Jwill's Log

Source: Wired.com
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Soon everybody — including your uncle Louie and that guy you hated from your last job — had a profile.

And Facebook realized it owned the network.

Then Facebook decided to turn “your” profile page into your identity online — figuring, rightly, that there’s money and power in being the place where people define themselves. But to do that, the folks at Facebook had to make sure that the information you give it was public.

So in December, with the help of newly hired Beltway privacy experts, it reneged on its privacy promises and made much of your profile information public by default. That includes the city that you live in, your name, your photo, the names of your friends and the causes you’ve signed onto.

An article from Wired about how Facebook’s privacy is going downhill. I’ve always wanted to leave Facebook but I feel like I’ll disconnect too much if I do. Maybe it’s still worth it, though?

Source: Apple.com
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Ever wonder why Flash isn’t on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad? Steve Jobs has answered the question here in a very well written fashion. Check it out.

When downloading the new version of Google Earth, I came across this message. I don’t like when applications install background processes on your computer and when they don’t give you an option to not install it. Thankfully, if you do a little looking before you download, you come across a “Customize your installation with advanced setup” link that leads to another page with a checkbox that says “Allow Google Earth to automatically install recommended updates.” I turned that off and this dialog no longer came up with the new version. I’m sure this change officially happened a while ago, but it upsets me that most people will see this and think, “I have to install some background updater app or I can’t use this?”. It takes a little fishing to see that there actually is an option to not install it. I’d rather not have another background application.

Source: Wired.com
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Using a simple scraping tool, a marketer could then turn a list of e-mail addresses into a rich, full-fledged set of markeying profiles, with names, pictures, ages, locations, interests, photos, wall posts, affiliations and names of your friends, depending on how users have their profiles set. Run a few algorithms on that data and you can start to make inferences about race, income, sexual orientation and interests.

While that information isn’t available for all users, Facebook changed its privacy settings in early December so that certain information can’t be made private, including one’s name, current city, profile picture, gender, networks and friend list (the latter can be somewhat hidden from public view).

Anyone with your e-mail address can harvest that information, the company admits.

This doesn’t sound good. I’m still on Facebook and I really do need to cut it from my list of social networks. Problem is, I do still use it for promoting events for my residents and keeping in touch with a few of them. But, I digress. Definitely give this report a read.

Gravity Sling is a game in which you control an astronaut stuck in space. You pick a direction and magnitude and send him flying around the orbits of planets until he reaches his ship, trying not to crash into planets or become lost in space on the way. It’s a well made game that can make beautiful fractal shapes as the astronaut leaves a line behind him when traveling in orbit, slowly changing in color as time goes on. The game also has a nice music track and solid graphics.

What I like most about this game, though, is how they set it up. On the App Store, it’s a free download. In this free download, you get 19/109 levels to try out with a myriad of situations: one planet, multiple planets, moving planets, etc. The introductory level set gives you a taste of the game at no cost. The other 90 levels are separated into three different 30-level packs and worth $0.99 each. I love this model much more than the whole lite/full version system because, in some cases, it cuts down on the number of apps in the App Store and keeps all the reviews for the app in one place. Now, there also is a Gravity Sling Deluxe, which has all the levels already in and unlocked (and at the time of writing, it was on sale for $0.99, 66% off) for people who don’t want to deal with in-app purchases or don’t have iPhone OS 3.0 (which is required for in-app purchases). I went ahead and bought it, but then worried that it wouldn’t remember that I did all but one of the introductory levels already. Much to my surprise, it had all the data still there (most likely due to the OpenFeint system the game hooks itself up to). I found that to be awesome and I’m glad I could support the developer of such a great app.

I really hope that in-app purchases become a way to upgrade from lite to full versions of software in the future. I don’t like seeing those huge “Lite” or “Free” banners all over applications in the store. I’m happy with the way Gravity Sling’s developer has done it.

Go check it out in the App Store (regular version, deluxe version).