How do I get notified when my friends join textPlus? How do I turn friend notifications on and off?

I’m censoring this post in protest of two bills that would censor the web. SOPA and the PROTECT IP act would give governments and corporations the power to take down entire websites over infringing posts by users, endangering the internet as we know it. These is no due process, it’s an act of Communism. The potential for abuse of power through digital networks – upon which we as citizens now depend for nearly everything, including our politics – is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age. This is no time for politicians and industry lobbyists in Washington to be devising new Internet censorship mechanisms, adding new opportunities for abuse of corporate and government power over online speech. These bills were written by the content industry without any input from the technology industry. And they are trying to fast track them through congress and into law without any negotiation with the technology industry.  It contains provisions that will chill innovation. It contains provisions that will tinker with the fundamental fabric of the internet. It gives private corporations the power to censor. And best of all, it bypasses due legal process to do much of it.

 I’ve censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet–a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/10285/uncensor  After you do, you’ll see my uncensored post on the next page.
████████, a ████ ████ █████ ██████ ███████’s █████ ████████ ██████████ ██████ is █████ to a ████ █████████ for a ████, and is ██████ to ████. ████ ████, ████████ of us ████ ███████ ██████████, █████████ our own █████ and ██████ you to ████ ████████. We ████ ████ ████ – ██████ ████ a ████ █████ now.

H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act

To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.

OpenCongress Summary

This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be dedicated to copyright infringment. The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have “only limited purpose or use other than infringement,” and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison. This bill combines two separate Senate bills — S.968 and S.978 — into one big House bill.  Click here to read the Offical Summary

S.968 – PROTECT IP Act of 2011

A bill to prevent online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property, and for other purposes.

OpenCongress Summary

Establishes a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be “dedicated to infringing activities.” The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against the alleged infringer and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. In some cases, action could be taken to block sites without first allowing the alleged infringer to defend themselves in court. Click here to read the Offical Summary

Please take the time to tell Congress that these are bad pieces of legislation:

His settings are set to PUBLIC so this photo and comments showed up in my Facebook news feed even though we're not friends.

ALL OF THE COMMENTS.  So for those of you that are like me and really don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry knowing your business here’s the skinny on how to secure your facebook profile, photos, and wall posts. It’s important that users understand these settings need to be made to their Facebook account so they will carry over to their PDA or cell phones with Facebook apps that don’t offer privacy settings.

Finally, Facebook has offered the feature of approving or not approving photos that other people tag you in BEFORE they appear in people’s ‘stream’ or News Feed. Before photos you were tagged in would show up on your profile as soon as you were tagged. Now you can choose to approve or reject any photo or post you are tagged in before it’s visible to anyone else on your profile by turning on the setting.  Here is some instruction on how to make your Facebook world more private!

How to select who can view your Facebook profile information

1. Click on your name in the far right upper right hand corner next to the Home link. 

2.  Click the ’Edit Profile’ button that now appears in the far upper right corner.

3.  You will notice the world icon (indicates ‘public’) or people icon (indicates ‘friends only’) to the right of each of your profile fields, click on the down arrow on them. Select each of them to ‘Friends’ or if you want something to be seen by the ‘public’ or everyone in the Facebook universe then select the world icon ‘Public’.  Click the SAVE CHANGES button at the bottom of the page. Do this for each of the categories to the left of this page (Basic information, Friends and Family, Education and Work, etc) and you MUST click on the SAVE CHANGES button on each page before you move to the next category or your changes will not be saved.

4.  To see how a certain person, group or the ‘Public’ sees your profile click on the ‘VIEW AS’ button in the far right corner and select public  to see how the public views it or type in a name of a ‘friend’ to see how they view it.

How to change your Facebook privacy settings

1. Click on the arrow by your name in the far right upper right hand corner. Select ‘Privacy Settings’.

2.  Check the circle under the Friends icon. Then Click on the Edit Settings under each of the categories below, choose your desired settings and then DONE. Do this for each of the categories.

4. To turn the tool on that allows you to approve or not approve photos other people tag you in go under the section labeled ‘How Tags Work’ under ’Security Settings’ and choose the below settings. Hit the DONE button.

How to easily select who sees the information you post on Facebook

1. For each post, photo, or video you can select who sees it by using the ‘inline’ controls. Select ‘ Update Status’>click the icon with down arrow>select ‘Friends’ or a specific group you would like to allow to view this particular post, photo, link and/or video.

Data centers:  Data is stored in state-of-the-art data centers that employ the highest security standards and are SAS70 or ISO certified.

Near-continuous data protection:  Mozy automatically detects and backs up new and changed files.

