This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on November 19, 2008.

More and more Canadians are dipping their mouse in the online e-commerce world. A recent StatsCan survey shows nearly half of Canadian internet users made an online purchase in 2007. We bought nearly $13B worth of goods last year, up 61% from the 2005 survey.

While we’re getting more comfortable shopping online, more than 3/4 of us still have nagging thoughts in the back of our mind about credit card use online.

Avoiding the pitfalls in e-commerce requires simple, basic common sense; Dr. Phil styled advice. So instead of talking to internet security experts, I canvassed some online friends for bread and butter basics when it comes to protecting your online identity.

Duane Storey boils it down to simply looking for a web address that starts with https instead of http. The “s” on the end of the address means it’s through a secure socket layer.

“Http is not encrypted,” explains Duane. “So anyone can intercept and read. Https is encrypted, so all traffic is secure and cannot be read if intercepted.”

Brian LeRoux adds another warning, “just because a website utilizes SSL (that little lock in the bottom right of your browser) doesn’t mean you can actually trust the vendor.”

Brian recommends sticking to big name vendors, like Amazon.

Once you know what you want to buy, what you use to buy it also matters. And we mean the browser you’re using to access the web. Brian warns you to stay away from Internet Explorer.

“IE is the most insecure and often attacked web browser. Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome are safer browsers,” he says.

Still nervous? Make sure the website has a phone number, and call to speak with the person.

If handing over your credit card is what makes you uncomfortable, get a separate “online only” credit card with a smaller limit. Since you’ll only be using it for web transactions, it will be easier to track charges that aren’t yours.

Tracking a company’s history should also be part of your buying research. Sites like RipOffReport.com have active message boards where consumers share bad experiences about companies and transactions.

In the end, common sense should reign supreme. As Brian explains: “do not be afraid to do business online: ask your friends, Google the vendor, read the feedback online.”

However, should something happen and your identity gets compromised, the BC Crime Prevention Association has a list of 9 steps you need to take. The first is to make a list of what has been stolen, and track all the activity on those accounts.

Tis the season to be shopping, and some of the best deals of the season are on the web. With some simple common sense, taking part in the e-commerce revolution shouldn’t be a painful experience.

BLOGOSPHERE BUZZ

Barack Obama used the web to get elected, and will keep using it once he’s in office. He now has set up his own YouTube channel and will release weekly statements. Hmm, I wonder if Oprah showed him how to do that? The other “O” has had her own channel since the spring.

Obama, however, won’t be able to take his Blackberry to the Oval Office. The Presidential Records Act makes all correspondence a part of an official record, so Presidents are forced to give up email before entering office. There is talk that Obama will try to keep his Blackberry as a “read only” device, but the Secret Service is said to have security concerns.

Tis the season to grow pointy ears, put on tights and have jingle bells on your toes. Local blogger Gus Fosarolli is happily reminding all the popular Elf Yourself website is back for another round of Holiday fun. The site, from OfficeMax, lets you cut and paste your face on to a dancing elf.

You want to know how Santa knows if you’ve been bad or good? He follows you on Twitter. Both the jolly old elf, and his wife have popped up in the follow accounts of many local twitterers this week. All of a sudden the behviour has changed from naughty to nice.

This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on November 12, 2008.

Not everything you find on Google can lift your spirits. If the doctor gives you a diagnosis, or if you feel funny symptoms, “Dr Google” is often the first place we turn for a deeper explanation - and it’s not always good news.

It was that way for Kerri Morrone when she turned to the search engine to look for more information about diabetes.

“This whole list of reasons why I was going to die came up,” she laments about her first searches on the disease just 4 years ago. “It was like this depressing laundry list.”

“There has to be a lot of people living with it, not just dying from it,” she thought. “I wanted to find those people, and I couldn’t and it made me crazy.”

So to bring something positive to the table, she started writing her blog, SixUntilMe (referring to the age when she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes).

“I started a blog about what real life with diabetes was like and other people found me. So I wasn’t the only one looking.”

As many businesses turn to social networks to boost sales and build brands, Manny Hernandez is using the model to build TuDiabetes, an online community for diabetics that borrows from spanish for it’s title (trans: your diabetes).

“Towards the end of 2006, a thought started brewing in my head: the idea of making Social Networks work for things beyond making friends and socializing,” says Manny. “I wondered how I could put Social Networking to the service of a higher cause. I had to get a Social Network for people with diabetes going.”

These kinds of communities are vital for people living with challenges.

When Kerri was younger, she’d go to diabetes camps where other children spoke her language, understood her needs and dealt with the same problems. As she got older and went to college and entered the workforce, people who understood and could support started to dwindle.

“I felt like I was the only diabetic within miles and had no connection with other people who got it,” Kerri remembers. But with the connections she has made through her blogging, the mood changes.

