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The Law of Attraction – a Teacher

Posted on November 7, 2018 by admin Posted in Law of Attraction, Social Networking Leave a comment

The Law of Attraction (LoA) is a teacher that is always trying to get our attention. If we cultivate awareness of our surroundings, it is a gentle teacher through the example of others. If we close our minds off, its lessons come as harsh reminders to stop and see what we are doing. It often does this through a sub-law called the “Law of Reflection”. Reflection does just what the name implies – flipping the incident back at us.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Looking for Daily Patterns

How can we better cultivate this awareness? One easy way is to look for patterns. Once you become aware, they are easy to spot. Have you ever said, “wow, everyone is doing (insert activity here) today”? Perhaps they not are doing it more than usual, but you are noticing a pattern of behavior emerging in REACTION to your own ACTIONS.

This is best shown by an example I noticed yesterday (Saturday) as I went about my day. I was working with Facebook on a very specific project – the topic of politics. I wanted to get them out of the way quickly so I could enjoy the rest of my weekend. Since it’s also is a delicate topic, I felt it best to deal with it early in the day and move on to other projects that require me to relax.

So I did my posts and later noticed one had been replied to. I was irritated by the reply and made a mental note to go back and reply later as I was just going into a think tank meeting. After the meeting let out, I was tasked with driving home, so I didn’t reply back. Wanting to gather some facts to back up my reply, I knew by now this reply may not even happen today as I had other more important things to do than defend my position to someone who was less than polite in their reply.

That Wasn’t the End of It

As I was getting ready for a late Halloween party that evening, I get a Facebook message from a friend. She suggested I delete another post I had made that morning because one of my friends was trolling her. Knowing her to be the saner of the two, I said I would look into it. I checked the thread and sure enough, my other friend was vehemently defending his position every time she replied. The replies on his side were getting meaner and less rational and she was replying with more irritation. After I asked him to stop replying and calmed things down, something hit me about the entire incident.

Acting not Reacting

The Law of Attraction was using the Law of Reflection to show me what would happen if I had replied on my earlier post. At that moment, I knew it was warning me not to reply in a discussion where we would end up only arguing. Yes, even trolling each other as my two friends had done on the other post! Instead, I chose not to reply, saving myself time, grief and frustration. Sure I have thought of all the replies I could have used to make my point, but I would not have changed his mind in the end? From his attitude, I would not have even gotten him to consider my point of view. Meditating on how I had replied in the first place made me realize I had set myself up to lose the argument in replying the way I did.

Better to Learn from the Mistakes of Others…

…than pay the price of making the mistake yourself. It saves our reputations among friends, networkers and family as well as saves us grief. In an era of people taking a stand for their beliefs more than ever, it is much wiser to learn to respect their opinions – and your self-respect.

If you are having trouble setting up your social networks accounts, need to update them or have questions, please feel free to reply here or send me your questions here. I work on all networks; Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and more.

Keeping your Sanity in the Political Opinion Volcano of Social Media

Posted on September 11, 2018 by admin Posted in Networking & Sales Common Sense, Social Networking, The Dark and Amusing Side of the Internet - Mature Leave a comment

We once agreed to disagree…

Back when I began working social media for my business (about eight years ago), people were a lot calmer and more balanced in their political viewpoints…except for one friend of ours. My husband and I would have intense discussions about the President of the U.S. at the time, the presidential race’s candidates and other topics we never saw eye-to-eye on such as creation vs. evolution. At the end of the evening, however, we always parted friends and agreed to disagree. That is just how my husband and I were brought up, respecting the opinions of others.

But our friend was young and fiery and would shake her head that we believed what we did, and by some miracle it never interfered in our friendship. To this day we don’t agree and even though she moved to the United Kingdom, she still keeps up on the politics of her parent’s native land – and is still fervent that she is right. Even when Obama got in (who she heartily supported) and after a few years expressed her disappointment that he hadn’t solved the world’s problems, she never learned to temper her righteous fervor with facts and common sense.

Facebook & Twitter taking lessons from Kilauea?

