Rocket Pop Media

Protected: Bowie’s Double Dutch

Cara Dickens — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:27:58 +0000

As seen here: Protected: Bowie’s Double Dutch

Protected: Bowie’s Double Dutch, originally posted here: Rocket Pop Media - A boutique creative agency and production house in Richmond, VA

Some Nice Press in Work It Richmond

Chris Crews — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:47:48 +0000

There was a very nice article in Work It, Richmond this week on our little shop. It featured an interview with Scott and Cara, and we thought that they did a great job of summing up our philosophy here at Rocket Pop Media. The article really captured the energy of our team, and our commitment to our clients. We don't spend a lot of time with conference calls and focus groups. We go out and visit clients, we talk to their customers, and folks come by to visit us. Some of our visitors are looking for a restaurant, dry-cleaners, or computer repair (the previous incarnation of our building), but that's another story. Check out the article. It's nice. And thanks to Matt Deegan and Work It Richmond for sharing it. In the meantime, the music is playing, the interweb is humming, we're clearing the table for a client who is stopping by in a few, and we're pretty sure someone just went the wrong way down Main Street. It's 10:38, so Jessica wins today's office pool.

My Response to Responsive Web Design

Alyssa Chang — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:25:30 +0000

Picture this: you're sitting in a coffee shop, sipping a latte, and waiting for a couple friends who are running late to meet you. Instead of staring awkwardly at other customers, you pull out your fancy schmancy smartphone and start browsing the web. Your first stop is Facebook. As you scroll down your newsfeed, you see an interesting link that a friend has posted. Curious to see what "The World's Funniest Joke" is, you click on the link. The page loads and much to your chagrin, the page has been shrunk down to fit within your phone's screen size, so you're forced to pinch and zoom until you can see the joke. However, as you zoom in, sections of the site fall off the screen, so in order to read the entire joke, you must swipe back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until you've lost your place and given up on trying to read this joke. Your friends arrive so you angrily put your phone away, feeling a little empty inside from not knowing "The World's Funniest Joke." Your day could have been exponentially better knowing "The World's Funniest Joke." But instead, you're left with a giant callous on your finger from excessive swiping, and a tiny resentment towards your friends for being late. This all could have been avoided had that page been built on a responsive framework. [caption id="attachment_2172" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The page is shrunken down on mobile devices when it is not designed with a responsive framework"][/caption] What's a responsive framework? Well, for starters, if you're reading this on a computer, go ahead and resize your browser¹. Now if you can, view this page on a netbook. Now do it on a tablet. Then your smartphone. How much pinching and zooming did you have to do to read the content? Your answer should be minimal or none. Our site was designed to be viewable on all different screen resolutions, whether you're viewing on the go, or exploring on your computer. The layout of the site responds and changes according to your screen resolution. [caption id="attachment_2173" align="alignright" width="300" caption="On a responsive framework, there is no pinching and zooming required"][/caption] The world of mobile browsing has come a long way since the days of brick-sized cellphones. Where it was once a convenient thing to have, it is now a way of life. Ethan Marcotte of A List Apart quotes:

Mobile browsing is expected to outpace desktop-based access within three to five years.

Of course, mobile-browsing won't ever replace desktop browsing, and you'll always have a better experience browsing on a desktop computer. But who knows, in the near future, the better user experience may just come from browsing on your mobile phone! Here are a couple of my favorite responsive web sites. Go on, don't be afraid to play around with the size of your browser window or even view it on your phone! http://css-tricks.com http://www.fork-cms.com http://stephencaver.com http://colly.com http://interim.it http://clearairchallenge.com http://easy-readers.net/books/adaptive-web-design ¹For a quick explanation of browsers, please refer to my first post in which I 'splain the interweb.

SOPA is DEAD. Long Live SOPA?

Chris Crews — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:44:16 +0000

So the Internet has spoken and SOPA is dead. On the Wednesday before the actual vote, several websites went dark or put up banners that allowed you to contact your representative. Google, who put a black swatch across their ubiquitous logo, collected 7 million signatures on an online petition. Notable was the near-total blackout of Wikipedia. Millions of Americans were forced to use dictionaries for the day. The White House, reluctant to walk to the library for information, said, “This stinks,” and announced its opposition to the bill. The yelling started early. GoDaddy.com was initially all for SOPA. Angry websters started pulling their business from the domain site and threatened to treat CEO Bob Parsons like an elephant. Crafters of the legislation, like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R), Arizona Rep. Ben Quayle (R), and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (D), apparently heard the chorus and headed for the hills. Lamar Smith, co-author of the bill, switched sides after someone provided a link to his campaign website. The background photo was a copyrighted photo for which the artist had received no credit or royalties. Oops.