“Yes, I’m a part of a community! These people get it!” she cheers.

Scott Johnson is a columnist at dLife, and has called TuDiabetes: “MySpace on insulin.”

“It is my hope that people who have all types of diabetes, newly diagnosed and veterans alike, moms with gestational diabetes as well as parents of children with diabetes, come on board and engage in a fruitful exchange using all the media that the social network technology puts at our disposal,” writes Manny.

BLOGOSPHERE BUZZ

World Diabetes Day is this Friday. To celebrate, the sails of Canada Place will be one of 500 world monuments to be lit blue to “shine a light on Diabetes.”

Lance Armstrong has two websites to meet his mission of curing cancer. Livestrong.com is a for profit site about healthy living, while Livestrong.org is a non-profit resource for those living with cancer. As Lance said at the Web2.0 Summit in San Francisco last week, “if .com is successful enough, .org will be out of business.”

Last week it was Gears of War 2, tonight the lineups at Future Shop will be for World of Warcraft: The Wrath of the Lich King. The game goes on sale tonight at 11:59p at the Broadway and Pine store with events starting at 9 including a costume contest.

If you’re one of the last hold outs on MySpace, there is respite from the loud videos, clashing colour and complete chaos with the launch of MySpace 2.0. With a simple click, the entire MySpace universe gains a certain air of Facebook simplicity.

This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on November 5, 2008.

The internet is all about building communities. Look in the right corners and people with shared interests will gather together on any sorts of topics from dog sweater knitting, to miniature plane building, to parenting children with special needs.

It’s at the core of our being, we want to connect with people who have like minded interests, and the web helps build bridges across distances to bring people together.

Taunt Media’s Protagonize does that for creative writers. The site is a community that allows writers to collaborate on different works as linear fiction (a traditional story) or in choose-your-own-adventure style that allows people to branch stories in different directions, adding layers and depth to the characters and tales.

Created last winter by Founder and Managing Editor, Nick Bouton, the site has made quite a name for itself in the scant 10 months it has been live.

It’s a place where authors can go to get instant feedback on their style and content.

“They treat it like a game almost, it’s just like practicing and improving your writing style,” says Bouton. “Some people use it as an experimental training ground, where they post things that may not be their normal style and there’s some published authors on there that sometimes go anonymous.”

“People who put post stuff, a lot of the time it’s going to get read,” says Nick, who is proud of how his site funnels new posts to make sure they’re available to readers. “They have a feeling that people are actually going to see this stuff and there’s a good chunk of people who are talented writers who are going to see it. So they get a kick out of the creative feedback they get, and the back and forth.”

And now Protagonize has been nominated as one of the Best Social Media Websites in the country for the Canadian New Media Awards set to be handed out in Toronto next week.

The award would be nice publicity for Nick, who, until now, has been spreading the word about his site organically through message boards, Facebook groups and Twitter.

There are two keys that set Protagonize apart from other collaborative writing sites and circles online: membership is free, and the authors control the copyright of their content via Creative Commons licensing.

“For me, the business is about building the community and trying to make income off the site itself, not the work they’re producing.”

The site is a side project for Bouton, something he works at in his spare time, which means many late nights and early mornings managing the comment spam and trolls and coding new features. But as with many who work on the web, it’s all worth it to see people active and participating.

“As long as people enjoy themselves,” he says.

BLOGOSPHERE BUZZ

Protagonize is up against another local for the Excellence in Social Media Website award, Clive Goodson’s Pixton. Pixton is a site where people can create comics, without drawing. All the pieces are online for you to put together to build funny, personal web strips.

You’re a few days behind the rest of the group, but if you’re in to writing, check out NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. Authors are encouraged to crank out 50 000 words of fiction in 30 days (25 now). Last year more than 15 000 completed the challenge.

It’s all about the awards as bloggers nominate friends who in turn will nominate them for the Canadian Blogger Awards. There are more than 2 dozen categories with nominations open until November 22.

Let’s hope many more follow where YVR is leading us - free WiFi. Everywhere. A contract with Telus has just expired and instead of renewing it, the airport has opened their 70 internet attenas to travelers in the international, domestic and south terminals for free.

This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on October 29, 2008.

Even though the economy is about to take a dive, there are two things Canadians won’t cut from the luxury list: cell phones and internet access.

“Many consumers, with minor exceptions, view these as essential utilities, like water or electricity,” says a report from Solutions Research Group which was compiled to find out where Canadians are likely to penny pinch in tough times.

However, there are ways to try and tighten the purse strings a bit and get some of your surfing for nothing and your web for free.

More than 23 Million Canadians use the web, 19 Million of us carry mobile phones, so why not use one to access the other?