Today, in 2018, do the landscapes of Facebook and Twitter resemble the turbulent recent eruption history of Kilauea? They should. The fiery home of the volcano goddess Pele has always been prone to long periods of devastating activity, yet everyone acts as if this latest, long-term eruption of wide-spread destruction is something new. If they looked up the volcano’s geological history, they would know better.

Politics, like volcanoes, have their quiet times and eruptive times that last months, sometimes years – especially when someone is in office we don’t like. Remember your parents complaining about Regan in office? Nixon? Or when you’re as old as I am, it might have been grandparents bitching about J. Edgar Hoover. This is nothing new, but social media takes it to a whole new level.

Hating the next door neighbor…across the world

Back in our parent’s time if we didn’t agree with the next door neighbor, we might have had an argument or intense discussion with them, walked back into the house and ignored them until the next election – or their impeachment (ala Richard M. Nixon). Now, those people you friended on Facebook and Twitter who you thought you knew – including your friends – have taken on the viciousness anonymity and not being face-to-face with someone engenders. Shocked that the friend you thought you knew knows words like that? They would never say that to someone’s face, yet being behind a computer brings out the worst in some people, especially with hot topics like politics and religion.

Ignoring the volcano or facing it down?

It is tough for the small business entrepreneur to pursue their business and stay out of the hot-topics like sex, religion, politics and sports. When I was in Quattro University, we were told time and again to steer clear of them at all costs for fear of alienating our audiences. Forced to discuss “safe” topics like pets, favorite getaway spots, science and medicine are okay, but people tend to bond over topics both sides feel passionate about, so what do we do?

I have thought a lot about this during this current administration. Living in a state where the majority of people not only oppose who I voted for – and sometimes vehemently – I kept my opinions to myself even more than usual. Even outside of business I found myself around formerly sane friends who had gone off the deep end and could not stop spewing hate – even if they knew we once upon a time had agreed to disagree. It was hard enough, especially in my religious belief circles, to locate fellow worshipers to comfortably interact with, and when I did and they too, “went off the deep end” I knew I had to make a choice. I was frustrated and angry that I was the one who had to “keep my mouth shut” while they felt free to spew their hate and intolerance towards a man they disagreed with on one hand and then went into worship declaring they “loved all creatures great and small”.

The hypocrisy disgusted me and I had to leave.

So how do you keep your sanity and still surf the web?

People’s opinions and their extremist viewpoint aren’t going away – ever, but we still have to put up with it while we conduct both business and pleasure on the world wide web.

Or do we?

I learned from watching my husband that one can surround oneself with those of a similar point of view who are good friends and influential networkers without sacrificing our rights to our opinions and our right to view them in a safe environment. A couple of months ago I purged my personal Facebook profile of hate-spewing crazies – both on the right and the left, though truth-be-told, they were ALL leftists (I kid you not!). Reconfiguring my feed’s priorities in who I received notifications and posts from lowered my blood pressure and made viewing Facebook enjoyable again. Now I am experimenting with posting a slightly political post or two to see if those who remain will, if not agree, at least be of the same calm, even temperament as I am and not act batshit crazy. Today I start the process with a much more volatile arena – Twitter and have high hopes that with careful pruning of my connections and adding the right ones, I can go back to tweeting happily instead of as if walking on eggshells.

The Samsung screw-up that was heard round the world

Posted on June 19, 2015 by admin Posted in Customer Service Train Wrecks, Nerd Girl Tech Toys Leave a comment

I usually ignore most announced Samsung security flaws. They rarely are enough of a threat to get my attention or that of my networkers. Today that drastically changed when a mobile security researcher with NowSecure blew the whistle on a flaw noticed by Samsung itself way back in December 2014 AND NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE ABOUT IT.

I’ll just quote ABC7.com’s opening line on their online article to get you all up to speed. “A security flaw discovered in Samsung smartphones has left as many as 600 MILLION Galaxy phones at risk of being hacked.”

Don’t have your attention yet? Don’t care because you don’t HAVE a Samsung Galaxy phone? Maybe you don’t have that model and you are breathing a sigh of relief.

One tiny word of advice. DON’T!