Well, then, we’re all good, right?

Not so fast. Money talks. The industries that were really pushing for SOPA were the music and film distributors. They make a great deal of money by selling songs and flicks. But think about it: when is the last time that you slipped the shrink-wrap off of an album or peeled your feet from a theater floor? Oh, sure, they get 99 cents a pop on iTunes and maybe you’ve got a Netflix subscription, but there are still a whole lot of dollar bills getting lost in the pirate cloud. And don’t think that these guys are going to take this quietly. Christopher Dodd was a United States Senator. He also ran a moderately successful campaign for President. He became pretty powerful in Washington. Now he’s the chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. That makes him their head lobbyist, and one with some pretty significant connections. He personally crafted some of the language in SOPA, and hasn’t been shy about his disappointment in its demise. He told Fox News that he was going to hit politicians where it hurt. “Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.” Money talks; SOPA gets up and walks. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was born about six years ago as a way to combat Internet piracy on a global level. The agreement was spearheaded in Poland (apparently anxious to stem the flow of illegal Nicki Minaj videos), and thousands of protesters stormed the European Parliament building in Warsaw to voice their displeasure. But you know what? It passed. Much of Europe and parts of Asia signed on the dotted (or dotcommed) line. In fact, our own President, Barack Obama, inked his signature on it LAST YEAR. That’s not all:

The Canadian Parliament is moving forward with the Copyright Modernization Act, which is basically ‘Bride of SOPA’. It has many of the dangerous tenets of our failed bill, and would allow a corporation to arbitrarily call for a disputed site to simply be blackened. Canada doesn’t have a Chris Dodd, though. They let a music-industry representative craft the language in their bill.

In a state of “Erin Go Black” euphoria, Ireland went ahead and passed their version. The folks of the Emerald Isle didn’t have an opportunity to rush the castle on this one. It skipped Irish Parliament and was signed as a ‘ministerial order’.

When the Rio Player (hee hee hee) first came out, the company was sued by the music industry. It was 1999, and digital music was very much a science fiction wow thing. People were amazed that they could have music at their fingertips and in their ears and not need a 40-pound boombox or a pencil to rewind their Walkman tapes (There used to be a device called a Walkman that allowed you to play these things called “cassette tapes”. Weird, I know.). A court found that ripping songs from you PC (I crack myself up) to a portable device was really like making a mixtape and obviously constituted personal use. It wasn’t the first time that the entertainment industry has gotten in a lather about technology. In 1984 Universal Studios sued Sony Manufacturing over the introduction of a device called a BetaMax. It was the first home-device for viewing video content, and Universal clearly saw the ghost of empty theaters future. This brings up an interesting sidebar: should a new technology sit on innovation for fear of a copyright lawsuit? I understand the importance of protecting one’s property. As someone who loves music, I also sympathize with the struggle of an artist to make a living. But there’s got to be a better way. The Internet hasn’t killed creativity; rather it has exploded it. In the grand scheme of things, how much money do you think that the gaffer gets when a Twilight movie inexplicably grosses a bazillion dollars? How much money does the drummer get when you buy a Nickleback CD (we’re hoping not too much).

The entertainment industry needs to evolve.

Have you seen a horse-drawn carriage lately? Probably not. Manufacturers were lulled into thinking that they were in the carriage business and they got Bartman’ed by Henry Ford. Ford saw it as the ‘personal transportation’ business. Look at Apple. They started out with ugly little computers and are now the most profitable company in America. How did they amass their quazillion dollars in earnings? They sold a whole lot of phones. Over half of their sales were from iPhones. The little computer company is now a phone company. Keep your eyes out as these other bills start to gain strength. There’s a great deal of money involved. But why shoot the cow for delivering the mik?

