I came across this web page that shows what happens on the Internet every second, and though it was extremely cool. I don’t know where they get their data from, but it’s fun to see how quickly various sites grow.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the time it took me to scroll down to the Twitter section and take the screenshot, over 157,000 Tweets were registered on Twitter.

Stop complaining about your privacy on social networks and just think about what you post before you post it. What you share is up to YOU!

Let’s take Facebook for example

With the recently-released Ticker on the newsfeed page and the yet-to-be-released Timeline update to your Profile page, people are barking at the moon that their status updates are now out there for the world to see; thus invading their privacy. Well uh, I hate to tell you this but, THEY ALWAYS WERE. And isn’t that the whole point of a SOCIAL network?

Anything you type into that status update box gets shown to the whole world unless you set your privacy preferences not to, or use Facebook Lists to control who can see it. This hasn’t changed. The Ticker isn’t showing anything now that people weren’t seeing in the newsfeed before, they’re just seeing it in near real-time now. I’m not a fan of the ticker, I think it’s annoying. But by no means to I feel like my privacy has been invaded because the people I chose to see my status updates actually do see them.

The Timeline Profile page update seems to be catching the most heat. I’m not sure why, because it isn’t displaying anything that the current Profile Pages doesn’t, it’s just making it easier to zoom back & forth in your Facebook history. They’re simply saving people from having to scroll and click for an hour to go back five years to find that adorable poem you wrote for you kid that they remembered.

Now there are some minor tweeks that you will have to perform in order to get the privacy level you want out of Facebook, but let’s not be dramatic. It’s not that big of a deal. If you would say it to your momma, use the Public setting. If you don’t want your momma to see it, then create a List and shut up already.

If you’ve accepted friend requests from 800 people you’ve never met in your life, that’s you’re problem. The 15 people you actually know that follow you probably don’t care that you ditched work yesterday and went to the ballgame after you called-in sick. If you accepted a friend request from your boss and he saw it – then you clearly don’t know how to set up Facebook Lists, and lack a basic amount of common sense anyway.

Facebook isn’t alone

I recently saw numerous people complaining in the comments of an article on a tech site about how they felt violated because Google requires that you use your legal name as your username for Google+ (they even go so far as asking for proof if they don’t believe your legal name is “LarryPage Sucks” or “XYZ Company”). C’mon people. You have to offer your legal name every time you purchase something with credit card or check. Why is it that using your real name when signing up to be one of millions of users of a free service where (most likely) nobody knows who or where you are, all of a sudden bothers you?

Let’s be reasonable

Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t want to just hand out personal/private information to anyone who asks. But Facebook, Google, Twitter… they’re all offering a FREE service. And they’re doing it in exchange for some information about you so that they can sell that information and (heaven forbid) make a buck or two. Everyone over the age of 15 knows that this is how it works. If this information is a revelation to you, then you need to get off the Internet right now.

I mean seriously, what do you care if Facebook sells the fact that you like fly-fishing to Field & Stream magazine? Does this somehow put you in jeopardy? And if you’re concerned that someone can read through your Foursquare and Facebook check-ins to figure out when you’re not home, STOP CHECKING IN! I know your ego really wants to get the mayorship badge for the porn shop down the street, but that’s not Foursquare’s problem. We use these features because we WANT to use them, not because we’re forced to.

You have to offer your legal name every time you purchase something with credit card or check. Why is it that using your real name when signing up to be one of millions of users of a free service where (most likely) nobody knows who or where you are, all of a sudden bothers you?

Ok, so my arguments don’t sit well with you. That’s fine. I can respect that, and I don’t blame you. But for the love of God, terminate your account with whatever service in question, don’t sign-up for ANYTHING on the Internet, and shut the hell up already. And before you say it, I know Facebook keeps your information even after you cancel your account. But they don’t show it to anyone you know, and you really aren’t important enough to make it public for any nefarious purposes anyway. I guarantee you that, by and large, the world doesn’t care about anything you post on Facebook.

In the end, we all CHOOSE to use social networks, none of us are forced. Before you complain about privacy issues, think about what you’re signing up for before you actually do it, and understand how the network’s privacy settings work (no matter how complicated they may be). You need to use common sense when posting on social networks. If you wouldn’t be willing to share what you want to post with everyone you know, you probably shouldn’t post it online. Because complaining about it afterward is like complaining about the fact that you have to put gas in the car you just bought.

An interesting infographic that visually shows how the world spends its time online

The average American spends more than 60 hours a month online, the equivalent of 30 straight days a year. I certainly hope at least one of those days per month is here at The Graphic Mac. Regardless, this infographic offers plenty of interesting information about how the world spends its time online. Not only is it great information, but the graphics are quite nice as well.

The advantage, of course, is that these applications store information on servers accessed via the Internet, so that information is available to you anywhere you go, from any computer you have access to. This is huge for any Mac user who’s lucky enough to have a desktop and a laptop, or splits their time between their office and home computers. The three apps below can, and for many people have, killed the need for transferring files via physical media such as CD or USB thumb drives, and made accessing and sharing information dead simple.

