The Power of Social Media in the Trayvon Martin Case
(Read theHuffPo article.)
By now, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who does not know the name Trayvon Martin. By now, the tragic story of the 17-year-old’s death has been splashed across newspapers and network news. Yet, it wasn’t until after his family, friends and network of supporters spread the word online about his death that mainstream media, and finally, the justice system, took notice…

Getting Over the Google Drama…
Since the privacy policy changes, some people are attempting to leave Google and finding that it’s not such an easy process. For instance, if you’re an Android user – forget it. Android requires that you have a Google account. Period. Your options? Get an iPhone, Windows Phone or a Blackberry. Good luck porting over your data. Most of it isn’t portable to other platforms – at least not in ways that most people understand how to do it easily. Sorry.

Tom Henderson over at IT World has detailed his process for “divorcing” Google, and after 7 days of diary, he’s still working on it. Enough to make anyone say – - Nevermind. Read his blog for details.

Don’t Rely on Saved Voicemails!
When Faron Butler wanted to hear his daughter’s voice, he went to the voice mails she left him before she died of cancer at the age of 14. After signing up for a new messaging service offered by the telecom provider, the voicemails were deleted, leaving the grieving father with none of his daughter’s voiceprints. Full story here.

Another Woman Commits Suicide…on Facebook
A woman described her final moments of purposely inhaling poisonous fumes on Facebook to nine friends, some of whom begged her stop, reports the Associated Press. (MSNBC article)

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Sites to See:

Change.org
Change.org is a social action platform that empowers anyone, anywhere to start, join, and win campaigns for social change. Millions of people sign petitions on Change.org each month on thousands of issues, winning campaigns every day to advance change locally and globally.

Skillshare.com
Learn anything from anyone, anywhere.
Skillshare is a community marketplace to learn anything from anyone. We believe that everyone has something they want to learn and something they can teach to others. This means our communities are really the greatest universities.

Mashable
Mashable is the largest independent news source dedicated to covering digital culture, social media and technology.

Ping.fm
Ping.fm was created for the sole purpose of making it as easy as possible to share your posts with the world. Now you don’t have to fumble around the web in order to post anymore, you can just post once from wherever you want, and be done with it.

Shopify.com
Shopify gives you your own storefront to sell your products on. You can pick from over 100 free and premium templates from our Theme Store or if you know HTML & CSS you can design one from scratch. Please note: Shopify does take a percentage of your transaction fees in addition to a monthly cost for using the service. As is, this is a great tool for medium to low volume sales, AND a winner if you don’t need alot of control over your own material and display.

Buddypress
Social networking, in a box. Everything you need to start your own self-hosted and WordPress-powered social network! Great for organizations, user groups, sales teams, and company intranets.

Special note: if you need a simple sectioned area, like a member area of your web site, WordPress already has that functionality. Simply make the pages “Private” instead of published, and add the code to the functions.php file to allow “subscribers” to view private content.

LaterBro
The easy way to schedule Facebook or Twitter updates, without being a slave to your phone or to your computer. Set it, and forget it!

W3Schools – Online Tutorials, FREE
At w3schools.com you will learn how to make a website. We offer free tutorials in all web development technologies.

ColorSchemer
Need a color scheme for your logo, web site, or phone app? ColorSchemer offers an eternity of color arrangements in its gallery (FREE) so you can browse until your heart’s content!

Evernote
Evernote lets you capture ideas, images, or audio clips from your PC or phone, and then sync them to the cloud for easy retrieval and organization. It even works with handwritten notes, turning your chicken scratch into searchable text.

TweetAdder!
Build your Twitter account FAST! Of course it takes a little effort to automate everything, but hey, no pain, no gain. Every single feature imaginable BUT you can’t schedule Tweets. Dang!

What’s Hot…

Decisions, Decisions: iPad 2 or iPad 3
The difference between iPad 2 and the iPad 3? Click here for Apple’s Comparison.

