Many teens view themselves as quite sophisticated and may actually feel they need to shield their parents from things they see in their real-life or online worlds. They have navigated a course that allows them to get the good stuff and avoid the bad stuff.
Of course, this isn’t much different from teens from many generations. We all believed that we were able to handle things on our own. But as it was for all of us, just because teens feel quite worldly and capable, they need their parents’ and other trusted adults’ help in protecting their reputations and their best interests.
Two recent studies look at the approaches that teens take when dealing with difficult situations and their online relationships. The Pew Internet study’s “Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites” section on Privacy and Safety issues describes a world where kids manage the privacy settings on their online profiles to shield their information, photos and status updates and often lie about their ages to gain access to the sites. Some kids are quite adept at creating filters that allow only some info through while others are completely open. They make distinctions between who can be their online friend with full access and to whom they will seem invisible. Sometimes, they choose to hide information from their parents or older relatives even when they are on their friend list. They may have entirely separate online identities, “alts” in gaming terms, meant for familial contact.
A second study looks at how kids who argue with their parents may use the skills acquired in those arguments to resist peer pressure, and those teens who are more compliant might be more susceptible to peer influence as they use those same conflict avoidance lessons learned in the home and take it to their interactions with their social groups.
Taking the two studies together, consider that while you may be sure that your child’s online life is squeaky clean and in line with your family’s rules, the reality might not reflect that belief. While a determined kid will find ways around almost any boundary set, it might be the discussions explaining your reasoning for the rules that might be more valuable.
Perhaps take the time to share these articles with them. If you listen, you will probably hear stories of other kids they know who make mistakes online or who have social media profiles without their parents’ knowledge.
Explaining that racy photos, ignorant language or bullying all have impacts on reputation, the feelings of others and their character in a true conversation where you listen to their experiences and opinions might be better than a simple ‘no Facebook’ rule. And better prepare them for when they have to make their own decisions when you aren’t there.
Zappos sent an email this week to its employees explaining the details of a recent security breach. An unauthorized person gained access to names, addresses, email address, the last four digits of the credit card number and “cryptographically scrambled password.” They did not gain access to full-payment information. Zappos is requiring password resets for all customer accounts.
Zappo’s, which Amazon acquired in 2009, has “Powered by Service” as their motto. They have a very loyal customer base which gets them consistently listed as one of the most customer friendly online retailers and they have had many tales of their above-and-beyond service in online and print media.
Sites such as Lifehacker have published articles on what to do, but at this point I think the advice offered by Zappos is the best to follow. Update your password with them, know that Zappos will not ask for account information in emails (and any emails soliciting such information is likely fraudulent) and if you use the same password across multiple sites, change it at those other sites.
Generally, it is good practice to make strong passwords for any site that has your financial information and to consider using one of the free mail services such as Microsoft’s Hotmail or Google’s Gmail because both work hard to protect you from security threats. You can create an address that is specific to those sites and that is separate from your personal or work email.
As for passwords, you can customize each to a strong password so that if one site suffers a data breach that you don’t have to change all of your passwords. For example, if you use a password like “Ilike44cows@” you can use “ilike44amzncows@” or something similar. This particular example might be too long, but choose something that means something to you but is unlikely to be guessable by a hacker using dictionary words or common passwords.
Popular sites are attractive targets for hackers, and even the most robust security structure will have vulnerabilities. To protect our personal and financial security we have to do our part by using strong passwords, reading commercial emails with a skeptical eye and monitoring our accounts.
Every January Las Vegas is the center of the consumer electronics universe. It’s the Consumer Electronics Show, and all the big and little players, with the exception of Apple who hosts their own events, gather to show off their products and concepts for the coming year. The hot technology of the just-passed holiday season become last-year’s models; what was cutting-edge is now old news.
So, how do you handle the pace of change? It depends on your own personal style.
The Early Adopter
These are the folks who need to have the slickest, fastest, smallest and newest technology otherwise they feel out of date. They pay top dollar and are willing to put up with products that may still need a bit of kink straightening. CES and Apple press conferences will be followed like pronouncements from a holy mountain and a pile of ready cash must be set aside to keep up with whatever trendy items emerge.
The Entrepreneur
The entrepreneur is always looking for tools that are reliable and that give them an edge. This pushes them to early adoption, but not if that means using unstable tools. Money is of course a consideration when they are their most important investor, but money spent on business tech is usually tax deductible.
The Comfy Consumer
If money isn’t tight, why not have nice things? The comfortable consumer works hard or is lucky enough to have the means and is not afraid to spend money on tech that entertains them. From the ‘it’ brand or the latest and greatest innovation, these consumers tend to have media rooms, noise-cancelling headphones and a car dashboard with more computing power than an Apollo mission.
The Student
Fashion is important, and students are in constant competition with their peers and have come to expect a tech solution to every question—if only they had the budget to buy it all. If they have supportive parents they can make the case for a tech purchase, often prioritizing gadgets ahead of cars, books or spring break trips.
