Before I get started, however, let me quickly point you in the direction of a decent article, written by Mark Sullivan for “PCworld” which looks at 9 plausible reasons to consider eventually switching from Facebook to Google+.

But back to the discussion at hand…

If you were successful in squeezing through the wee crack in the door which led to the fantastical land of Google+, then you, like me, would have probably then embarked on an invite-sending-frenzy making sure you got as many invites out to your “friends” as possible in a bid to turn your “Circles” into something worthwhile. After all, without having friends on what is essentially another, yet slightly different and potentially improved, Facebook-style social network, what’s the point. Right?

It seems almost as quickly as the Google+ invite gates opened, however, they were slammed shut due to “insane demand”. Consequently, we all found ourselves full of excitement and wonder, setting up profiles and sorting out Circles, only to find ourselves scratching our heads wondering what to do next without our chosen invitees making it on board in time.

I, for one, took the moment of solitude as an opportunity to explore and try to find out exactly what sort of privacy controls were available for Google+. After all, the complex simplicity of anything to do with privacy is one of the things that turns a lot of people off Facebook, and let’s face it, after Google’s “Buzz” debacle, I was still a tad skeptical about how I was going to be able to control who saw what on my “Plus” profile…

While, disappointingly it seems* like most details on your Google+ profile are set to be visible to “Anyone on the web” by default, the controls and testing functions available that allow you to go in and get your privacy and profile visibility right, are thankfully easy to find and easy to use. It seems like Google may have got it right this time.

*Granted, this may be in MY CASE only. I haven’t had the chance to back up this claim with evidence from anyone else as, ironically, very few people I know were able to get signed up in time yesterday.

How to set your Google+ privacy settings

So how exactly do you get to where you can start tinkering with the settings that will determine who in your Google world sees what?

Gaining access to your privacy settings is as easy as clicking on your name in the right of the new “Google Carbon” (that one’s for you Gazza – haha!) navigation bar at the top of the Google+ pages and selecting “Privacy” from the sub-menu that appears.

You’ll be presented with a screen that looks like this:

It’s a good idea to go through EACH AND EVERY one of the sections on this page, but for the time being in order to stick to the context of this post, there’s really 2 main things I want you to notice here.

Editing Profile Visibility

Firstly the obvious “Edit Visibility on Profile” button which you can click to be taken to a profile editing page where you will have the ability to set privacy levels for individual fields and sections of your profile. Like I mentioned earlier, it seems (in my case anyway) that the privacy levels for a lot of my profile sections seemed to have been set to be visible to “Anyone on the web” by default. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Not good.

It goes without saying that I have since, therefore, clicked around my profile and shifted all of the privacy settings to my desired levels, while at the same time updating my profile content. A simple process which, in my well-intentioned opinion, should be HIGH on your priority list once you make your way into Google+.

Testing Profile Visibility

Referring again to the “Profile and Privacy” screen shot (below), the second thing to notice is the sweet “See how your profile appears to other users” tool. Thankfully this tool does exactly what it suggests. Type in the name of someone you have added to one of your circles and you can see exactly what they will see.

Let’s take a look at an example where this testing facility can prove to be helpful.

“Johnny” has recently added his boss at work to a “Limited Profile” circle that he has created to add people to that he doesn’t wish to share his full profile with. He enters the boss’s name into the “See how your profile appears to other users” and clicks the “Preview” button.

In doing so, he notices that currently his “Limited Profile” Circle members are able to view his “Relationship Status”. He wishes to change this, so Johnny goes back to the “Edit Profile” view and uses the “Custom” privacy option to pick and choose those circles he wishes to be able to view this particular profile item, effectively blocking the “Limited Profile” circle members from this information.

Makes sense?

Yes?

Sweet! – you’re one the way to having your profile and privacy settings well and truly sorted, ready to tackle whatever direction Google+ takes in the coming months.

If you have friends who you have invited to Google+ who you think would benefit from this information, please share the post with them using any of the share tools in the bar on the right.

BONUS! – Check out the New Gmail Design

By now, you will have noticed that Google have finally decided, thank God, to hire a User Interface Designer and the visual fruits of their labour are starting to roll out throughout the Google suite of applications. Most notably the Google Search interface has received a nice refresh along with Google Calendar.