I have a Samsung Galaxy Note IV – which, by the way is NOT affected by the security flaw, BUT I am plenty worried for my networkers, my clients, my customers…my HUSBAND who just got his brand new Samsung 5 corporate work phone a month ago.

Six hundred million is a helluva big number, and to put it in even tighter perspective for you – in my smallest networking venue (at which about 15-20 people show up each week) FOUR OF THEM HAVE AN AFFECTED PHONE!

That’s 20-27% of the room in that tiny little group. ONE QUARTER of the room I had to pull aside and give copies of the article and direct how to patch this train-wreck of a customer service disaster the carriers have on their hands.

309 million is THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES, by the way. So it is the equivalent to TWO UNITED STATES worth of people that are scrabbling ’round the globe to deal with this mess.

Or, well, it WOULD be if the word got out as fast as the carriers lack of attention to the problem THEY KNEW ABOUT LAST YEAR!

So, enough torch-handling and pitchfork wielding. Right now you need to know what to do if you have a Samsung Galaxy 4, 5 or 6 phone and how to stay safe until your service provider gets off its collective butt and decides to let the world know if they issued the patch yet.

What to do if you or anyone you know is affected:
1. Turn OFF your wi-fi in your settings. The hackers get in through open wifi ports. The carriers say to avoid wifi areas, but that’s like trying to avoid the entire planet. EVERY major chain restaurant, Starbucks, government building, school, company that has a network-run computer system has open wifi broadcasting round the clock – even when they are not open!

2. Disable language updates. This is harder to locate and the best thing to do is take your phone to your carrier and have them do it and/or walk you through it so you know they did it correctly.

3. Call your carrier and find out the status of the update. Don’t be meek. THIS IS YOUR FINANCES AND PERSONAL SECURITY THEY ARE ENDANGERING BY STALLING IMPLEMENTATION OF THIS UPDATE! I cannot emphasize this enough! If they give excuses, claim they never heard of this security breach, promise to get back to you – DON’T BELIEVE THEM AND DO NOT let them blow you off. Ask for their supervisor, email them DAILY – do what it takes to get them to get you off their back and give you an estimated patch implementation date.

These are simple steps that can save your contact list, your bank account access information, your credit card numbers from being taken without your knowledge and consent.

Tomorrow I will detail why this was NOT Swype Key’s or even Samsung’s fault, but the CARRIERS…ALL OF THEM. And I apologize in advance, but you are not going to like the answer. They need to take responsibility for this mess, and believe me, if they know what’s good for them, they will fix this flaw like, YESTERDAY.

Fake, Viral Stories: are they worth the traffic?

Posted on March 2, 2015 by admin Posted in Customer Service Train Wrecks Leave a comment

In the recent Digg article “Anatomy Of A Fake, Viral Story“, we see a perfect example of a hard-to-believe story going viral and driving massive traffic to websites around the world. Few stories that hit this legendary status are broken down in such a way that you can see exactly how it happened, which is what makes this story fascinating to myself and marketers everywhere.

Most people want their piece to go viral for one or both of two reasons – money and/or fame. Will fake viral stories accomplish this? Is such a story worth the traffic it generates? Let’s explore that.

Money – Is viral traffic interested enough in your fake story to contribute to your bottom line? The majority of viral story seekers are looking for quick entertainment. They are rarely interested in little else the hosting website has to offer them. Sure, they might sign up for updates, but a look at the statistics of whether they actually open and read the emails sent to them reveals the truth; often the emails are deleted and after the third or fourth email, they hit the “unsubscribe” button, or worse, flag it as spam and get your company in trouble with your internet service provider.

Fame – No one likes being lied to and a fake viral story’s job is to look credible to the reader long enough to get them to click. How would someone view your website if they found out that you were peddling fake sensationalism? Would they trust you in the future? Would they trust your products, your customer service or warranties on anything they purchased if you are a retail business? Would they trust your word on anything in the future? Doubtful. We all have experienced how hard it can be to convince someone to buy from us and not our competitors. Starting off with a lie to draw them in is the worst possible strategy imaginable, unless, of course, you are the National Enquirer or Onion.

