Software From Hell

There is a lot of great software out there, along with user-friendly and necessary apps. Sometimes it isn’t always the free downloads that do it. Your paid programs can also become software from hell, launching an all-out attack of freeware, adware, and God knows what into your system.

Eliminate the risk by only downloading directly from the main site, such as the antivirus company, Google Play, Apple. They have already pre-screened and checked that the download will be safe. Then no matter what, do not add any of the suggested products offered up during the download process.

A credible website, when it offers third-party free downloads of the software or apps you’re looking for, can also become a nightmare. I made this mistake twice.

For example, there is a website that is the go-to for learning about how software and apps rate with users. On the same line as the review, it offers the download of the program direct from their site. You are better off opening a new tab to go directly to the original source. Your computer will thank you.

In the case of software (even anti-virus software), a lot of times when you click through the prompts, it automatically downloads toolbars and all sorts of crap into your computer. Some of it is impossible to remove. You can remove the problem, but there is often a residue that reminds you every time you start up that next time, don’t download third-party stuff. The good thing about Google is, when you key into the search engine the name of the problem and how to remove it, you’ll find a wealth of tutorials. Pick the one that seems the easiest step-by-step.

Originally published January 13, 2016. freelancepublishing.net. Debbie Elicksen

Are You A Troll or a Spammer?

If your digital media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…) look like any of the ones below, fix them now or get off the Internet. First impression is you look like a troll or a spammer. We are not going to give you the time of day if you can’t give your network the time of day.

It’s amazing how many times you see a connection request from someone on LinkedIn or Facebook or a new follower in Google+ who have absolutely no information in their profiles at all — people you personally know. But if you don’t know them, how do you know they’re not a serial killer? You have to wonder why they reached out if they’re not a spammer or phisher.

The sad thing is, some of these belong to real people. Although I may still connect with them if it’s a friend, I will advise them as diplomatically as I can to get a profile picture. I’ll say something like this: “Hey, nice to see you here. Now put up a photograph or you look like a spammer.”

Because social sites are used more to connect with potential business prospects, if you have nothing in your profile but your name, you’re leaving a lot of money outside of your computer. Consider your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ profile/about pages your resume. The more information you put here about yourself — like what you do, the type of work or customers you’re looking for, links to project examples that back up your work or other ways to connect — the greater chance of you getting an unplanned referral or prospect to connect with you.

It’s time to do our part to improve digital media (I’ll get to the literacy aspect another time). If any of your profiles look like these, fix them now or get off the platform. Otherwise, are you a troll or a spammer?

Are you a serial killer?

Bad spelling screams fake profile

The following video is more about personal connections, but the message is the same. No picture, not information = you’re CREEPY.

Originally published December 14, 2015. Debbie Elicksen. freelancepublishing.net.

You Are What You Publish

+David Meerman Scott wrote The New Rules of Marketing and PR, which is more than a book; it's reality. It's the future. It's who we have become.

We can believe that each digital media is only a social platform where you hang out with your friends. We can throw a hissy fit every time Facebook or YouTube changes its algorithms. We can choose who we want to accept into each of our tight little circles. 

Ignore the realities all you want.

Digital platforms, yes even Facebook and Twitter, are publishing platforms. You have access to this media only because the companies (you know, Zuckerberg and all the guys who own them) let you. Whether you privatize your settings or not, it is still a public forum. If anyone in your "friends" list can see your posts, that is a public post. It's why we use direct messages and emails to have private one-on-one conversations.  

You essentially rent a page from a public membership-based website for free. What you do with that page is up to you, unless it crosses any of the platform's set boundaries. You can bitch all you want about the platform doing this or not doing that, but you don't own it. You rent a small one-billionth of a space for free.

The page you have rented, depending on the platform, shows up in a Google search, even if your individual posts do not. That said, whether or not you've privatized your settings or if you only "friend" people you have met in person, your content can find its way to your employer's desk, the government, and the police, if you've been especially naughty.

What you post on this free public platform is equal to publishing a page in the local (or rather international) newspaper. If it's salacious enough to rankle enough feathers, make it a billboard on a Los Angeles or Toronto main thoroughfare. 

There are people who are the Debbie Downers of social media. They publish hate, ugliness, and continually troll other people's feeds with negative comments. They are in your private digital community. When you see their name in your home feed, your first reaction is to roll your eyes and maybe get ready to click the "hide" option before you've even seen the post.

You may like the person, but hate their post or comment. If they do it on your page, you may rent that page, but you determine what goes on that page. You have the right to delete.

In publishing, everyone is entitled to their opinion, even your friends. When that opinion isn't constructive, is mean-spirited, or is just made because they don't respect your opinion, you have the right to delete.

If you are the person who posts negative and mean-spirited comments, who continually fills their own feeds with it, is that really the permanent impression you want to leave on your public digital footprint?

I love Facebook's On This Day, a look back at your previous posts through the years. It gives you a do-over. I go through them every day. If there is a post that no longer fits my present editorial guideline (post no harm) or something that is irrelevant, like the ongoing diatribe I used to make while watching football and hockey games, or dead website links, I will delete them and clean up my Timeline. Regardless of the platform, there are posts I re-evaluate, sometimes right after I've published them, and then delete them.

This is a website created for schools but a lot of adults could use a refresher course on how to act online (code word for "in public").

The three things that each human craves are safety, belonging, and mattering. We can go a lot further as a human race and as role models if we practice exercising restraint and create a world that lifts our fellow friends and strangers up rather than tear them down. It begins one computer at a time.

