Simple Ways to Decrease Your Online Vulnerability

Here's a primer for basic common sense online security baselines. From the latest issue of the Marina Times:

SECURITY
Don’t Let Virus Season Get You Down By John Zipperer 

As this issue of Marina Times goes to press, the Middle East is reporting a widespread and sophisticated computer infiltration that has been covertly copying and relaying information from computers in that region and sending the data who-knows-where. It is just the latest reminder of the vulnerability of even heavily protected government and industry computers; in such a world, what chance do you have with your personal hardware and software?

Read the complete article

Digital Nomad

Anastasia Ashman Writer, Producer, Author
(Tales of the Expat Harem), Co-Creator of
Global Niche (photo: Steven Fromtling)

Website gremlins prevented me from posting this link to a profile I wrote in the April 2012 edition of Marina Times. It's a look at Anastasia Ashman, an old friend and former colleague from my Internet World magazine days. She has turned her interests into a successful "global niche" of creative souls:

Digital Nomad
Anastasia Ashman merges social media and global citizenship
By John Zipperer 

Some people lose themselves in the world. Anastasia Ashman turned herself into a tour guide to help people find themselves. A Berkeley native, Ashman’s life has taken her around the world, from the development hell of Hollywood to the ruling circles of Malaysia to the ancient streets of Istanbul. Now she’s back in the Bay Area, recently taken up residence with her husband in Russian Hill, and she’s able to say, “We didn’t come here knowing that much about what’s going on in San Francisco. We came here with the intention of finding out and treating it like a foreign country.”  

Foreign country? To a woman who grew up across the Bay?  

It’s a disconnect between location and identity that is intentional on her part ...

Read the entire article

Roger Ebert Censored on Facebook; 16-year-old Kids Flame Him

Say what you will about film critic Roger Ebert. You might as well say it, because people are posting all kinds of profane and nasty things on his Facebook wall today in the wake of a couple of comments he posted about the death of the star of Jackass, which he implies was because of drunk driving.

Personally, I think Ebert is a hero. Since he lost his voice, he has found his voice in the new media world, becoming one of the bravest and sharpest (and one of the few intelligent) commentators on Twitter and Facebook and blogs.

But Facebook, which never seems to stop shooting itself in the foot (and must therefore have the most bullet-riddled shoes in the world), censored Ebert this morning by taking down his Facebook page as a result of some complaints about Ebert's comments. Now, Ebert didn't post anything that was outrageous. His comments weren't racist. They weren't inciting violence.

He commented, "Friends don't let jackasses drink and drive." He was referring to a photo that showed the Jackass star drinking shortly before the accident, which killed two people.

Facebook reportedly apologized for removing the page, but it is chilling that the company would remove the page anyway. Is there really no free speech on Facebook? Does Facebook think it is the arbiter of good taste? (This is, after all, a company caught red-handed on numerous questionable business practices, most recently when it was exposed as the company behind a public relations campaign to spread negative stories about Google.)

And then there are the unbelievably foul mouthed and uneducated brats who have "liked" Ebert's Facebook page this morning so they could post messages on his wall. Here's one message (dashes added by yours truly): "I pray every single one of you idiots mothers get raped and murdered maybe then you will think twice talking about someone who is gone. f---ing idiots." Or this charmer: "you sir, are a scumbag. and so are all of you're disrespectful little "followers". you know what you said was wrong and WAY to soon to be said. you don't even have the respect for everyone hurting, and crying, to apologize. why don't you grow up a little bit and APOLOGIZE. show some respect to Ryan's family, and to the members of Jackass."

To help counter the onslaught of crying tweeners on the wall, I posted my own comment: "Roger, I think this wall shows that you have the support of people who don't ride their skateboards to work. Keep up the good work." I was pleased to see it quickly earned a number of "likes," but sure enough, responses started coming in about what was possibly wrong with skateboarding to work. Sigh.

I guess what surprised me second most (following Facebook's creepy level of censorship, of course) is the vehemence of fans of the dead man. The comments on Ebert's wall refer to themselves crying, hurting, in pain. Those are feelings you should have when a family member or friend dies, not a star of a oddball TV show and movie series. It reminds me of a time in high school when I made some negative comments about Ted Turner (most definitely not nasty comments, just negative; I was probably commenting on his opportunism as a conservative at the time; Turner would later change sides and become a vocal and at times brave liberal); a classmate confronted me about criticizing his hero; the classmate worked himself up to tears as he described how he and his mother both idolized Ted Turner for his success in business. It was an unnerving experience.

Roger Ebert has a way of not being unnerving, nor of being unnerved. You can read his sensible follow-up to the controversy on his blog (which I urge you to bookmark and read regularly).

