Apple iPhone and the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

Today I decided to do something with the Apple iPhone which I thought would be quite simple. To send a post to my blog with a photo and a link to Google maps showing where the photo was taken.

Easy you would have thought.

The Apple iPhone can produce the photo and the link, but then things started to fall apart.

First I really didn't want the entire photo. I wanted to resize the photo and crop the photo. These are not features found on the iPhone. With a bit of searching and testing I found a couple of apps to do what I wanted which were free. I hesitate to buy apps. They don't cost much, but many apps I've tried (mostly free) haven't been that good and I've deleted them. The one I did buy didn't really end up doing what I wanted easily, so doesn't get used.

Google's Blogger requires the photograph to be sent as an attachment, but the Apple iPhone doesn't provide a facility to send an attachment. You can insert an image into an email but not attach it.

The way I created this post was to enter the text for the post including the link and sent this to Blogger.

Yarra Promenade, Southbank VIC 3006, Australia

Then I forwarded the photo to my computer, logged onto Blogger, inserted the photo and did a bit of editing on the post. I saved the post and then checked it. There was a single line which I couldn't remove so I went into edit the HTML view and removed all the code generated by the iPhone.

This is certainly not what I thought would be needed. However whilst this technique doesn't work for blogging, it really is a great feature of the Apple iPhone.

My initial aim really was to create a  link with my current location, take a picture and send the picture and link in an email to family to let them know where we are when on holidays. I also thought this could be a good technique for children to let parents know where they are when they want to get a lift. The location is often enough but getting a picture of something obvious in the area could really help sometimes.

I've written up the technique as the MyAnswers solution 1998 (How to send a photo and a link to your current location using the Apple iPhone.) I'm sure others will find handy ways to use this technique.

Regards,

Kelvin Eldridge

Alert: Wind “power” is a fraud - Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

I received a couple of emails sent to two different email addresses with the subject Wind “power” is a fraud from the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia.

I decided to check these out in case they contained malware.

On opening the emails I remembered I'd seen this type of email some time ago. I previously rang the organisation and if I recall correctly they used a third party mailing list.

If this is a political party then based on my understanding of the anti-spam Act they aren't in breach. However I do wonder if the third party mailing list organisation is in breach. I haven't provided my email details and suspect the email addresses may have been harvested in some way.

My advice to the organisation was that whilst they may not be in breach of the anti-spam act, sending unsolicited emails is generally not welcome. I asked them to remove my details from their mailing list and will do so again. I suggested to the organistion that they should put the effort into building their own opt-in email list. They should have sufficient members and contacts of members to start building a good list and it can grow from there. Using purchased mailing lists simply damages their credibility. I certainly now don't consider these emails to have any credibility at all.

Personally I don't think it was right for the government to exclude themselves and charities from the anti-spam legislation. We should have one set of rules and the government shouldn't be making rules simply to favour themselves.

I would suggest unsubscribing and then deleting these emails.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Apple iPhone Safari geolocation (GPS)

Apple iPhone Safari geolocation isn't very good

- Kelvin Eldridge

Apple 4G iPhone about to be released.

If you're thinking about an iPhone, now is a good time to put off a decision until the new model is released.

Earlier this year I saw a number of people buying Apple 3G iPhones on two year contracts. Some of the people I spoke to didn't realise the Apple iPhone 3G wasn't the latest model. It was a special offer and the offer looked good to them. Only later did they find out the 3G iPhone didn't include features such as recording video.

With the Apple 4G iPhone it is likely the 3GS models will be discounted to look attractive. However before buying a 3GS instead of a 4G it is a good idea to compare the features. The mobile phone market moves quickly and the two year contract you sign today is a long time in terms of mobile technology.

Check out which features don't exist on the 3GS compared with the 4G. Some of these features may become more important in the next model. New features on the model after the 4G may even make the 3GS model obsolete.

I feel a number of people will think the Apple 4G iPhone will work on the coming 4G network and end up buying a phone for the 4G network that only works on the 3G network. At this stage since the details aren't available, I don't know if the Apple 4G iPhone will support the 4G network. I don't think it will, but I could be wrong. It is important not to get confused with the iPhone model number of the telecommunications network.