DropBox

DropBox wasn’t the first cloud-based file sharing service out there, but they’ve pretty much locked-up the market, particularly for Mac users. It’s simple, reliable, feature-rich, and for most users is completely free.

A menubar icon offers access to a folder on your hard drive that automatically syncs with a server in the cloud, which you can access from any Mac or Windows computer that has the free DropBox app installed. Drop a file into the folder, and once it finished syncing to the cloud, you can access or share those files with anyone you would like.

Some of the extra features of DropBox include the ability to password protect folders for sharing with select invited users. You can also drop a folder full of photos into DropBox and have it automatically build a nice web page with preview images, etc.

Perhaps the most useful feature of DropBox is that it keeps track of all the files you’ve uploaded and removed from your DropBox account, even allowing you to recover recently deleted files. This is particularly useful when you’re sharing files with other users working on the same project. Your own personal DropBox web page is available for to make things easy.

Signing up for the free account gets you 2GB of free storage. Use this link and you’ll get an extra 250MB of storage for free. There are paid upgrades that get you 50GB for $9.99 per month or $99 per year.

CloudApp

CloudApp is another file storage and sharing service, similar to DropBox in that you access it through an icon in the menubar, but different in that there is no folder that gets synced. When you drag a file to the CloudApp icon in the menubar, the file immediately gets uploaded to the server, and a link to the file gets copied to your clipboard. This makes it extremely easy for sharing with people via email or on web discussion boards.

Each file you upload gets its own short URL link, which you can also view on your own CloudApp web page. You can view and delete your files on this page, and they’re conveniently categorized upon upload.

Another nice feature of CloudApp is that recently uploaded files are listed in the menubar for quick access. You can also set a custom keyboard shortcut to capture screenshots, web addresses and text and have it uploaded quickly.

CloudApp is relatively new on the scene, but I’ve been using it for a week or two and found it to be reliable thus far. It’s free, and easy to use.

Evernote

Evernote is a great way to collect notes and files with the simplicity of a keyboard shortcut and have them stored in the cloud where you can access them from any computer with web access, either from your personal web page, or the free Evernote desktop or iPhone application. I’ve been using Evernote for a few years now and find it incredibly useful and 100% reliable. Because the basic features are free, I’ve not been forced to pay for similar applications and services which offer syncing to the web.

Evernote fits right in to any type of workflow because you not only have access to the desktop app via keyboard shortcut and menubar icon, but Evernote offers a Firefox, Safari and Chrome browser extension which offers quick access to your Evernote web page. There is a pro version upgrade available, adding storage and a few other capabilities available, but the free version is more than enough for the average note taking duties.

The Expert

The number one way to spot an Internet @$$hole (referred to in the rest of this article as I.A.s) is to look on the potential turd-burglar’s Twitter page in the Bio section. If you see the word “expert” or “S.E.O.” or my favorite “S.E.O. Expert,” you have struck gold. You’ve come across the highest order of I.A. there is. If you follow them, drop them. If they follow you, block them. But for cryin’ out loud, don’t engage them – you’re just feeding wild animals that will eventually knock over your trash can and spill your garbage all over the driveway! Keep reading. There’s plenty more I.A.s out there to learn about.

The Lister:

The Lister

Situation: You come across a great looking blog that claims to be the “place to be” for Mac users. If you’re unsure if the site is run by a potential I.A., scroll down the home page. If you see more than two articles/posts with the words Top, List, or the first thing in the post title is a number, then you’ve most decidedly guessed correctly that the site is indeed run by an I.A. How many times do you really need to see the top ten list of Mac utilities, when every one of them has the same apps? Quicksilver (which has always sucked), Adium, Transmit, 1Password… the list goes on. 25 great blah, blahs. Top 10 widgets. 3,974 reasons to blah, blah. These I.A.s are doing this because “list” posts generally get a ton of hits, which they hope leads to a ton of ad-clicks. They’re also doing it because they don’t have a spec of writing talent, have no opinion of their own to share, and are just looking for link love from poor unsuspecting Tweeters. All they do is take other people’s work and put it in list form with a screenshot. God I hate this particular type of I.A. – they’re ruining the blogosphere for creatives and Mac users.

The Gatherer:

The Gatherer

You’ve probably seen it before if you’ve spent any amount of time on Facebook. You friend someone and take a look at their FB Wall. You notice they have 357 friends, so they must be interesting, right? You’re busy, you don’t have time to waste looking at another avatar do you? Make sure you’re not friending an I.A. Check their Wall. If it’s filled with updates informing you that they joined this fan page or that, and a slew of [potential I.A.] is now friends with [poor unsuspecting slob] updates and nothing else for the last two months; you’ve definitely come across an I.A. This particular form of I.A. is only interested in feeding their own ego by friending as many people as possible, but they generally have nothing of interest to say; thus, they’re a waste of your time. Drop ’em like their hot.