When you are online, you write your history.

Weaponized Code

Cross-site scripting is used to find weak spots in your Wordpress website. It may come in the comment section dressed up as spam, where the owner inadvertently opens the door to let the robbers in. Here is how easily it can happen.



Wordpress upgrades include patches for weaponized code vulnerabilities. It's important to be up-to-date. The Askimet plugin also helps keep your Wordpress spam in place. It adds another security layer to your website. I can attest to that first-hand.

The +Our Movie Talk blog wasn't just getting hundreds of spam comments a day, it was getting thousands. One time I opened up the Dashboard and there were over 20,000 comments. I nearly cried. As soon as I downloaded Askimet (it comes with a nominal fee), it all came to a screeching halt. Spam was captured in the spam folder, where I could look through to see if there was a legitimate comment (not going to happen when there are thousands). Instead, I just empty the spam folder with one click.

Weaponized code can be used many different ways. Hacking is one. Cyber-trolling is another.

Cyber bots are set up to spam, create fake websites, and set up an all-out assault on Internet users. Code is programmed into a weapon and will hunt for certain terms. For instance, on Twitter, it might seek out the word "feminism," which will trigger a troll post that says something disparaging about women.

There are savvy individuals who create counter bots. So if a troll bot posts that they want to assault you, the counter bot might reply with statistics on violence and how to improve legislation on crime. For every cyber-troll, there is a cyber-hero.

Cyberbullying = Mental Rape

Candace Cameron Bure said it. She said what many, if not all, targets feel: cyberbullying feels like rape.

Digging deeper, Karma of the Poodle describes mental rape in a Yahoo discussion board as: "... where you are raped of your common knowledge or knowledge of your current life and have it taken from you and replaced with someone else's information done out of fear and abuse without your consent and willing participation."

Mental rape is being raped by words and images, which is the quintessential behavior of a cyberbully. A person is psychologically traumatized and it is not uncommon for depression and post-traumatic stress to set in as a result.

When someone has their digital footprint vandalized and destroyed, they experience mental rape. There is no other way to more accurately define it.

So what do rape victims have to do in order to start the healing process? The very same things a victim of cyberbullying must do.

Pandora's Project offers some advice in this post: What do do if you have been raped.

1. Find a safe environment to decompress and share your experience.
2. Solicit help from someone who has been through it or an expert who can guide you.
3. Do what you need to do to document, block, and delete your cyberbully and his or her friends from your life.
4. Report it (backed up by your physical screenshots and documentation) to the proper authorities, such as Facebook, Twitter, the police.
5. Find your way back to going about your business through empowerment. Surround yourself with positive and supporting people, find links and sites to help you expel the toxins.
6. Know that you are not alone. It doesn't matter what you've done, it does not give another person license to cyberbully or post trash about you. You are not responsible for other people's behavior.

Griefing

Griefing disrupts more than the video game player's environment, it wreaks havoc on administrators. 

Game developers are forced to activate wasteful resources to combat trolls in the online gaming world. It's not something they can ignore if they want to keep their players happy and safe, or bottom line, keep their players.

In its page resource to tutor players about griefing, Minecraft admits there are drama lovers who think it is okay. The fact one or two people like it shouldn't mean the game experience has to be miserable for the rest.

The griefer chief aim is to destroy, vandalize, spam chat, abuse, corrupt, and hack the user environment. 

A player can minimize their impact by:

• Installing available plugins created to help combat them. 
• Not handing out your password and seriously vet anyone you plan to assign administration duties and access permission to.
• Use common sense when interacting.

Here is another link from World of Warcraft about griefing.

Political Malfunction

Political season seems to bring out the worst in good people. It turns them into trolls and bullies. 

You see them every day in your Facebook and Twitter feeds, among other places. They mirror what the pundits say on the puffed up political mantra being spewed across the airwaves. 

Regardless of facts, truth, or intentional slander, regardless of political affiliation, it is emotions that drive the home feed and comment sections. His truth may not be her truth, but that doesn't matter. Any truth, other than their own, is wrong and must be destroyed. 

If someone finds a positive story about a political candidate, such as legislation that levels the playing field for workers, moves the needle forward for trade -- thus jobs, or hell, even if they saved a damn life, watch the haters find something to post trash about. If they have nothing, they take it personal -- to the candidate's looks, their great great great great grandfather's indiscretion, or they wore the wrong colored suit.

It's like an elementary playground for adults. Politics seems to give liberty for adults to behave badly, to set a terrible example, and contradict the line they always feed their kids: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Some of the examples coming from posts of people who are otherwise well behaved, who work at all ends of the economic scale: 

• Liar
• Bitch
• Ugly wife
• Dishonest
• Muslim (trying to connect the candidate to terrorism) 
• Sellout
• Traitor
• Cow-wacky, heifer-donkey shit
• Piece of shit
• Joke
• Babbling clown 

You get the picture. 

It doesn't matter if the candidates get ugly on the campaign trail. We don't have to follow their lead. 

Here's a good reason why you should remember that line you try to teach your kids about saying something nice. Jobs and opportunities come in bipartisan work environments. Whether you work freelance, contract, or are looking for full- or part-time work, employers and contractors WILL be checking your social feeds to see what kind of a person you are. They want to see if you play nice with others or if you're a digital toxin fertilizer.

So what do your political posts say about you? It isn't about backing the right candidate, but rather it is how tolerant you are of other's right to back theirs.