None of us can predict the future of the smartphone market. All we can do is make a good decision for our current needs and our needs over the coming year. I decided to skip the 3G model and go for the 3GS model. Depending on your needs that may be a good decision for the 4G model for some people.

Be careful of the coming specials from the telcos. A good decision is an informed decision.

- Kelvin Eldridge

MyAnswers - Outlook 2007 defaulting to American English

In Outlook 2007 (Windows XP) the spelling defaults to American English (English U.S.). The spelling defaults correctly to Australian English in Microsoft Word.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Apple iPad micro-sim and Telstra browsing packs

When I first read the Apple iPad was going to have a micro-SIM and not the usual SIM card, I thought that was a bit of a nuisance. I can see how it will tend to lock people into certain providers. I just read the following article (Apple betrays loyal customers with iPad's micro-SIM slot) which was written in January and what I’m seeing is the opposite seems to be happening. The main argument in the article is that people will be locked into higher priced plans because of the micro-SIM format.

From what I’m seeing the Telstra iPad pre-paid plans are heavily biased favouring Apple. Currently I occasionally use a $10 pre-paid service from Telstra when I need good coverage and use 3 as the service provider when around the city. 3’s service is often totally inadequate even around the city of Melbourne, but the cost is vastly superior to Telstra’s, so I put up with it. For $10 from Telstra pre-paid, you get a measly 100MB.

I wonder why it is that Telstra can offer Apple iPad users 1GB for $20 and only offer everyone else so much less?

Telstra’s pre-paid plans until recently offered 100MB - $10, 200MB - $29 and I’m not quite sure, but there was one more which I think was 750MB for $59. I just checked the Telstra site and whilst they’ve updated their pre-paid data allowances, they still don’t match the value offered to Apple users.

$5 Browsing Pack 20MB BROWSEPLUS5
$10 Browsing Pack 150MB BROWSEPLUS10
$20 Browsing Pack 300MB BROWSEPLUS20
$39 Browsing Pack 750MB BROWSEPLUS39
$49 Browsing Pack 2GB BROWSEPLUS49
$79 Browsing Pack 4GB BROWSEPLUS79

Apple iPad users get the following choices from Telstra.

$20 - 1GB
$30 - 3GB
$60 - 6GB
$80 - 9GB
$100 - 12GB

I can understand that Telstra wishes to price aggressively to get the new iPad business, but it doesn’t quite seem right that they treat other users differently and charge them so much more. There is one good price point Telstra offers which is the $10 browsing pack for 150MB. This means Telstra users can pay less if they need to use less data. Apart from that, Apple iPad users come out winners across the board.

At least with the release of the Apple iPad Telstra has increased the value offered by their Browsing Packs, but it is still a long way from the value offered to iPad users.

I’ve read you can purchase a converter for a micro-SIM and use it as an ordinary SIM. You can also supposedly physically hack a regular SIM and make a micro-SIM, but I personally don’t think this should be necessary. I believe Telcos should be platform agnostic. It shouldn’t matter if we use an iPad, a netbook, an iPhone, an Andorid, or some other device, what they offer should be the same.

For me Telstra puts me off using their services when they do this. I think Telstra has the best network coverage, but for the time being until they treat customers equally and provide better value, I’ll find ways to use other service providers most of the time and only Telstra in the less frequent situation where better coverage is important.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Tip: If you're interested in buying an iPad duty free, visit the Apple online store. Duty free stores usually charge full price. Duty in this case is just the GST. If you take one eleventh off the price, that will be the duty free price.

Is it legionnaires' disease, legionnaire's disease, or legionnaires disease?

The recent outbreak of legionnaires' disease reminded me of a common problem many people (including myself) tend to have with spelling. Where do we place the apostrophe? If you check the news articles on the recent outbreak in the Doncaster area you'll find all three spelling variations.

As many of you will know, I'm the person who created the Australian English spellcheck dictionary now used in products like OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, Google Chrome, and in fact, I'd say if you are using an open source product with Australian spelling, you're probably using my work.

I found a couple of problems with the open source path for me. The first thing is I was putting in hundreds of hours and whilst the open source projects were happy to come along and use my work, none gave anything back to support me. The second issue is the original word list was based on an open source dictionary and required over 30% of the words to be culled to start with and the rest to be checked using existing spellcheckers. Unfortunately that meant the dictionary would in general only be a subset of the spellcheckers I used to vet the word list, but worse, any errors would not be picked up. It reminded me of the old expression, garbage in, garbage out. It wouldn't matter how much time and effort I put into patching the word list there would still be a significant number of errors in the list that may take years to find.