The one application I’ve been hanging out for a design refresh, however, has been Gmail. Yes, the free email service loved by millions has received a fresh coat of paint and you can now give it a test run for yourself. Here’s how you do it:

1. Click on the little cog wheel icon at the very top right of your Gmail page to bring up the application settings submenu.
2. Click on mail settings to bring up the Gmail Settings screen.
3. Click on the “Themes” tab and scroll down towards the bottom of the available themes.
4. Click on either the “Preview (Dense)” or “Preview” themes.

Bingo! – you’re now test running the new Gmail layout complete with lots of yummy, uncluttered white space!

I’ll be updating and adding to the collection of icons for your Twitter/Facebook/Other social meda accounts, and hi-res retina iPhone 4 wallpapers in the coming couple of weeks, so check back when you can and share this page with all your fellow Canucks fans using the buttons over there on the right.

GO CANUCKS, GO!

Social Media Icons

International Icons

For those of us out there who want to support the best club hockey team in the world, from afar! A majority of the designs below were completed upon request from fans around the world.

iPhone 4 Wallpapers

Here’s what you need to know:

Tickets will be available as of this Friday, 21st January.

Here’s how you can get your hands on tickets:

1. Track me down sometime over the next week in the lead up to Wednesday night. Good luck!
2. Enter your name and the number of tickets you want in the form below. You will be placed on a guest list at the door on Wednesday night and you’ll be required to pay for your tickets ($10 each) then.

Each ticket will inclue your first drink* FREE thanks to the generous guys and gals at REPUBLIC! It’s important that you arrive before 11pm or you will be subjected to Republic’s regular cover charge on top of the ticket price.

* Check with bar staff to see which selection of complimentary drinks are available.

Let all your friends know about the event!

FACEBOOK

Check out the event page I have thrown together on Facebook. This should make it easy for everyone to share the event around amongst your friends. It won’t hurt to hit the “Like” button at the top of this post either *wink, wink*.

PLEASE NOTE: Even if you indicate on this Facebook Event Page that you are attending, you still need to submit a request for tickets in the form above. Very important!

TWITTER

Copy and paste the following tweet! Simple!

Make a donation if you can’t make it on the night

You can wire (using SWIFT) donations directly into an account set up by the Queensland Government for overseas donations. Here’s the details you need:

For more details, visit the Queensland Government Flood Relief Fund information page.

And that’s it! All that’s left then is to come out and have a good time, celebrating all things Australian and contributing to what I hope will be a really successful fundraising event!

Pure genius.

Advertising Agency: Moma, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Creative Director: Rodolfo Sampaio | Art Director: Marco Martins
Copywriter: Adriano Matos | Illustrator: 6B Studio

I gotta say, I found myself saying “A-men” to pretty much every single point brought up. What do you think?

Now you could argue forever as to what categories these sites are covered by, as all of us have distinctly different online habits and indeed personalities. As everyone knows, I’m a social, techno, blogging kind of user so my categories and associated sites would be something like this:

• NEWS: www.news.com.au
• TRAVEL: www.flightcentre.com.au or www.flightcentre.ca
• BANKING: my bank obviously
• SOCIAL: www.facebook.com
• ONLINE MANAGEMENT: www.netvibes.com
• EMAIL: www.gmail.com

Naturally, I’m yet another hopeless RSS addict so I have access to so many more websites via feeds I have loaded into my Netvibes page.

Finally, most of you will probably have “SHOPPING” as one of your 6 categories and no doubt “Amazon.com” will feature heavily. I don’t do a lot of shopping online so it doesn’t make the cut for me.

So now it’s your turn.

Hope it helps…

1. Privacy is Paramount

The very first thing you ALL should have done when you signed up was click on the “privacy” link at the top right of screen and gone through each category of settings. This will allow you to specify who is able to see your profile, what they are able to see when they arrive at your profile etc.

2. Facebook Toolbar

If you are a regular Facebook user like me, then the Facebook Toolbar, if you don’t have it already, will become your new best friend. It gives you quick one-click access to the main areas of the site as well as adding cool pop-up notifications to your screen letting you know immediately when you have:

• received a new message
• been poked
• received a message on your wall
• received comments on your images or notes
• one of your friends changes their status

Here’s the catch: the toolbar is for Firefox 2.0 only. I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would be using any other kind of browser anyway! The pop-ups are really cool though – a bit like when you receive a new message in Outlook, or a friend logs on when you’re using MSN Messenger.