Version (snapshot) support:  Restore file versions up to 30 days in the past.

Open and locked file support:  Mozy backs up all open and locked files, including Outlook PST files.

Automatic or scheduled backups:  Automatic backups take place while your computer is not in use. Scheduled backups can be performed daily or weekly at a specified time of day.

Block-level incremental backups:  After the initial backup, Mozy only backs up new or changed portions of files. This saves bandwidth and ensures future backups are lightning fast.

Bandwidth throttling:  You decide how much of your bandwidth you want to dedicate to your backups so other higher priority services can run unimpeded.

Multiple restore options:  Users can restore data via the Mozy software client, through the web, or by ordering a DVD restore. Windows users can also restore data via right-click or through the Mozy Virtual Drive.

Mobile Access:  Users can now access their backed up files on their iOS and Android devices!

Why Mozy?

• Superior backup for one low price
• Excellent customer support via live online chat
• The ability to pause and resume uploads easily
• Mozy only backs up new/changed file portions
• Multiple restore options

Need more details?

Check out Mozy’s FAQ for answers to common questions here.

 

MozySupport Portal

 

MozyHome includes Mozy Support Portal access, which gives you:

• Live Chat* with a support technician
• Video tutorials
• Mozy Community
• Knowledge Base self-help articles
• My Cases* support requests

Open and locked file supportMozy backs up all open and locked files, including Outlook PST files.

Alex Gimeno is a DJ best known for Ursula 1000, a wide-ranging musical project including lounge, breakbeat, glam and cha cha. His albums and mix sessions have taken on a broad scope of retro tinged spy grooves, bumping latin disco funk, hints of post punk, electro, go go, sleazy glam rock…And he never stops evolving. You can hear it in his remixes for the likes of Quincy Jones, Felix Da Housecat, The Faint…, Fort Knox Five to a slew of television remodels for themes to Sesame Street, The Powerpuff Girls, The Incredibles and Yo Gabba Gabba. Scenes for Sex And The City, Grey’s Anatomy and How I Met Your Mother popped even more with a helping of a little Ursula as have campaigns for AT&T, Samsung, Adidas and Grand Marnier.  Gimeno was born in Brooklyn, New York. During his childhood, he and his family moved to Miami Beach where his father, a member of the Spanish orchestra, Los Chavales De Espana, had an extended residency. He moved back to Brooklyn in the late 1990s.  Ursula 1000 (aka multi-instrumentalist Alex Gimeno) sets his time machine for globetrotting mutant grooves for this collection of brand spanking new originals features the inimitable Fred Schneider of the B-52s, French avant-jazz singer Isabelle Antena, Thievery Corporation chanteuse Natalia Clavier, Big Mike Geier from Atlanta’s premier big band Kingsized and introducing Ms. G.

Check out Ursula’s latest album ~ Mondo Beyondo!

To uninstall textPlus from an Android device:

To DELETE your textPlus account ENTIRELY:

In order to delete your account entirely, you will need to provide the following information:

• Your registered textPlus username
• Your verified phone number (if verified)
• The type of device you registered with (iPhone, iPod touch, Android phone, regular phone)

**Please be advised~ You MUST email textPlus from your registered textPlus email address with the information above and then your request is processed.

Brought to you by TextPlus:

Your Posts. textPlus isn’t that different from the real world. So don’t post anything to your profile that you wouldn’t want the world to know (like your home address). Also, don’t post anything that would make it easy for a stranger to find you, such as your favorite local spot to hang out. We know it’s fun to post pictures of yourself, but remember that pictures can also identify you if they contain certain details about you, like your school football team’s name on your shirt. So be careful when picking pictures.

textPlus doesn’t allow any nudity in pictures, even if sent within a private message to a friend. Please don’t abuse our rules of the road as this will lead to you losing your textPlus privileges. And remember, if you are under 18, these pictures can be illegal. So all the more reason to follow our rules of the road.

Safety in Public Places. textPlus is like regular old text, but better. Sure, you can use textPlus to send and receive messages with your friends using their phone numbers or textPlus usernames. But you can also use textPlus to create text groups for your friends or family, or enter communities built by our users.

Communities are either public or private groups of users, who typically join because the community name or topic interests them. A private community is one where only people invited to join by the community organizer can join. Anyone can join public communities. So, these are like public chat rooms for text. You can tell if a community is public if you’re allowed to join it. If you try to join a private community, you will be prompted that this community is private and that you must be invited to join.

