Both Twitter and Google+ already have a feature that give public figures from celebrities to politicians around the world the ability to “verify” their accounts,  Starting today, Facebook is now giving public figures the chance to have higher, more prominent placement and recognition through the social network community by having their accounts verified.

Those who want their accounts verified will submit a particular ID to confirm their identities. With the ID, these users will also have the option of choosing an alias, such as a nickname or a type of pseudonym they often use at work. Certain users with a huge number of subscribers in their profiles will be prompted to give an option of verifying their accounts. Facebook will choose these certain users by invitation only, in turn users cannot own any verified accounts without this prompt.

As verified users, their accounts will have prominent placement in Facebook’s “People To Subscribe To” suggestions column, where other users will be given a chance to subscribe to their favorite public figure, such as a celebrity, athlete, or a politician. Unlike Twitter with their “blue check” badge on verified accounts, Facebook will not have any form of badges to show proof of the account being verified.
Facebook requires them to use a passport, driver’s license, or government-issued work or military image. If the user cannot provide any one of those documents, they can also submit two other forms of ID, such as a library card, credit card, or a birth certificate. Once the account is verified, Facebook will immediately delete all of these documents.

In terms of identities, the real names of these users will still show on their About section while having their pseudonyms as their display name. Examples of users who will be catered to this feature is Lady Gaga or even Bruno Mars. A major issue with this, however, is the guarantee that no other user would be using their identities to set up their accounts in their name without permission and the intent of misrepresentation. An example of this already occurred on Twitter, in which the microblogging service verified an account claiming to be Wendy Deng Murdoch, wife of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Sometime later the user behind that account admitted that it was fake.

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A familiar event rapidly occured just moments after the deaths of Michael Jackson, Osama bin Laden, Moammar Ghadhafi, and Amy Winehouse. This same event also happened with natural disasters such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and other worldwide crises and disasters in the past and the present. Just recently, once again, Facebook and Twitter were flooded once more with countless scamsregarding the death of award-winning recording artist Whitney Houston.

Just shortly after the announcement of Houston’s death hit the web on February 11, reactions and emotions from users around the world flooded Facebook and Twitter. Once Houston’s death became a trending topic in Twitter, users in the social media scene craved for more information behind the event, making their peaked curiosity an easy target for cybercriminals everywhere. These cybercriminals create scams under guises of headlines such as “This video reveals the true story behind the death” along with a link to a suspicious survey-type malicious site disguised as a YouTube video.

An example of this: TrendMicro, a security firm known for its line of antivirus software and PC protection products, found a Twitter scam in a form of a fake tweet with a link to a supposed homage-paying blog site, only to be redirected automatically to a website that offers a variety of desktop wallpapers of Whitney Houston. When a user downloads one wallpaper, the link leads that user to a survey site that requires certain sensitive, private information such as a cellphone number at one of its fields.

TrendMicro found 101 different types of survey scams registered to the same IP when another type of scam the firm discovered shows a wall post on Facebook with a headline link of “I cried watching this video. RIP Whitney Houston” that should be linked to a YouTube video. Scams like these, however, would not be able to do its purpose until it becomes viral all over Facebook and Twitter through suspected unknown accounts and even through accounts of a user’s friends.

Scams such as these are becoming a lot more common in many social networking services, most especially Facebook and Twitter, therefore frequent users should be more aware and be more familiar in protecting themselves and their accounts from malicious scams such as these. Hoaxes exploiting the deaths of such public figures as Whitney Houston will still continue, so for the casual users, do not download anything suspicious that may appear on your wall post or your timeline, even if they come from the accounts of your friends. More importantly, make sure that your antivirus software is frequently updated and scan your system accordingly. Not only do these malicious survey sites would dupe a user in to providing sensitive private information to continue on, but a mouse click on a link can also be an easy trace for the cybercriminal to track down your private information stored in your system. Be very vigilant at all times and use your basic common sense.

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MySpace ruled the early years of public social networking in the internet. The service provided non-technical savvy users journal-style blogging to share with other users and to the general public. It also provided other basic features you would see in a standard website, such as a gallery of your favorite photos and sharing your favorite videos. The service also helped would-be musicians and artists from all walks of life to promote their music to the masses as a means of getting discovered by the music industry. Some five year slater, Facebook, a brand-new social networking service, emerged as MySpace’s sole competitor. Unfortunately for MySpace, Facebook’s easy-to-use interface and more user-friendly features won the hearts of users that it made MySpace a thing in the past.