3. Join a Network

It’s still a little lost on me exactly what the major benefits are of being part of specific network be it a school, workplace or geographical location, but it looks terrible having (No Network) next to your name so why not right?

To “Join a Network” simply click on the little trianlge next to the “Networks” menu item at the top and select “Join a Network”.

To join a school or workplace network, you will need to have an email address designated by that institution. That being said, the geographical network type is most appropriate for most people.

4. Find People You Already Know

The quickest way to find all your friends and other people you know on Facebook is via the “Find Friends” function accessible when you click on the little triangle next to the “Friends” menu option at the top of the screen. Simply select the type of email address you have (Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail etc) and “virtually” log into your mail account. Facebook will find the people within your address book who already have accounts on Facebook and provide you with an easy one-click way of adding them to your friends list.

This function also provides you with the opportunity to send a Facebook account invite to all those in your address book who do not already have account. My advice is to skip this bit and just send out individual invites later to specific friends if required.

5. Clean up Your Profile Pics

Most people seem to be blissfully unaware that each time you upload a new profile pic, it is added to a library along with all the others you have used previously – a library that is not connected to your “Photos” in any way.

“How do you get to my profile pic library?”, I hear you ask? Simple. Click on your profile pic on your profile page and your library will appear. There’s a bunch of you that will see the same photo repeated 2 or more times. It makes sense to clean up your library by deleting the extraneous repeated images does it not?

By clicking on any of these images you will be presented with a list of options including tagging, deleting and applying as your profile pic.

That’s probably enough for a start. If you have any other tips you’d like to share with anyone, feel free to leave them below in the comments section.

Happy Facebooking!

The only way you wouldn’t have heard of “Facebook” by now is if you have had your head buried in the sand… but lucky you if it was on a nice tropical beach somewhere. Yes, it is essentially another of those “social network thingies” just like the grotesque “MySpace” and the new up and comer “VIRB”, but there’s just something about Facebook that sets it apart from the others. A quick “Facebook 101″ courtesy of good old Wikipedia:

Facebook was originally developed for college and university students but has since been made available to anyone with an email address. People may then select to join one or more participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or geographic region.

As of February 2007, the website had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 18 million members worldwide (also from non-collegiate networks).

Facebook is the number one site for photo sharing, ahead of public sites such as Flickr, with over 6 million photos uploaded daily, and is the sixth most visited site in the United States.

In 2006, with the sale of social networking site MySpace to NewsCorp, there has been talk about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company. Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, has said that he does not want to sell the company and denies rumors to the contrary. He has already outright rejected offers in the range of $975 million, and it is not clear who might be willing to pay a higher premium for the site. Steve Rosenbush, a technology business analyst, suspects Viacom.

In September 2006, serious talks between Facebook and Yahoo took place for the acquisition of the social network, with prices reaching as high as $1 billion. In October, after Google purchased video-sharing site YouTube, rumors circulated that Google had offered $2.3 billion to outbid Yahoo!.

It’s fair to say then, that the site’s pretty popular.

So here’s how my theory goes. Sites like MySpace where you are constantly bombarded by spammers, hackers and wannabe muso desperados, have always been open to anyone which, in my opinion, has resulted in a HUGE membership base that produce some pretty mindless content. Facebook is certainly not immune to the same sort of dribble that I am loosely referring to, but it was developed by a Harvard student for otherUniversity students to use to interact online. Let’s face it, the level of intelligence and therefore intelligent content was there from the get-go.

Privacy controls are far tighter, you aren’t bombarded by mind numbing “bling” graphics and other sensory abusing elements on user profile pages, and as far as I can tell so far, there’s not a single issue with spamming or hacking… yet *touch wood*.

Like Jordan covers in his post, I too have managed to hook up with a whole bunch of people I thought I had lost touch with. It’s been great, and after a year or more of being on Facebook I still don’t ever find myself shaking my head in bewilderment at the random morons who send me “friend requests” out of the blue with no explanation as to who they are or how they found me, just as I did everyday on MySpace.

Anyway enough of my ranting, do one of two things right now… if not both:

1. Go read Jordan’s reliably well written post on the subject. He covers it all beautifully.
2. Sign up at Facebook now and see which former acquaintances you can connect back up with yourself.

Again – apologies for stealing your Blog entry title Jords. At the very least this will give us a bit of an idea who is pulling more weight with Google rankings once both our pages get picked up! Ha!