I felt it was time to build a quality product and the only way to do that was to start from scratch. I estimate by the time I've built the dictionary to the standard I am happy with, I'll have invested close to a thousand hours, possibly more. I don't know about you, but I certainly can't afford to give away a thousand hours of my time. Of course if each user of OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird and Google Chrome who use my work contributed just $1, I could have worked on the dictionary full-time, and kept the work open source. I've found most open source users, business users, and projects, don't want to pay anything and don't give anything back to assist the projects they use.

My work is now limited to clients and those who make a contribution. It is those people after all who enable me to support my family. My work is called the Kelvin dictionary and the public face of my work is Word Check.

The question Is it legionnaires' disease, legionnaire's disease or legionnaires disease?, is the type of question I am aim to answer with Word Check. In fact legionairres' disease is one of the terms I'd previously researched and if you enter the three variations, the preferred Australian English spelling will be provided.

The Kelvin dictionary aims to provide the preferred spelling in Australia. The preferred spelling in Australia is legionnaires' disease"

May all your spelling be the preferred Australian English spelling.

- Kelvin Eldridge

NOTES:

The Australian Oxford Dictionary - Second Edition states the spelling as legionnaires' disease.
The Macquarie Concise Dictionary - Third Edition states the spelling as legionnaires' disease with an also spelling of legionaires' disease. (Yes that isn't a typo on my part. That is  in the dictionary.)
The Macquarie Dictionary - Fifth Edition states the spelling as legionnaire's disease with an also spelling of legionnaires' disease.

A check of the various government web sites tends to lean towards the use of legionnaires' disease. At this stage this is the preferred spelling offered by Word Check and Kelvin's dictionary. Kelvin's dictionary aims to make spelling easier by only providing the preferred Australian English spelling as the correct spelling variation.

A check of the overseas based spelling sites generally returns legionnaires' disease as the spelling.

All three spelling variations are commonly found across Australian web sites.

Those using Microsoft Word 2007 will find the grammar checker suggests Legionnaires' disease with capitalisation. Interestingly I see quite a few sites (such as Wikipedia) using the capitalised version. I tend to suggest to people not to rely on Wikipedia as an authoritative resource. My research of words is done against authoritative references. Those using Microsoft Word may tend to change the capitalisation based on Microsoft Word's suggestion. Both the Macquarie and Oxford use the lowercase spelling.

Legionnaires' disease in Doncaster (legionella)

ANYONE who feels ill after visiting Doncaster recently has been urged to contact a doctor after a man died in a legionnaire's disease outbreak.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Alert: Don't trust St Vincents & Mercy Private Hospital Limited

Last July 2009 my daughter had an operation. We called the hospital twice to ensure we were covered and were told we were. All bills were fully paid.

In January 2010 they started sending notices that $58 was owed.

If you take the effort to call a hospital twice and ask if you are covered, the hospital should stick to their word.

I share this information to warn others.

- Kelvin Eldridge

TAGS: st vincent's hospital, st vincents hospital, st vincent hospital

Apple iPhones purr

Who would have thought your Apple iPhone loves you and purrs when you stroke it.

A while ago I noticed something quite unusual about my Apple iPhone 3GS. As I rubbed my thumb along the shiny chrome edge of the iPhone it felt rough for some reason. I thought perhaps there was something sticky along the edge. I checked and the edge was clean.

As I moved my thumb gently along the edge it felt like my iPhone was purring. Now I like my iPhone, but I really didn't expect it to like me too.

Sadly I found my iPhone hasn't developed feelings for me. It appears that sometimes when the iPhone is charging with the screen displaying information, the edge of the iPhone becomes live. I'm not sure what the voltage is, but I assume it is quite low.

If I hold the iPhone to close to my ear as a stroke the edge of the iPhone, I can actually hear the hum of electricity. In the past I thought I was prickled from my iPhone and thought it was my imagination. Now it makes sense. The metal on the iPhone appears to be live. Personally I prefer to think of the iPhone as being alive;-)

I wonder how many other people have a purring iPhone.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Alert: Plagiarism on the internet is rife

If you publish on the internet expect to be plagiarised.