In the final analysis, it is pretty cut and dried that fake viral stories are responsible for traffic that hits hard and fast, but rarely sticks around. They are off as soon as the next sensational piece hits their radar and won’t even remember you the next day. Hardly the type of loyal customer that anyone in business could benefit from.

Credits: Anatomy of a Fake Viral Story written by Craig Silverman. Read his research project report, “Lies, Damn Lies and Viral Content” for the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.

Civic Site Design deals only in reliable information from verified sources. If you have a need for such on your website or in your social networking circles, please feel free to contact us at info at civicsitedesign.com (replace the “at” with an @ sign).

‘droid app review – Facebook version 1.7.1

Posted on November 1, 2011 by admin Posted in Nerd Girl Tech Toys Leave a comment

The “official” Facebook app is an improvement over the earlier version of the app and worth it for all us Facebooking fools out there to either pick up or upgrade from an earlier version.

It opens up to Top Stories. When tapped, the “All Stories” button at the top opens up a scroll-up at the bottom with options to view Status Updates, Photos, Links, Pages, Events or Videos – an improvement over the old version of the app. The Photo and Status buttons at the top are convenient since they are the most often function used by people checking in on Facebook (the photo button also gives the option to upload videos). Status Updates is not to be confused with the “Status” button. The Status Updates are everyone else’s statuses while the Status button in the middle of the bar below is the one used to update your own status.

For those that liked the convenience of the 9-icon opening panel, you can still access that dashboard by clicking on, weirdly enough, “Newsfeed” at the top left of the screen. (Guys, you could have just called it something plain yet familiar like…oh well, say, “Dashboard”? That way you wouldn’t have confused the heck out of us.)

I confess I have not yet tried the chat function, so if anyone has experience with it, please feel free to drop a comment on the end of this blog to let us know how it performs.

Note: version 1.7.2 is now available. I will be updating this review as soon as I install it and get some practical use out of it. Give it a day =D

Facebook News Updates – week of June 12, 2011

Posted on June 15, 2011 by admin Posted in Social Networking Leave a comment

This day’s Facebook News Update is courtesy of PC World. See the full article at: http://www.pcworld.com/article/229870/facebook_photo_tagging_a_privacy_guide.html .

Ah, Facebook is at it – again. When will these people learn that their network (all of us who use Facebook) HATE CHANGE and especially BEING TRACKED, like some weird scenario out of the book “1984”? They are really caught between a rock and a hard place. Their users and fans demand they stay on the cutting edge of technology, yet anything implemented immediately elicits the response of putting up a, “I Hate the Latest Change Facebook Has Made to My
Page” fan page. Who needs t.v.? It’s as entertaining to watch the users react as it is to watch Facebook react to the reaction.

This week’s trauma & drama comes courtesy of the Facebook Gods decreeing there will be an easier way to tag your photos via facial recognition. Should you be afraid of it? Should you react like a cobra who reacts to being stepped on – with hissing and spitting and biting back the hand that enables our world’s largest social network? Uh, no. And here’s why:

If you are afraid of this newest tool, you could be an escaped convict on the run and shouldn’t be playing around on Facebook in the first place, so do us all a favor and go quietly turn yourselves in to the police already.

Or you could be an overly paranoid person, in which case you might want to go take some courses on self-esteem. They can only do you and your friends a world of good.

If you are neither of these, you are probably a pretty well-balanced person who just doesn’t want your ex-husband or boyfriend to find you. In that case, turn off the Facial Recognition option and go back to your business. You see, that’s the problem with this implementation because, like everything else Facebook had done, they have turned this damn option “on” for everyone instead of “off” and letting people decide for themselves whether they want to utilize it or not. Maybe it’s a limitation of the software platform they use, but if it is, they should find a way to remedy that before they get into trouble with someone big enough to do something about it like, say, the Gods of the Internet or the U.S. Government.

And if you think the government isn’t watching them, check out this little factoid in an online article amusingly called, “The Paranoid’s Guide to Facebook”: “Congress recently sent Facebook an open letter asking the company to explain the disclosure of user identities to third parties (as originally reported by the Wall Street Journal), and how the
company plans to address this issue.” Yeah, that’s the ticket, now we’re really getting Orwellian on their hinies!