Just recently, MySpace has re-emerged as a service with a brand-new different approach to its users, thanks to its new owners, Specific Media and Justin Timberlake. Since the ownership transfer, MySpace was completely revamped in to a specifically socially-driven music discovery engine and a music player. Along with the revamping, the new relaunching of MySpace is now integrated with Facebook, allowing new users to sign in to MySpace using their Facebook accounts. This means that new users would not have to deal with more new accounts to remember when they can use one login information to access their MySpace accounts. This new integration attracted new users to MySpace due to this new convenient integration and the increase of new users grew rapidly. According to Chris Vanderhook, MySpace’s chief operating officer, the service has grown immensely, attracting around in its first two months since the revamp. MySpace thanks Facebook for this new move and now faces new music services such as Spotify and Pandora Radio as their newest competitors.

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Cloud computing has been a lifesaver for the industry of general computing and information technology. One day, cloud computing services will replace standard web server machines as many businesses, organizations, and individuals alike have counted largely on the cloud in terms of file sharing, file storage, web hosting, and more. While that time hasn’t come yet, a few institutions from some parts of the world are already offering cloud computing and infrastructure courses for future developers to take advantage of this open and innovative technology.

University of Washington was the first to offer a certificate course in cloud computing back in August of last year. Just recently, Australia’s Bond University will be offering the “Infrastructure” course in both undergraduate and post-graduate levels as a response from a high demand for cloud computing-skilled individuals from the industry. As cloud computing continues to emerge as a huge benefit for all types of businesses and organizations for different purposes, the demand for individuals with knowledge and background for this cost-effective medium continues to skyrocket. Institutions are now answering to this call and from time to time are now offering courses that would create opportunities for those who wish to continue to innovate the cloud industry.

Australia is no stranger to cloud computing as it is one of the leading countries around the world in terms of the IT industry. Established players in the industry including Amazon and Rackspace have operating branches in Australia, as well as locally grown rivals like Ninecloud. Even before when cloud computing was first introduced to businesses and organizations, the Australian government became one of the first to give full support to the development of the industry to their country’s technologies and infrastructure. With this, the course program would not have a hard time to gain students and take advantage of this brand-new curriculum.

Overall, the world should be ready to go through gradual transition in to cloud computing as eventually this medium will replace tangible units such as web servers and other machines and specific software. Businesses, organizations, and individuals are always open to looking for time-saving, cost-effective, convenient systems that would provide easier, more streamlined systems while saving a lot of money in purchasing specific units and software and hiring more individuals with the matching background. However, still lacking of cloud computing-specific courses available to the mainstream, it would be difficult to have all types of businesses, organizations, and even individuals to easily adapt cloud computing services and infrastructure in to their everyday systems and habits. While it’s still early, we hope that more institutions from a specialized trade school to major colleges and universities would offer cloud computing courses to educate future innovators of this fresh, open industry.

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I will admit one thing. During the first baby days of MegaUpload, I was one of its first users to share some of my personal and favorite files to friends and family, from photos to home videos to even a few audio and music files. The time was around mid-2000s when MySpace and Facebook were also still at their baby steps and the term cloud computing was still brand-new to the general public.

With Facebook’s rise to popularity with its array of file-sharing features from creating albums to sharing videos and audio some years later, that was the time that I pulled out from using MegaUpload as Facebook made file-sharing easier, more secure, more open, making sure that anything that I upload and share to my friends and family are not illegal or copyright-protected files.

Knowing MegaUpload is an Asia-based company, being an Asian-American myself, Asia in general are infamously known for distributing pirated and illegal copies of copyright-protected material from other countries, primarily from the U.S. With that in mind, that is one thing that MegaUpload failed upon in terms of servicing users using their servers to share files that may be illegal or copyright-protected, not just to other users, but in general, to the masses.

Today, with various cases against MegaUpload piling up almost everyday since the U.S. federal prosecution’s shutdown of the long-time file-sharing service, all the personal files of legitimate users are all in danger of deletion. The lawyer representing MegaUpload stated that the service will remain open until mid-February, probably to give the users a chance to re-download all their stored files and save them. Sadly, even if that was the case, users still have no way to access the site to save their files.

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We all know teenagers in general since all of us have been in that age period. In every generation, they are an easy target when it comes to introducing items and concepts that would eventually become the latest, long-running trends.

