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How To Have Peace, Be Productive and Be Prepared For Anything by Stephen Pierce
Posted by James in Hints and Tips, Just for Fun, Thoughts on July 21, 2011
I have a friend in Texas who lives his life at two hundred miles and hour, never seems to sleep and is one of the mega-achievers in this world.
Yet when you speak with him he is always cool, calm and collected. He recently wrote this article and it is for those of us who live at a hundred miles an hour, are too stressed to sleep and really struggle to hit those daily targets.
Enjoy!
One way to have a direct and immediate impact on your peace of mind and productivity is to orchestrate an environment that seduces you into peace and hypnotises you into being productive.
You preparedness for life’s challenges is directly link to your state of mind. If your state is one of peace and you’re productive, you can handle life’s challenges as they come.
While there are many ways to manufacture an environment to support your peace and productivity, here are some quick suggestions.
Creating a Peaceful Setting to Position Yourself For Productivity:
1. Select a soothing colour scheme. Blue may be the most obvious choice, but there are plenty of tranquil hues including rose or earth tones. In fact, you can probably find a soft shade in any of your favourite colours. Save more dynamic tones for accent pieces.
2. Maximise your space. If space is at a premium, look for furniture that doubles as storage and seating. Take advantage of wall space by installing shelves and hooks. Strategically placed mirrors can open up any room, and careful furniture placement will make things feel less cramped.
3. Light up your office. If you have a window, make the most of the natural light and outdoor view. Adequate lighting around your workstation will minimize eyestrain. Adjustable lamps add additional comfort. Remember, the darker the room, the more light you’ll need.
4. Introduce some fragrance. If you have windows for natural light, try some easy-care plants like lavender or mint. Aromatic oil diffusers are also simple to use and long lasting. Scents such as chamomile, frankincense, marjoram, and sage are known for their calming and centering qualities. When you need something more invigorating, try lemon or wintergreen.
5. Play music. One of the nicest things about working alone is being able to enjoy music without disturbing anyone else. Instrumental music is best when you’re trying to concentrate. For routine tasks, play anything you want. Internet radio stations give you a huge selection.
6. Add personal touches. Spread around some treasured photos or vacation souvenirs. Post inspirational sayings or keep a book of favourite quotations on hand.
Getting Organised To Be More Productive:
1. Banish clutter. Plan for sufficient filing and storage space to help you keep clutter under control. Go paper-free whenever possible. Regularly sort through your materials for things you can discard or archive.
2. Clean regularly. Vacuum and dust every two to four days. Do a thorough cleaning at least once a month. This will help protect you from germs and create a more hospitable environment.
3. Separate your personal and business activities. When you work from home, it’s helpful to create boundaries to keep your life in balance. Keep distractions like laundry out of the office, and office items such as files out of the rest of the house. This will help you to focus and will also reduce the risk of losing things.
4. Minimise interruptions. Some people may have trouble understanding that you’re busy when you’re at home. Let your family and friends know the hours when you need to minimise calls or other interruptions. Resist the temptation to check email too frequently and put your phone on voice mail when you need some quiet time.
5. Stay connected. Take steps to avoid feeling isolated. Go out to lunch with colleagues at least once a week. Find local chapters of organizations relevant to your business and attend the meetings. Networking is good for your career and personal happiness.
6. Give yourself a break. When you set your own schedule, you need to plan your own breaks. You’ll be more effective at work if you stay active and refresh your mind. Go to the gym before you settle down to work in the morning. If you find yourself working long hours, pick one afternoon to take off and see a movie.
Create a setting that dispels fatigue and tension. Use these principles of design and organisation to feel better and work more effectively.
With peace of mind and a productive environment, I prepare myself for anything that life brings my way.
Life is about change and change often brings challenges. I accept challenges and prepare for them. Because I am ready for what comes my way, I can handle anything. Even joyful change can be stressful, but I have peace through all of life’s changes.
I am prepared and ready for life. I spend time thinking about where my life is going and map out what I want next. I prepare for change and realize that my plans may turn out differently than I expect. By being prepared, I can shape more of my own destiny.
Each day, I reaffirm my desire to accept life as it comes. I avoid becoming fearful or angry when there’s change in my world. Change is important and something that feels challenging at the time may turn out to be in my best interests.