The Frugal Hold Out
Tech is seen as a luxury but this skeptical consumer, being an educated shopper, can see the value in a tool that could save them money in the long run. When tech companies court their business, they need to explain the smartness of a purchase. Replacing the computer when it makes good sense will often mean weeks if not months of research and the cell phone upgrade date is the beginning of the shopping process, despite the nudging of the provider to renew the contract term.
Being a tech fan involves a respect for both the scientific progress and the hits and misses of any invention. Do we need smart refrigerators? Or our scales tweeting our weight? Remember how silly camera phones seemed? We may not have flying cars but the ubiquitous computer seems well on its way to becoming commonplace.
Many Internet providers will set up your home network when you first connect to their service, but it is a fairlyeasydo-it-yourselfproject or a simple job for an IT support company. Whether you set it up yourself or go with a pro, but sure to know the basics of how to connect to your network and how to keep it secure.
First, as theWiFiAllianceexplains, you need to enable the more secure WPA/WPA2 standard. This setting will make it harder for someone to break into your network. Second, change the default name and password that comes with your WiFi router. You would be amazed at the number of home networks named ‘Linksys’ with the password “password.” You want to choose a strongpassword that isn’t easily guessable.
Uninvited guests on your Internet can overburden and slow down your network. The intruders can expose your network to suspect sites compromising the security of your data and your devices. Illegal activities such as piracy or trading in illicit materials could be attributed to your network and result in legal problems that would be avoided if you locked down your connection.
Some believe that you should share your Internet connection as a public good.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that anOpenWirelessMovement is needed as open Internet enables all of us to have access when we are away from our own resources. Unfortunately, the current security concerns of most home users don’t allow this ideal to be practically available. More directly, the sharing of your Internet connection is a violation of most Internet providers’ policies and can result in the cancellation of your service or even fines.
You are sure it could never happen to you. You are careful with your passwords, you don’t fall for get-rich-quick scams and you are too smart to be conned. Well, even smart people have bad things happen to them and getting your email or social media account hacked is one of those bad things.
Email accounts are taken over by criminals for several reasons, including to get to your personal information and online accounts, to send out fraudulent emails and to use your identity to possibly convince others to give money or personal information.
Here are some steps to take if you believe your account has been hacked:
• Report the hack. As soon as you detect that your email account or social media profile has been compromised, report it to the email provider or social media site. Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and other webmail services have methods of resetting your account’s password. If you are completely locked out of your account, you will have to contact their security team and seek assistance. If it is a Gmail account, here is a very thorough look at steps you should take in navigating the process.
• Assess the damage. After you have re-accessed your account and reset the password, be sure to see what damage is evident from your files. Delete offending tweets or wall posts. Check to see what personal or financial information might have been available to the intruders from within your mail folders and notify the banking institutions that the account was hacked.
• Lockdown. Run a complete virus scan on any computer or device that was compromised. Change the passwords on any of your accounts. Use secure passwords that are not shared for every account. You can have an easy, less-secure password for news sites perhaps, but for any account that is linked to your financial life or that could be co-opted to damage your personal reputation, a secure, unique password is a must.
• Alert and apologize. Let your contacts know that your email had been compromised. Apologize to your friends if the hacker sent out inappropriate or offensive content.
• Be vigilant. You may want to enlist a credit monitoring service if you believe your financial information was compromised. At the very least, be sure to carefully review your accounts, including phone bills or other non-banking sites which can be billed for products or services (iTunes for example).
Hopefully, you will never be a victim of hacking. Just the thought of the potential damage that could be caused by a hack should be enough to get people to make their accounts and passwords more secure, because we all know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Book Review: Sams Teach Yourself Windows® Phone 7 Game
Programming in 24 Hours
By Jonathan Harbour
This book delivers what is promised in the title, after you’ve gone through the book you will feel confident enough to program in the Windows Phone 7 environment. The author is clear and encouraging, providing sample code and art but gives you the tools needed to take the next step and create your own. I had followed other tutorials about app development and each glossed over
the creation of images; this pointed me in the right direction to make my own.
As this is an introductory book, it has a ‘light touch’ and doesn’t go into any one topic too deeply. This allows you to get some projects started so you have a good feel for the programming environment.
Highly recommended.
Available from Amazon and other booksellers
If you got the newest version of your favorite gadget you may be wondering what to do with the old one.
If you have a friend or family member who would love your hand-me-downs then you have an easy solution, but if you’d like to use your old device to help pay for accessories or to get some cash in your pocket, many retailers will happily pay you in cash or trade for your tech.
You could sell it on eBay or Craigslist for higher prices than what these trade-in programs will offer, but most of us find the ease and straightforward process from a reputable retailer to be the more attractive route. There are several websites that will offer you cash for your devices, but below are some of the retailer programs that I’ve had experience with.
- Best Buy: This is both an online and an in-store option for your used electronics, video games and even some musical instruments. Be sure to read all of the details before bringing items to the store.
- Verizon: Selected phones and tablets from all cellphone providers are eligible for trade-in. A quick form will give you an appraisal offer.
- Gamestop: Gamers know that their games and systems are always in demand from this national chain, which offers incentives to frequent traders.