Just Say NO to SOPA and PIPA

David East — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:38:18 +0000

So here we are, enjoying this lovely blog together. Isn’t it nice? Aren’t we enjoying each other’s company? Take a deep breath. That, my friend, is the sweet, sweet digital air of Internet freedom. And the gears are turning to put the kibosh on it. Perhaps you’ve heard of SOPA and PIPA, and perhaps you’re not significantly concerned over it. Let’s chat. Legislation isn’t very high on my list of fun things to learn or talk about. It’s confusing, it’s frustrating, and it’s all so very theoretical “might happen” kind of stuff. But the fact is, Congress is thinking about breaking the Internet. You know, that boundless expanse of innovation and creativity that has become the heart and soul of the global community. The unrivaled platform of enterprise and ingenuity. The conduit by which we enrich our lives and connect to one another. That Internet. If the web runs in your blood like it does mine, it’s time to learn why and how they’re planning on doing that. And it’s time to speak up. You’ve been drafted, son. Welcome to the Internet Defense Coalition. This is boot camp. What you need are the facts. The Stop Online Piracy Act (before the House of Representatives) and the Protect IP Act (before the Senate) are two bills with the purpose of curtailing digital piracy, or the unauthorized download/access to copyrighted content (like movies, games, and music). While this is a fine goal, these bills are far too unspecific in their definitions and too sweeping in the powers they grant the Attorney General (and by extension, companies that provide content). The reality is that these bills as written will not accomplish their goals and will open a Pandora’s Box of potential abuse of power and censorship. As you’re probably starting to realize, I will ramble for pages and pages on these issues if allowed. So for your sake, I’m not going to let myself. Instead, I’m going to bullet-point some main issues with the current bills.

The definition of a “foreign” site versus a “domestic” site is murky, and could be loosely interpreted either way based on hosting location, domain name registration, and top-level domain (.com, .org, .us, .ly)
Site classifications are too broad – the definitions for “search engine” could apply to anything from Google to reddit to blogs and wiki’s.
An infringing site need only “facilitate the commission of criminal violations.” What exactly does this “facilitating” entail? Good question…

Once an infringing site has been named, the Attorney General will force U.S. sites and services to:

Remove all links to the site from all pages and search results
Stop all ad services related to the site
Cease any payment transactions
Block customer (YOU) access to the site through DNS filtering. Censor it.

To quote a fantastic reddit post about the issues, “SOPA and PIPA contain no provisions to actually remove copyrighted content, but rather focus on the censorship of links to entire domains.” To put it another way; why block a YouTube video when you can just block YouTube? And why just block YouTube when you can demand that every link and search result leading to YouTube be removed one by one on every site that has ever linked to it? The problems are big enough when the bill is applied as intended. But worse still, the potential for misuse and abuse is staggering. We’ve seen it with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – scorned YouTube users have been known to maliciously file false DMCA notices against each other simply to cause legal headaches. And legal headaches we shall have if these bills pass. Our court system will see countless SOPA and PIPA takedown notices and counter-notices, steeped in uncertain language and definitions that draw the affair out. Startups will have to consider the potential for legal issues before starting their company, and many will decide not to start that great website because they fear accidental “facilitation of criminal violation,” and can’t afford a laborious legal fight. And the kicker, the worst part of it all, is that the bill will not work. Pirates are not stupid. Immoral and thieving, yes. But not stupid. On the contrary, the know the Internet better than anyone, and they certainly know it a lot better than these Congressmen. They will continue to steal and share movies and music, and they will find new ways to make money off it. And for our efforts, we will have neutered the growth and prosperity of the Internet and ourselves. The time has come to speak out. Stop American Censorship is a great place to start – calling your representative is a great place to continue. And I told you I wasn’t going to ramble. Sorry. P.S. As if you needed an illustration that this is an important issue to us here at Rocket Pop, Chris wrote his own post about SOPA as I was writing mine. Great minds and all that. Check it. “David, I need to read more about this harrowing issue!” Fear not, noble reader. I am a veritable font of SOPA/PIPA links. Google’s Statement Mozilla’s Statement Wikipedia’s Statement Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Statement reddit’s Statement The Heritage Foundation’s Statement Wired’s Statement Razer’s Statement (awesome) Adam Savage of MythBuster’s Statement White Paper – The Impact of U.S. Internet Copyright Regulation on Early-Stage Investment The MPAA’s defense of legislation

Why Does SOPA Suck and Why Should You Care?