PayPal vs. Square  – Which one will you get?
No doubt Paypal is “tardy for the party”. Square launched about 3 years ago and has taken its place as the tool of choice for mobile payments. Rightfully so. It’s small. It’s easy, and it’s FREE.
Read what Inc. Magazine journalist, Christina Demarsais, has to say.

Samsung is taking over the Galaxy!
The April 15th Rumor
Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus phone, which Google had an active hand in developing, will be losing its Verizon exclusivity and moving to the Sprint network on April 15, complete with the ability to connect to the new carrier’s 4G LTE infrastructure.

Engadget reviews the HTC One X
First impressions? In a nutshell, we’re blown away. It feels wonderful to hold in our hand, it’s got the full suite of specs we like to see, the camera’s as quick as HTC claims, and the device flies — in fact, we’d be amiss not to mention the fact that the vendor’s ICS-backed Sense UI is much lighter than any of its predecessors and doesn’t bog down the performance at all. – Engadget Review, or read  TrustedReviews

Infographics Anyone?
Visually – http://www.visual.ly
Infographics and data visualizations are shifting the way people find and experience stories, creating a new way of seeing the world of data. You no longer need expensive software, extensive design skills, or number crunching ability.  When you’re ready to show your work to the world, publish it on your Visual.ly profile, your own personal showcase.

What’s Cold…

The Telephone is becoming a thing of the past.
When was the last time you saw a working phone booth? Or when was the last time you made a call from your house line? Interesting read from Forbes

Tmobile’s Sidekick 4G, on its last leg?
This presents a terrible problem for me because I’ve had my own Sidekick for about a year now and I don’t want to go looking for a new phone. So many choices, and I’m not looking forward to it at all!

No New Xbox for 2012
Gamers will be disappointed to learn that there is no plan to release a new console to replace the six-year-old Xbox 360 anytime soon, according to a statement from Microsoft. – More at Mashable

NetZero free WiMax not hot for Netflix and Hulu Watchers
NetZero will introduce no-contracts plans for laptop and tablet computer owners in several pricing tiers. To sign up for its “free” plan, customers pay $50 for a wireless USB card and receive up to 200 megabytes per month, enough for e-mail and Web-surfing but insufficient for video streaming. – More info about the service.

Reddit App removed from Google Play (Android Market)..for Pornography??
Reddit is a source for what’s new and popular on the web.Users like you provide all of the content and decide, through voting, what’s good and what’s junk. Links that receive community approval bubble up towards #1, so the front page is constantly in motion and (hopefully) filled with fresh, interesting links.
Story here

The Digital Divide and the Racial Wealth Gap:
Why Supporting Minority Business Enterprise is an Answer for Both
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-honig/the-digital-divide-and-th_b_1317953.html
Although one-third of American adults still had yet to adopt broadband at home in 2010, nonadopters were disproportionately African American and Hispanic. The Pew Internet and American Life Project reported in 2010, for example, that an 11 point gap existed between white and African American broadband users (67 percent versus 56 percent, respectively).

Broadband in Mississippi: Toward Policies for Access Equity
http://www.centerforsocialinclusion.org/publications/
Rural communities of all colors and predominantly African American urban and rural communities in particular tend to have less access to affordable, reliable broadband service either because it simply is not available where they live or because it is priced beyond reach.

Internet access for $9.99 a month for two years to low-income households.
The FCC announced last year its “Connect to Compete” program, in which cable providers will provide broadband
http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-and-connect-compete-broadband-fact-sheet

Eligible families must:
(1) have at least one student enrolled in the Free School Lunch Program;
(2) not be a current subscriber to broadband (or have subscribed in the last 90 days); and
(3) not have an overdue bill or unreturned equipment to the participating service provider

Participating Internet service providers include:
Bend Cable, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast (via Internet Essentials), Cox Communications, Eagle Communications, GCI, Insight, Mediacom, Midcontinent, Sjoberg’s Cable, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable

March Contest!
“What techy things did you do today?”
Make your list, and tell me your most INTERESTING and UNIQUE techy thing you did to win a prize!(Winner to be announced on the March 27th Show.)
Post on My Facebook Page, Tweet it on Twitter, or call in to the show!

