Do you adjust your Facebook settings, especially those concerning privacy? By the standards of most profiles I see, I actually have a pretty small number of connections. I’m not sure, though, how I feel about not actually knowing (or remembering) a lot of them. I made a decision to “add as friend” people I have mutual connections with, which I guess made me “visible” despite me choosing to be “unsearchable” in the site. I don’t really put out too much personal stuff anyway, except for the occasional pictures; I would think people who knew me during my elementary and high school days wouldn’t even recognize me without taking OxyElite Pro, as I’ve put on a lot of weight compared with before. I just find it jarring when somebody pops me a message asking if I remember them. If I don’t, what do I say? I know it sounds kind of haughty—it’s not that I was a popular girl at school; everybody knows everybody then, I guess with me as an exception. So after a rather rattling experience of having to answer to two such questions from two former schoolmates at the same time, I made sure my Chat is always on the “off” mode and that my wall and photos are not visible to every connection. More than haughtiness, it’s the antisocial in me at work.

The i.ph domain (the home of my other blog) is being proliferated by spammers! From nonsensical comments to hundreds of links on insurance, car quotes, fat burner supplements, and nothing else, per comment, I get them all. I’ve heard the same is true for my friends who maintain blogs in that domain as well. We had to keep our comments moderated just to filter them. And it’s becoming a pain to sort through them and approve the legitimate ones.

The funny thing is, these people (or are they bots?) are just too persistent! You’d think my site is so important by the way they keep on spamming the unprotected message board. But I know that’s not the case. I’m letting them have the shoutbox for now, until I get the chance or the inclination to disable even that. Bummer.

I’ve always been a fan of instant messaging, although I’m a bit wary of its use as a way of chatting with strangers, for whatever purpose it may serve the user. But that warrants another post. As a way of communicating with family members and friends, instant messaging is such a huge help. That you can even use your mobile phone to connect, as mobile marketing ploys will tell you, is a really useful feature especially if you’re always mobile or always on the go. Text message services are OK, too, but web SMS is sometimes cheaper. Also, if you’re going out of the country, for instance, and your mobile phone provider failed to activate your roaming services for some reason, using the Internet to send instant messages will come in handy. Personally,  I prefer to use the Gmail integrated chat because it allows me to check e-mails and chat with a number of contacts simultaneously.  But because several of my other friends prefer to use Yahoo messenger, I still log-in to my YM account occasionally just to check if somebody left an offline message. Truth is, if your intent is to exchange short messages alone, both Gmail and YM serve this purpose, although Gmail chat do not have the Web cam and audio functionality just yet (I think you’ll have to set this up). More than these two, there are plenty more instant messaging services  in the World Wide Web.  You just have to find which one suits your need best.

I decided to log in to my Yahoo messenger one time and was happy to see that a college friend I haven’t spoken to for a long time was online. So I sent a hello message, only to be replied to with “password?” I was so baffled by the reply that I wasn’t able to say anything for a while. So my friend decided to explain that she thinks I (my account “handle”) am an impostor because apparently she chatted with me before and it was like, according to my friend, I was an entirely different person. That made me LOL because I’m sure I’m the only one using my own account on my own PC and I was never drunk nor drugged to chat without knowing what I’m saying; then it occurred to me that maybe my account was hacked, just like the other people in my friends list, whose accounts sometimes send me adverts like acai berry stuff and phenphedrine review or some useless links. We were never able to figure out what happened there and I became a little more vigilant about using my YM since then.  Some people just don’t have better things to do.

Comparatively speaking, I don’t think I can call myself a Twitterholic … yet. But I totally get its appeal now, compared with a few months ago when I created an account just to see what the heck that thing is about.

Among other things, I get CNN breaking news headlines (@cnnbrk), Hollywood gossip (@justjared), grammar pointers (@GrammarGirl), blogging/tech tips (@problogger), and writer/celebrity tweets (@neilhimself, @paolocoelho, @amber_benson, @feliciaday) all in one stream.  If only I have anything clever to say, I can even drop a message to any of these people.  And if I’m lucky, I may even get a reply. But I’m actually having fun just reading their conversations with other “tweeple”, fans and other celebrities alike. I even get to exchange messages with fellow Buffyverse (and Whedonverse) fanatics.

Anyway, here’s an awesome string of Twitter articles from Felicia Day.

Not that Twitter isn’t riddled with spammers and posers. There are plenty of fake celebrity pages, and if you’re looking for someone in particular, it may be wise to be a little more discerning before you actually “follow” them.  But I’m following @TinaFey although I’m not entirely sure it’s her. The number of followers can sometimes be a good indication of the validity of a well-known person’s Twitter page. I think this is already an ongoing craze, although I doubt celebrities would seriously consider identity theft protection measures for this medium anytime soon.

Do you think this is the real Darth Vader, though?