I recently read Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook written by Dan Yoder, and as with all articles I read it thoroughly before passing judgement, though it did feel paranoid and biased even with the little disclaimer at the beginning.  So after taking some time to absorb his opinion I realised mine hadn’t changed, I didn’t disagree with all the points but did feel it certainly wasn’t a balanced view.

In this post I am not going to analyse each of the ten reasons individually or too closely, this will just be my opinion as a user, consumer and social being.  Just in case you haven’t read Dan’s full article (link above) I have listed the ten reasons here for easy reference.

1. The Facebook application itself sucks
2. Facebook doesn’t (really) support the Open Web
3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account
4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted
5. Even your private data is shared with applications
6. Facebook is a bully
7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-switch
8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy
9. Facebook’s CEO has a documented history of unethical behavior
10. Facebook’s Terms Of Service are completely one-sided

Firstly, I am going to cover the repetition of reasons five, seven, eight, nine and ten.  Basically these five reasons are at the centre of the ‘paranoia’ I spoke of earlier; they state between them that Facebook is changing its terms of service so that it can share your data, making it publically available while at the hands of some unscrupulous overlord (when you say it like that you can see why I use the word ‘paranoid’!).  My issue with this perception is that Facebook is a business that offers a service for free, obviously they need to monitise this and as user data is a growing market I think they would be foolish not to focus on its potential.

So let’s take the supermarket Tesco for example, they have been collating shopper buying habits now with their ‘Clubcard’ points system for some years and I suspect they aren’t just collecting this data for the fun of it; surely it stands to reason that if they know what you are buying  they can target you more effectively and increase their profits.  My point is that either Tesco get our data and hit us or another company collects the same data and sells it to someone else, one way or another they will find the information they want.  In addition, if this data is being used for the hard sell of products then doesn’t the user simply need to become more aware and less gullible.  In addition to this, who is to say that collection of user data is a bad thing, companies selling you things you need so you don’t need to shop around may not sound that bad to some shoppers, or am I missing something?

We should also bear-in-mind that Facebook is a huge brand, like Microsoft if it steps out of line or tries to monopolise the market it is big enough to be noticed by all the authorities that matter, and they are not stupid.

Can Facebook be trusted technically and does it really support the open web?  These two views seem to me to be biased as I am pretty sure there are many other big brand names whose websites are like Swiss Cheese technically, and i don’t think it is alone in its fear of the open web, just look at the newspaper industry, the fear of not making enough money will always win unfortunately.

For balance, I do think the interface could be more intuative and stable, and if account deletion is as difficult as Dan states then this is a negative.  However, I do have a number of friends who have decided to leave Facebook for different reasons than Dan states but they didn’t seem to have any problems leaving at all!

In conclusion, Facebook has been a revolution for people in all walks of life.  It has helped millions communicate with family and friends from all around the globe, it has broken down barriers and given those who can’t get out a window into a social world; if it wasn’t Facebook offering this service and sharing the data it would be some other organisation and many already are.  Even in the last few days Facebook has announced a new simpler way of checking the privacy settings on all accounts, that certainly sounds like a company trying to do the right thing to me!

The European Competition Commission have forced Microsoft to offer alternative web browsers with their operating systems, which will be available from March 2010 in Europe. This will obviously confuse some of the less techy users but it may also achieve something I think we all want – the accelerated demise of Internet Explorer 6!

The new Windows update once installed will give the user a choice of browsers, including Google Chrome, Opera , Safari and best of all Firefox. Those that simply think Internet Explorer is the web may find this confusing and ultimately will select the safe IE option – but hey, at least they upgraded. IE6 has caused us web designers a lot of trouble over the last few years and this force update may just make it truly possible for the first time to stop supporting it completely. The IE7 and 8 updates have helped reduce IE6’s domination but an active choice may just do enough to finally make this out-of-date browser insignificant enough to finally be ignored, ultimately this will educate the masses to the infinitely better options available.

With any luck this will be what most web designer have been waiting for, yes, it may take a while but it’s a massive step in the right direction.

The long awaited release of Microsoft’s latest operating system Windows 7 was last month and finally a few days ago my copy arrived, now I can finally upgrade from Vista and hope that Windows has become what Vista was supposed to be.

First I would just like to touch on the disaster that was Windows Vista -  Awkward, clunky, slow, irritating and depressing to use is pretty much a full review of the operating system; it simply couldn’t have been any further from its predacessor (Windows XP) if it had tried – Right that should be enough comment on Vista!

As I was so desperate to remove Vista from my PC as soon as I could I purchased the reasonably priced Windows 7 Home Premium (obviously I didn’t want to spend too much and end up with Vista’s bigger, uglier brother).  When it arrived I knew that it certainly couldn’t be anywhere near as bad as Vista had proved to be due to the Beta testing I had taken part in,  however, it had been a short while since I un-installed the Beta version and who knows what Microsoft may have done to it in that time!

So I began to install Windows 7 but the nightmare seemed to carry on from where Vista had left-off, ‘Windows cannot install until the following applications are removed’ – WHAT! – I was upgrading from Vista, not Windows ME and the apps in question were drivers surely Windows can handle some drivers,  at this point I was getting that sinking feeling of  “Oh what have I done purchasing this sofware, it is turning out to be a massive mistake”, but after a number of software removals and what felt like a dozen restarts I was finally on my way and from then on the process improved dramatically!

I experienced a slow but simple install but once I was up and running I had no real problems, my laptop had been transformed from the Awkward, clunky mess I mentioned earlier into a machine that did as I asked, when I asked and how I asked  (the shock was nearly too much to handle).  I then started to install a few key apps and would you believe it, no problems! – Microsoft seem to have not only made Windows simple, they had made it work, the ease of use at this early stage feels more like using Apple’s OSX than Windows (And I don’t use that statement lightly).  When you click a window it minimises straight away, browser windows launch immediately and files copy with ease, I assume this is how Vista was supposed to be!

I am in the early stages of testing Windows 7  but just maybe Microsoft have instead of trying to make there OS do everything, have just made it do the things people want quickly and easily.  I plan on putting Windows 7 through more day-to-day tests over the coming months and will post with the good and the bad of Windows 7, but in the meantime I can give it a whole-hearted thumbs up; and maybe, just maybe Microsoft are back on track.