1-800-HOSTING Blog » facebook http://blog.800hosting.com Inside 1-800-HOSTING Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:00:58 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Social Networking and Your Blog http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/10/social-networking-and-your-blog/ http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/10/social-networking-and-your-blog/#comments Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:46:56 +0000 Christopher Shaffer http://blog.800hosting.com/?p=2186 Some of you may know I love food, and in my effort to both learn more about social networking, wordpress architecture, cloud computing, and search engine optimization I decided to create a blog devoted to my adventures in seeking out the best places to eat around.

Creating a blog is easy, though customizing it for your use is can be challenging unless you take advantage of the work of others with the thousands of free themes, plugins, widgets, and other tools that are available to streamline the customization you wish to add. Here we will discuss how to tie your Facebook fan page into your word press blog so you can share information between the two seamlessly and promote traffic to your site.

There are many word press to Facebook plugins, but the one I chose was Add Link To Facebook. This allows me to publish articles composed on the site to the Facebook Page I have setup for the blog and share the comments and likes between the two. It was rather simple to setup and configure as I already had a Facebook developer account which was required to create the Facebook application needed to bridge the two together. The instructions were super simple and I was up and running in no time.

 

If you have a blog and a Facebook Page I highly recommend you integrate the two to steam line the content management between the two.

 

-Chris

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]]> http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/10/social-networking-and-your-blog/feed/ 0 Disconnecting in a Connected World http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/08/disconnecting-in-a-connected-world/ http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/08/disconnecting-in-a-connected-world/#comments Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:16:19 +0000 John Cunningham http://blog.800hosting.com/?p=2057

To a large percentage of the world’s population, the Internet couldn’t be more irrelevant or any lower on the totem pole of life’s necessities. However, I happen to live in the group that relies heavily on the Internet to conduct business, perform research, communicate with friends, family and of course, waste time.

If you are like me, you are plastered with Internet access 24/7 in your day-to-day life, especially at work or at home. While I’m out and about, I’ve always got my trusty iPhone which can do 90% of the things that I need to get done with relative ease. If my iPhone lets me down, I can use my iPad to tackle the other 9% percent. The last 1% are probably things I could do without anyway, so they can wait.

I’ve been traveling this past week so I have experienced a fairly consistent lack of Internet connectivity and as a result, have had to travel a short distance (less than a mile) to a local café with free WiFi or maybe I got lucky and bummed free WiFi off someone with an unsecured network.

When I’m thoroughly disconnected and have no Internet resources whatsoever, something strange happens to me. I tend to notice things that are around me more because I’m not bumping into them while checking the weather on my iPhone. I also find myself engaging in conversation with more people because I’m not busy deleting spam out my inbox or replying to a text message. Does any of this sound familiar?

Yes I need the Internet and no I don’t need the Internet. Let me try this another way.. if I had to choose between never having access to the Internet again for the rest of my life or.. well, I can’t think of anything that would be applicable for a trade. You can’t say television because the Internet provides television. You can’t say the music or radio because the Internet provides both of those. We pretty much can’t say anything that you can’t physically put your hands on because the Internet provides all of that too. But you can say anything that you can touch, feel, taste, and smell. I left “see” out because as we already know, you can see everything on the Internet. Especially the stuff you have no interesting seeing.

What I’m trying to say is that I/we forget too often that the Internet is just a tool to help us do things and it’s not really very good at anything else. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with the internet? How about asking the internet on the date? Maybe go to dinner with the internet or make friends with the internet? Sure you can see the great pyramids on the internet but let’s be real, that’s no substitute for standing in front of them, smelling the air, feeling the sun reflect off of them or touching the stones. So I suppose it’s okay to be disconnected and in some cases, even therapeutic. It’s sad to say but I know people who would have a complete meltdown if they lost their Internet connection for a week or two. If you’re reading this blog post it’s very likely that I don’t know you, but it’s also very likely that he might be one of those people.

Not that you asked for it, but my recommendation would be to pick one day on the weekend to not use the Internet. That means disconnect the data portion on your phone as well because that would be cheating. You’ll survive an entire day without Google maps and even though your “real friends” on Facebook might be scratching their heads at your sudden absence, they too will survive. Just do it as a test and think about that day as it progresses. If you’re not an Internet junkie already, sorry to have made you waste another five minutes of your life on the internet.

