Facebook creates new collage layout for photos section of Timeline.

Facebook today announced changes to the photos section of Timeline that makes photos larger and easier to interact with.

Users can also highlight particular photos, similar to how they do on Timeline, to make them stand out among other images. Facebook tells us these changes will apply to personal profiles as well as fan pages, as it rolls out over the next few weeks.

Now when users click Photos at the top of a personal profile or fan page, they will see larger photos that fill up the page. A menu at the top makes it easy to switch between photos of a user, photos a person has shared and albums they’ve created.

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Najib antara 25 pemimpin dunia paling aktif berhubung di Twitter

Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak

KUALA LUMPUR - Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak disenaraikan sebagai seorang daripada 25 pemimpin dunia yang paling aktif berhubungan di Twitter, dalam laporan yang diterbitkan oleh Burson-Marsteller. 

Laporan yang diterbitkan baru-baru ini, dikenali sebagai Twiplomacy, merupakan kajian pertama seumpamanya di peringkat global mengenai pemimpin-pemimpin dunia di Twitter. 

Laporan itu meletakkan Presiden Amerika Syarikat Barack Obama sebagai pemimpin dunia yang perkembangannya paling banyak diikuti di Twitter manakala akaun Najib sebagai nombor 2 di Asia dan nombor 17 di dunia daripada  254 ketua kerajaan dan negara dan institusi mereka. 

Ia juga menyenaraikan Najib sebagai pemimpin dunia keenam paling popular yang "tweets properly" -- hanya 30 daripada 254 ketua negara dan kerajaan yang sebenarnya menulis entri mereka sendiri di Twitter. 

Najib mula menulis di Twitter pada 23 Sept, 2008 dan setakat hari ini, beliau mempunyai 767,679 pengikut di Twitter dan menulis 2,675 tweets dan 81 'following'.

       

Ini menjadikan beliau setakat ini pemimpin paling popular di Asia di Twitter, per kapita (1 dalam 37) dan selesa dalam kedudukan 10 terbaik di peringkat global. 

baca semua | sinar 28 July 2012

Breakdown of Facebook user growth by quarter and geography

Facebook announced new growth achievements today: 955 million monthly active users as of June 30, and an average of 552 million daily active users in June. Mobile MAUs were 543 million as of June 30, an increase of 67 percent year-over-year.

Here are graphs from Facebook’s Q2 earnings release today.

Read more | 26 July 2012

Don't have to like 'her' - just subscribe!

Facebook tests subscribe button for pages to make it easier for users to receive updates without clicking Like.

Some Facebook users are seeing a subscribe button on business pages that allows them to receive News Feed updates from a page without indicating that they “Like” it.

Facebook confirmed that it was testing the feature, which was first reported by Marketing Land. This seems to be an extension of the interest lists feature the social network launched in March. After rolling out Timeline for pages, Facebook began giving users the option to add pages to an interest list to subscribe to content without Liking the page. However, the feature is hidden in a drop down menu so it is unlikely that many users knew about it. If Facebook expands its test with the subscribe button, more users might be more likely to connect with pages this way and perhaps organize them into lists. Users can view interest lists as a separate feed or see summaries of content in News Feed.

Here is a screenshot of the new feature from Marketing Land reader Craig Smith:

We do not have the button on our own accounts, but here is the way to connect with a page without clicking Like:

We’ve previously questioned how ads will be targeted depending whether a user Likes a page or subscribes to it. We’ve also pointed out the problem that Facebook pages don’t get any information about how many users subscribe to their content through this button or interest lists.

Facebook introduced subscribe for personal accounts in September 2011 to allow users to allow for asymmetric relationships between users.