The Hype-o-matic:

The Hype-O-Matic

If you’ve been a Mac user for at least a couple years, you’ve probably heard of an app a while back called Disco. It was hyped-up to be the great freakin’ thing since the invention of the computer. In fact, even better! The hype machine started with a simple screen shot of an empty black window. That’s it. A few blog postings about how cool it was going to be, and some comments from a few trolls about how awesome it looked. Before you could roll your eyes, an animation appeared on the developer blog showing you that animated smoke appears on the top of the window as your CD is burning. AWESOME! I immediately smelled an I.A., but I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. After what seemed like 568 years, the app was finally released. It was offered all over the place, in bundles, discount sites, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t long before everyone realized what many intelligent Mac users suspected. You were paying for little more than a simple CD burning app that did little more than any of the free apps available – other than it smoked. Of course, once we all realized the developer was an I.A., we found out why it smoked – cause it was going down in flames just as quickly as it went up. Beware of applications that get hyped-up before they’re even released to the public. More often than not, it’s the I.A.’s buddies who are doing all the hyping to begin with, and you’ll be out $15 and stuck with an I.A.app that never gets updated again. Evaaaaar!

The poor complainer leaving comments:
I don’t mean poor as in “oh you poor boy, you hurt your knee.” I mean, poor. As in the guy apparently doesn’t have two ever-freaking dimes to rub together, yet MUST have the latest OSX and Adobe Creative Suite upgrade, but spends what appears to be every waking moment of his life complaining about the price and how it should be half of whatever the price is, if not free!

This pathetic I.A. has apparently never been informed that you’re not forced to upgrade. It’s not a requirement, nor is it a owed to him. It’s simply an offer that the rational Mac user can determine is necessary or worth the money, then act on his or her decision. The complainer I.A. is easy to spot because no matter how much the shareware app costs, they think it should be about $10 to $5 million less. No matter what! If you have difficult spotting them, just look for their closing comment which is usually “if it were $XX I would buy it!”

The “I can’t make up my mind” blogger:

The Re-Designer

Ever see a link on the Web and you click it and it turns out to be a pretty good article? What do you do? You bookmark the site of course. For a while you check out the page weekly or even daily. You quickly notice though that this person seems to be more interested in re-designing their Web site or blog than actually writing anything worth while. It isn’t long before the header graphics are getting updated every week, buttons move, and post after post talking about how very special the new design will be. This I.A. apparently doesn’t know how valuable your time is, nor do they seem to grasp the concept that content (even in this day & age of fancy blog designs) is still king.

The “Twagger”:

The Twagger

This I.A. uses Twitter to do nothing but brag; thus, the name “Twagger.” They brag about their 1,000th follower, they brag about who’s following them, they beg (and then brag) when they’re 10 followers away from whatever the freak next big number is on their follower list. Newsflash jerkoff; nobody cares that you have 1,237 followers. Nobody cares when you’re only 10 followers away from 1,300. And nobody cares that you got your 1,500th follower while you were sleeping last night. You’re an I.A. Brag about that! And now that I’m on a roll about your particular type of I.A., let me just say that nobody cares that you just sold another ad spot on your blog, either. Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, nobody cares that Guy Kawasaki is following you. In case you didn’t notice, Guy Alltop Kawasaki Alltop follows Alltop everybody Alltop.

The “it’s free, but don’t use it” catch:

The Indian-Giver

I love free stuff. Especially when it comes to stock photos, background textures, vector art and Photoshop brushes. So when I see that someone is giving away something that looks great and I think I might use someday, I jump on it. If it’s really cool and I KNOW I’ll use it, I don’t mind paying for it either. Unfortunately, it only takes a few seconds to see that when they said it was FREE, they weren’t being totally honest. You spend a lot of your hard-earned time deciphering just what you’re really allowed to use it for. So here’s a little tutorial on what exactly these I.A.’s consider “free:”

• You’re free to seek written permission to use the icons before you use them – that is, if you can find my email address and it actually works
• You’re free to not alter them in any way
• You’re free to not resize them
• You’re free to link back to their site, or else!
• You’re free to not remove their stupid dog’s name from the icon
• You’re free to not use it commercially

That last one is my particular favorite. What the hell else would I use it for? Do you really think I’m going to decorate my desktop with your stupid icons? And what exactly constitutes commercial use? If I have Google Adsense ads on my blog, is that commercial? Do us all a favor, if you’re going to offer something free because you want to “share with the community,” then just make it free. Period. No catches. Otherwise you would make it much easier on us by just putting a big fat I.A. badge at the top of your Web site and charging a buck or five for it.

Class dismissed
I hope this little tutorial has assisted you in spotting the ever-present Internet @$$hole. If you come across a new breed of I.A., please feel free to add a description of them in the comments.