Anastasia

TypePad is Shutting Down

This is what I got in my mail yesterday and, I must admit, I was quite alarmed.

After almost eight years of severe financial problems, TypePad has finally decided to shut down its blogging website on May 1, 2012. TypePad Pro users now have until April 30, 2012 to move all their blogs and profile information to Blogger, if they wish. However, TypePad is not going to do this for you.

 This is what you can do:

 

 

• Log into your TypePad profile.

• Save and download to your computer  anything  you have on your TypePad profile that you want to keep.
• Go to Blogger and upload your photos and other information. Then make your new Blogger profile look how you want it to look.
• Move your TypePad blog(s). If you have anything on your TypePad blogs that you don't want to lose don't forget about it. Blogger will help you through.
• Save information from your TypePad profile, RSS feeds, tags, or your custom theme. These items will not be supported by Blogger, but if you have use for them somewhere else, you'll need to save them yourself.
• Change your privacy settings. TypePad will be setting all your privacy settings to "Private". If you want to utilize the social networking aspect of your new Blogger profile, you'll need to go and change your privacy settings first.

HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S DAY!!!!  

Feeling Safe Online

I have recently discovered that two people on Facebook are pretending to be me! It may just as well be one person who has created two profiles using my name and surname. I really find it very unlikely that this is mere coincidence. To be honest, I thought that this type of impersonation happened only to celebrities so that some people could fraudulently add "fans" and receive comments. 

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My first reaction was to report these profiles to Facebook.. I was required to provide my phone number and when I did so, I got the option "call me now" or "cancel". I clicked "call me now" only to get the following response: "too busy". I guess this must be an automated message. Not only has Facebook not taken any action so far but they haven't even sent me an email to let me know whether they intend to do something about it. What are Report buttons for then? I must admit, though, that Facebook's privacy settings are very good since you can choose who should see your content and personal information. But can they prevent people from pretending they are someone else? Are we really safe online?

The truth is I felt so frustrated and unsafe that on the spur of the moment I expressed my intention to close my Facebook account however hard it would be for me to give up my friends and all the content I have created over the years. Finally, having talked this over with Alkis, I realised that it wasn't worth giving up on my Facebook friends. Alkis said I'd rather ignore the impersonator and go on enjoying the interaction with my friends.  

Ignoring my stalkers was, after all, what I did four years ago when I was cruelly harassed on the old Yahoo360 by a group of people who took pleasure in attacking my friends, my country and me personally as a teacher and as a woman using hideous hate language. That was a horrible experience I really don't wish anhyone to go through online.

Have you ever been stalked or harassed online? How did you react? What did you do about it?

Snail Mail Vs Email

Long ago, I used to have a lot of penfriends from all around the world. I'd receive 70-80 letters weekly and answered them all. But since I connected to the Internet in 2000, emailing has been a much faster way to keep in touch with friends and family or make new friends. So penfriends became epals and very often I'd get a reply within minutes. I recall having exchanged 30 emails in one day with an epal from the UK. Email is also cheap since it allows you to send long documents immediately and with hardly any cost.

However, snail mail is much more personal and private. There is a unique charm in the handwriting, the paper, the envelope, the stamps. A letter is something you can touch, file away and keep as a souvenir. It is also something you can smell! I still remember that beautiful, perfumed fancy letter paper I once used.  What's more, unlike email, handwritten letters are safer as they can't be hacked or get viruses while it is practically impossible to forward them to hundreds or thousands of people instantly. .So, this is why I still enjoy writing letters and sending handwritten cards to friends and family. I guess it all depends on the recipient.

How do you keep in touch with friends and family? Do you still write letters? Do you believe emailing is a more effective communication tool?

Facebook Vs Twitter

When I first started an account on Facebook, it was mainly to find old classmates and some good, old online friends I had lost contact with. All I had to do was to either import contacts from an email account or just type their name! I was so excited when I finally managed to find so many great friends! Thanks to Facebook, we can keep in touch, write on each other's Wall, share photos, links, videos or personal updates. And this is why I find Facebook the best social network ever.

On the other hand, I do feel a bit of an "outsider" on Facebook. Most people play games. I like games as well but the ones on Facebook are promoted by apps which require access to your personal data - that's what I don't like! And besides, I like to write! Blogging  to me is the best social media ever! And, of course, I'm glad TypePad provides the one and only blogging interface on Facebook. My Facebook friends who really know me also know that I'm not there to play games. I'm there to keep in touch and let them know what I blog about, or post a personal update. But whenever I have some extra free time, I'm curious to see what my friends are posting.