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]]> http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/08/disconnecting-in-a-connected-world/feed/ 0 Google+ http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/08/google/ http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/08/google/#comments Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:36:34 +0000 Christopher Leisure http://blog.800hosting.com/?p=2123 I’m not really a fan of Facebook, or even Myspace (Does that still exist?) but recently converting to Google+ I’ve found it to be pretty cool. So far the interface could use work, features added, and security options expanded, but the great thing about its early development is that we Google+ users get to see the interface in its infancy, and knock the tires on it. Much like was done on Gmail. The only thing keeping Google+ from being used instead of Facebook for social media is that it’s by invite only still, and some users just don’t want to convert over. I guess that is the same situation as with Myspace users to Facebook, but eventually I think Google+ will be pretty competitive with Facebook for the social media market.

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]]> http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/08/google/feed/ 0 Being Disconnected in a Connected World http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/07/being-disconnected-in-a-connected-world/ http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/07/being-disconnected-in-a-connected-world/#comments Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:16:50 +0000 John Cunningham http://blog.800hosting.com/?p=2058

To a large percentage of the world’s population, the Internet couldn’t be more irrelevant or any lower on the totem pole of life’s necessities. However, I happen to live in the group that relies heavily on the Internet to conduct business, perform research, communicate with friends, family and of course, waste time.

If you are like me, you are plastered with Internet access 24/7 in your day-to-day life, especially at work or at home. While I’m out and about, I’ve always got my trusty iPhone which can do 90% of the things that I need to get done with relative ease. If my iPhone lets me down, I can use my iPad to tackle the other 9% percent. The last 1% are probably things I could do without anyway, so they can wait.

I’ve been traveling internationally the past couple weeks so I have experienced a fairly consistent lack of Internet connectivity and as a result, have had to travel a short distance (less than a mile) to a local café with free WiFi or maybe I got lucky and bummed free WiFi off someone with an unsecured network.

When I’m thoroughly disconnected and have no Internet resources whatsoever, something strange happens to me. I tend to notice things that are around me more because I’m not bumping into them while checking the weather on my iPhone. I also find myself engaging in conversation with more people because I’m not busy deleting spam out my inbox or replying to a text message. Does any of this sound familiar?

Yes I need the Internet and no I don’t need the Internet. What I mean is.. if I had to choose between never having access to the Internet again for the rest of my life or.. well, I can’t think of anything that would be applicable for a trade. You can’t say television because the Internet provides that. You can’t say music or radio because the Internet provides both of those. We pretty much can’t say anything that you can’t physically put your hands on because the Internet provides all of those too. But you can say anything that you can touch, feel, taste, and smell. I left “see” out because as we already know you can see everything on the Internet. Especially the stuff you have no interesting seeing.

What I’m trying to say is that I/we forget too often that the Internet is just a tool to help us do things and it’s not really very good at much else. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with the internet? How about asking the internet on the date? Maybe go to dinner with the internet or make friends with the internet? Sure you can see the great pyramids on the internet but let’s be real, that’s no substitute for standing in front of them, smelling the air, feeling the sun reflect off of them or touching the stones.

So I suppose it’s okay to be disconnected and in some cases, even therapeutic. It’s sad to say but I know people who would have a complete meltdown if they lost their Internet connection for a week or two. If you’re reading this blog post it’s very likely that I don’t know you, but it’s also very likely that he might be one of those people.

Not that you asked for it, but my recommendation would be to pick one day on the weekend to not use the Internet. That means disconnect the data portion on your phone as well because that would be cheating. You’ll survive an entire day without Google maps and even though your “real friends” on Facebook might be scratching their heads at your sudden absence, they too will survive. Just do it as a test and then think about that day as it progresses. You might surprised at what you experience.

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]]> http://blog.800hosting.com/2011/07/being-disconnected-in-a-connected-world/feed/ 0 A Website for the Rest of Us http://blog.800hosting.com/2010/05/a-website-for-the-rest-of-us/ http://blog.800hosting.com/2010/05/a-website-for-the-rest-of-us/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 15:53:38 +0000 John Cunningham http://blog.800hosting.com/?p=1431 Not a web savvy interactive designer? Not everyone has the time, skill, and patience to create and maintain their own personal website. Enter the ‘Personal Landing Page’ a.k.a. online business card. These sites are designed to help even the technically deficient user create a simple, informative online information booth for the public.

“Ideal for personal homepages, lifestreaming, splash and microsites, celebrity fan pages, commercial promotion, brand marketing – and everything in between.” Flavors.me, a brainchild of parent company, HiiDef Inc., offers more customization while still maintaining wicked style. Their three minute intro video below shows just how many custom flavors you can use to add spice to your mini site.

Flavors.me offers easy-to-configure connections with the most popular social networks out there, making it easy for visitors to find your online presence tastefully.