- 2nd and Charles: This new store in the former Borders location in Woodbridge is a great way to recycle not only your tech (including video games and movies) but also books and vinyl records. The wide selection of used books and other goodies mean that your trade-in dollars go far.
- Amazon: Trades are easy and the offer includes the shipping costs. Electronics, books and videogames are covered and the amount is credited as a gift card to Amazon.
The end of the year is always a time of reflection, which is what Facebook’s new Timeline feature seems to be about.
You can preview how your Timeline will look by logging in at the introductory site. Once you activate the Timeline on your page, you have seven days to prepare how it will appear and update missing or incorrect information. You can choose a banner image, add significant dates, photos and decide what to share and with whom.
All of your privacy settings remain the same when you start a Timeline. You can set up groups so that things you might want to share with your family can be kept away from your work contacts or only share some things with your closest friends. Pay attention to your settings for photos that you share or whether you will let friends ‘tag’ you in photos. If you open the settings for “Apps, games and websites,” be sure to decide if you want a limited preview of your Timeline to appear in public search information.
Facebook has faced a lot of criticism over the past few years about privacy, and rightly so, but there seems to be a lot more you can do to keep information private if you take the time to go through each privacy setting. You may even find you were keeping some information private that you wanted to be public. For example, my friend was upset to have no birthday messages on her wall, feeling sorry for herself for being ignored when she realized that she had kept that information private even from her friends.
Filling out the Timeline can be a fun and even contemplative project as we get ready to start a new year. Maybe scan a few photos when you visit your relatives or friends so you can post them on your Timeline to illustrate that special event. It is good to remember that our “friends” on Facebook are in fact, our friends. Sharing a bit more about ourselves, our shared experiences and our ever-changing tastes can help bring us closer and remind us why we became friends in the first place.
Have you ever made a video call? Something that seems like science fiction for any of us who remember dialing a phone is now commonplace. Want some help with your mom’s recipe? You can fire up the laptop and have her show you how it is done. Want to show off your new masterpiece or your daughter’s recital piece? With video chat you can let the visuals speak for themselves.
In an article in the Dec. 22 New York Times, “Video Chat Reshapes Domestic Rituals,” many examples are given to show how popular personal communication has become using tools such as Skype, Facebook, FaceTime and Google’s Hangouts. My favorite is a description of a family joining together over the Internet to celebrate “Skypannukah” with the lighting of the menorah’s candles despite being in three different cities.
Video chats can help connect us more than a simple voice call. We can see the smiles that accompany the laughter or see the worry written across our loved ones’ face when they tell us of the struggles in their lives.
It may seem awkward at first to make your first video call, especially getting past the initial technical details, but you quickly get the hang of it. Most of the video chat software is user friendly (each of the links above have instructions). The process is usually just a matter of launching an App or a program with a family member or friend who is using the same program.
In our area, where people face long deployments or far-flung assignments, parents can be a part of their family’s life. Grandparents who want to be involved in a toddler’s life can see how big their grandchild has grown and make their own faces familiar so that when they do get to visit in person they won’t be strangers.
Video calls aren’t a replacement for in-person visits. Nothing can replace a warm embrace or a steadying hand. Video calls can bring us closer, though. A video call involves you completely, unlike a voice call where many of us get distracted by multitasking. You give full attention to the conversation and you can see the reaction in each other’s faces.
Make 2012 the year when you finally make the leap. Help the more technologically timid get on board and give it a try. Of course, you won’t be able to hide that you are in your pajamas. But just because you are on a video call doesn’t mean that they will know you have dishes in the sink.
Facebook and other social media sites have changed the way many of us communicate with friends and family, especially those who live far away. How will you send your holiday greetings be they Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or simply Happy New Year?
Email’s move from a business tool to a personal one has created a revolution in how we communicate that has already been felt by the U.S. Postal Service and the stationery industry.
In an instant we can send our greetings to our next-door neighbor or to our cousin in Australia. But email feels like business communication still; it brings a formality no matter how many emoticons people add. We are trained to wince at email backgrounds or have them stripped by our mail servers.
Including too many links or attachments can mean that the messages don’t reach our inboxes and if they do, they will be sharing an inbox with spam, work email and newsletters. Of course, email can be a great way to communicate both on a one-on-one basis and with a group of friends, so many of us will be receiving and sending our annual holiday letters via email.
Instant messages and texts will never replace a holiday card; they are more like a quick phone call or wave on the street. Teens who have grown up with texting may feel differently, but they are not the usual senders of cards relying instead on having their name signed on their parents’ messages.
Have Facebook, Twitter or Google+ become your favorite way to keep in touch? Does it mean that this is where we will go in the future to send our best wishes? I’ve found that Facebook messaging is a useful way to engage directly with my loved ones. Think of how Facebook has changed the way we keep up with each other’s birthdays. I appreciate the ability to send birthday wishes to my friends and even acquaintances. Does that mean we send fewer birthday cards?
E-cards seem to be hybrid thing. They are a ‘green’ choice for sure—no paper waste or transportation contributing to greenhouse gases. Some of us love receiving e-cards, or appreciate being able to send something last minute, but I am sure that others feel that they leave something lacking.