Be sensitive to your safety in these communities. Public communities, for the most part, are made up of people you may not know. So, avoid sending messages or posting pictures in communities that identify you personally to community members. If you want to have a private conversation with a community member, message them directly by clicking on their picture and selecting “send message”. It makes sense that you shouldn’t send messages you only want seen by one person to a whole group.

Block User. Communities are a little like playgrounds. You might hear some stuff that you don’t like. If you don’t like what someone is saying, we’ve built into textPlus a tool that lets you block that user. When you block a user, you will no longer see community posts from them, and they will not be able to message you at all. And to avoid conflicts, the blocked user doesn’t know they have been blocked by you. Think of it as a “talk to the hand” feature. We think the block user feature is a great way to solve disputes quickly. Everyone can have opinions, but that doesn’t mean you have to listen to them, right? To block a user, tap their picture, and select “block user”. If you ever change your mind, you can always unblock the user too.

Harassment. It’s one thing if what someone is saying in a community post or message bugs you. That’s what blocking a user is for. It’s another matter altogether if someone is harassing or threatening you with physical harm, especially if they seem to know who you are and where to find you.

Harassment, hate speech and other inappropriate content are not tolerated in textPlus. If you encounter harassment or similar inappropriate behavior, inform your parents, a trusted adult or the police, and report it to us. We’ve built into textPlus a report abuse tool that you can easily access to report harassment and other abuse. You can also send an email to support@textplus.com. We investigate these reports and take appropriate action expeditiously, such as suspending or terminating textPlus accounts and for serious matters, working with law enforcement to assist in the prevention of dangerous encounters.

Cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is bullying or harassment that happens online or in text, and may be similar to what you might have experienced offline in schools, homes, or the community, but has the additional aspect of the Internet.

Cyberbullying can take the form of a message on email or IM or a social networking site from someone who is threatening to hurt you or beat you up, spreading hate-filled rumors about you. It could be a profile made by someone pretending to be you. Or, someone hacking into your profile and writing comments pretending they’re from you.

Cyberbullying occurs in many different places online, including instant messaging, social networking sites, email, and chat rooms. The most common place bullying occurs online is over instant messenger, but it also can occur via other new technologies. If you are being cyberbullied or threatened online in any way, there are things you can do to stop it:

• Ignore the person. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to ignore the person and go on about your business.
• Block the person. If it is happening on Instant Messaging or some other place online that requires a ‘buddy list,’ you can block certain users based upon their username, or delete them if they are in your buddy list. You can also block emails that are coming from specific email addresses.
• Log-off if the harassment is bothering you.
• Change your information. If someone has phished your profile, change your password. If someone repeatedly sends you messages (like, ‘add me to your buddy list’ over and over), consider changing your username or email address.
• If there is a profile that was created about you without you knowing, contact textPlus to have the profile or language taken down.
• If you are upset about what is being said, talk to someone you trust. Don’t feel like you’re alone.
• Many times, teens are able to take care of the cyberbullying on their own. But sometimes it gets out of hand, and it’s helpful to talk to an adult about what is going on. If you feel scared or overwhelmed, maybe even trapped, it’s definitely time to talk to an adult. If you don’t feel comfortable speaking with a parent, seek out other adults or authorities like a teacher, coach, school counselor, a youth group leader, or other adult family member such as an aunt or uncle.

Avoid Personal Encounters. Remember, people online aren’t always who they say they are. Be very careful about getting together with people you might “meet” using textPlus, unless you really know who they are. Talk to an adult first. If you’re comfortable meeting someone in person after speaking to an adult first, always do it somewhere public and bring along friends, a parent, or another trusted adult, perhaps an older sibling.

Permission. textPlus is both a utility and a new kind of social network. Many schools and many parents have rules about registering and using social networks, so be sure to check with them before registering for textPlus.

Don’t Text and Drive. Mobile devices are great for being in contact while you’re on the go, but shouldn’t be used when your full attention is required for other activities such as driving.

Lost or Stolen Devices. Given their portability, mobile phones and devices can be easily lost or stolen. If your login and password are saved on your mobile device anyone who may have possession of that device can access your textPlus account. If your device is lost or stolen, immediately contact us at support@textplus.com to change your password and call your carrier to deactivate the device.

1. Take out the battery,
2. Unplug power cord from laptop,
3. Hold power button down for 30 secs
4. Put power cord in (Do not put battery back in)
5. Turn laptop on
6. Put the battery back in.

1.  Open your email and compose the message (160 characters or less)

2.  Address the email to the 10 digit cell phone number followed by the appropriate @ listed below based on the person you are texting cell phone provider

AT&T~ @txt.att.net (ex: 6185551212@txt.att.net)

Verizon~ @vtext.com (ex: 6185551212@vtext.com)

Sprint~ @messaging.sprintpcs.com

T-Mobile~ @tmomail.net

I’ve only listed some of the major providers however here’s a complete list of providers: Click here for a complete list

3.  Send the email as usual.

** If the individual replies back to you remember it will go to your email. Standard message rates apply for the person receiving the text.