Anything the media promotes as the latest, hottest trends to arrive this year, teenagers get easily hooked in to these trends for various reasons, mainly just to keep with the times and to survive peer pressure. One of the major Social networking communities such as Facebook, MySpace, and lately Google+ have been taking internet communication by storm, but microblogging services such as Twitter and Tumblr are not falling behind.Even if that was the case, the term “microblogging” is still not quite part of the teens’ technological vocabulary just yet due to various reasons: privacy issues, too many older users, and most of all, it’s way too public.

But who is to say that social networking as a whole would not catch on towards older users, in particular, parents of teenagers from age 40 and up? Though larger social networking services, Facebook in particular, have the advantage of keeping every profile page as private as they can with only access to trusted friends.

The only disadvantage to Facebook is that once they set up a username for their URL, it can no longer be changed, no matter how many times that users change their display names in their profiles to avoid getting discovered through search results. As a result, not-so-wanted individuals, such as parents, siblings, or any family member, can easily track them down and “add” them in their Friends list.

In addition to that, not very many individuals are familiar with Facebook’s sometimes not-so-user-friendly features in terms of customizing security and privacy, which can be really frustrating for the non-tech-savvy user. Lastly, a user can’t have more than one account; in order to have multiple accounts, that user must also have multiple email addresses in order to create these other accounts.

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Christmas is just around the corner. Calling all the fellow avid bookworms around the world. Welcome to the “real” 21st Century.

Just as many of us expected, even our most popular, common hobbies will eventually be revolutionized by our always-evolving technology. The latest cutting-edge forms of technology already revolutionized our common hobbies and our ways of modern life, such as music, communication, and art. At this period of time, technology has finally revolutionized our favorite hobby: Reading.

Are your favorite books that you have in your possession since childhood falling apart? Are the pages of your favorite textbooks already worn out? Or worse, are you running out of space in your bookshelves at home that you had no choice but to get rid of the current books occupying the spaces to be donated to the library or literacy charities or even to the recycling bin? Maybe for the ones you no longer want, but for your favorite books that have been sitting in your bookshelves collecting dust? Fellow readers, this is the reason why technology just had to intervene and solve this common problem bookworms face everyday. You want to preserve those beautiful, wonderful text that your books hold inside their covers. The pure perfection of the books’ stories, the highly valuable information your old textbooks and reference books hold, it’s no wonder the saying of “Never judge a book by its cover” came about. You don’t just buy a book for its beautiful cover, but what is inside is what you’re aiming for.

Many young and modern hipsters of the late 20th Century-born generation are already aware of the eReader and the tablet, but among 70%-80% of the bookworm population around the world are still devoted to the tangible bound paper and ink rather than a computer file with nothing but text and pictures here and there. I currently own an early Android-powered Velocity Cruz T105 tablet that has a lot of features packed along with your usual eReading apps pre-installed, however like many of those 70%-80% that I mentioned, I still feel devoted to the bound paper and ink. If that’s the case then why did I decide to buy a tablet? Well, if you keep reading, this is the reason why I’m writing this article.

I’ll assume that you as an avid reader have been pondering for a long time if investing your money on an eReader or a tablet would be a wise decision or a waste of time and money. Knowing how rapid technology can be as time passes, sometimes waiting for the latest models and enhancements is worth, but then again, you just want to have some kind of a convenient device for the sole purpose of reading electronic books and other documents. Do you like absolute tranquility when you are reading? Do you love grooving to some sweet music while you read, isolating yourself from the rest of the world? Do you want a type of reading device that also gives you the convenience of “reading break” activities, such as watching videos online, keep in touch with your social media networking via Twitter, Facebook, etc., or even play your favorite mobile video games?

Below are a few of the tips that should be able to help you choose your reader wisely:

Are you an avid reader who just wants to read and have no care about everything else but to read?

This is where the first generation eReaders become the perfect choice for readers with this particular intent. Early generation Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader, or even the Barnes & Noble Nook would be a perfect fit for the purist readers around. Granted, the early generation of readers are completely in black and white, which is simply what most printed books are anyway. These particular readers also come in different shapes and sizes depending on how mobile and accessible you really want to be. There are the ones with huge screen sizes but are slightly bulky to carry and there are the mini-sized readers, where they may be light and easy to carry in your bag or your pocket, but also have small-sized screens. There are also other readers similar to the Kindle, Sony Reader, and Nook that are also available but are less expensive compared to the three.