Original  July 24, 2012

ACTA Lives: How the EU & Canada Are Using CETA as Backdoor Mechanism To Revive ACTA

Monday July 09, 2012 Last week, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to reject ACTA, striking a major blow to the hopes of supporters who envisioned a landmark agreement that would set a new standard for intellectual property rights enforcement. The European Commission, which negotiates trade deals such as ACTA on behalf of the European Union, has vowed to revive the badly damaged agreement. Its most high-profile move has been to ask the European Court of Justice to rule on ACTA's compatibility with fundamental European freedoms with the hope that a favourable ruling could allow the European Parliament to reconsider the issue. While the court referral has attracted the lion share of attention, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) reports that there is an alternate secret strategy in which Canada plays a key role. According to recently leaked documents, the EU plans to use the Canada - EU Trade Agreement (CETA), which is nearing its final stages of negotiation, as a backdoor mechanism to implement the ACTA provisions. [UPDATE 7/10: new post on why the concern over ACTA in CETA is warranted] [UPDATE 7/11: EC responds by saying ACTA ISP provisions removed from CETA. Appears likely most of remaining provisions remain] The CETA IP chapter has already attracted attention due to EU pharmaceutical patent demands that could add billions to provincial health care costs, but the bigger story may be that the same chapter features a near word-for-word replica of ACTA. According to the leaked document, dated February 2012, Canada and the EU have already agreed to incorporate many of the ACTA enforcement provisions into CETA, including the rules on general obligations on enforcement, preserving evidence, damages, injunctions, and border measure rules. One of these provisions even specifically references ACTA. A comparison table of ACTA and the leaked CETA chapter is posted below.   has already attracted attention due to EU pharmaceutical patent demands that could add billions to provincial health care costs, but the bigger story may be that the same chapter features a near word-for-word replica of ACTA. According to the leaked document, dated February 2012, Canada and the EU have already agreed to incorporate many of the ACTA enforcement provisions into CETA, including the rules on general obligations on enforcement, preserving evidence, damages, injunctions, and border measure rules. One of these provisions even specifically references ACTA. A comparison table of ACTA and the leaked CETA chapter is posted below.  read more >>

Facebook Vs Google Plus

Uploaded by hussainisyed on Jul 25, 2011 ; This is a real good presentation of Google Plus and Facebook comparison.Very short and very clear demonstration.

Disclaimer: This is not my own video, I found it over a blog and thought of sharing on YouTube, hence the whole credit of the video goes to the owner of the video.

5 Chrome Extensions That Work Beautifully in RockMelt

If you’re not familiar with RockMelt, it’s a a web browser that focuses on social sharing, Facebook chat and RSS feeds. It’s built on Chromium, so it has the speed of Google Chrome along with most of the design. While some of Chrome’s extensions do not quite work properly on RockMelt, there are others that work beautifully. I know some people who decided not to use RockMelt because it’s lack of compatibility with extensions, but with new updates happening every week RockMelt is quickly improving and worth using.

I actually prefer the way RockMelts handles extensions over Google Chrome’s method. While Chrome puts extension icons beside the search bar and does not give you the ability to remove icons or move them around, RockMelt does allowing rearranging and removal of icons. Also, RockMelts places their icons in right sidebar, so your search bar and address bar do not have to suffer (get smaller and smaller) with each new addition of an extension.

By the way, the right sidebar is also where RSS feeds and your Facebook and Twitter timelines are placed (as you can see from the image to the right). So now that you’re more familiar with RockMelt, here are 5 extensions that you’re sure to enjoy.


FeedSquares

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Gmail : What is 'Last account activity'?

Last account activity shows you information about recent activity in your mail. Recent activity includes any time that your mail was accessed using a regular web browser,  a POP1 client, a mobile device, a third-party application etc. We'll list the IP address that accessed your mail, the associated location, as well as the time and date.

To see your account activity, click the Details link next to the Last account activity line at the bottom of any Gmail page.

How to understand this data

Access type

If you're concerned about unauthorized access to your mail, you'll be able to use the data in the 'Access type' column to find out if and when someone accessed your mail. For instance, if the column shows any POP access, but you don't use POP to collect your mail, it may be a sign that your account has been compromised.

Location (IP address)

In this column we list the last 10 IP addresses your mail was accessed from, and the associated locations. 

Original here 

Open Source Insider

Should tax-funded government software be free?

The non-governmental Open Source for America (OSFA) organisation has called upon the U.S. Federal Government to free up code produced as "custom-developed, taxpayer-funded software" for general use under an open source license.