A few months ago, I joined Twitter out of curiosity. All right, fair enough, it took me some time to figure out how this social network works. I understand that I can only use 140 characters or so to keep in touch with friends!  So, instead of concentrating on what I wanted to say, I caught myself being distracted by the character count!  My illustrious ancestors, the Spartans, said "To lakonizin esti filosofia" meaning that brevity is wise. But they meant words...not characters!

As William Henry Davies (a Welsh poet) once wrote, life is meaningless if we take no time to stand and stare. What would you choose? Facebook or Twitter ?

Sunday Musings

I've been in a contemplative mood all day today which is not very much like me - especially on my one and only day off work. I've been thinking about a million unrelated issues such as:

• The people in Haiti and how the people manage after that terrible earthquake.
• The political crisis in my country - sounds like our President Mr Christofias will be left alone as most of his partners seem to abandon him.
• The weather - it really feels like summer or almost despite some dust in the air which comes from either North or South Africa - ah right! I'm wreckless at Geography which was my least favourite subject at school, by the way...after Maths , of course!
• Eleni Menegaki and her divorce which sounds like a ...National Divorce!

• My second love after Alkis - The  Sea!
• Planning our summer holiday with my significant other - Alkis. We both want to visit Alexandroupolis again.
• Midterm tests and exams at work which means I'm going to be very busy marking in the next couple of weeks. Meaning...I'm not going to be around much next week!
• Trying NOT to get addicted to Blog It!

Friday's Top Ten Tips on Blogging Love

My blog tonight is inspired by Show Some Blogger Love posted by The TypePad Team.

10. Read through someone's blog before leaving a comment - including videos or links.

9. Don't be arrogant. Close your comments if you are not likely to visit your readers' blogs. Personally, I don't mind. I leave comments if I like a blog regardless of whether the blog owner leaves a comment on my blog or not. Most people won't do that, though. And this is a pity because there are so many great blogs around from which you can derive so much knowledge..

8. Don't leave a comment because you expect a comment back. This is childish.

7. Do not offend anyone in your comments even if you disagree or don't like a blog . Offensive language hinders communication.

6. Make time to visit your friends' blogs even if you have nothing to say. We all write to be read!

5. Blogging is fine but don't get addicted to it!

4. Even if you have nothing to say about a friend's blog , send an email and say hi.

3. Out of courtesy and in an effort to be simply polite, use English in your comments on a friend's blog whose friends come from different countries even if some of them include your own. Everyone should understand everybody else's comments.

2. Learn not to ignore anyone who leaves a comment on your blog. Respect the time they have spent reading your blog and leaving a comment. Learn to be humble and say "thanks for dropping by" even if you hate their blogs and even if you get 350 comments daily.

1. Show some blogger love. If you have time to blog you should make time for your readres as well.

Blog It!

Blog It is what I now consider TypePad's coolest tool! When it was first introduced, I wasn't very tempted to use it as I usually write my own blogs, and then as most of you know I'm not computer literate! But then, on second thoughts, and after Zalary's recommendation on a help ticket, I thought I'd give it a try. It works perfectly with Firefox , not with Internet Explorer 8, though. In layman's terms, all you have to do is log in to your TypePad blog and drag the Blog It button to your toolbar! Cool, right? Then go to any website you like, highlight text from that website and click...Blog It! A window opens with the high lighted text and if you like you can add some notes, then click publish and ....voilà! Without leaving your favourite website, you have posted to your TypePad blog. You can also post your favourite photos or videos...before you say Jack Robinson! 

However, TypePad warns that this may turn out to be addictive - especially because it saves time and you can blog within minutes and with 2-3 clicks. And yes, we're all busy, aren't we? I don't think Blog It will be addictive for me as I usually type out my blogs. Yet, I sometimes blog material from the Web and have often forgotten to quote my sources. No way to forget through Blog It. I would like to thank TypePad's very cool team and Six Apart for endeavouring to offer their members the very best in blogging. 

Comments or Not ?

Well, I had to change my comments settings for one very simple reason. Oh no, no spam - thanks to Typepad's great spam filters - but I've just realised that many people would take advantage of my recent  comment settings...to pretend they're my friends! Ah right!  Clever but in the long run it did not work.