I avoid judging each experience by itself and put it into the bigger context of my life as a whole. When I put challenges in context, they are often far different than I first thought.
In the midst of a storm, I remain calm. I think clearly and decide what the next step should be. Because I plan my steps, I can avoid getting off of my path. I make adjustments easily because I embrace change instead of fearing it. Being ready for life keeps me joyous and happy.
Today, I am prepared for my life, regardless of what it brings.
Self-Reflection Questions:
1. What can I do to increase my peace, productivity and be more prepared for life?
2. How can I stay positive when negative things happen to me?
3. How can I help others who are struggling with events in their own lives?
You can visit Stephen on his Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/StephenPierceLive
Trouble at Farmville – Facebook Slaughter
Posted by James in Facebook News, Media, Social Media Marketing on October 19, 2010
Great article from wsj online (the web arm of the Wall Street Journal) highlighting some more privacy issues. I have taken the liberty of reproducing it in full. It’s long, but it’s a good read. Enjoy.
By EMILY STEEL And GEOFFREY A. FOWLER, Wall Street Journal
Many of the most popular applications, or “apps,” on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people’s names and, in some cases, their friends’ names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.
The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook’s strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook’s rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users’ activities secure.
Facebook says it is taking steps to “dramatically limit” the exposure of users’ personal information, after a WSJ investigation showed that personal IDs were being transmitted to third parties via Facebook apps.
The problem has ties to the growing field of companies that build detailed databases on people in order to track them online—a practice the Journal has been examining in its What They Know series. It’s unclear how long the breach was in place. On Sunday, a Facebook spokesman said it is taking steps to “dramatically limit” the exposure of users’ personal information.
Many top applications on Facebook have been transmitting identifying information to Internet tracking and ad companies. Emily Steel discusses. Also, Michael Ramsey discusses skepticism about the auto industry’s big bet that battery-powered cars will become big sellers.
“A Facebook user ID may be inadvertently shared by a user’s Internet browser or by an application,” the spokesman said. Knowledge of an ID “does not permit access to anyone’s private information on Facebook,” he said, adding that the company would introduce new technology to contain the problem identified by the Journal.
“Our technical systems have always been complemented by strong policy enforcement, and we will continue to rely on both to keep people in control of their information,” the Facebook official said.
“Apps” are pieces of software that let Facebook’s 500 million users play games or share common interests with one another. The Journal found that all of the 10 most popular apps on Facebook were transmitting users’ IDs to outside companies.
The apps, ranked by research company Inside Network Inc. (based on monthly users), include Zynga Game Network Inc.’s FarmVille, with 59 million users, and Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille. Three of the top 10 apps, including FarmVille, also have been transmitting personal information about a user’s friends to outside companies.
Most apps aren’t made by Facebook, but by independent software developers. Several apps became unavailable to Facebook users after the Journal informed Facebook that the apps were transmitting personal information; the specific reason for their unavailability remains unclear.
The information being transmitted is one of Facebook’s basic building blocks: the unique “Facebook ID” number assigned to every user on the site. Since a Facebook user ID is a public part of any Facebook profile, anyone can use an ID number to look up a person’s name, using a standard Web browser, even if that person has set all of his or her Facebook information to be private. For other users, the Facebook ID reveals information they have set to share with “everyone,” including age, residence, occupation and photos.
The apps reviewed by the Journal were sending Facebook ID numbers to at least 25 advertising and data firms, several of which build profiles of Internet users by tracking their online activities.
Defenders of online tracking argue that this kind of surveillance is benign because it is conducted anonymously. In this case, however, the Journal found that one data-gathering firm, RapLeaf Inc., had linked Facebook user ID information obtained from apps to its own database of Internet users, which it sells. RapLeaf also transmitted the Facebook IDs it obtained to a dozen other firms, the Journal found.
Name Games
All 10 of the top Facebook apps transmitted users’ IDs, The Journal found
RapLeaf said that transmission was unintentional. “We didn’t do it on purpose,” said Joel Jewitt, vice president of business development for RapLeaf.
Facebook said it previously has “taken steps … to significantly limit Rapleaf’s ability to use any Facebook-related data.”
