Tag: 702Sydney

ABC Nightlife Computers: The Internet Name Wars

How the Internet’s name wars can affect you

The online empires want our names and identities, are the real costs of social media now being exposed? Our September ABC Nightlife spot on September 22 from 10pm looked at these issues and more.

Paul and Tony discussed how Google’s “Name Wars” or “nymwars” came about, why social media sites like Facebook and search engines want you to use to use your real names.

The podcast from the program is available from at Nightlife website, more details of Tony’s programs can be found there as well.

Is this a good thing or are there costs we should consider before handing over our intimate details to a social media or free cloud computing service?

Some of the topics we covered included;

  • What are the “name wars’?
  • Why do companies like Google and Facebook want us to use our ‘real’ identities?
  • How can they use the information they gather?
  • What problems does that cause for Internet users?
  • Can these problems spill into real life?
  • Are all web services doing this?
  • What are the risks to businesses using social media?
  • Is this the real cost of social media?

Some of the information we mentioned can be found here;

The cost of lunch: Google and Information Revenue
Google’s real names policy explained
Google’s Eric Schmidt on being an “identity service”, not a social network
Google’s company philosophy (note item two)
Why Twitter doesn’t care what your real name is

We’ll be adding more resources in the next few days, the next ABC Nightlife spot is on 20 October and our events page will have more details. If you have any suggestions for future programs or comments on the last show, please let us know as we love your feedback.

Apple after Steve Jobs: ABC Weekend computers

What does Steve Jobs stepping down as Apple’s CEO mean to Mac users?

The September 11 ABC 702 Sydney Weekends segment discussed what Steve Jobs’ stepping down as Apple CEO means for Mac users.

Simon Marnie and Paul Wallbank looked at why Steve Jobs was important to Apple, who will be taking over and whether this affects whether you should buy an Mac computer, iPhone or iPad.

Listeners’ Questions

As usual, we had plenty of great questions from listeners and some of them we promised to get back to, these included the following.

Removing Mackeeper

Cheryl called about MacKeeper warnings that keep popping up on her Apple computer.

MacKeeper, and other variants like MacProtector and MacSecurity, are known as malware – software designed for malicious reasons – which has been the bane of Windows computer users for years.

Removing Mackeeper is relatively easy and Apple has released a security patch to fix it. Details and download are available at the Apple Support website.

Wiping an old computer

The most valuable thing on a computer is the data, so it’s important to wipe any system before disposing of it. Deborah asked how to wipe her old Mac system before she left it out for her council’s e-waste collection.

If you have an OS X or OS 9 disk, you can completely wipe and “zero” the disk to make it extremely difficult for someone to recover any data from the old computer. Apple have detailed instructions on this at their How To Zero All Data On A Disk page.

Warning! Before following these instructions, make sure you have backed up all important and valuable data.

How to disable automatic Windows Updates

Updating your computer, whether you have a Windows or Mac computer, is very important as new security bugs are found all the time. Gary though was finding his system automatically installing Windows Updates often disrupts his work.

It isn’t a good idea to totally disable the Windows Update service as those updates and patches are important, but you can change the settings so they are downloaded but not installed until you choose to do so.

Microsoft’s Knowledge Base describes how to change the Windows Update Settings, we recommend the download updates but let me choose when to install them option.

Next 702 Weekends tech spot

Our next Weekends spot is scheduled for 23rd October when we’ll be discussing how to backup your valuable data. Check the Events Page or subscribe to our newsletter for any changes to the 702 Sydney programs and any other upcoming radio shows.