Facebook’s got our stuff :0
February 24, 2009
Although Facebook has been the fastest growing community site, connecting people from all over, old friends, new friends, far away family, exs’ etc, I’ve never been fully comfortable with it, mostly because so much drama comes from it…which I think I can do without, thank you very much. Drama from people who come across your page from a friend of a friend. But I neglected to examine facebook itself! Then I came across this….
The Consumerist has noticed a seemingly slight but very important (and disturbing) change in Facebook’s terms of service, regarding user-generated content.
In short, all of the content you’ve ever uploaded on Facebook can be used, modified or even sublicensed by Facebook in every possible way – even if you quit the service.
The TOS says the following:
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
It also used to contain another bit that is now missing.
You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
This is also reinforced by the “Termination” section:
The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.
Sure, most users don’t really care (or think they don’t care) about all this, but the idea that you now cannot stop Facebook from using your content should you ever want to is frightening to say the least.
Looking at it globally, millions of people are uploading bits of information on everyone and everything, to a huge online database, and by doing so they’re automatically giving away the rights to use or modify this information to a private corporation. And not only that; they now also waiver the right to ever take it back from it.
Facebook should take a long, deep look into how it treats its users. Until now, users had options with regards to how the data they generated on Facebook was used. Now, they have no options whatsoever, rather than quit the service altogether. It’s a major difference; I’m not going to take it lightly, and neither should you.
Anyways, rather scary stuff. What am I doing putting all sorts of info about myself and other ppl on there?
CSS Tools that’ll make life easy!
February 18, 2009
Sometimes, CSS can be such a complicated thing, making sure it works on different browsers, fixing that darn IE bug, and just generally making sure it all works properly. This can be especially annoying if you are a newbie to CSS. But give it a chance, you will love it!
Below are a few tools I came across that will be easier on you and your time!
1. CSS Template Generator – with Source Code
2. YAML Builder
5. CSS Tidy
6. CSS Compressor- Use this utility to compress your CSS to increase loading speed and save on bandwidth as well.
7. Firebug- If you aren’t using this, now would be a good time to start 
8. Aardvark- This is by far one of my faves from Firefox, because it enables you to fix template problems by combing through the layout.
9. CSS Layouts
10. Collaborative Javascript Debugging
There’s more where this came from! Check out 60 CSS Tools.
0o00oh Wedding Gowns by Giambattista Valli
February 9, 2009
This is a beautiful collection by Giambattista Valli. So simple, yet fancy. However, I don’t know about the one big rose on the head thing, or #4, the cut is a bit unflattering, but that’s my opinion.