The disadvantage of choosing these types of simple readers are, like any geek around when it comes to every little gadget that they must have , are the processing speed, storage size, and even the user-friendliness and ease of the functions of these little gadgets. Are you the type of reader who takes your time and have lots of patience? Get the most basic one. Are you an addicted, impatient reader that once you start, you just have to read the next page ASAP without any distractions? How often are you going to be using your reader to read books? (Or rather, if you find yourself getting addicted to your reader, how big is the storage space for you to download your new and favorite books and store as much as you can?) If you are the last two, this is where you pump in your bucks to a slightly more pricy reader that has a faster processing and a larger storage space.

When you walk inside the store, the store should give you a sample demo of these readers for you to check it out and determine the ease of its functions. Have an expert at the store guide you regarding the features, processing speed, and storage space before you get yourself attracted to the reader’s sleek-looking outer beauty. If you think about it from a devoted bookworm’s point of view, an eReader is pretty much, like a book.

There are really cool, fancy-looking designed eReaders all over from its basic touch screen to the ease of the keys and buttons on the tablet itself, but what about these eReaders’ inner powers? Like the known saying I stated before, “Never judge an eReader by its sleek-looking design.”

Now that I mentioned it, another tip that you need to consider before you purchase. If you want a touch screen-powered eReader, you also need to determine if the touch sensitivity of the gadget is restrictive (you have to press your finger(s) harder for the eReader to respond to your touch) or capacitative (the very sensitive of the sensitive where you can just lightly touch the screen and flick here and there without hurting your fingers from pressing the screen too hard). This small tip may sound rather silly to consider, but if you transitioned your cellphone from the hard-to-press keys to a touch screen, the touch sensitivity level on a phone would really frustrate you, especially if you’re texting. You will get that same frustration with an eReader, except it would be a lot worse when you’re reading.

Are you planning on using your reader sparingly and only use it to save space for your (existing) bookshelf?

This is actually where I fall under when I decided to buy an eReader/tablet. Majority of the books in my bookshelves at home are all old college textbooks and reference books. I rarely buy novels of any type (hardcover or paperback, etc.) because of space issues with my bookshelf and have to wait some months after the release dates of new books to be available in my local public library. Reading using an eReader proved to be convenient and relaxing, however staring at a screen for hours just to read really does strain my eye, just like how I would stare at a TV screen and even a computer screen for hours. Just for eyesight reasons, an eReader/tablet may not be an ideal tool for every reader, and instead I use my eReader/tablet as a storage, so to speak, for all my non-fiction and reference textbooks. Not only that this would help me build a personal library of a vast wealth of information, but this also can help me clear up my already-occupied bookshelf so I can store in more of my extra books that have been stacked up in every corner of my room.

Not a smartphone user? There are eReader/tablets that have the same functions and same compatible apps like a smartphone!

eReaders and tablets are still relatively new. In the past few months we’ve already seen the emergence of full-functioned tablets with Amazon’s newest Kindle Fire and Nook’s latest Nook Color that only needs a WiFi connection in order to become a good alternative to users who are not smartphone users or simply are not fans of smartphones. There are already the more popular (and pricey!) full-function tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy, the Blackberry PlayBook Tablet, the HP TouchPad, and the ever-famous Apple iPad that you can look in to, however, some of these high-priced tablets require connection services from various phone service companies such as AT&T and Verizon if you want your tablets completely on the go without searching around places to find a WiFi hotspot. Other than that, the newest and the latest full-function tablets cost around $200 and maybe slightly lower, depending on your intentions other than just reading your favorite eBooks or documents.

Smartphones may download applications of these eBook readers, such as the Amazon Kindle app and the Kobo app. If you don’t have a smartphone, not a fan of the smartphone, or even if you are a smartphone owner but do not have intentions to use your mobile phone as your reader, then your best bet is to purchase an eReader or a tablet.

I’m still a traditional reader and nothing beats the joy of reading by holding a book and read the printed words on paper. eBooks are evil!

I still agree with this statement. As I’ve mentioned before, I purchased a tablet: a Velocity Cruz Tablet, primarily for reference material, non-fiction books, and other types of documents that I can access remotely on the web when needed. I still prefer reading my novels in the traditional printed and bound book, however I also have to accept the reality that one day, digital versions will completely replace the traditionally-published books and that bookstores and even public libraries may even cease to exist. Though that happening may still be far off, I like to embrace both the traditional and the digital together and use one and the other to my advantage of my enriched reading hobby.

Eventually after this article has been published, there may be new features and new ways that will be presented to the masses to further enhance our reading lives. But for now, we should focus on the present and all the technology we now have available.

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