After you have burned your copy of KillDisk put the CD in and re boot the machine you are wanting to ‘wipe clean’ with the KillDisk CD. Follow the prompts for the Free version and sit back and wait, it will take about 2-3 hours for the process to complete but is very much worth the wait.

 

1. What is a textPlus address and why would I want one?

A textPlus address is your unique name, word, or phrase that you can give out to your friends and family, so that they can reach you directly on the textPlus network, even if they don’t have the app.

For example:

1. Someone without the app wants to reach Drew. His textPlus address is DREW. They can text the word DREW to 60611 and get a hold of him!
2. Someone has textPlus and so do you. They can start a new conversation and send a message right to your textPlus address, no cell # needed! App to App magic! How do I get my own textPlus address?

2. How do I get a textPlus address?

Tap the MORE tab, then tap settings.Tap ACCOUNT, then tap “sign up for free” and put in a little bit of information (which is not shared)…along with the textPlus address that you want. It’s as simple as that. Make sure you pick a unique name that people will remember! IT MUST BE A NAME NOT A NUMBER (Ex. Chris29, or TechSavyChic or Tina139)Once you have a textPlus address, other textPlus users can send a message directly to your app…without either of you needing a phone number (or even a cell phone). Friends don’t have textPlus? No problem, they can text your textPlus address to60611 and you’ll get the message!

3. What is 60611?

60611 is the number your friends without the app will get your texts from. They’ll also see your real name and your textPlus address (so that they know who they’re getting the texts from and hopefully won’t ignore you!)60611 is a short code, which is kind of like a phone number—but shorterEasy to remember, too. So if your friends want to start a conversation with you and your textPlus address is Drew, you’d say “Text the word Drew to 60611″ — weeeee!

4. Why should I put my cell # into textPlus?

textPlus does not require a phone number. You will be able to start and get replies from as many conversations as you want without one.
However, by verifying your number, messages from your friends who use textPlus get sent straight to the app for free rather than being sent as Regular Texts.

NOTE:
Entering in your cell # does NOT mean that people who text you to your # will go right to your textPlus app. They don’t do any forwarding or re-routing.

5. How do I get alerts and sounds when I get messages?

textPlus can alert you (with sound) the instant you get a message using one of two methods even if the app is closed.Push Notifications — Recommended because it’s FREE! Manage this in your iPod touch or iPhone settings menu. NOTE: Push Notification is an iPhone and Touch OS 3.1 feature. (it’s only a $4.95 upgrade for Touch users)Regular Text — This is good for users without OS 3.1 who want alerts, iPod touch users who want to have Regular Texts alerts on their cell phone, or anyone who prefers using Regular Text messaging. Standard text messaging rates apply though.
The app still works even if you don’t have alerts on, you’ll just have to open the app and refresh your messages.

6. How do I put pictures of myself and my friends into textPlus?

textPlus pulls user pictures from your device’s “Contacts.” Just assign pictures to your friends in the Contacts app on your device and they’ll show up in textPlus! Remember: To make your own photo show up, you must verify your app with your cell # first and add yourself as a contact.

7. What does this cost my friends to use?

Since textPlus sends your messages as Regular Texts, your friends won’t be billed any differently than they normally do for the texts that they get.For example:
- If your friends have unlimited texting, then they’re set!
- If they get 200 texts a month, your texts to them count against that total

8. How do I group chat and what’s a community?

A community is a place where you can invite all of your friends to come and chat. Give it a unique name to give out to your friends with OR without the app — kind of like a textPlus address.

A fun one is called BORED.

There’s two ways to join:
- Tap the Communities tab in the textPlus app and type in the name of the community
- If your friends don’t have the app they can text the word BORED to 60611 and join the community!

Download textPlus

1. Login to your Facebook account

2. Go to Account (upper right corner)

3. Click on Privacy Settings

Click on Profile Information and change settings to desired level

5. Click on Preview Profile to see what your profile looks like to non friends

6. Don’t forget to click on Edit Settings for your Photo Albums to check the privacy settings on them

Click for a larger view!

If you computer is running slower than normal, is freezing or crashing often it could most definitely be caused by 1000′s of junk files, excess cookies and unnecessary programs automatically starting when Windows starts up. So if I were to optimize your system this is what I would do as your tech, but since I’m feeling rather nice today I will give you my secret tech tips complete with instruction! Fist you will download 2 FREE programs and install them on your computer. Both programs are very light on your system, uninstall easily if ever needed and do NOT include any “crapware”. Both pieces of software will run on XP, Vista or Windows 7. I have had all 3 OS and it runs great on them all.

