Facebook Face Recognition - More Control of your Image Slipping Away?

Photos Gone Wild!!  Facebook have done it again - adding face recognition software to the range of tools.  Called Tag Suggestions, the program digitally scans the faces in photos and suggests who they are so that you can tag them. The company claims that this feature makes it a lot easier for users to label and share photos. But it also makes it a lot easier for teens' online identity to get away from them. So What? Let's say you go to a party and everyone is snapping away photos on their mobile.  Next day thanks to Facebook, face recognition and easy tagging your "party experiences" are being broadcast across the Internet.  Is this what you want? Can you rely on your friends' to know, understand and to have set appropriate privacy settings?  What about their friends, or the friends of those friends?  While Facebook does notify users when they're tagged -- after the fact -- you still have to go in and un-tag yourself if you don't want to be identified. Facebook is a leaky bucket people, no matter how you configure your privacy settings!   You may have a case of photos gone wild and need to find ways to combat them!! The message here is NOT, "Don't share photos on Facebook", but "Think about what photos you share on Facebook and the impact they may have on you and your friends should they be seen by a different audience".  Increasingly universities and employers are using social networking to get an understanding of the person they are interviewing.  Showing an interviewer your Facebook page can even be part of an interview process. Treat the Internet as the most public space in the world and let that guide your attitudes and behaviours there.  Then you won't go far wrong. How to Disable Tag Suggestions From your Facebook page, click on Account. Choose Privacy Settings. Click on Customize Settings. Scroll down to Things Others Share. Next to Suggest photos of me to friends, click on Edit Settings. Click on Disabled and click Okay. You can also go a step further and bar Facebook from using your image to compare photos altogether by sending a note to the company.

Anki: A flash card revision tool

Anki is a small but useful tool that can help you remember vocabulary words, facts, formulas, just about anything while you're revising! Format: Free downloadable program, Mobile app, Online Platform Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android, most Web-Equipped phones via online app General Rating: Website: http://ankisrs.net/

Main Features: Create digital flash cards (with front, back and tags) and decks Hundreds of pre-made decks on various subjects Rate words or facts by how well you know them Automatic scheduling of cards reappearing based on rating Supports Chinese, Japanese text, accents, images, formulas (LaTeX) Review anytime, anywhere Simple user interface Why or how could I use it? We all know how difficult it is to memorize vocabulary words for French or Chinese (or Spanish or Japanese). Or having to cram in seemingly pointless facts for Science that you're sure you'll never use in you life. But we all have to learn and memorize such things, whether it's for that small vocab test next Monday, or for the GCSEs in Year 11, or for the IB exams. So while you're revising, instead of making flash cards on paper (save the trees!), create cards in Anki, or find ones already made, and test yourself, sticking to a schedule. Find out more info on the website (above). Known Problems Functionality fairly limited by default. Can be extended with plugins, but may be rather complicated for many people. Some more advanced functions, e.g. custom card layouts, is not intuitive to use at first. Please report any other bugs to haihao.liu@online.island.edu.hk. By: Haihao Liu 10W

Quick Tip: Ads, and how to get rid of them

Are you tired of ads distracting you while you're doing research? Are you sick of having to click the "close ad" button on YouTube? Are you absolutely certain that, for the last time, you do not wish find out your credit score? Are you starting to think that this article is beginning to sound an ad itself? Well, by installing a simple add-on, you can eliminate 98%* of ads encountered in your everyday web browsing!

*Not based on actual figures.

Before you begin: It is recommended that as you follow these instructions, open the links in new tabs. That way you can still see this page after you download the relevant add-ons.

Internet Explorer 7, 8 and 9

1. Download Adblock from http://simple-adblock.com/
2. Install
3. When you run Internet Explorer the first time after installing, follow the simple instructions to configure it.

Mozilla Firefox 3 and 4

1. Go to Tools > Add-ons
   
2. Search for Adblock Plus
   
3. Install the extension
4. Restart Firefox, and just click "Add Subscription" on the configuration screen.

Google Chrome 10

1. Go to https://chrome.google.com/webstore
2. Search for Adblock
3. Install Adblock (the one with 2 million users)

• Note: Currently causes issues when attempting to block ads in YouTube videos. Go into options and untick "Block ads inside YouTube videos."

Safari 4 and 5

1. Go to http://safariadblock.com/
   
2. Download
3. Double-click the funny-looking ".safariextz" file to install.
4. Optional: Enable automatic updates by going to Safari Preferences > Extensions > Updates > Install Updates Automatically.
   

• Note: Only tested on a Mac. Procedure should be same on PC. Please leave a comment if it works for you on PC.

Opera 10

1. Go to http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/
   
2. Right-click the "Main List: urlfilter.ini" and select "Save target as"
   
3. Choose the correct folder based on your OS as given on the website
4. Optional: Follow instructions to install the "Optimised Element Filter".

• Warning: This has not been tested by me! Please leave comment if it works for you.
  

Final comments: The effectiveness and thoroughness of ad-blocking will vary between different operating systems and browsers. But in all cases, there should be a big improvement in the number of ads you see, namely, a lot less! If, for some bizarre reason, you actually enjoy seeing ads, then please ignore this post.

How to save Flash game files

Why would you need to do this? - While many students will probably never use this on work, there are some students whom may happen to find a flash game they really want to use in a presentation or some such. How to do it? - This is a very simple process. Go to the site with the flash game and start the game Press Ctrl+U, then Ctrl+F In the search bar that comes up, type .swf If it is really a flash game something like this (http://uploads.ungrounded.net/531000/531437_finalninja.swf)will show up with swf higlighted, copy the URL listed Download the Orbit downloader from here http://www.orbitdownloader.com/ Click File-Add URL and paste the two URL's onto it Download the FLVPlayer4Free from here http://www.flvplayer4free.com/ When it is done, click on the file Enjoy! *Note* This was done on a windows computer, not sure on Macs *Note* If there is nothing like what is shown above after typing swf in the search bar, then it is not downloadable from the site(Newgrounds is one of the sites confirmed to work) *Note* This is only for the Google Chrome Browser, it WILL NOT WORK on Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Safari

The Awesome Library What is it?  The Awesome Library is a simple directory based search tool aimed at students.

Why should I be interested? Although not the necessary the nicest thing graphically The Awesome Library is aimed at supporting students and their work so it might save you some time getting to resources you can use at school more quickly that google. The Awesome Library is featured in Island School's own Research Tools site which is a must see destination for all IS students. If you think it's a good resource then why not bookmark with your Delicious or Diigo account?!

Google Science Fair

	Calling all budding scientists!!  Want the opportunity to be recognised internationally?  Would like the opportunity to show off not only how good you are at science but how well you can use google apps to support and communicate your project? Want to win some prizes? If the answer to any or ALL of these questions is a resounding "YES!!" then the Google Science Fair could be for you.
The deadline for the competition is the 4th of April so you don't have long!! How to enter the competition here.

Using Google Sites

Many students have some basic familiarity with google sites and some subjects are starting to use them as a way for you to record your notes, create projects and share ideas.  But how much do you really dig below the surface of google sites and what they are capable of? Did you know? Google provide a series of training modules on how to use google sites.  What might be especially interesting it how to customise your site and what the principles of good site design are so that you make your notes the best they can be.