At university plagiarism may be considered grounds for expulsion. However, in the real world of the internet it is very common for others to take people's work and call it their own. Whilst this is common, I personally don't believe it is right.

I have often found within an hour of publishing a post on the internet that someone has taken my content and called it their own. If you write a blog for your business with the hope it may promote your business, then also be aware your content may copied to promote others, and if their presence on the internet is stronger than yours, then your content will promote them and not you.

I'm happy for someone to take a short extract (a sentence, a paragraph) from my site and link others to the source. I think we'd all agree that is acceptable etiquette on the internet and how on the internet we help each other.

However when people start taking more than a paragraph, or sometimes the entire contents of a page and copy it to their site, then to me that isn't appropriate behaviour.

Here is an entry from a Facebook user which I feel is a good way to use a small amount of content from another site. Only a small section of the content is used and a link is provided to the site providing the information. This approach helps both the original poster and the new poster.

On the other hand, here is a blog post from another site. If you check what I've written you'll see they have taken my material, edited it to make it look like they wrote it and called it their own. No credit. Pure plagiarism. I would find it hard to trust and deal with a site that works that way. To me it reinforces the saying "judge a person by their actions, not by what they say".

Just received an email
Friday, May 07, 2010
Subject: Thank you for buying iTunes Gift Certificate!

Just before I deleted this email from my spam filter, I just thought I’d check it out. Whilst I was quite certain it was a scam, I also think many people will be tricked with this free offer of an iTunes Gift Certificate.

The body of this email contains the following:

Hello!
You have received an iTunes Gift Certificate in the amount of $50.00 You can find your certificate code in attachment below.

Then you need to open iTunes. Once you verify your account, $50.00 will be credited to your account, so you can start buying music, games, video right away.
iTunes Store.

There’s no company logo – and the next clue is the email contains the attachment iTunes_certificate_197.zip and in the attachment is the program file iTunes_certificate_197.exe.

Alarm bells ring when someone sends an .exe file as an attachment – you’ve been warned

Honestly I was quite surprised/shocked to see people so openly copying other people's material and then with a bit of editing putting it on their site as though they wrote it themselves. The iTunes email was an obvious scam. Exactly what this site is doing I'm not sure, but I would certainly avoid them. At least the site said something true which is "Alarm bells ring" and if you see a site copying another site's material that should certainly ring some alarm bells for you.

In the past I've seen IT businesses in New Zealand and Western Australia take whole pages from my site and include it on their own site as their material. As a business practice an IT business copying another site's material is crazy. If you can't trust them on how they act on the internet, how could you trust them with your confidential information on your computer. A local council once took a graphic from my site that I took months to get approved and simply added it to their site without seeking permission. Copying of material can be done by anyone and any organisation both private and government.

More recently I've noticed an increasing number of skeleton sites taking material using automated methods. The aim appears to quickly generate material to generate advertising revenue, or a better position in search engines. The real concern is some of these site may end up containing malicious material such as links to malware and that could mean my material is being used to trick others. That too me is a real concern. The lesson here is if you use standard tools on the internet such as well know sites, then the chances of your information being copied increases significantly with automated tools.

I previously loved supporting Open Source projects and spent hundreds of hours building open source material. However sites like Firefox and Google Chrome simply came along and took the material I produced and gave nothing back. That is what open source appears to be about, but it is not the way I work. The real problem is when those who take don't contribute back to those who give, they end up killing off the source of their material. After nearly eight years of participating in open source I no longer support or contribute to open source as a result.

If you run a business and publish material on the internet, be aware that others may be using the material that you spend hours to generate.

If you use other people's material I personally feel you should link to the material and give the original creator the credit and some of your energy. Including too much is a sure way to kill of those that help you. Knowing that an 80 million dollar business like Mozilla/Firefox and a 21 billion dollar business like Google is benefiting from my work with no return for me, simply meant I stopped developing for open source. I'd estimate there are half a million to possibly millions of Australians using my material and the benefit to me financially was less than $150. I really believe if we help each other we all grow. These who simply leech off others without giving something back to them will simply cause the developers of the material to stop producing.