President of selection pressure John Scott has explained that his group is specifically interested in how publicly funded software code developed by the government (which isn't already covered by a proprietary license) should be made available to the wider public.

The Washington DC headquartered OSFA organisation is made up of technology industry leaders, non-government associations and academic/research institutions.

John Scott and Deb Bryant of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) co-chaired a "Free the Code" session at the Open Source Conference (OSCON) this week in Portland, Oregon to invite interested parties to join the debate.

"Releasing code as open source would significantly increase reuse and collaborative development between federal agencies and the private sector," said Bryant. "We hope that others agree and will sign our petition at We the People asking the Federal Government to share government-developed software under an open source license whenever possible."

Free the Code is asking anyone with an interest in taxpayer-funded software to sign the petition at: http://goo.gl/K920J

The White House has pledged to respond to any petition on the We the People site that garners 25,000 signatures within 30 days.

Software freedom guru, champion, activist and all round GNU project hero Richard Stallman wrote the following in 2005:

"The UK government has funded the development of software useful for e-government, and now doesn't know what to do with it. Someone had the bright idea to hand it over to local councils, inviting them to turn themselves into software companies."

"The public have already paid to develop this software. Isn't it absurd to make them pay, now, for permission to use it? Isn't it absurd to restrict what they can do with it? Alas, such absurdity is not unusual; it is standard practice for governments to deliver publicly funded software into private hands, to companies that make the public -- and even the government -- beg for permission to use it afterwards."

You can read his full post here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/second-sight.html

Original post 

UBUNTU Persistence, payoff?

Published on Jul 21, 2012 by planetubuntu : Mark Shuttleworth Talks About The Future of Computing with Tim O Reilly

For ICT subcomm : Google Plus understudy?

Google Plus – Read the Fine Print BEFORE You Sign Up

Here’s an update to this post – written to help settle the confusion caused by trolls mischaracterizing what I said. Please read my words – not what the trolls say I said – and judge for yourself. Thanks.

Google is the company that started out with a simple mission – don’t be evil. I think they meant it when they started. They have grown to be one of the biggest companies on the planet. I am not so sure they remember their original mission. Their image search feature allows them to profit from other people’s work without compensation. Their TOS (terms of service) allows them license to images — that I find concerning. Why am I bringing all this up now?

There’s lots of talk about Google+. It is Google’s answer to social networking. It will probably be successful because Google has their hooks into everything – and everybody.

One of the things that has photographers excited about Google+ is their implantation of photo sharing. They seem to have done a good job of making it easy to share photos. For amateurs with no desire to turn pro or to license their work, this will be attractive.

My post today is not in any way aimed at amateurs. I am writing to professional photographers and aspiring professional photographers who hope to or do make money licensing their photos.

You need to be aware of what you are giving up if you decide to use Google+ or any other Google service when it comes to your photography. Please read the information contained at this link.http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS

Then, please carefully note these sections…

sharing a copyright work :

New Firefox OS for Android

New Firefox OS Images Paint A Picture Of Progress Ahead Of Official Launch

Thursday, July 19th, 2012

The first Firefox OS (formerly Boot to Gecko) devices aren’t slated to ship until the beginning of next year, but if some new screenshots are any indication, the project is coming along rather nicely.

TechWeekEurope managed to get their hands on a whole host of new images of the fledgling open web-friendly operating system, though the version depicted may not be the version that every carrier gets.

For an operating system that’s meant to be loaded on low-end, Qualcomm-powered, introductory smartphones (at first, anyway), Firefox OS has turned out to be quite the looker. That said, it’s hard not to look for similarities between these new images and other mobile operating systems on the market, and there are a fair number to be found. The black status bar that runs along the top of the screen for instance seems rather iOS-esque, some of the typography is reminiscent of that seen in Windows Phone 7, and as Business Insider points out some apps have Android-y feeling about them.