If I were you (or me) I would be MUCH MORE WORRIED about the utilization of Facebook “places” for as this same article continues, “Using Facebook Places has its benefits, but whether you’re using a mobile device or a desktop, telling the world where you are has major disadvantages. When you broadcast your location, you’re exposing vulnerabilities for an ill-intentioned person to swoop up. And your iPhone or Android-based Smartphone can broadcast your exact geographic coordinates down to a few feet.”

Yes, there is a lot to be paranoid about in the world, people, but we can only keep track of so much of it. Pick your battles and win them so in the end you really can win the war.

Article also cited:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/210859/the_paranoids_guide_to_facebook.html%23tk.mod_rel

Facebook News Updates

Posted on May 12, 2011 by admin Posted in Social Networking Leave a comment

This day’s Facebook News Update is courtesy of msnbc.com’s Technolog

Facebook attacks scam spam with new security tools

Facebook has the never-ending job of protecting its users from their own curiosity and it isn’t easy. Big events such as Osama Bin Laden’s death are always potential tools for people to prey on the unsuspecting Facebook user. In this case, it was the promise of satisfying a morbid curiosity to see photos of Bin Laden’s bullet-riddled corpse.

Last week scammers tried tricking Facebook users into spamming their friends accounts with a link supposedly from the BBC showing Osama’s body after U.S. troops got through with it, but all the link did was let a virus into their address book that spread the obnoxious message to everyone connected with the user.

“Clickjacking”, as it is known, tricks a person into accessing links and/or “Like” buttons by hiding the code underneath content that piques your interest — such as a video of that thing Justin Bieber did to that girl that “YOU WON’T BELIEVE”. Facebook claims it has fixed the hole in their system that let this particular virus run rampant through their community, but that never means we should drop our guard and think it’s safe (or wise) to click on the next implausible link that comes our way.

It is always in human nature either to ignore the advice to be careful or to say, “I’ll never forward anything or like anything else on Facebook again.” Let’s take the smart and cautious middle road, people, and just use a little common sense instead of either being cavalier or paranoid.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. “Like” and “Share” items of interest to your audience. If you are doing business and networking, stay away from the taboo subjects of sex, politics and religion (unless you are either a politician or a nun, of course, and that IS your business). Some family subjects are always safe to share such as a new child or grandchild in the house, but don’t go overboard. Let your audience gush over the news and give you a reason to gush more and upload more of those baby pictures.

CHECK SNOPES.COM FIRST! I can’t emphasize this enough! People either don’t know about snopes or forget to check before their itchy trigger finger hits that “send” button. Snopes.com gives you the lowdown on all the urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation out there that is or was circulating. Typing a few keywords into their search engine will bring up articles that either prove or disprove that incredible story you can’t wait to share. Remember the tired old, but reliable phrase, “If it is seems too good to be true, IT PROBABLY IS.”

MSNCB’s Technolog tells us, “Facebook’s new ‘Self-XSS Protection’ is meant to prevent spam spread by users tricked into cutting and pasting malicious code into their address bars. According to the Facebook blog, ‘Now, when our systems detect that someone has pasted malicious code into the address bar, we will show a challenge to confirm that the person meant to do this as well as provide information on why it’s a bad idea.'”

They will also be providing free tools for “safe surfing” by Web of Trust, so be on the lookout for them and they won’t take you by surprise.

My favorite tool so far has been the new “Login Approval” system implemented last month. I had hired an East Coast social networking promotion company to take care of promoting my jewelry and design business in the hours of the day either too early for me or while I am busy offline creating new designs. A great idea, but a surprise when I received an email of an attempt to log into my Facebook account from somewhere located in Maine. I knew who it was, called them to confirm they had attempted to login in to begin my campaign, and then verified the attempt as a valid one. It was a minor delay to my time and I appreciated it because it showed that Facebook was on the ball and now had a way of further safeguarding our internet accounts. You will not hear me complain ever about this new tool and the next person whose account is compromised by a hacker won’t complain either.

~ synopsis provided by Kristine Cherry, an internet guru/social networking junkie who will gladly help you if you ever have a question about a suspicious email or Facebook notification you get.