An amusing review of old tech.

If history has any foundation in repeatability, Microsoft Windows 8 will become the OS standard, as it did with Windows 3.1x, 95, 98, 98SE...

Perhaps MS will produce a Win8SE to compensate?

As for the dream of one OS for all, it appears elusive as ever.

- Steve

It is unfortunate that something personal became so public, as pointed out in this article.  I used to be on Facebook several years ago, but then I decided to delete my account.  The main reason for my decision was because I didn't spend much time on the site, didn't see much value in it, and didn't like how it was so public.  Yes, it does facilitate the process of keeping in touch with others and keeping up-to-date with friends.  However, one can also keep in touch and up-to-date with friends/family through directly emailing or phoning those people.  I didn't like the fact that everything was so public - pictures, posts, etc.  It almost felt like people were obsessed with having the most number of "friends" on the site, uploading the most number of pictures, or proving to others that s/he has the most active and fun life.

The internet should be a secure place - not a free for all.  Unfortunatley, the internet seems to have become a "free-for-all".  Anything uploaded to the internet can be used or misused by anyone else out there.  I must admit, there have been times when I was  somewhat thankful for this.  For example, a friend uploaded all pictures taken at her wedding, and I was able to download a very nice picture taken of my family (where only myself, my dad, mom and sister were in the picture) for myself.  On the contrary, there have been times when I was in a group picture, and then noticed that a friend in that picture had uploaded the picture to facebook.  This picture was shared with everyone on facebook since that friend did not enable any privacy settings.  Though this picture was a simple picture of a bunch of us friends sitting together, smiled and posed, I was uncomfortable with the fact that my picture was available for anyone and everyone to see, and with the fact that strangers were commenting on the photos.

Once something is uploaded to the internet, we must rely on the ethical choices and actions of others on what they do with that content.  Regrettably, some people are not as considerate and do things with the content that they would not want to have done to their own content.  Therefore, it is imperative that we really analyze the content we place on the internet.  With regards to others posting content related to ourselves without our knowledge, there is nothing we can do, other than hope that person has taken precautious measures with the privacy settings of that content.

Once material uploaded in Internet even it is classified as personal or private is no different than saying something to a group of people. Not even God can take it back.

The material being said does not belong to that speaker any more. It belongs to the listeners. It is up to the listeners to interpret the meaning. It is also up to the listeners to keep it within the circle or not. There is no organised regulation in Internet. Information can be spread freely. Also, there is no place to control the spread.

I personally don’t think FaceBook is private place. And it is even less likely to identify all ‘friends’ are trustworthy.  Facebook is an digital community to congregate only. If one has private thoughts, one should always keeps such in one’s heart. And only share to trusted friends whom one knows for sure. 

@Pandora, Judy - does the same apply to email? Presumably it must. What about social sites that support people with medical and psychiatric problems? 

I'm particularly interested in the context of the Landing, which is very different from Facebook in almost every way that counts: people here are not the product, they are valued as things in themselves, and they own what they create. One of the basic principles behind the Landing is that you can choose what you reveal and to whom you reveal it, and we've done a lot of work to ensure that you can shift safely and securely between social contexts, showing some things to some people and different things to others. Some of the replies I'm seeing here make me worry that there is no point in doing that. Is that true?

This is no surprise to me, people use Facebook for different reasons and this article just confirmed to me one of those several reasons. Facebook to me, I spent very little time on it because of the information you read about people, some people lie about their status, age, professions and host of other things. To me, employers may not get acurate information about their propective employees from this site. So, why bother about your prospective employee's password or account on social network. Don't get me wrong, Facebook is a fantastic idea and credits to Mark Zuckerberg and his team. People throw both ethical and morals values into dust bin whenever they are on social network. The suddeen and dramatic advent of social network into our lives seems to be causing some mid-digital-life crises.

According to CNN survey that was done some time last year (May, 2012), one in every four users lie on Facebook. Read about it more on this site http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/04/tech/social-media/facebook-lies-privacy/index.html. Where did morals about people go? People no longer care about what they put out there about themselves, it is sad that courtesy no longer matters to people.

It is important to note also that some states in the US already ban employers from asking workers's Facebook password. California and Chicago are already doing this, read about this on this sites http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-01/social-media/36093373_1_passwords-gun-violence-weapons-laws and http://www.webpronews.com/new-laws-banning-employers-from-asking-for-facebook-passwords-go-into-effect-2013-01. I am just using this to confirm the statement about Facebook password request by prospective employers in the original article by the Professor.

Overall, I think tougher legislations should be in place to protect employees' privacy. It is unethical for the employers to violate their prospective employees' privacy; to me there is no moral justifications for anyone to do this.