Chris Crews — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:19:46 +0000

The Internet is the most open and robust means of communication in the world. The SOPA bill itself is seemingly innocuous. It seeks to provide protection to the owners of copyrights against web sites that sell goods and intellectual property without giving the owners of the copyright fair monies. In other words, you can’t have a web site that sells knock-off Nike sneakers. The consumer would need to know that they aren’t really Nike’s, and if you were trying to portray them as real ones then Nike would get a cut. It’s their swoosh. The bill has also been heavily influenced by the recording and motion picture industries. The bill splashes heavily in music, movies, and books. This is the intellectual property part. Being a music nut, here’s how it breaks down:

Joe Bob creates a band and they record some music.
A record label that wants to market their music picks up the Joe Bob Four.
You really like the Joe Bob Four and share a song on your YouTube page.
The U.S. Government shuts down YouTube because you like the Joe Bob Four.

Here’s the rub: The way that the bill is written, you are a dirty pirate for having shared the song, but YouTube is a dirty pirate captain for having let you do it. The record company could seize the domain from YouTube to protect sales of the Joe Bob Four. The Government could shut down YouTube, demand that Google remove YouTube from any and all searches, and demand that PayPal withhold funds for any commerce that YouTube is conducting. No more silly cats because you like the Joe Bob Four. The serious part is that these actions could be arbitrary and occur with no notification. The impression of having shared protected material is enough for the government to take action. If Greedy Records objects to the post, they just have to let the Government know, and the action starts. YouTube finds out when they come to work and the lights are out. YouTube won’t know that they’ve been slapped until they realize that they’re not getting checks from PayPal and that nobody is visiting their site. The Government is not required to give YouTube any notice. YouTube can then serve a “counter-notice” saying that they didn’t really do anything wrong, but this starts a lengthy legal process. Even better (or worse) is the fact that if Greedy Records decides that “My Truck Broke Down” by the Joe Bob Four is worth $1 per download, and 2,500 people liked your YouTube post, then both you and YouTube would be felons.

Let's put it in layman’s terms:

You get off from work and head over to your favorite watering hole, the Rocket Bar, and decide to splash a pint. After a single pint you take your leave, and as you exit the bar you stumble over a crack in the sidewalk. A police officer sees you stumble and arrests you for being drunk. The police department then tells all of the local beer distributors to stop selling beer to the Rocket Bar, orders the power company to turn off all of the utilities, and freezes the Rocket Bar bank account. The Rocket Bar gets no notice, and never saw you stumble outside of the bar. “But wait!” you say. “I only had one pint! I wasn’t drunk and the police never pressed charges.” The appearance that you were drunk was enough for them to put the screws to your favorite watering hole.

Sound ridiculous?

DaJaz1 is a nifty little site sharing a blog about their little world of music. They share news about upcoming releases, and frequently post songs and videos by artists. The tracks are often given to DaJaz1 by the labels and the artists themselves. The owners of the material recognize the popularity of the blog and hope to get their new music to its proper audience. In November of 2010, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched Operation in Our Sites. The operation was going after sites selling counterfeit handbags and knock-off NFL jerseys. They also seized DaJaz1.com. An agent stated that he had used the site to download pirated music. Other similar sites were also seized, which is interesting in that artists such as Kanye West and magazines like Vibe shared the sites. “Hey, check out our new stuff on this blog!” DaJaz1 found out about this when his website exhibited a big warning placard that said that his domain had been seized for counterfeiting and that he was a criminal. Lawyers for DaJaz1 asked for some explanation and were told that the records were sealed. When a deadline for a procedure came and went he asked what was going on. He was told that the government had filed an extension on the case. When he asked to see the court ruling, he was again told that the records were sealed. When he informed the court that if another Government extension were requested that he would like to object, he was told, “Nope”.

The Government basically said, “No charges, no day in court, no explanations, but we’re going to take away your stuff.”

This past December, over a year after he was shut down, the Government gave DaJaz1 his domain back. The Government's case had no merit. While all of this is very troubling for a site like YouTube, it also has far-reaching implications for a site like reddit, which depends on user-generated content and sharing to exist. Even deeper is the well that Facebook and sites like Wordpress and Blogger could fall into. A site that allows you to express your opinions and likes could be subject to the same draconian measures as the guy who wrote DaJaz1. The “implication” or accusation of copyright infringement would be enough to shut the whole shebang down. While we would like to see Nike, the NFL, and even Kanye West receive their fair due for their efforts, the current SOPA and PIPA (Protect IP Act) acts are the wrong way about it. The laws fly in the face of the U.S. Constitution, are an infringement on the rights of others around the world, and violate the very principles that dictated the founding of the Internet. To move forward with these bills as written would be to throw the Internet onto the Fahrenheit 451 pyre of censorship. (Fahrenheit 451 is a copyrighted work by the writer Ray Bradbury. All rights reserved)

And we'll loose our free access to silly cats.

