Here’s the thing.

So let’s call a thing a thing.  In this case, the thing is that I haven’t written on this site since just before last Christmas.  If this site were a job, I would have been fired for job abandonment.  If this site were a plant of mine, it would have long since died from neglect, or gotten mad, mutated into a swamp monster and eaten me.  If this site was a web site and needed to be updated regularly to mean anything and be effective…

…yeah, that’s the thing.

Our House’s Favorite Christmas Music (as found on YouTube)

My wife and I have taught our two kiddos about proper classic (not classical) music via YouTube.  These are their four Christmas favorites, straight from the server farms of Google.

Do They Know it’s Christmas Time, by Band Aid

Blue Christmas, by Elvis Presley

It’s Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), by U2

War is Over, by John Lennon

Facebook to Users: “You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license …”

Updated II: Facebook capitulates – NYTimes.com: Facebook Withdraws Changes in Data Use.  This is good news despite the fact that privacy on the web is still iffy at best, and non-existent at worst.  All you have to do is look at recent high-profile hacks at Monster.com and Heartland Payment Systems to see that.  We can all do a better job keeping usernames and passwords random and secure, and actually reading terms of service and usage instead of blindly checking the box to agree.

Updated: Facebook’s terms of service and rights it claims over your profile data have caused quite a stir, to use a tired phrase, on the tubes lately. Amanda French at AmandaFrench.net has a great comparison between FB and the other main social networks.  This Chicago Tribune poll question asks how the buzz will impact your FB usage. (I use it as seldom as possible anyway.)

If you are on Facebook, if you were on Facebook, if you are thinking about getting on Facebook, if you have friends or family on Facebook, or if you ever publish anything online, please go right now to the Consumerist blog and read about Facebook’s new terms of service.  Then go read the terms of service for EVERYTHING you use online.  NOW.

Then look at the bottom of the page on the Consumerist’s post – notice anything?

My reaction to “Microsoft steps up browser battle” is “What. Ever”

The BBC News Technology section trumpets Internet Explorer 8 as Microsoft stepping up its efforts in the browser battles.  I only wish the average user could understand how bad a product IE is.  6, 7, and I’m sure 8 are just bad.  The designers and programmers with whom I work are already preparring for the changes IE8 will bring to the development and design world.  I played with one of the beta versions of IE8, and it broke a fair share of good web pages.  I am hoping that the rendering agents are more kind when it rolls out.

Folks should save themselves the trouble and use Firefox, Chrome or Opera.  Safari for Windows even.