As very few of you know I don't blog to get comments. I mainly blog to have readers. Readers are more important to me than comments. However, I do value my friends' comments.The comments of those people who really care for me. And they are always welcome. Signing up to Typepad Connect is free - it's up to you to decide whether your friendship is true or not. I have seen blogs "buying" comments ...promising "this time I will answer ALL your comments" . I could feel the insecurity of that blogger. How sad!  Believe me I was shocked. I can't promise you that I'll answer all your comments if you leave any. For one very simple reason: I don't always have the time. I also hate "comments for the sake of a comment so that you comment on my blog as well". To me 2 comments coming from true friends are worth 5000. Please don't get me wrong...I know that having changed my comments settings could be very unfair for those of you who are great true friends. But then again, true friends have so many other ways of communicating. And I know we will keep in touch as we've always had all those years.

Books Vs The Internet

Not everything is on the Internet. You’d think so with a billion pages, but no. Only about 8% of all journals and even a smaller fraction of books are on the web. No matter which search engine you use, you can drown in the web’s ocean of materials trying to find the right answer because only about 17% of the search results will apply to your question. Search engines are not regularly updated, so you may not be getting current data.

Quality control doesn’t exist. Amid all the great web-based information, lurks a kook with a conspiracy theory and a pornographer with a camera. Abandoned sites, urban legends spouted as truth, and advertising, advertising, advertising. What you don’t really know does hurt you. About 70% of the Web is "hidden" – accessible with passwords only (for the select few). Countries can now buy one book and distribute to every library on the Web. Of course not! Copyright restrictions make only a couple of thousand titles available this way. Most vendors offer the book to only one user at a time, too, so there may be a long waiting list for the book you want today.

Hey,what about e-books? Reading on any e-reader is a chore. The technology will undoubtedly improve, but it’s still more than a generation away.

"Aren’t there library-less universities now?" , you may ask. No. Institutions that tried to open with paperless libraries, quickly built traditional ones because books they needed weren’t available on the Internet.But a virtual public library would work, right? Work at bankrupting the community! Digitising the number of books for an average sized public library would cost tens of millions of euro just in copyright releases.

The Internet is everywhere but books are portable. Try curling up by the fire with a laptop, or stopping by the woods on a snowy evening with a handheld. The future may bring this, but for now the vast majority of readers – even online readers – still want books. I know I can't do without them. What about you ?

Online Harassment

Dear Diary,

It's been a long, exhausting week online as I've been bullied and harassed on Yahoo360 by a group of Greek morons. It all started on Saturday 17th, because of a silly carnival game these people were playing online. They were all on my friends' list, so all of a sudden I discovered strange faces and strange names on my yahoo360 friends' list and was wondering who the hell those people were and WHO had added them!! When I found out about their silly game, I was very annoyed and in my posting I called them Greek morons. Well, my sweet diary, you know me, I'm quite outspoken and sometimes a bit blunt. I accept I might have over-reacted. No sooner had I posted this that all hell broke loose. These people started leaving most offending and insulting comments on my blog using brutal hate speech. They asked me to apologise in public and I did so. Then a certain Ioanna asked me to delete my posting which offended them and I did so as well in an effort to calm them down and make peace. Then, to my horror, I discovered that 3 of them dedicated their blogs to me attacking me as a teacher, as a woman, as a person. Ioanna in particular, who I've never met or known online, was most sarcastic, vulgar and mean. The others , at the same time, continued the harassment through their blogs or comments on the blogs of mutual friends . They even offended my country as a nation.

It was only natural that some very good friends of mine stood up for me - I was offline when the bullying and harassment started celebrating Alkis' birthday. I accept that they had also used offending terms but I can't be responsible for others. The bullies then wanted me to ask my friends to apologise in public and I did so, again in an effort to calm things down. But they all refused saying : "the morons should apologise to you." However, they agreed to stop answering back. As for me , I never answered back or insulted any of them. Yet, the cyberbullying carried on and on. Throughout the week I was repeatedly harassed. Then the hacking started. They started hacking my friends' accounts - those friends who had stood up for me - in order to delete all evidence as well as an alert warning other people of the 360 community that these insane and twisted bullies are dangerous.

This morning, I discovered that my account had been also hacked and my posting - a personal posting - which was the answer to many, many friends who had asked me to tell them what was wrong had ...simply disappeared ! So my account was hacked as well ! I also had an email from the Yahoo 360 Abuse team telling me that they were unable to take any action ! This is the only reason why I decided to shut my blog down. I no longer feel safe on Yahoo360. However, I will continue to comment on my friends' blogs because I love them all so much. They were wonderful! I had such a great shower of love from  360ville . Of course, their wonderful comments of love, encouragement, friendship were deleted as well.

The bottom line is that justice wasn't done !