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Reaction to Living in a Starlog-less World (print at least)

The recent news that Starlog was going online-only, at least for the moment, has naturally been commented upon pretty widely. After all, more than three decades worth of issues (and the spawning of a mini-magazine empire that included everything from baseball magazines to African-American women's magazines to car magazines and beyond) means a lot of people had contact with the title over the years.

NewsFromMe.com (which, if I'm reading that site correctly, is written by Mark Evanier) has what I think is a pretty solid insight into Starlog's longevity: "I was struck by generally smart, well-researched reporting that didn't pander. ... [T]here's a temptation to cater to the geeky element that such enterprises usually attract...to focus, as one of my friends once put it, on the Spock ears and not on the actor wearing them. Starlog sold to that crowd without, I'd like to think, insulting or losing those who like their journalism with a few more ounces of dignity. I always especially liked their habit of focusing on the so-called "little people" on a film or program..."

Starlog.com itself includes links to a number of folks commenting on the change. And though this is kind of the epitome of an internet feedback loop (because the Starlog.com article links to my previous post on this topic), I include it here because it also has a number of other folks, such as:

Lee Goldberg's A Writer's Life blog; and

Robert Greenberger's blog. Greenberger is a former editorial staffer of Starlog and its sister publications in the early 1980s, and he was founding editor of one of my favorites, Comics Scene (which was also the magazine that first snagged the talents of longtime Starlog editor David McDonnell, if I'm not losing my memory). Anyway, read his blog post to see his views of why Starlog is going print-less while British SF magazines colonize our newsstands. (You already know my views on the subject.)

Michael Alan Dorman chimes in.

Some comments on the bulletin board of the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival and Marathon. You might have to scroll down to find where the Starlog part of the thread picks up or do a search.

The incredibly named Tombs of Kobol forum has a long line of reactions from former Starloggers.

And, finally, Starlog.com has this great video of a 1984 commercial for Starlog magazine. I've never seen the commercial, so it was a treat:


April 11, 2009, update: Tom Mason has written a very nice post about Starlog that's worth reading.

Twilight of the Lad Magazines, Part II

After 14 years, the UK edition of lad magazine Maxim is discontinuing its print existence and will become an online-only operation, reports The Guardian. The U.S. edition will expand its newsstand coverage to include the UK.

According to The Guardian's report, Maxim's circulation has been sliding for years, but it took a hit of more than 41 percent in the second half of 2008.

Also see "Twilight of the Lad Magazines" part I.

Magazines Online: Starlog Spins a New Web

After several months of absence from the World Wide Web, Starlog magazine has returned with a new site, and a welcome sight it is.

It's clearly built on the template used for the new site of its sister publication, Fangoria. But what it lacks in originality it makes up for with some smart content, such as weekly lists of comics available at comics shops (keeping alive its claim to the Comics Scene name and brand), or reports on the Academy Awards. As they build up the site -- I hope, adding blogs, podcasts, and much more -- it will definitely bear watching.

Starlog as a brand has to rebuild its online presence, having slipped way off the first page of Google search results (instead, you may learn that there's a phone system called Starlog). But every journey begins with one step, and I think they've made a good one.

One question: With the recent change in its logo, why does the new site use its old, classic logo? A mistake? A place-holder? Or are they switching back?

Magazine News: Sit Down and Shut Up

The biggest mistake made by people who think magazines should be more like online products is that the things that make a magazine work as a media form do not work well online. The biggest mistake magazine publishers and editors make in responding to the online critics is trying to continue doing in print what works better online, instead of focusing on the strength of a print publication.
In short, no print publication can compete with online sources for immediacy of news and opinion. When big news happens, I don't wait a week for The Economist or Time to report it; I am reading the news on the web sites of The New York Times or Time or CBS News.
But, when I want depth -- either detail and background on a serious issue, or just the detail and style that an in-depth feature article can bring to an issue, serious or entertaining -- then I prefer to read it in a magazine. I want to lie down on the couch or put my feet up on my desk while I read it and think about it.
John Loughlin, executive vice president and general manager of Hearst Magazines, said as much in a speech to Primex 2009 magazine conference. He called magazines a "lean-back" experience, reports Folio:.
Exactly. I'll gladly read short pieces online -- on a web page or in an e-mail newsletter. But for longer pieces, I want to spare my eyes from staring at a bright screen, and I also want the visual experience designed for me by the magazine's staff of professionals.
So, glad to see Loughlin recognizes the strengths. My greater worry is that there are so many people who don't realize what they're losing by not reading a 10,000-word article and instead reading a 600-word summary. I think that the great tragedy of the decline in newspapers is that the papers no longer have the cash to retain expensive investigative reporting teams and publish pages of background and detail. When news becomes bullet points and generalizations, then it's not much different from opinion. We're missing both the hard news and the enjoyment of long-form journalism.