of my games for the value they listed.  Hooray! But, when I went to apply that credit to one of the games I have at home to keep it, I found out that the credit is only good toward your membership!  Not really sure how I feel about that– granted it will be nice to pay less on my monthly, but I really wanted to use it toward the purchase of a game.  I guess next time I will just drive down to my local Used Game Shop.

Jeff H. Game Tips, Internet, gaming, xbox GameFly, Trade-In, used games

Looking for a new and exciting way to use Twitter?  Check out Worthwhile’s new App Twitterpool! Create an event choosing the people and the place. In just 60 seconds, you’ve got your very own party going. So go hit up your Tweeps for a Tweet up!

Jeff H. Internet, Technology Twitter, Worthwhile

I just wanted to share that I think BrickSimple, the makers of 1337pwn applications for the iPhone and Google’s Android phone is one of the coolest companies around producing Mobile Apps. I don’t know the guys personally, but i follow them on twitter & use their apps everyday.  Besides the cool mobile apps they produce, BrickSimple also provide technology consulting and web based software development.  So, go check out their site bricksimple.com and by all means use their apps.

Jeff H. Apple, Internet, Technology, gaming

You may have noticed more and more that some of your friends on Facbook (http://is.gd/xRz), Twitter (http://bit.ly/CbiIs), and other social networking sites are using very short (and bizarre looking) little links in their posts like,  “Jeff Haughton is working on his blog, check it out http://is.gd/83c2“.  These are Micro URLs and there are several sites where you can convert a long URL like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=tiny+url&cat=all to this http://tinyurl.com/5j2rz3 or even to this http://is.gd/27yf.  Why would you want to do this when you could just copy and paste?  Well, that’s what micro blogging is all about isn’t, taking a long thought or idea & compressing it into 140 characters or less?  Why would you want to waste precious characters while twittering to your peeps about your favorite author’s new book on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Beedle-Collectors-Offered-Exclusively-Amazon/dp/0956010903/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b) when you could just do this http://tinyurl.com/6pqfy2 or even this http://is.gd/83jb. So, i think that it is safe to assume that all of these cool little URLs are a direct result of the whole micro blogging phenomena. Read more…

Jeff H. Internet, Technology blogging, Micro Blogging, micro URL