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]]> http://blog.800hosting.com/2010/05/a-website-for-the-rest-of-us/feed/ 0 Social Networking – A Private Playground? http://blog.800hosting.com/2009/11/social-networking-a-private-playground/ http://blog.800hosting.com/2009/11/social-networking-a-private-playground/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:08:30 +0000 Christopher Leisure http://blog.800hosting.com/?p=895 Today, just about everyone is on at least one of the social domination networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Twitter, etc. I would guess that 90% of the people I know post their daily activities on Facebook or Twitter for everyone to see. A friend of mine who has no TV or computer, is on Facebook. Often times, there are posts revealing things I would rather not know, and other times, basic narration of daily activities like “going to the grocery store.” I know that I’m in the minority, but I’ve never been a big fan of the social networking sites. I do like to get on Facebook occasionally to keep in touch with old friends, but rarely do I ever post anything for everyone to see. I value my privacy enormously and what really scares me is the fact that most of the things you put on your Facebook and Twitter are being saved for anyone to search for an indefinite amount of time.

An individual’s views and opinions can vastly differ over say 10 years. There’s a good chance that our president 20 years from now is on Facebook or Twitter (or whatever comes next), informing everyone of his daily activities, political opinions, and habits among other things. What kind of effect might that have on an election in the future? Arguments could be made that this would provide greater transparency for voters in the United States when it comes time to elect a new president. It would most likely allow voters to make a more informed decision and ensure the candidate isn’t just saying what they want to hear.

Trying to get a new job or acceptance to a school? There’s a very good chance they are looking at your social networking sites to see what they can find out about you. The amount of resumes that are automatically disqualified because content found on the internet is amazing. You would assume it to be common sense to not put incriminating pictures of yourself on the internet and otherwise hurt  your reputation with prospective employers. It does however make an employer’s job a bit easier, quickly weeding out candidates that aren’t up to our standards.

Facebook privacy is another misunderstood concept. Even if your Facebook profile is private, your friends could be giving your information out to a lot more people than you realize. Naturally, individuals assume that because their profile settings are set to private, it is safe. Is that really the case though? All the games, quizzes, and other add-ons for Facebook that everyone willingly confirms access to could be saving all your data and potentially selling it. The ACLU recently put together a campaign to raise awareness about privacy issues surrounding Facebook applications and have some great information on their Facebook site. The ACLU reveals that a quiz author can see just about anything on your profile after you take their quiz including pictures, profile information, and comments.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing to hide from the general public. However,  I candidly enjoy having my privacy and communicating with people in person,  rather than reading about them online.

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]]> http://blog.800hosting.com/2009/11/social-networking-a-private-playground/feed/ 0 Secure Social Society? http://blog.800hosting.com/2009/11/secure-social-society/ http://blog.800hosting.com/2009/11/secure-social-society/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:52:05 +0000 John Cunningham http://blog.800hosting.com/?p=839 keyboard security

In the world of social networking, security is essential. You wouldn’t want your identity compromised would you? Perhaps a major news outlet’s Facebook account is compromised; this can be detrimental and extremely embarrassing for the entity. We can all imagine the outcome of such an event. But what about the average person? While your identity can’t be completely compromised via the social web, you can have often embarrassing information posted to your profile without your consent. A few years back on MySpace, you would repeatedly see unauthorized bulletin posts. People would unknowingly give out their password to a third party, thus allowing the third party to post unsolicited items on that particular profile. To combat this, MySpace implemented notifications that you where being directed off-site, and this issue virtually ceased. Today, you really don’t see compromises of that nature anymore.

This being said, Social networking has the uncanny ability to inform your average user of certain security flaws inside and outside the social web. Does it mean it’s their responsibility? Not necessarily, but things like unnecessary bandwidth consumption were introduced with those security flaws. Essentially, that means more money and energy wasted; no responsible business would condone such a practice.

Roughly a year ago another serious Adobe Flash exploit was discovered. Noticing this, I quickly configured the Noscript plugin on Mozilla Firefox to block flash. A few weeks later I was surprised that MySpace practically forced users to download the new version of Adobe Flash player. If you didn’t do it, you couldn’t listen to any music. The many audiophiles I know, myself included, happily accepted the update.

Social networking has a huge role in how society functions today. It can also play an informative role in maintaining a secure system.  That being said, should administrators of social networking entities inform the average person of security flaws that can impact anything outside the social web? If changes like this where implemented, I’m sure the web would be a slightly more secure place. And who wouldn’t want that?

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