1. Download Advanced System Care Free~ I’ve been using this program for the last several years and it’s a great and powerful program that can scan and clean your system in minutes not hours. It has a one-click approach to help protect, repair, clean, and optimize your PC. With over 35 MILLION downloads since 2006, this fantastic, award-winning free registry cleaner and system optimizer is a “must-have” tool to speed up your slow computer. 100% safe with no adware, spyware, or viruses; a PC maintenance program that’s incredibly easy to use.

2. Download ATF Cleaner FREE~ This program will clean all users temp folders, clean out the Java cache, which seems to be harbouring more and more malware. It will clean Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers, including the cache, cookies, history, download history, saved passwords and visited links. It takes about 2 minutes to run and clean.

Ok so you have downloaded the 2 pieces of software to your desktop. First close ALL running programs as you should anytime you install software. Click on the Advanced System Care set up icon and follow instructions to install. If you don’t want to install the tool bar for your browser just UNCHECK the box and it won’t be installed. Once it’s installed a page in your web browser will appear as a Welcome and User Guide. You can read the instructions or just close the browser. You will also see that before ASC runs for the 1st time it will ask to create a Restore Point allow it to do so. Although I will say in the years of using this program I have never once on any of the computers I’ve installed it on had to restore from a restore point.

Running Advanced System Care FREE

Today’s high resolution digital cameras produce multi Megabyte photos. These are great for printing but cause a heavy burden when sending over the Internet.
Shrink Pic allows you to send dozens of photos as email attachments – quickly and with no effort at all!

All you need to do is install Shrink Pic. It automatically detects when you’re sending large photo files and compresses them in the background. There’s no setup, no operating instructions, nothing, nada. Just send your photos normally and Shrink Pic takes care of shrinking them.

How it works

Shrink Pic runs in the background. It has a taskbar icon which tells you it’s waiting for photos to be sent.

Then, when it detects that you’re sending a large photo, it automatically creates a temporary copy, resizes it and sends it instead. It gives you a notice message, so you’ll know the photo you sent was resized. Of course, the original photo doesn’t change, only the temporary copy.

You can control how Shrink Pic resizes your photos. Select between three automatic resize levels or enter your own custom sizes. Shrink Pic also recognizes rotated photos (portrait layout) and resizes them intelligently, so you don’t need to worry about that too.

Who needs Shrink Pic?

 Emailing photos

If you like sending photos to your friends and family, Shrink Pic is for you.
Whether you’re a computer geek, or an absolute technophobic, Shrink Pic will make it easier for you to email your photos. And, your friends, receiving your emails will appreciate it when they get nice and compact emails from you that don’t block their inbox.
Shrink Pic works with ‘regular’ email like Outlook Express and also with webmail, such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! mail and others.

 Upload photos to blogs and web galleries

Adding photos to a blog is fun.
Shrink Pic will automatically resize your photos so that they fit and take very little storage space. You can upload photos using Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera. Shrink Pic will detect these uploads and automatically shrink and compresses those photos for you.

 Share photos with Skype and MSN Messenger

Even if you send photo files via your IM application, Shrink Pic will step in and compress those photos for you. A photo that took minutes to send will go in a few seconds.

Supported platforms

Shrink Pic runs on Windows 2000 and Windows XP and works with these programs:

* Shrink Pic will also compress photos that you send via Web based email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail.

Download from cnet

1. Buy a good quality external hard drive or the largest flash drive available(make sure it will have enough space to accommodate your photos).

2. Navigate on your computer where your photos are stored. Open that folder, typically called Pictures (Vista) or My Photos (XP) and single left click (highlight) just one of the photos or photo folders then press Ctrl and A simultaneously, this action will highlight ALL items in the Photos folder. Right click on any of the highlighted boxes and choose COPY.

3.  Navigate to the letter drive where your external HD or flash drive is (go to Start>My Computer). Double click on the letter drive of the flash or external drive right click your mouse and select New>Folder. Give your new folder an appropriate name for your photos (e.x Jan-June 2009 Photos). Double click on that folder it will be empty, right click inside that folder and choose PASTE. Your photos will now transfer over to the removable flash or external drive and  be in both locations. After the progress meter shows all copying is done remember to EJECT your flash drive or external (go to icons by the clock and choose “Safely Remove Hardware”  icon , double click it and choose to stop which letter drive your flash or external.