We don't have room in print for all your letters and blog pingbacks - but we do here. This week people were exercised about our map of blogging Britain, and whether you really can leave Facebook...
BLOGGING BRITAIN What, no Birmingham? I have read in detail in the same Guardian about birminghamitsnotshit.co.uk. And apparently you didn't find my gypsyteacher.com blog, collected in the blook, 'Gypsy Teacher: A Yank in 'Brum' (lulu.com/gypsyteacher), and its follow up 'A Yank Searches for a House in 'Brum,' posted on the Lulu site. Just by putting Brum blogs into Google I came up with brumblog.co.uk. Kathleen Dixon Donnelly, Birmingham
"Norwich: We fully accept that no city knew it was competing for a place as the most blogged area in the UK. Even so, forcing your alarmingly clean-living students to blog at norwich.edu/admissions/studentblogs.html is fiddling the figures, we reckon, so it didn't make the shortlist." In case nobody's pointed it out yet, Norwich University (norwich.edu) is in Vermont, USA. Simon Barne, Norwich [Noted; corrected - Tech.Ed]
I have little concern for the position of Norwich in any blog rankings, however I think it might be interesting to note that the website mentioned is actually for Norwich University, Vermont, USA! I was alerted to this when I noticed the site has the '.edu' suffix rather than the UK academic institution '.ac.uk' suffix. Norwich University, VT (as opposed to the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK) appears to be a combined traditional and military Corps of Cadets university which perhaps goes some way to explain the "alarmingly clean-living" nature of the students there! Andrew Dawson, University of East Anglia
Firstly, it's poor to publish an article about blogging and then not turn on the comment feature of your website to allow readers to have a conversation about the article. Flies in the face of the concept of blogging. Not very new media. Secondly, while I pass on mild congratulations for including two cities in Scotland (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and Wales (Cardiff & Swansea), there wasn't even a token nod towards Northern Ireland which has a growing blogging community (aggregated at http://northernirishblogs.com) including myself - cunningly known as Alan in Belfast (http://alaninbelfast.blogspot.com) - but there are others too. Next time someone commissions an article about the UK, why not include all the nations and regions - not just the ones that can read the Guardian in full colour - the old Portadown press means that NI readers get greyscale pictures instead of full colour and lose the TV reviews from G2. Alan Meban, Belfast
>> No mention of Liverpool Blogs nor the blogs featured on the Art In Liverpool website. There are many things in an unready state for 2008, but the city's burgeoning blogging scene isn't one of them. condensedthoughts.blogspot.com
>> fundamentally the greatest thing about blogging - you can say what you want, when you want ... and even choose not to if you don't feel like it. thehermesproject.blogspot.com
>> Some map - omitting not only Edinburgh's leading weblog [mine], (instead substituting [a] heap of commercial crap), but treating everyone on my sidebar with similar disdain. No JonnyB. Nor mike. Nor Diamond Geezer. Listen... if you want to understand the British blogosphere - ask someone who's actually in it. Eh. Don't just Google for URLs containing town names, which is clearly what you've done. nakedblog.com
FACEBOOK CALIFORNIA FYI, you *can* leave Facebook, but it isn't easy. I got Facebook to delete my account after a bit of a struggle, and currently the UK Information Commissioner's Office are investigating my complaint against Facebook. The full story is documented at http://blogs.sun.com/alanbur/ Alan Burlison, Glossop
The situation where you can't leave [Facebook] is not new. In fact I started filing complaints to Facebook about it over a year ago on the 14th November 2006. I got a lot of responses from the team about it. I was complaining at first specifically about the fact a reason is required to leave and then secondly that you have to just "deactivate" and can't delete the account. I eventually filed a complaint with the privacy watchdog Trust-e who issued me with this statement: "The TRUSTe Compliance Team has reviewed the details of your complaint and we have determined that it is a valid, privacy complaint. We have contacted Facebook.com on your behalf and have outlined the steps necessary for proper resolution." This was on the 30th December 2006. On the 31st of January 2007 I got a response from Facebook. It was from their Chief Privacy Officer, Chris Kelly: "Thank you for your suggestion that we offer assurances and build technical tools to completely erase any vestige of an individual's account from Facebook. The social nature of sites such as ours and the technical nature of Internet technologies makes it extraordinarily difficult for any site to assure that we can find every piece of data that an individual has ever created on the site. Therefore, we are unable to guarantee users who choose to terminate their accounts that we can erase all information they have provided, and in many cases, such guarantees would be inappropriate for other reasons. For instance, the content of a Facebook message that one user has sent to another comes under the recipient's control. Deactivation of the sender's Facebook account does not and should not erase the message in question. Our deactivation feature addresses most concerns by immediately making profile and other personal information provided by a user unavailable to Facebook users who otherwise would have been able to access it because of overlapping networks or confirmed friend requests. Over time — how long varies depending on the type of data and the traffic on the service — much of the data pertaining to an individual's deactivated account is overwritten on Facebook servers. We appreciate your concern about giving a reason for deactivation, but that can be expressed with a simple word or phrase. Simply indicating that "privacy" is a user's worry and reason for leaving the service poses no significant burden on the deactivation process. Sincerely, Chris Kelly" I wasn't satisfied but I couldn't take it any further. I hope you writing your article has taken it further... maybe something will change soon. Sam Davyson, Cambridge