By all means link to other's material. Provide the minimum amount of text from the other site. A sentence or a paragraph. Don't copy whole sections of their site without their permission. You wouldn't want others to do it to you, so don't do it to others.

The good thing with the internet is plagiarists copy and if they found your material on the internet, you can often find the copy of your work. That probably won't help you, but once you know others are copying your material then you can adjust how you use the internet.

For anyone who is thinking about dealing with a site, do a search using parts of sentences of material from their site using Google, Yahoo or Bing. If they've been copying material from other sites and calling it their own, you'll most likely find the source and you'll then know the site to trust.

I hope this information alerts other small businesses of the considerable level of copying of content which is occurring on the internet and enables them to take that into account when they produce material for their site.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Be careful of data charges when travelling overseas

If you aren't on some form of a data plan in Australian and you use data on your mobile phone, you could end up getting an extremely large bill. When you go overseas you may think you are covered with your plan. You should think again. Even with very light use you could end up with a bill for hundreds, or possibly thousands of dollars.

The following is from an article published on the Australian which shows the range of prices for data when overseas. This is called roaming.

The charges for data roaming vary by operator for Australians ranging between $5.12 and $20.48 per megabyte for postpaid customers and $15.36 and $51.20 per megabyte for prepaid customers, the report found.

I read recently where one person was overseas using their iPhone as a street directory and ended up with a bill for hundreds of dollars.

During a month with very light internet usage, mostly checking emails, I would use around 100MB on the iPhone. The cost for the 100MB in Australia is $10 using Telstra prepaid. However if I were to do the same overseas, that same very light usage could end up costing from $1,536 to $5,120, which to me is one of the reasons we are seeing staggering excess charges.

When I've travelled I've purchase credit for wireless internet at the hotels and used internet cafes. At least that way I know what my costs are. There is nothing worse to spoil a great holiday than to get a staggering unexpected bill when you return.

I personally prefer prepaid because if you do something wrong, most of the time you end up only going through your credit. On a plan you may not be protected.

Take care.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Alert: Polldaddy News

I received an email today which I thought was interesting. It was a very well written newsletter from Polldaddy with the subject Polldaddy News and from Lenny [newsletter<@>polldaddy.com] (angle brackets added by me to avoid a possible email link).

The start of the email contained the following:

Hi Kelvin,



Welcome to the Polldaddy semi-occasional newsletter. Every month or so we’ll send you Polldaddy news and special offers, exclusively for newsletter subscribers. Let us know what you think, and what else you’d like to see in this space. Thanks for using Polldaddy and if you like it, please tell a friend!


I don't recall every using or signing up for anything to do with Polldaddy so I decided to investigate it further.

I checked where the email came from and it was from Texas in the United States. It isn't a surprise to receive unwanted emails from America. In the past I've worked out that America accounts for approximately 30% of spam I've received. That's ten's of thousands of unwanted emails for myself alone.

I then checked the site. It appears to be a standard site set up to get people to click on links which indicates it's primary purpose is to act as an affiliate advertising site.

In summary, until I can find any information to the contrary, this is a spamming attempt designed to get people to the site to click on links which generate the site income. The newsletter appears to be designed to trick you into feeling like you may be a member of their service.

I would suggest deleting this type of email.

- Kelvin Eldridge

How to work out the payback for installing solar panels

We are all being presented with the idea of installing solar panels. In some states you even receive nearly three times the rate you pay when you generate excess electricity which goes back into the grid. Does this mean you'll end up getting paid for the excess electricity you generate?

One electricity company is offering a 1.5kWh solar panel system fully installed for $2,990. Payments over 24 months with a 10% initial payment and the remainder is paid interest free. Sounds pretty good doesn't it. I thought so. I've also seen companies offering to install similar sized solar panel installations for twice the price or more, so it is good to shop around.


I decided to do some rough calculations.

First I needed to find out what the real world figures are for a 1.5kWh system. From a bit of research I found in general, the amount of electricity that would be generated per day to be estimated at 4 times the kWh rating. I read other figures stating from 3 and going up to 7, perhaps more in summer. To look at this more simply, whilst the sun shines during the day, we effectively get around 4-7 hours of sun generating electricity per day depending on the season. We can then use an average of 5.5 hours per day for our calculation.

