Information Privacy, Facebook, and Your Tax Records

In a warm autumn day in 1980 we were lined up as usual outside the barracks of the Norwegian Army's Infantry Officer School.  It was Friday, and that meant two things: we got paid, and, if we were lucky, a couple of days off from the grueling training.  One of my classmates, Johan, asked the commanding officer to please withhold 90% of his meager salary for taxes. We were all in shock, thinking poor Johan who would get paid next to nothing.  There was no information privacy - we all knew how much each got paid, and seemingly how much some had withheld for taxes. 

Fast forward to 2009.  Around this time of year, my wife gets mad at me for checking up on the salaries of my old army officer buddies.  Not only do I check up on their salaries, but also on their tax withholding, and their assets.  This had been going on for years, until this year someone figured out how to link to public figures to Facebook, and now Norway is at the center of attention for its disclosure policies.  The salary and tax figures have been posted on a public system, provided by the tax authorities, were a user (anyone) could query the database to find this information for someone else. The system also has a limited function where one can see the links between people in terms of organizational memberships (also public information).  It took Facebook to get a debate around this issue: Someone figure out how to link all this information to Facebook with a key-click. Is this good, is it bad, is it ugly?  I don't have the answers, but would like your insight!


And don't feel too bad for Johan, he is still listed as the richest person in Norway, with an annual income of about $10 million, and a net worth of over $2 billion, from which he paid $25 million in taxes for 2008. An example for the rest of us to follow !!!

Read more about it from MSNBC.

How to Buy Network Attached Storage (NAS)

This week I have been talking abut hardware and network storage in class. The article linked here tells you more about network storage devices -- yes, even those that you need to have in your home! How to Buy Network Attached Storage (NAS)

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Crowd-Sourcing versus the Machine

Those of you who have used the online language translation tools have probably found them not really doing a good job (try Google Translate or Yahoo's Babel Fish).  They are great for helping you get a gist of some language content, but they are far from accurate or complete.  Enter crowd-sourcing.  Crowd-sourcing is the act of "employing" the (idle?) crowds to help you out -- via the Internet of course.  Facebook has embarked on this venture where the users now translate content between languages, and then the user also vote on these translations.  Of course, the translations are stored for future use.  This becomes something like a Wikipedia of translation, where the burden of the translation now rest with the users.  The idea is to get content, as opposed to just program-related interface text, translated to any language (Facebook counts 65 languages so far).  This is a new answer to an old challenge.  The web certainly enables thinking outside the box!

File sharing for any occasion

There are many great FREE tools for sharing files online. Since many of you will be restricted in file size as to what can be sent or received in your regular email system, having access to other file sharing methods is crucial. Here are some options:

Synchronous sharing (sharing parties are online at the same time):
1. Most chat programs can send and receive files
2. Use Skype for file sending (see picture below)

Asynchronous file sharing (parties are not online at the same time):
1. Dropbox (up to 2 Gb free)- good for one-time file sharing, or storing things you must have access to always
2. Google documents (for office files, sans the new x format like docx,... -- good for collaboration)
3. Office Live (great for collaboration)

Ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible

Last year, Google launched their Project 10^100. It aims at picking a handful of projects to pursue (invest in) that will benefit humankind. You can see the descriptions of the current projects, and vote for your favorite one here: http://www.project10tothe100.com/vote.html.

Notice that most (or all?) of these are IS or IT driven. Yes, you can indeed do good things with IS/T !!!

Why technology products are not what they used to be?

Have you ever asked yourself what makes your new cellphone such a great device? Or, why will the new Palm Pre never succeed in the marketplace? A new technology gadget is no longer just a gadget. It is a combination of one or more of these three elements: a physical product (like the table you bought at IKEA), a service product (like the on-star system on your car), and an information product (like the installation instructions that came with your new IKEA table). Allocate 100 points across the three categories: Physical, Service, and Information and you have the product's PSI. For example, you may argue the PSI for an iPhone is 40-40-20. Why the high Service component? Because this component was offered with the product for free, and it is called iTunes! To compete effectively in a market, any gadget should have a PSI that is commensurate with what the consumers want. Try it out: why is Microsoft's Zune not able to compete with the iPod/Touch? The PSIs are very different due to the service component associated with iTunes. Microsoft just have not had the penetration with their service tools for the Zune to be able to compete well with the iPod/Touch. Thus, these products are not similar, much like Amazon versus your local bookstore. The PSIs are so different that they are not competing head to head (which is good, but could be bad if you are trying to garner market share).

Why is there advertising on this blog?

After deliberating a while about letting Google's AdSense show ads on this blog, I decided to go for it. As an academic, I have no interests in monetizing these discussions. However, after some experiments with AdSense on this blog, I noticed that the ads I saw on my own screen actually were quite relevant to the topics (maybe Google knows too much about me already?). In my opinion, ads are "good" when they are relevant and timely (they are at least informative), and "bad" otherwise. Now, Google's definitions of good and bad should be aligned with my definitions, and hopefully this will produce both relevant and timely "advertising information". Remember, advertisers are there to sell products - and I am not. Most things I recommend here are indeed free (unless otherwise noted)!

Must Have Tools for Personal Productivity

Whether you are a Mac, Windows or Linux user, there are some software tools you MUST have in order to get through your daily life. Do yourself a favor, and install these free tools NOW:

1. Skype (for connecting to your colleagues and friends)
2. Teamviewer (for collaborating on documents)
3. Google Documents or Office Live (to collaborate, share and manage documents) - I favor Office Live, since Google Docs is not compatible with the new office document standards (like pptx, xlsx, docx), and Office live seems to have fewer (if any?) limitations on file sizes.
4. Firefox (so that you can browse with a vengeance)
5. xmarks for Firefox (so that you never have to remember your bookmarks, and you have access to them on any computer you should use)
6. Zotero for Firefox (so that you can collect all your research in one place)
7. DropBox (so that you can share those large files with ease)

(in order to find these tools, simply paste the name into your favorite search toolbar, and hit Return)

Go and conquer!