Go online today to contact your representative or congressman, and voice your opposition to this blanket censorship of the Internet… …While you still can. ed. note: If you’ve followed any of the links provided here to learn more about this issue, then we’ve never met.

Coming Face to Face With My Subject

Don Jonathan Webb — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:20:02 +0000

I was on assignment for Rocket Pop Media. A recent video shoot for Keep Virginia Beautiful led me onto State Route 60 in Southside Richmond, Virginia. In my Buick Park Avenue I drove slowly, first onto Hull Street, then onto Midlothian Turnpike, pacing myself at a cool 35 miles-per-hour. With purpose and focus, I remained vigilant, in search of trash! The goal was clear: find and document waste to create awareness of the negative effects of roadside litter. Continuing down Commerce Road, I found the object of my quest: a median strip lined heavily with heaps of garbage. There, in the uncut grass next to a busy intersection lay cigarettes, bottle caps, cups of Instant Noodles, broken glass, crushed plastics, bags from McDonalds, bags from gas stations, discarded styrofoam cups, flyers, worn-down print ads...a complete history of this corner of Richmond's consumption. I hit the brakes and parked the Buick. As I walked along, snapping photos and shooting footage, I had a profound thought, an intrusion into my routine:

We treat our neighborhoods, our communities, like garbage.

I began to think about how, for many residents of Richmond, and the Greater Commonwealth, litter is a commonality - a view from the front porch, a functioning dysfunction within the community. It's incomprehensible and even dizzying to imagine the immense social, psychological & cultural impacts that litter and waste have on our communities. How is it that some areas have remained so beautifully landscaped and intact, yet other areas have been left to go to waste? Is it possible to seriously uproot change, and initiate social cultivation and empowerment in areas that exist in so much...filth. It is imperative that we reinvest in communal upkeep, in beautification, education and litter prevention. It is imperative that we focus on all areas of the state, not just the state parks, by arming ourselves with attentiveness and humility. As we begin this new year, strive to keep a beautiful state, by doing your part in not littering and investing in at least one cleanup--in your own community and elsewhere.

6 Degrees of What? Open Graph Sharing, That’s What.

Chris Crews — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:18:45 +0000

You’ve no doubt played the game before: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Name an actor and connect him to Kevin Bacon in 6 steps or less. For example: Mae West. She starred in “She Done Him Wrong” with a very young Cary Grant who was in “To Catch A Thief” directed by Hitchcock who directed a very young Shirley Maclaine in “The Trouble With Harry”. Maclaine was in “Terms of Endearment” with Jack Nicholson who was in “A Few Good Men” with Kevin Bacon. Around the office, we play a version of the same game, All Roads Lead to Zappa. Stick with us for a moment, non-music fans: Members of Frank Zappa’s or The Mothers of Invention bands have included, Roy Estrada (Little Feat), Henry Vestine (Canned Heat), Aynsley Dunbar (John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers i.e. Clapton), Ian Underwood (Quincy Jones), Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, George Duke (Miles Davis), Captain Beefheart, Adrian Belew (King Crimson to Nine Inch Nails), Chester Thompson (Genesis), Terry Bozzio (w/Tony Levin of Peter Gabriel fame and Korn), Vinnie Colaiuta (Sting, Joni Mitchell), Steve Vai (Whitesnake)…as you can see, this game can go on forever, and members of his bands have played with everyone. Why are we sharing our games with you? The idea of the inter-connectedness of us all was first mentioned in a story in 1929 by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy. Stanley Milgram of Yale tested it in the 1960’s. He found that there are about 6 intermediaries, or degrees, separating all of us. According to Facebook, the number of links between everyone is 4.74, and in some cases 3 “hops”. Scary, isn’t it? The way Facebook is now linking to other media outlets (outside of the Social world) this number is growing even smaller. Most of our business relationships make use of Facebook. Many of them also use Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+. All of these services are using tools to share their users activities. When you look at the Facebook Timeline, you’ll see that Charlie read an article in The Washington Post, Lisa likes a video on YouTube, Meghan is listening to Lady Gaga, and Scott is the Mayor of Chick Fil A. Sites like The Washington Post, YouTube, Spotify and Pandora, FourSquare, and others are now encouraging their users to “log in” with their social network credentials. Facebook calls this “Open Graph”. This allows Facebook to track user activity, program related ads, and share their material on the user’s network. This way Charlie will see the video that Lisa watched, Lisa will listen to the Lady Gaga track, Meghan will get hungry for Chick Fil A, and Scott will get curious about The Washington Post article. See how it works? From a discovery standpoint it’s pretty cool. Charlie is pretty up on current events so what he reads is important to us. Lisa has a great sense of humor so we would no doubt enjoy the video that she watched. Perhaps Meghan can get us out of Zappa for a while to enjoy something else. But is this a good thing? The idea behind Open Graph is to allow frictionless sharing. Your web habits are smoothly shared with your social network. But do you really want to use Open Graph Sharing to share everything that you do on the web? Perhaps we’ve read an interview of Sting in Playboy. Suddenly everyone knows that we’ve been into Playboy. Perhaps curiosity gets the better of us and we cue up a Lady Gaga track. Can we withstand the ridicule of our Zappa-minded friends? Should there be a certain degree of separation between us? Before you think that this is so much paranoia, take a look at this. We got invited to participate in an alpha test of StormDriver. What is StormDriver? It’s an application that adds a social layer over all of your other social layers. Much more than a Hootsuite, it links the web, so that everyone that is in your friends, followers, circles, et al are shown to you. You see who is where, reading what, and where they go. It uses algorithms to curate your tastes and reactions to content to offer suggestions. And we thought tracking shoppers through their cell phones was too Big Brother.

