adam|riggins

A few days ago, Google released “Google Buzz“, their latest offering into the Social Media circle.  It seems like a pretty cool little service so far, but one thing that has a lot of people up in arms is how, by default, everyone that you frequently email and chat with are on display for the world to see within your Google Profile.  As for me, I don’t really care, but if you don’t want the world knowing everyone you contact AND having access to their Google profile, follow these easy steps.

1.  Log on to your Google Profile here

2.  Click on the “edit profile” link:

3.  Uncheck the box that says “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me“:

4.  Click on “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page, and you are set.

For all of you a little concerned about lack of privacy these days, hopefully this will help a little.

I recently had the opportunity to try out and really use a great service called ScoutMob.  Essentially, ScoutMob partners with restaurants and stores in the Atlanta area to offer incredible deals.  They have an iPhone app (iTunes link) that beautifully compliments the website, but you do not need an iPhone to take advantage of the offers.  Here’s how it works (directly taken from their website):

If you have an iPhone, you can do all of that straight from your iPhone using the ScoutMob app.  In fact, you can view past deals and use them too:

Click on one to see the details:

Once you click “Get the Deal”, it displays on your phone for you to show the employee at the store/restaurant.

Here is how I used it:

This past Saturday, my lovely girlfriend and I decided that we wanted to try out ScoutMob.  It would be a great way to find some new restaurants and save money at the same time.  We launched the ScoutMob app on my iPhone, found a deal for a place called Murphy’s here in Atlanta.  I pressed the “Get the Deal” button in the app, and this showed up on my screen:

When we got there, I asked our server what I needed to do regarding the coupon I now had on my iPhone.  She said we just needed to show her the aforementioned coupon and that was it.  50% off of our ENTIRE order.  That translated to about $23 saved.  The best part?  It was completely free to use it.  We ended up going to another place for dinner using ScoutMob, so we saved another 50% then.  That’s right, folks.  I have a girlfriend that appreciates a good coupon.

So, if you live in the Atlanta area, enjoy saving money and eating food, then this is the service for you.  You do NOT have to have an iPhone to use it.  If you do have an iPhone, make sure you get the app.

ScoutMob

Why does this stuff always happen when I am in the middle of working on something that I have not yet saved?  Look, Windows, I don’t like you either, but I have to work with you.  Can’t we just agree on that and TRY to get along?  Please?

If you ever need to have access to the bookmarks you have on your home computer while at work (or vice versa), check out Foxmarks.  Until recently, it was only available for Firefox, but now you can get it for Safari and Internet Explorer.

Essentially what it does is keep all of your bookmarks in the cloud, and then your individual computers will sync up with it.  For example, if I am at work, I might come across a website that I want  to bookmark.  I do so, and then when I get home, that bookmark is on my home computer.  It’s like magic!

Here is a little video that explains it a little better.

Foxmarks

For you Windows users* out there, a constant threat that you have to be prepared for is getting a virus on your PC.  To make matters worse, there are tons of different flavors of Anti-Virus software that all claim to do the same thing, and all claim to be the best.  So how do you know which is the best one?

AV Comparatives is a company that exist for one reason: to infect computers with thousands of viruses, then use each AV program to clean it up, and then give the results.  The report on the percentage of viruses that each one found.

The results really speak for themselves.  On one hand, you have Avira AntiVir Premium, which found 99.2% of all of the viruses/spyware that it was infected with.  Not 100%, but pretty darn close, and it was the best of the bunch.

On the other hand, you have VirusBlokAda VBA32 Anti-Virus, which not only has a horrible name, but also a detection rate of only 86.5% overall.  Not so great.

So, head over to AV Comparitives to see how your AV software compares.  Good luck!

*Mac users, as you are aware, there is no need to worry about this, or even to read this article.  Unite!

As a Facebook user, I have to say that I agree with a lot of these.  In fact, the first one listed is something I feel so passionately about:

Use Facebook mail instead of proper email
Are you silly? When you Facebook mail me, I have to log into my real email to find that I then have to go and log into my Facebook account to read and reply to your message. If you’ve got my real email address, please use it.

That is so true!  Please, if you need to send me something more than a text message, USE MY DANG EMAIL ADDRESS! There are so many steps if you do it through Facebook.  Can I get an AMEN?

See the list

Ever seen an email with these kind of subjects come across the email?:

Fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd: OBAMA IS REALLY A MUSLIM OMG!!!11!!

Fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:THIS VIRUS WILL WIPE OUT YOUR PC!

Fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:DON’T BUY GAS ON APRIL 1ST!!!one1!

These emails go onto say a bunch of stuff that is usually pretty far out there.  At the end, you are normally told to send the email to 15 people so a miracle will happen to you in the next 24 hours.  Ever seen an email like that?  I HATE THOSE!

Well, as soon as I get one of those, I immediately head over to www.snopes.com to find out if it is true or completely false.  Normally, they are false.  After copying the link, I then immediately send it back to whoever sent that dumb email to me.  I’m that guy.  And I get so much satisfaction from it!

So, are you a sender, deleter, or a teach-the-sender-a-lesson-er like me?

Here’s the scenario:  You’re at work between “things”.  Whether it’s a lag between meetings, or it’s Friday and nothing is really going on anyways.  You fire up your web browser, visit your usual sites (cnn.com, digg.com, adamriggins.com, whatever).  At some point, you have seen all you are really interested in at the time.  What do you do at that point?

For example, I have a meeting in about 20 minutes.  I am as prepared for it as I can be.  So, here’s what I do:

• check my gmail
• open up Google Reader and look at all of the new stories to come through
• go to the restroom
• come back to my desk
• check gmail/google reader again

By this point, there is nothing new.  What do you do when you get bored sufing the internet and/or your RSS newsreader has no new updates?

For anyone out there that uses the self-hosted Wordpress, you know how annoying it can be to have to upgrade your WordPress installation everytime they upgrade it.  It usually involves using your FTP client, removing some files, overwriting others.

Well, I found a plugin that does it all for you.  In just a few clicks, it backs up everything, downloads the update, and performs the upgrade automatically.  It is the other absolutely recommended WP plugin for we “self-hosters”.

Grab it here.