>> It's all a bit dodgy if you ask me, even though Facebook claims you can opt out on a case-by-case basis…it's not really clear how this works. Also, the law being that you are allowed to observe public behaviour, does Facebook count as being public? ctriandafyllou.wordpress.com
>> If you don't want anyone to know every detail about you, then don't put your detail out on a public forum. It's that simple. Targeted ads are big money, if you provide your personal info for free, then the ad revenue is coming in with minimal expense. The company takes advantage, just like with club cards, just like with credit cards, just like with any company who "needs" your personal information. If you're promiscuous with your info, don't expect to NOT be harassed. lostinsweden.com
>> I have punted my Facebook account, much like [my friend] did a while back. I was thinking about doing it anyway. But this was following an interesting Guardian article that made me actually get my arse in gear. mellonello.blogspot.com
>> A lovely little piece on the underlying and potential creepiness of the network for sheep-throwers. Please feel free to send to all idiot-friends who download endless applications, making themselves more open - and culpable - to identity-fraud. And if you're one of those - idiot! thinkwritedo.blogspot.com
>> What the hell? Is this true? If so, there goes my smugness at my previous paranoia about not letting Facebook stay logged in etc. I see I should have been scrubbing out all traces of Facebook cookies off my computer each bloody time. Honestly, this is the creepiest 'feature' thus far. I deleted most of my profile a few days ago, along with disabling basically everything that I hadn't already (there wasn't much, I'm diligent, but the buggers keep adding more opt-out stuff so you've got to check back regularly). I'd been meaning to do that for months as I only log on maybe once a fortnight. But screw it, if even not actually being on the site isn't enough to end this madness, I'm clearing the cookies, deleting my Firefox bookmark and only ever logging in from Netscape or Exploder, both browsers I only use for testing my code. Laziness means I'll do it even less often than currently, but oh well. andustar.com/weblog/
QUIZZICAL You ask the question of what encryption ZIP uses in the context of HMG's loss of those 25m child benefit records. This question might give the impression that the data on those disks was actually safely encrypted. The default option in ZIP is to _not_ use the strong AES encryption. The default is to use the old ZIP 2.0 encryption standard which is badly compromised. Do we know that the civil servant chose AES, or did they just go with the default, broken password protection? John Graham-Cumming, Toulouse, France
Surely you could have made your Christmas quiz a bit more interactive - I gave up on the print version this morning as I hate all that toing and froing and seeing the answers to questions you haven't answered yet. But your online version is exactly the same... Surely It's not that complicated to make it a bit more web 2.0-ish. Especially when your the technology part of the newspaper. Nigel Kellaway, Enfield
>> absurdly difficult. dailymole.com/wordpress
GOOGLE'S KNOL >> [One] factor that could come into play would be if Google tweaked its algorithm in a way which might reverse Wikipedia's dominance of the search results. They could do this simply by increasing the importance of links to an actual page rather than to a domain altogetherdigital.com
LEOPARD CONTINUES Regarding the claim from one reader that a bad installation of Leopard must be down to bad luck or a failure "to do basic housekeeping and troubleshooting"... I did an erase and install on my three-month old iMac and still had endless problems- all due to Leopard- not third party software or anything like that. And as for troubleshooting- it should work out of the box! That's why I have a Mac not a PC. I have since reinstalled Tiger and the computer is admittedly missing a few cosmetic tweaks but at least it works properly now. Paul Moore, Mount Dora, Florida
DON'T THINK PINK I found the picture of a woman with a pink keyboard and a shopping button to be deeply offensive with your article "How secure are your online passwords?". Women are not technology and password idiots. Well not anymore than men. As a female Computer Engineer, I am sick of seeing outdated stereotypes like this staring me in the face when I read technical articles. Hopefully your team will select less stereotypical pictures in the future with your technical articles. Miriam Breslauer, embedded systems designer, Farmington, Missouri
PODCAST FINDER Great new podcast, but I can't see how to subscribe to it. Yesterday's Technology Guardian says it's available via iTunes, but I can't find it. Nor does it seem to be listed at theguardian.com/podcasts. Could it be whoever was supposed to sort this went off to the Christmas party instead? Nick Rich, Harpenden [It is there, honest, on iTunes and the Guardian - Tech.Ed]