Facebook prohibits app makers from transferring data about users to outside advertising and data companies, even if a user agrees. The Journal’s findings shed light on the challenge of policing those rules for the 550,000 apps on its site.
The Journal’s findings are the latest challenge for Facebook, which has been criticized in recent years for modifying its privacy rules to expose more of a user’s information. This past spring, the Journal found that Facebook was transmitting the ID numbers to advertising companies, under some circumstances, when a user clicked on an ad. Facebook subsequently discontinued the practice.
“This is an even more complicated technical challenge than a similar issue we successfully addressed last spring on Facebook.com,” a Facebook spokesman said, “but one that we are committed to addressing.”
The privacy issue follows Facebook’s effort just this month to give its users more control over its apps, which privacy activists had cited as a potential hole in users’ ability to control who sees their information. On Oct. 6, Facebook created a control panel that lets users see which apps are accessing which categories of information about them. It indicates, for example, when an application accesses a user’s “basic information” (including a user ID and name). However, it doesn’t detail what information friends’ applications have accessed about a user.
Facebook apps transform Facebook into a hub for all kinds of activity, from playing games to setting up a family tree. Apps are considered an important way for Facebook to extend the usefulness of its network. The company says 70% of users use apps each month.
Applications are also a growing source of revenue beyond advertising for Facebook itself, which sells its own virtual currency that can be used to pay for games.
Following an investigation by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Facebook in June limited applications to accessing only the public parts of a user’s profile, unless the user grants additional permission. (Canadian officials later expressed satisfaction with Facebook’s steps.) Previously, applications could tap any data the user had access to, including detailed profiles and information about a user’s friends.
It’s not clear if developers of many of the apps transmitting Facebook ID numbers even knew that their apps were doing so. The apps were using a common Web standard, known as a “referer,” which passes on the address of the last page viewed when a user clicks on a link. On Facebook and other social-networking sites, referers can expose a user’s identity.
The company says it has disabled thousands of applications at times for violating its policies. It’s unclear how many, if any, of those cases involved passing user information to marketing companies.
Facebook also appeared to have shut down some applications the Journal found to be transmitting user IDs, including several created by LOLapps Media Inc., a San Francisco company backed with $4 million in venture capital. LOLapp’s applications include Gift Creator, with 3.5 million monthly active users, Quiz Creator, with 1.4 million monthly active users, Colorful Butterflies and Best Friends Gifts.
Since Friday, users attempting to access those applications received either an error message or were reverted to Facebook’s home screen.
“We have taken immediate action to disable all applications that violate our terms,” a Facebook spokesman said.
A spokeswoman for LOLapps Media declined to comment.
The applications transmitting Facebook IDs may have breached their own privacy policies, as well as industry standards, which say sites shouldn’t share and advertisers shouldn’t collect personally identifiable information without users’ permission. Zynga, for example, says in its privacy policy that it “does not provide any Personally Identifiable Information to third-party advertising companies.”
A Zynga spokeswoman said, “Zynga has a strict policy of not passing personally identifiable information to any third parties. We look forward to working with Facebook to refine how web technologies work to keep people in control of their information.”
The most expansive use of Facebook user information uncovered by the Journal involved RapLeaf. The San Francisco company compiles and sells profiles of individuals based in part on their online activities.
The Journal found that some LOLapps applications, as well as the Family Tree application, were transmitting users’ Facebook ID numbers to RapLeaf. RapLeaf then linked those ID numbers to dossiers it had previously assembled on those individuals, according to RapLeaf. RapLeaf then embedded that information in an Internet-tracking file known as a “cookie.”
RapLeaf says it strips out the user’s name when it embeds the information in the cookie and shares that information for ad targeting. However, The Wall Street Journal found that RapLeaf transmitted Facebook user IDs to a dozen other advertising and data firms, including Google Inc.’s Invite Media.
All 12 companies said that they didn’t collect, store or use the information.
Ilya Nikolayev, chief executive of Familybuilder, maker of the Family Tree application, said in an email, “It is Familybuilder’s corporate policy to keep any actual, potential, current or prior business partnerships, relationships, customer details, and any similar information confidential. As this story relates to a company other than Familybuilder, we have nothing further to contribute.”
Write to Emily Steel at emily.steel@wsj.com and Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com
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