Using the electricity cost calculator and plugging in the figure of 1,500W (1.5kWh system) for 5.5 hours the total dollar value of the electricity generated will be $605.26 per year.

In addition, if you are spending $2,990 and decided instead to keep the money in the bank, you'd earn interest on the money. Since the payments are over two years you'd lose approximately $150 in interest based on a 5% interest rate.

Thus the total cost without any additional charges being incurred would be approximately $3,140.

The saving of $605.26 would take approximately five years to recover.

"But what about the 60 cent rebate I get back when I generate electricity back into the grid", you might ask.

This is where I think the government has been very clever by providing this incentive, but the question becomes, is it a real incentive.

All you need to do is to check your electricity bill and determine your average usage per day. I've read the average electricity usage for Australians is around 14-17kWh per day.

In winter the solar panels are expected to generate 4 hours at 1.5kWh, which is 6kWh per day and in summer it will be 10.5kWh. Based on these figures, for most Australians, for most of the time, they won't be getting any rebate. The easiest way to know is to check your bills and how much electricity you use during each quarter. I have heard of one person getting a rebate and I must say I was impressed. The couple both work and are rarely at home during the day. If your electricity usage can be lowered to below the amount the solar panels generate, then yes you should get a rebate. Even then however, I don't expect it will be much.

In summary the payback on investing in solar panels can be expected to be around five years. To me a five year payback is a long time and makes the decision whether to install or not much harder.

Other things that may be worth considering are:

• Electricity prices are expected to increase over the coming years.
• Whether people will see the solar panels on your home and consider them to have increased or decreased the value of your home. I love the idea of solar energy and solar panels, but most installations I've seen tend to look ugly.
• I've read and haven't yet confirmed, that during a power outage the solar panels won't supply electricity.
• If you are at home most of the time during the day, then the chances of you getting a rebate would appear to be reduced.
• I've read where people have lost their off-peak electricity as a result of installing solar panels. With their electric hot water systems they end up paying more for electricity than they did before installing a solar system.
• I've read that any rebate received by pensioners will be considered income.
• I haven't read the contractual obligations which I believe people should read carefully.
• A person expressed concern to me should an installer damage a tile which isn't identified at the time and it if causes damage, the damage may not be covered by insurance. I've previously had work done which caused unexpected damage, as well as a tradie breaking tiles, so I understand this concern.
• We are now saving an estimate $400 a year by reducing electricity usage with little or no outlay. Even if you do consider solar panels, you should also consider reducing your electricity usage. The benefit of this is you also increase your chances of getting the rebate.

I hope this information helps others to determine their situation and aid in making a better, more informed decision with regards to solar panels.

- Kelvin Eldridge

New Virtual Profit Sharing member

I'd like to welcome Christina Peros as the latest Virtual Profit Sharing member. You can find Christina's member page as http://www.christinaperos.com/.

- Kelvin Eldridge

How I got sued by Facebook

I read this article How I got sued by Facebook and thought it was interesting as it showed the Facebook information a person was able to gather using fairly straight forward data gathering techniques.

In this case the person appears to be a decent person, but it begs the question, "what are those who are up to nefarious activities doing with the data?"

Recently I showed my wife that if you know a person's Facebook profile number you can search Google using the term Facebook and their number and you'll see what Google has gathered. I think that is something people should do as an exercise. It shows their data is not just internal to Facebook. It shows how other companies and individuals have access to their data.

The problem is when you do the search often your picture is displayed and so are the names and pictures of 8 of your friends. I don't think most people would no that is happening. Did your friends give you permission to display their photos when your name is searched?

There a nearly 500 million users of Facebook. Each will have dozens and many hundreds of connections. Given the hypothetical six degrees of freedom, with little data mining effort it may be fairly easy to find a contact to enable an introduction to another person. That doesn't feel terribly safe to me.

I also showed my wife another person's profile. I said their interests are public. How easy would it be for a person to pretend to be interested in something just to get to know someone once they have prior knowledge of their interests. It would certainly be a good ice breaker. This of course has been going on well before the internet, but the internet makes things simpler.

I recently heard of a story of one person who met someone at a nightspot. They gave no details to them but by the next day the person had tried to friend them.