SCREAM TEST Rather disappointed with the article, crudely reducing concerns about creeping government intrusion as a concern of the 'chattering classes', whoever they are. The problems and issues inherent in the development of the database state will cut across all boundaries of wealth and class. The 'scream test' equally crude - is he saying that because some existing uses of technology are useful that ANY increase in its use is automatically justified? The title of the article led me to be optimistic that a cogent discussion of the urgent need for debate and transparency on this issue , but that vital point rather buried in what reads as a rather rambling and incoherent piece. Ross Bennett, Monk Fryston
>> the impetus behind eGovernment is a naïve hostility to the good work done by front-line staff. The papers written by the likes of the Cabinet Office and the New Local Government Network explicitly seek to replace the professional judgement of these experienced staff with computer systems. no2id.net/news/newsblog
GOOGLE THAT You ask is Google a Grinch or a good guy. Some months ago I mislaid the set up instructions for my answerphone. I Googled the name and model number and came up with the manufacturer's website. I pressed the tab for "setup instructions". Unfortunately it read "Instructions not yet available. Try later". I again Googled last week. Only 37 results. Most read "Read reviews & compare prices at ciao.co.uk". No sign of the manufacturer's website. Maybe the manufacturer's gone bust. But in a few short months Google seems to have become more like eBay or Amazon than a reference library. John Lodge, Lancaster
DAB REDUX The problem is not AAC+ but having hard-wired DAB receivers. The answer is in the box; have that reprogrammable and the world´s your oyster (or soya plantation, etc, for vegans). Alejandro Moreno (no post town given)
TOO LITTLE BRITAIN Dear Sony, Can you please tell me why I've been duped into wasting £19.99 of my money in HMV on a video game that is surely the most woefully incompetent conception in gaming history? I'm speaking of 'Little Britain' for the PSP. The game should carry a warning that it has 8 miserly stages which can be completed within an hour, rendering the game good for nothing. I am disgusted at the sheer lack of value offered by the game manufacturers, and even more appalled at Sony Entertainment for producing such a bad consumer experience. I should like very much to have my £19.99 refunded. It is reasonable to expect that a video game rated age 12+ should supply at least a moderate challenge to players, or at least be engaging in some way. This game is neither, it's utterly boring, short, and generally naff. Can you please do the right thing and refund my money so that I may purchase a better game and recoup the hard-earned cash I've wasted on this sham which your company endorsed. Peter Alexandrou, London
TWO QUESTIONED What is web 2.0, hardware or software? It is neither, nothing, just PR speak - less than zero Keith Scott, Lincoln
PEER RESPECT I find it reprehensible that 4oD's use of P2P is buried in the terms and conditions, and not specified 'up front' in the explanation of how it all works. I stumbled across this fact on the forums below while seeing if there was a way to view these programs on my iPod (of course there isn't, that would be too useful). And then, lo and behold, I got a warning email from my ISP saying that I was nearing my allowance limit. Also, unlike most P2P software there is no way of controlling it other than switching KSERVICE.EXE off via task manager or uninstalling 4oD. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ At least the BBC explain that they use P2P on an actual FAQ web page. http://iplayersupport.external.bbc.co.uk/ This is all annoying enough, but you would expect that Ofcom would provide an obvious way to complain about this. I've looked thru all their website options and none apply. 'Spam emails' is the closest I can see and that says that Ofcom does not regulate the Internet! Who is responsible for this then? I've filled in a complaint form on the 4oD site but I think it is wrong that they should be peddling this in the first place. This is not going to do anything to help stop illegal downloading is it? Mark Ford, Ruislip
FLOOD MAPPING [FREE OUR DATA] Although the Environment Agency argue that they want to provide the best data available there is a well documented error on the flood map for Freshford Mill Somerset. Recently a letter was written to the PM asking him to look into 1. why even though both the Environment agency and the Ordnance survey were informed about the error in 2006 it has still not been corrected and 2. as to the accuracy of these maps nationwide. Geoff Edwards (no post town given)
OVER PLUS After your article on Saga's new discussion forum, the membership trebled overnight, causing the software and servers to collapse under the strain. As well as major technical problems, they also encountered community problems, the influx of new members mixing with the old members did not blend well. A break away group of members has formed a new community, but with a difference. We believe our community to be the first of it's kind in the UK for over 50s. The website is interactive, run as an online magazine, the members supply all the content. As well as the 'News Desk' there is a discussion forum, chat room, personal photo albums, blogs, e-cards, and classifieds. Offering the over 50s almost everything they need in one place. We are hoping that with a little friendly publicity our community will grow from strength to strength. It is non profit making, and is supported purely by the members who can either make a donation or pay a £10 yearly subscription. These funds are used to cover hosting and admin costs, and at the end of each annual anniversary of the website the excess cash collected will be donated to a Charity of the members choice. The url is http://www.50plusforum.co.uk Hazel Case, 50 Plus Forum