Every 60 Seconds, People are Doing Something Techy!
Global Online Population of 2,095,006,005 equals 30% of World’s Population. A normal Internet user spends around 22% of its time on social networking sites, 21% on searches, 20% on reading content, 19% on emails and communication, 13% on multimedia sites and 5% on online shopping

Global Time Spent Online Per Month is 35,000,000,000 hours (35 Billion) which is equivalent to 3,995,444 years
More than 56% of Social Networking Users have used Social Networking Sites for spying on their partners.

Infographic by go-gulf.com, Sources:

168 Million Emails are sent
694,445 Google Searches
695,000 Facebook Status Updates, 79,364 Wall posts, 510,040 Comments
370,000 Voice Calls on Skype
98,000 Tweets, 320 New Twitter Accounts
20,000 new posts on Tumblr
13,000+ iPhone apps downloaded
13,000 Songs streaming on Pandora
12,000 new ads on Craigslist
6600 photos uploaded to Flickr
1700 Firefox Downloads
600 New Videos on YouTube
100 Questions Asked on Answers.com (40 Answers given on Yahoo Answers)
100 New Linkedin Accounts
70 Domain Names are registered
1500+ Blog Posts, and 60 New Blogs
1 Associated Content article posted (Yahoo Associated Content)

…And Doing Even More Techie Stuff

710 computers are sold worldwide and 555 of these computers are sold with Intel processors
1,820 TB of data is created; that’s enough data to fill up 2.6 million CDs
232 computers around the world get infected by malware
450 Windows 7 Cds are sold worldwide
925 iPhone 4s and 85 iPads are sold worldwide
11 Xbox 360 consoles are sold worldwide
18 Amazon’s Kindle Fire are sold worldwide
4,000 USB devices are sold worldwide
2,500 ink cartridges are sold worldwide
2,100 checkins happen on location-based social networking website foursquare
1.1 million conversations take place via instant messengers
Around 950 purchases are done on eBay, out of which 180 purchases are done using eBay Mobile
12 websites get hacked
1,400 movie discs are rented from Redbox

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Google Street View Privacy Concerns » More info
Beware the Street View Cars! People worldwide are concerned about photographs that show people engaging in activities visible from public property in which they do not wish to be photographed and have published online.In the law of the United States, the general rule (with some exceptions) is that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place, thus implying that Google (and anyone else) is usually free to take photographs in public places.

Google’s response to concerns about public privacy has been a pledge to blur the faces of people who are filmed in Street View photos. (License plates are also blurred.) Is blurring the face enough?

How to Report a Concern (» More from Google)
If you’ve found an image that you would like further blurred, or an image that you believe contains objectionable content, just follow these steps:

1.Locate the image in Street View.
2. Click “Report a problem” in the bottom-left of the image window.
3. Complete the form and click “Submit”
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Facebook’s Facial Recognition System
Facebook users are automatically included in the database, but you are allowed toto choose whether to be identified within your privacy settings settings options. Go to Privacy Settings -> How Tags Work

March is Women’s Month!
This week, celebrating Ursula Burns, the first black woman to be CEO of Fortune 500 company. She is the Chair and CEO of Xerox. Burns earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Polytechnic Institute of NYU and a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University.

In addition to the Xerox board, she is a board director of the American Express Corporation. Burns also provides leadership counsel to community, educational and non-profit organizations including FIRST – (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), National Academy Foundation, MIT, and the U.S. Olympic Committee, among others. She is a founding board director of Change the Equation, which focuses on improving the U.S.’s education system in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Timeline for Business & Fan Pages
On March 30, 2012, all Facebook Pages will get a new design.
Before then, you’ll then enter a curation period where only your Page’s admins can see Timeline, while everyone else including your fans will see the old design. Walk yourself through the features detailed below, and when you’re ready, click the “Publish Now” button atop your Page to start showing off Timeline to everyone. More info here…

Buh Bye Android Market, Now it’s Google Play!
Google’s Android Market has undergone some tremendous changes over the last year or so. What started as just a standalone app store has quickly grown to encompass e-books, music, and videos.