I don't know whether this was true or not, but I read a while ago that who you are connected to online may affect whether you can get a loan. The theory went that if you connected to people who are a credit risk you may be considered a credit risk. If your circle is well off people then you may be considered a good credit risk. I've also heard of people in America not getting work because of their online activities.

With approximately 500 million people worldwide using Facebook, reportedly 25% of online users using Facebook, that means those who have access to the data can effectively map and determine the relationships of a quarter of the online population. That is a huge responsibility.

All I can suggest is people take care. Keep in mind you are giving your information to another organisation. Their aim is to make money off your information. You don't know what they or others are doing with your information. You don't even know who "they" are or could be.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Facebook D-Day

My daughter asked me yesterday if I was going to participate in Facebook D-Day, which I believe is on the 31st of May. I said, "probably not". Today however, I've been thinking, perhaps for me it is a time to have a D-Day for all the services I've connected to that create a lot of noise in my life but add little value.

Perhaps it is a time for Spring cleaning, the irony being most of the online services have been created in the Northern Hemisphere where it is currently Spring. The real problem is I have these various accounts that as a business sounded like a good idea at the time, but from my experience, and based on the observations of others, don't seem to offer any real value and simply consume valuable time.

So I've decided. Those services I'm not actually using such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and others are going on D-Day.

Whilst I do hope that if you are on my mailing list that you get great value out of what I share, but if you don't, then feel free to D-Day me. Unclutter your life. Focus on what's important to you. Your family, your friends and most importantly yourself.

If you closed down Facebook tomorrow how many of those "friends" would continue to contact you tomorrow, in a week, or a month. My bet is most of the people you constantly share your life with aren't really as close as you think. That's the reality of the virtual world. It isn't real. It only feels real. Your real friends and acquaintances will follow you through life in the real world. I don't know about you, but there is something exciting about catching up with an old friend and sharing what you've been up to.

I can't help smiling because I know for many, to disconnect from services like Facebook and Twitter where being busy with a constant flow of updates has become the norm, the idea of disconnecting will be overwhelming. If services like Facebook, Twitter and others add real value to your life then they are of value and you should keep them. If they are only creating noise that keeps you busy, then perhaps it is time to review.

For me I suppose one of the underlying reasons I'm considering disconnecting from the services is I no longer feel comfortable with what they are sharing. When a business model is based on a free service, then it has to make money in some other way. A way you may not have agreed to, or just as bad, agreed to, but not be aware to what you agreed to, or the implications.

When my daughter turned 18 her Facebook account become public without her knowledge. Whilst she adjusted her settings after I pointed it out, she still left things visible to others she didn't want visible. I can still search on her name on the internet using Google and still see pictures of some of her friends.

In my opinion online services should start on the premise that your information is yours. You should decide who can do what with it. If that doesn't make money for the business providing the service, then they should provide a way for you to pay for the service. Free most often means you or your information is being used by someone else for their gain. I think services should be upfront and transparent in what they do.

For me D-Day is a time of clearing out the closet, but in a way it is protest against the modern trend of using people's information for commercial gain without those involved really knowing how their information is being used.

The great thing is you always have choices.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Is Google going a little too far?

I use a number of Google services which I find to very useful. A little while ago I signed on to a Google service I use, checked some things and then signed off. During that session (I don't know if I was signed on or not) I also did some searching for power generators, as I'm researching solar electricity. I decided it was time for breakfast and so closed my computer down.

I'm dieting and whilst having breakfast I came up with an idea. I've written a calculator which enables people to determine their Body Mass Index and Basal Metabolic Rate. The calculator produces stats which people can use to diet. I use this technique and have lost 20kg.

I was thinking perhaps using my calculator differently might make it easier for people to lose weight. I have a belief that in general we become overweight because we eat more than our body needs (a fairly obvious statement). In effect we eat the amount of food for the weight our body will become. What if we determined how much we want to weigh and then eat the amount of food required to sustain that weight. If we are overweight, then in time we'll become the weight we are aiming to achieve.

I opened up my computer went to http://www.justlocal.com.au/  (which is where I have the BMI/BMR calculator) and clicked on the graphic to the page. I then entered my numbers and hit submit. I got two very interesting results. The calculator gave me the answer of approximately 8,943kJs per day. That's the answer I wanted. If I eat at that energy level then in theory, I should eventually become roughly the weight I entered. To me that's an incredible way to think about dieting. Eat for the weight you want to be.