You Did WHAT in 1999? What You Should Know About Timeline

Anna Waddelove — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:22:39 +0000

Change is a funny thing. Sometimes good, often daunting, but usually necessary. So as times progress and the "Google +'s" of the world start vamping up their services and sites, it's none too surprising that Facebook, too, would ebb and flow to stay with the tides of time. The idea of Timeline really is quite fascinating - - a virtual autobiography, and still the best way to stay in contact with your close and far friends. If you spend a few moments exploring this newest layout, you can see that there is now the option to add life events. Personally, I got a kick out of adding them; it was great to take a walk down memory lane and add in my adventures from the past years. Graduating from university, my first time moving out, my first nephew joining the family. I loved rebuilding, recreating and reminiscing. However, after adding my latest life event (moving to Richmond, VA), I noticed that a couple of my friends were 'liking' my life events. I appreciate that they noticed it, of course. Who doesn't like their achievements applauded? But what irked me was that I was laying out every minute detail of my life for people to learn about. My mom, my best friend and my boss all know where and when I went to college. But what about the newest friend I added a month ago? Sure, right now I like them and don't mind sharing that I went to Starlite (again!) last night. But do I want them knowing every itty-bitty detail of my life, at the click of a button? Of course, all of this information was available on Facebook before Timeline; they could have just scrolled to the bottom of my profile and hit "Show Older Posts"... 475 times. Now, all they need to do is click to 2006 and see when I graduated, click to 2002 and see an 18 year-old Anna, click to 1995 and see an Angelina Ballerina birthday cake. (I realize the irony that I am sharing these details in a public blog right now). But, I think, and hope, that my point is being made. That much more information about your life is becoming that much more readily available to relative-ish strangers. So what can you do? -If you haven't already, start by exercising great discretion over who you allow to see your profile. -Secondly, be aware of the fact that when you post an item to your Timeline, you have the option of choosing who sees it. In the right hand bottom of the new post is a box in which you can choose who can see what. This defaults to public - make sure you click on "Friends" or "Custom". -Take the seven days you have before your Timeline goes live to edit out what you don't want the whole wide world of Facebook friends to see. By going to your profile, someone can easily click on your profile from two-thousand-something and see things you might've been ok with at 22 but don't want to be seen now. (Remember potential employers, possible significant others and brand new friends can see that you loved to take tequila shots once upon a time if you're not vigilant!) -And lastly, go to your Privacy Settings and carefully go through your them. There you can control your default settings and then you can choose what past posts are seen in present. Meaning, Facebook is giving you the ability to control the aforementioned problems of hiding past events that might be best kept private. The long and short? Timeline is an awesome and new step forward for Facebook. Yes, change is scary, but social networking is the way forward, so instead of being apprehensive, know how to keep your personal things personal and enjoy reacquainting yourself with old memories and good friends.