In any case, things aren’t ready for primetime yet, but the featured build sports far more polish than the versions Mozilla has trotted out in the past few months. Just for a bit of perspective, compare these very early peeks at the project…

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Google+ Debuts At Top Spot In Customer Survey As Facebook Falls

Google Inc. (GOOG)’s social network debuted at the top spot on a customer-service index of social-media websites, including Facebook Inc. (FB), which sank to a record low in the annual report.

Google+, which was started in June 2011, tied information aggregator Wikipedia with a score of 78 in the social-media category on the American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business Report, which ranks companies on a 100-point scale. Facebook, criticized for changes to its interface, had a score of 61, down from 66 last year and 64 in the 2010 report.

Enlarge image

The Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

1:25

July 17 (Bloomberg) -- Deborad Kostroun summarizes the top stories this morning on the Bloomberg Business Report. (Source: Bloomberg)

Already owner of the world’s largest search engine, Google is counting on Google+ to help it challenge Facebook for user attention and to provide more data to improve its core web-query service. Google+ already has reached more than 250 million users, compared with more than 900 million for Facebook.

“Facebook is having a hard time with its customers, but they kind of own the concept of social network,” said Larry Freed, chief executive officer of researcher ForeSee Results Inc., which helps produce the index for the Internet industry. “If you want to see pictures of your grandkids or share them with your grandparents, you’re not going to find them on Google+ today. But if that network continues to grow, then they could be a very serious competitor.”

As a category, social media slipped 1.4 percent in the customer-satisfaction index to 69, the ACSI said. Twitter Inc., the microblogging service that has more than 140 million users, was a new entry to the category with a score of 64.

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How lone grad student scooped government and what it means your online privacy

Jonathan Mayer had a hunch.

A gifted computer scientist, Mayer suspected that online advertisers might be getting around browser settings that are designed to block tracking devices known as cookies. If his instinct was right, advertisers were following people as they moved from one website to another even though their browsers were configured to prevent this sort of digital shadowing. Working long hours at his office, Mayer ran a series of clever tests in which he purchased ads that acted as sniffers for the sort of unauthorized cookies he was looking for. He hit the jackpot, unearthing one of the biggest privacy scandals of the past year: Google was secretly planting cookies on a vast number of iPhone browsers. Mayer thinks millions of iPhones were targeted by Google.

This is precisely the type of privacy violation the Federal Trade Commission aims to protect consumers from, and Google, which claims the cookies were not planted in an unethical way, now reportedly faces a fine of more than $10 million. But the FTC didn't discover the violation. Mayer is a 25-year-old student working on law and computer science degrees at Stanford University. He shoehorned his sleuthing between classes and homework, working from an office he shares in the Gates Computer Science Building with students from New Zealand and Hong Kong. He doesn't get paid for his work and he doesn't get much rest.

read more : 30 June 2012

Internet ‘doomsday’ virus caused ‘no significant outages’

Topics: DNS Changer ♦ internet service providers

The so-called Internet doomsday virus with the potential to black out tens of thousands of computers worldwide appeared to pose no major problems Monday in the first hours after a fix expired.

Security firms reported no significant outages linked to the DNS Changer virus, as many Internet service providers have either implemented a fix or contacted customers with steps to clean their computers.

The problem stems from malware known as DNS Changer, which was created by a cybercriminals to redirect Internet traffic by hijacking the domain name systems (DNS) of Web browsers.

The ring behind the DNS Changer was shut down last year by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Estonian police and other law enforcement agencies, after infecting some four million computers worldwide.

Nearly 300,000 computers appeared to be still infected as of June, according to experts monitoring the problem.

On Monday, temporary servers set up by the FBI to direct Internet traffic normally, even for infected computers, were shut down.

But security specialists said most Internet users and providers have had time to work around or fix the problem.

The Role of Cyber Operations in International Law.

Published on Jul 6, 2012 by ForaTv : Cordula Droege, legal advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross, discusses the complexity of the future battlefield: the cyber landscape and highlights the complexity of distinguishing between 'cyber operations' and 'cyber attacks'.

Malaysia Computer Emergency Response Team (MyCERT):

  IN CASE YOU NEED IT CLICK HERE!

Declaration of Internet Freedom

SIGN PETITION HERE