just an asterisk

I don’t publicize my blog very much at my day job.  It’s just not really relevant to what I do for a living and frankly, I like having a strong line between work and play.  However, this is a luxury that may disappear soon (if it hasn’t already).  This past week, I read this article which demonstrated the elephant memory of the internet (and resulted in me learning something new about that expression.)  Basically, one of the contributors of DownloadSquad.com (a great blog for software) attempted to remove himself from Facebook a few months ago.  He was surprise to find that his Facebook image was still available from Google’s image search, even when his account was closed.

The truth is this:  when your picture goes out into the lovely webs of cyberspace, it’s never gone.  It might be just sitting on a shelf without a label – that is, until the technology to link you to the evidence comes along.  As an example, try Googling yourself on Google’s image search:

When I tried this, I found my photo on page 17 of the results from a site that I had never seen before.  That alone was pretty strange.  However, don’t stop there – add a piece of information about yourself that others might know (like the company you worked for last) and you might be surprised how much the field narrows.  I went from page 17 with millions of hits down to page 1 with my picture as number 2, just by adding a former job to my search.

Companies liked LinkedIn and Facebook are the source of many of these images, but there are also companies that archive older pictures from the Facebook or LinkedIn database.  For example, Radaris (which does background checks) has a copy of my LinkedIn image (how is that ok?).  Long story short, even if you remove a picture from the site you’ve signed up with, you might be too late.

There really isn’t a fix for this. The best answer is probably not to post things unless you’re sure you want the world to see it.  I know that we’ve heard this before, but the supporting evidence is rarely so easy to find.

Best of luck staying safe out there!

~ab

Question asked, question answered.  My friend Curt needed a solution for sending headshots through his Gmail – but Gmail doesn’t support images out of the box (that means until you do something to fix it).  Here’s how…  Hotel airconditionning makes for poor audio quality, but at least the content is there…

PS: Best of luck Curt with the auditions!

PPS:  You’ll probably want to make the video full screen…

~ab

What follows is more of an opinion piece than a useful cocktail party geek – sorry.  It was late.

An avatar?  A gravatar?  A buddy icon?  Perhaps you’ve heard these terms before?   I could quote Wikipedia about 2d representations of online personality yada yada but I have a word for you – panache!  Your avatar/gravatar/buddy icon says something about you and the effort you make to converse with others on this wide web of ours.

Take Gmail as an example:  Did you know you can change your buddy icon on Google to show up whenever someone puts their mouse on your name?  Do you know how many people still have that silly asexual silhouette?  Your picture is like a firm but not overbearing handshake – it matters.

Want more examples? Read more »