Thanks.

Facebook is one of the social communities that I don't often participate in.  Most of the time the information that is posted on there by many people are irrelevant what very much in line what I consider to be spam.  Not to say that all content that is posted.  There will be gems that are posted there.  But I really do believe that the purpose of using Facebook has been totally missed.  If someone wants to share every 10 minutes what they are doing in a day, then they should probably pick up the phone and call instead.

I don't necessarily disagree that HR should be "investigating" potential employees is a bad thing.  I think that it is important that HR, as well as any employer, should be doing all that they can to find out information about potential employees.  To me, it is considered to be doing your due diligence.  There is a fine line with the information that is obtained however.

The purpose of doing this research should be to determine if their activities would be interferring with their work.  Is their use of Facebook considered to be excessive?  Does it look like that they have been using Facebook (or any other social community web site) during regular business hours beyond their breaks?  Do they seem to be participating in activities that could impair their effectiveness at work?  Do they tend to share employer information that could be considered trade secrets?

However, given that Facebook is a social site, an employee should not be scrutinized for what they want to share if it is personal information, regardless of the content.  Personally, if I am sharing that I party and drink every Friday and Saturday night, it shouldn't affect my employability or my effectiveness at work.  However, if I were doing that during other days, where I would have to come into work the next day, that could be a red flag to an employer that their productivity and reliability at work could come into question.

I totally disagree with the point that employers can be asking their employees for passwords to social communities.  Sharing of passwords has always been one of the first things that you give out unless you totally trust the person who are sharing it with.  It is much like giving the key to my home to someone I barely know.  If it is expected that I share my Facebook password to a prospective employer so that they can look through and see what I personally do, would it be morally incorrect that I share my corporate password to another employer so that they can look at the quality of my work?  If I ended up working at said employer who asked me for my Facebook password then I personally wouldn't have any issues sharing my corporate password to another prospective employer to look at my corporate work.

It is unfortunate that employers feel like they have the power to ask an employee for their passwords and that legislation is required to stop the misuse of this kind of power.  What an employee shares publically is all that they should really be able to use.  If the employer wanted to see more information, then they should link to that employer and allow the employee to then decide how much more private information that they wish to share.

Interviewing, the traditional way to employ new people into an organization is not helping employers as people who might have done well during the interview cannot perform basic duties they were able to talk about during the interviewing, how then do employers expect social media like Facebook to tell them how an employee will perform on his job?

Facebook is a place where people become what they are not. Recently, I had an experience that put me off Facebook although I don’t often go there. I had a friendship request from a name I wasn’t so sure but the profile picture is a friend whose full name is far different from the person that sent me the request. I called the friend to find out if she has changed her name and you can imagine her answer. How then can I use Facebook postings to judge somebody?

Why do employers need Facebook to tell them if their employees will perform well at their duties? What is the use of “probation” if the employer cannot learn whatever he/she wants to learn about the employee? If employers think Facebook will help them to know more about their employees then why don’t they use their own means to get the information? Why do they need the employer’s password?

Has anyone heard the situation where an employee has refused to give his/her password but has still be employed or be denied employment because of the refusal? I’ll be glad to hear about it.

Hi Hooper - I think you need to contact your tutor, Mushtaq (mushtaqa@athabascau.ca) who will be able to help you. I'm sure it will be no problem!

Jon

Hi Jon,

I'm wondering if my marks for COMP 602 were missed. I haven't seen anything from the grades section of the website and I wondered if that department had some issues reporting them. Enjoyed the class and I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,

Jeff

Hi Jeff - sorry for the delay, lots going on. I'm aiming to have marking finished by the end of this week so you shouldn't have to wait much longer!

best

Jon

Patch management is only 'light years ahead' because they've had to patch it so many, many, many times. :-(

I quit upgrading at Office 2003 because one look at the 'ribbon toolbar' was enough to convice me it was time to cease upgrading. My latest machine does not even have office installed - only OpenOffice. It's now good enough that I only miss MS Office on one very specific item (Excel - paste speciall... values only). Otherwise Open Office meets or exceeds MS for me in every way.

I haven't used MS Word in years - Open Office has been a more than capable replacment with no compatability issues (though I haven't used it for collaborative work)

What Microsoft and Apple Corp. have achieved is outstanding in comparison to DE trials.  M & A have been able to convince willing endusers to voluntarily give up their time to test software AND buy it after they have beta tested it.  How to get free labour and consumers at the same time - you have to marvel at that.

Hence why its great to have so many patches...lots and lots of beta testors.

Completely agree with your end comments on the future.