‘Splaining the Interweb

Alyssa Chang — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:22:08 +0000

One of my favorite things (that I always end up doing) is explaining how something works on the Internet to someone who isn't very technologically savvy. This usually results in wild analogies involving cars, houses, mailboxes, lost letters, and confused mailmen. It all started out when I taught web design to nine-year-olds. Yes, nine-year-olds. Children who couldn't possibly understand how the Internet works, much less where all the keys are on the keyboard to type their names (let's see, there's "A"... there's "L".... where's "Y"? Where's "Y"?! Help, I need help!) So what do you do on your first day teaching web design to a bunch of bright-eyed kids who are eager to create the next Google or simply make a website about their favorite ice cream flavor? What do you do when Grandma brings her new laptop over to you and asks you to tell her how it works? And golly, how do you explain to a client why using IE6 is the worst possible idea? Well first thing's first, let's start with: The Website The website is like a house. It's got its own land, its own address, its own design, and it's got multiple rooms. Let's use our own Rocket Pop Media website for example. Our address is www.rocketpopmedia.com. Pages vs. Subdomains A page is like a room in a house. Rocket Pop Media has many pages, for instance, www.rocketpopmedia.com/discover. Discover is a room in the rocketpopmedia.com house. Sometimes, there's a room within a room; www.rocketpopmedia.com/discover/got-music-spotify-does/, is the room "got-music-spotify-does" inside the room "discover". If the address were structured like "www.discover.rocketpopmedia.com", then discover wouldn't be a room inside the Rocket Pop Media house. Instead, discover would be its own building with its own rooms on the Rocket Pop Media property. The Browser So we have all these houses and all this land. How do we visit them? Why, we hop onto our browsers, which are like cars (or bikes/motorcycles/reindeer/your favorite mode of transportation. Kids can get creative). Like the many different makes and models of cars in the world, there are also different makes and models of browsers. Firefox and Chrome are your BMW's and Porches; Safari is that nice hybrid car; Opera and Camino are those foreign cars that you may or may not have heard of (they look cool, but the drive is hit or miss). Then there's Internet Explorer. That's the lovely hand-me-down car from your grandfather. It was the best car to have when your grandpa was young, but it reached its prime about thirty years ago. He kept it nice and you added a stereo, but don't drive that thing on the highway! Why he kept it around is still a mystery. And Netscape—oh nevermind, you are all too young to know what that is... (I'm not at all car savvy, so I apologize for any inaccuracies in this analogy). Email People need to send you letters! How? They send it directly to you. If you live in Rocket Pop Media land like I do, then you'd send the letter to me, Alyssa at rocketpopmedia.com. That's structured like so: alyssa@rocketpopmedia.com. alyssa@ is my mailbox at my Rocket Pop Media house. But how does it work? Who delivers these letters? Well a mail carrier does, and his/her name is the Email Server. When you hit that SEND button, you're giving your letter to the Email Server. He/she takes that letter, travels around the Internet and delivers that letter into your mailbox, where you can read it. Domain Usually by the end of the week, when the kids are finishing up their website, I'm hit with the question of how to get your own .com address. When I tell them you have to pay for one, I get a chorus of exasperated groans followed by a perfectly harmonized "Why?" (sometimes they'll change it up and I'll hear a drawn-out "Whaaaat?") So I tell them, owning a domain means you're owning a piece of land, therefore you have to pay for that piece of land. You can get a subdomain, but because you're living on someone else's property, you'll be stuck with their address too, like alyssalikescupcakes.rocketpopmedia.com instead of alyssalikescupcakes.com. Web Servers This is the physical dirt your house is built on. What? You didn't think your house would be built on air, did you? If it was, then the air would be the web server. And that's how I explain the Internet to kids, grandparents, and clients alike. You should hear my analogies when I'm teaching video game design! Your video game is a book... each level is a chapter... Shameless Plug I taught web design and game design at an incredible nationwide technology camp called iD Tech Camps (www.internaldrive.com). If you have a kid, or know any kids, who would love to get their hands on some technology, then send them to this camp! They are held in week-long sessions at prestigious universities throughout the country (including locations in Canada and in Spain). It's the most fun at a summer camp a kid will ever have! I worked there for four years, and every summer I still dream of going back to fill eager minds with knowledge and to get mercilessly destroyed in Call of Duty tournaments!