Mac get better Skype with v5.6
Skype 5.6 also brings with it the ability to auto-update when new versions are released (which the Windows version has been able to do since last September), as well a new full-screen app mode that comes seven months after Apple’s Lion update added support for the feature. Better late than never, as they always say.

Throw in a new dynamic layout for video calls that puts the current speaker at the top of the window and the ability to combat background noise by fiddling with Automatic Gain Control, and that’s a wrap for the 5.6 update. Mac users will probably want to jump on this one, and fortunately they can download the new version of Skype – www.skype.com

By the way…
– On Thursday, March 8, Facebook celebrating International Women’s Day – 2012 theme, “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures.”
– Google acquiring Motorola for $12.5 billion…
– Play with Google Plus Photo Editing…

Mentioned on the Show: Jitterbug Phone

@TechnologyGy, James Cartwright was my co-host tonight.  Don’t forget to go to www.cellphoneshop.net for discounted cell and mobile accessories. #welikey Also, James mentioned some notes on his web site from tonights show for the “Things You Didn’t Know About Windows“. Check that out too!

Google’s New Privacy Policy Starts March 1st

Google’s new privacy policy starts Friday, March 1. Content in your Web History will be linked with your personal Google accounts! For those who care to NOT share web history across all of Google’s services, its best that you clear your surfing history BEFORE the policy goes into effect.

Pinterest.com

With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests. Pinterest lets you organize and share things you find on the web. It’s free to join Pinterest, but you’ll need to request an invite from their web site. I put in my request, and got an email back saying that I’m on their “waiting list”…?

Spotify.com

Millions of tracks, any time you like. Just search for it in Spotify, then play it. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it.

Apps of the Week:

PLUME

Plume is a customizable Twitter client.(Android)

SOCIAL CAM

Socialcam is a smartphone application that makes it easy to share videos with friends.(iPhone, Android)

By way of Mario Armstrong

Mobile Phone Alert! Samsung Galaxy Note

Kris Cain and I dug into our #prettybrains, and here are some of our topics for discussion.
Add to the list – Just Tweet @webbusiness @littletechgirl, or post your additions to my Facebook page!

Stephanie Humphrey (@TechLifeSteph) hung out with us and became a honorary Chris for the night. We had a blast! Listeners, callers and hosts were lively and participating. If you missed it, you missed a great show!

Permission Please!
Posting photos: Don’t post anything that the person themselves would not have posted.

Declining Friends
How to Handle declining a friend request.

G-Shock!
What if you learned something personal about someone after Googling them?
(Like on RHOA, when they found out about Marlo’s jailtime)

MailFlash
When people send mass messages and you can see ALL the email addresses – even YOURS.

Email/Text Snafus
What to do when you receive email or texts meant for someone else.

Social Media Breakups
On facebook, immediately when you change your relationship status it always draws attention.  What to do?

Textus Interruptus
How late is too late to text someone?

Rude Writing
Since the inception of the public internet, people still fail to realize that typing in all capital letters is RUDE. So are one-word answers, and using profanity…

Check One, Check Two…
How much is too much, and when is it just plain rude? @themovies, @dating, @dinner, etc.

Ear-noyances!
Annoying or inappropriate ring tones, chimes, text announcements.

Background People
Doing a video call or online meeting can be challenging when other people NOT in the meeting are around.

Bluetooth Yelling
People with bluetooths on tend to raise their voices. Funny, but annoying.

Posts and Tweets Run Amuck
Becoming a victim of autocorrect and typos. What to do?

Not Sure What to Blog About? Here’s 246 ideas…

125 Free Blog Topics-Corporate and Personal Blogging
http://heidicohen.com/free-blog-topics/

25 Questions for Discovering Good Blog Topics
http://bloggersalchemy.com/good-blog-topics/

96 Free Professional Blog Topics
http://geofflivingston.com/2011/01/27/96-free-professional-blog-topics/