That is vastly different from dieting. For example, to diet I eat between 6000-6500 kJs per day. It isn't hard to diet, but dieting is about correcting my overeating from the past, a weight which I gained over many years and taking off over a shorter period. Eating for the weight you want to be means over a much longer period of time your weight will come down to what you want it to be and it will take much less effort. Like the turtle and the hare, slow and steady wins the race.

However, what I didn't expect was the Google ad results at the top of the page.

The ads don't relate to the page. They relate to the Google searches I performed in an earlier session. It appears Google is recording information relating to my searches and linking it to me.. The BMI/BMR page has nothing to do with power generators and I didn't perform any searche in the current session.

Google appears to be taking information from one session about what I'm interested in and then at a later time showing me ads relating to my earlier interest. To do that it means Google has to be tracking me as an individual in some way. To me that's a bit, shall I say, freaky. Based on my knowledge of computers, I know it is possible in theory to identify and track an individual on the internet. That person may not be known by name, but a name after all is just a tag. Whether my name is Kelvin or Bob doesn't really matter. Tracking me at an individual level I feel has gone one step too far. By all means if I'm looking at a page relating to weight loss display weight loss ads. If I'm searching for information relating to power generators then in the results display relevant ads. But follow my movements on the internet and then present advertising based on what I've shown interest in previously, now that's creepy.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I know this can be done in a number of ways. I just hadn't seen it implemented until now. I suppose it really boils down to knowing that if you go to one site and provide information, then going to another site which has some form of relationship to the first site means you can be tracked. Lots of organisations put code onto their pages which potentially enables third party organisations to track users' movements.

I certainly learnt something today I didn't really think about too much before and will now review some of the pages on my site.

I've said to many people over the years whenever you sign on to the internet (or probably any modem form of communication) your movements can be traced to you personally. Who has access to that information and how those people use that information is outside of our control. One thing for sure is it will be in their interest and not necessarily ours. Perhaps knowing a little more will help us to make better decisions.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Blogs now live for Templestowe, Tempelstowe Lower, Bulleen, Doncaster, Doncaster East, Eltham and Eltham North

A while ago due to the work involved in maintaining multiple blogs, I decided to consolidate the blogs for Templestowe, Tempelstowe Lower, Bulleen, Doncaster, Doncaster East, Eltham and Eltham North into a single blog. To me this wasn't ideal.

I've now developed some new technology which create posts for each blog with less time involved which will enable me to again make information more relevant to those in their local area.

The blogs for 3106, 3105, 3107, 3108, 3109 and 3095 are now live. You can access each blog from the News/Blog menu item on the JustLocal postcode page.

I'm very excited with this latest update. I also have to thank Microsoft. I've been a fan of open source software in the past but the more I move back to Microsoft software, the more I'm to be able to do and the easier it is to to it.

Enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Incredible value for JustLocal advertisers

The aim of JustLocal is to make sure every business advertising on JustLocal gets value or their money back. Advertising generally means paying up front with no guarantee of a return on the investment. Yes it is great to then get your money back if it doesn't work, but when we advertise we want it to work. We don't really want our money back, do we.

I then thought how can I make sure advertisers always get value in a way they cannot lose. Then I had a thought. I run an IT consulting business and as I solve problems I often document the solution. Many problems can take hours to resolve and as you can appreciate, at IT consulting rates that can add up. I decided to trial making my solutions which are documented in MyAnswers, available for free for JustLocal advertisers. All it takes is one solution I provide and you'll get the value and often more than what you paid to advertise on JustLocal. Plus you'll still have JustLocal working to promote your business.

Check out the MyAnswers solutions. There are nearly 2,000 solutions and I continue to add solutions every week. Even if you said each solution was worth $10, that's still nearly $20,000 of potential value and some solutions have taken hundreds of dollars worth of time.

As you can probably tell I'm pretty excited to make this offer. I will keep this offer open for a limited time and I'll make the solutions available to those who take up the offer for a period of 12 months.

Now not only will you have an excellent advertising service promoting your business in your area, but you'll have the opportunity to save a bundle with MyAnswers solutions. You simply can't lose and that's the way I like to do business.

- Kelvin Eldridge