Wordless Wednesday: It Only Looks Like a Pleasant Scene

We were out geocaching, and our (newly) teenage daughter was mad and sulking about something and decided to go on ahead of us, but it looked so pretty, so I snapped this pic.  :-D

Why I Deleted / Downgraded My G+ Profile

Maybe G+'s next requirement will be that profile pictures have to be actual pictures of you!

When G+ first came out I was thrilled that finally perhaps there was a real competitor to Facebook, which I hate, but I use because...everyone else does (well not really everyone else - my own husband refuses to sign up for it).  I *thought* Google+ was a social network.  I think that's what they wanted me to think.

I know I must have been living under a rock to have missed this (I am a wife and mother you know, and have other things to do like pack for a trip to our Adirondack cabin or repair the dishwasher while our cat supervises instead of worrying what Google is up to), but a month or so ago, I discovered that if you do not use your real, full name in your G+ profile, your account can be suspended.  You then have a short time frame to prove that the name you provided is your real name, or else fill in your real name.  Upon further investigation, I discovered that G+ is not really a social network but an "identity service".  You can read about that in this Forbes article:  Google's Eric Schmidt Says Plus is an "Identity Service" Not a Social Network.

And I thought Facebook was bad!

My problem is this:  I do not want to put my last name on my Google profile because I don't want it showing up associated with my blog.  Or anywhere else, for that matter, unless *I* choose to make my full name "public". (For the sake of my own privacy I'd like to at least make a stalker WORK to figure out who I am!)  But if you have a G+ account you are required to use your full name, and you have no option to show any other name but your full name across any service where your profile is displayed.  (Actually, it looks like from a recent news article (linked below) that you may be able to display a nickname - BUT IT WILL STILL LINK TO YOUR REAL NAME.)

From the Forbes article, Eric Schmidt is quoted as saying, "Regarding people who are concerned about their safety, he said G+ is completely optional.  No one is forcing you to use it..."

Okey dokey, then!

I'm not the only one upset about this - while I was living under a rock there was such a firestorm over the "Real Names" policy when G+ came out, that there is a Wikipedia entry on it! Read about it here: Nymwars

Fast forward to last week, about six months after the Nymwars fiasco, Google finally decided maybe they need to revise their real name policy - you can read about that here:  Huffington Post "Google+ Real Names Policy Gets Revised".  However, there is nothing at all in the latest "revision" that changes the fact that in 99% of cases your real name will still be public.

In fact, with the recent well publicized Google privacy policy change, they can now link information across any of their services - so if you use your real name on Google+ it's now going to be linked to everything that you do on any of their services (searches, posts, pictures, etc.)!

I decided I don't need Google+ (G+) enough to compromise my privacy, nor do I have a need to be a part of an "Identity Service", so I "downgraded" from Google+.  If you'd like to "downgrade" from Google+, here's how:  Downgrade From Google+.

The bigwigs at Google are making the same mistakes the CEO at Netflix did - their heads are so fat from their success they start thinking they can make/sell the products THEY want, the way THEY want.  They forget that in order to succeed, you have to make/sell products YOUR CUSTOMERS WANT, the way YOUR CUSTOMERS WANT THEM.

Count me as a former Google+ customer.

The end.

Facebook Fun (or not so fun?) and Games

Angel and Frieda Enjoying Milkshakes From Snoopy's Street Fair

My daughter sent me this "Snoopy Snap" which you can do from the game "Snoopy's Street Fair" which is a very cute game, although like SO many other Facebook games it always offers lots of tempting options that cost REAL money.  I mean, I can't blame them, but some games are kind of "worse" than others with what they let you do for free and what they want you to pay for.  I mean, I don't expect to be able to customize Snoopy or Charlie Brown's house down to a choice of JoAnn's or p kaufmann fabric, but sheesh, at Christmas time I don't think there was one "free" decoration for the Christmas tree.  But it's fun enough to play for free, and it's very cute.  These companies have to make money and cheapos like me aren't helping them pay the bills, lol.

So I mentioned in a previous post that I was enjoying Words With Friends.  Well, I'm not enjoying it as much anymore, lol...  I *thought* I was a fairly well-read, intelligent person with a pretty good vocabulary, however, in the first week or two of playing Words With Friends I could not believe how many words people were playing that I had never seen or heard of!!  Ok, I know since I hit 40 the brain cells are starting to die off but, wow!  I am much dumber than I thought!!  Well, finally somebody kindly tipped me off that there are apps and computer programs that you can use to make the best words out of the letters you have - even helping you maximize DL and TL spaces and the like, as well as lists of obscure two and three letter words to play, etc. etc. etc. :-/  Ok, #1 - Um, isn't that cheating?  #2 - If I were playing you face to face I would not, on my turn, turn to my computer to find my next move - would you?  #3 - That doesn't really seem like fun to me - to let your computer figure out some of your moves?  But I guess that's just me.  I'm also not super competitive, so maybe that's part of it.  #4 - The least you can do if you're doing this is LET YOUR OPPONENT KNOW so you can BOTH play with "help" because it's not really very fair to use your computer to help you make words no one's ever heard of while I'm only using MY BRAIN, now is it??   Sheesh!  Blah.  Whatever.  (Btw, I *know* not everyone is doing this, but I'm kind of put me off the whole game - I can't keep track of who seems like they're getting help and who is just playing brain-to-brain with me - it's sucked the fun out of it.)

Have you tried Zynga's Drop 7 game?  That's a lot of fun, but once I figured out some of the strategy the game can last a looong time...although I still am not very good at getting rid of the "1s" - I end up eventually with the bottom rows filled with them...

And of course I'm still playing Farmville.  There's a rumor we may finally be getting "shared storage" across all the farms, but I'll bet that will cost Farm Cash (= real money).  Don't forget to check under the game window for the occasional surveys you can do for a couple of farm cash - I did one today for Turbo Tax, took about a minute.  Over time those Farm Cash add up!  Also, in case you don't know, there is an official Farmville Blog where they publish the "Quest Guides" so you can see what tasks lie ahead and plan accordingly.  And regarding all the quests lately - it got too stressful for me to try to complete them all, so I just look ahead to what prizes are offered and I don't even bother with the quests unless there are prizes I want.  The game is much more enjoyable now.  I have enough stress in my life, I don't need to be worrying about my blueberries withering, lol!

What Facebook games do *you* like that I should try?

The end.