Gary Ng runs iPhoneinCanada.ca, a website dedicated to news and tips for Canadian iPhone users. More than 25 000 people have viewed his post about jailbreaking the iPhone.

A jailbroken iPhone has the ability to run 3rd party applications not approved by Apple, one of those is PDANet which allows you to tether your iPhone to a computer, which means you can use the iPhone as a modem to access the internet.

Gary says it’s not expressly forbidden by Rogers in Canada, but using your iPhone as a modem to save money, could end up costing you more.

Last year, Piotr Staniaszek from Calgary was faced with an $85 000 bill from Bell after using his mobile as a modem with what he thought was an unlimited browsing plan.

“Overages on data use would cost you an arm and a leg,” says Gary. “Light surfing is ok, but daily tethering needs the 6 gig plan from Rogers.”

If you live in a densely populated area, poaching internet from open access points is a breeze.

Simply click on your mobile connection and look for an unsecured wifi port. Usually the open access points are labeled linksys, the same name as a popular wireless router, and the default setting for those who don’t use passwords.

For those in high rises, finding a friendly neighbour with an open point is just as easy.

“I can see 50 access points from my balcony in the West End,” admits Tyler Ingram, who until recently used to live off the readily available wifi of others.

Brian LeRoux purposely leaves his connection open in his apartment, as a public service. “The internet is owned by no one and everyone (the public) and as such it should be free for everyone to access and use.”

Cloud computing is all about keeping your files off your computer, storing them in the cloud for you to access from any computer. You can do it with flickr for your photos, with google docs for documents, and now with Lala for your music.

The concept is simple, for ten cents a track, you have access to more than 6 million songs to stream and listen to from any computer. The record companies are in on this one, so finally the idea of an online music locker might stick.

My son’s daycare lets them play with old cell phones as toys. So we’ve had to hand him our old ones around the house too. Now that an iphone has been added to the family, he’s been eyeing that one too.

Doo Daddy dot net has come up with some iPhone apps to toss in in case of emergency.

The best is Scribble. It’s a simple and free drawing program where you touch a color and pull your finger around the screen and you get a drawing

The cutest part will be when your child touches a color on the screen, and examines her fingertip to examine the dollop of ink she believes to be there.

Now that we’re smoothly into a new season on the ice, you might want to check out the new look of the NHL online.

A massive redesign and upgrade of NHL.com happened this year with the addition of GameCenter which will serve as the landing page for NHL.com on game nights, and will feature real-time statistical updates, highlight videos, game photos, radio feeds from local broadcasters and a user chat function.

GameCenter Live is a subscription service that gives subscribers access to all the features of GameCenter, as well as live video streaming of NHL games.

As more and more people make the switch to HD tv’s the devices that help us record video to play on these tv’s are adding HD features.

It’s not just the high end video cameras that are going hd, Panasonic has added the feature to its Lumix point and shoot and there is talk The Flip Mino will get an HD upgrade before Christmas.

The unit is a direct response to the Kodak Zi6, released earlier this year, that records in 720p and has a macro mode to shoot close up.

This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on October 22, 2008.

Modern dating can be so complicated - especially when you try too hard.

How’s this for an opening line. “Hey, I started following you and checked out your blog.”

Whoa. That would put the brakes on pretty quickly in a bar, but online, when the rest of the line says: “Thanks for writing such an honest, personal blog;” it can work.

That’s the opening line Gradon Tripp used on Meg Fowler back in February, but it wasn’t really a line, he was just introducing himself via Twitter. Yes, Twitter, the place that social media superstar Robert Scoble calls “the worldwide talkshow,” where following is encouraged and active participation means blogging.

So is it surprising then, that a couple of hearts were set a flitter on Twitter?

“Everyone is used to the creepy horror stories about folks that don’t match up with their profiles, or the ‘was that even a photo of you?’ people,” says Meg. “But we started as friends, not eHarmony auditions.”

When Gradon and Meg met, they met as two people with shared interests. They chatted as friends; it didn’t have all the pressure of a “date,” since they didn’t meet on a dating site.

“After a few weeks of friendly back and forths, the DMs started,” Gradon writes in a blog entry called Twitter Helped Me Steal Canada’s Greatest Natural Resource. “Then IM. Eventually, phone calls. Skype. Video chat.”

“Finally, just a couple weeks ago, after 10 months of talking Meg flew to Boston and we “met” each other for the first time,” he continues. “After about 5 minutes of awkward giddiness at the airport, we were normal, as if we’d known each other for ages.”

Gradon’s post is sweet. But to really be immersed in this gushingly cute love story, you need to click back and read Meg as she chimes in on her equally romantic entry.

“See, we were comfortable in mere moments,” she writes. “Not just comfortable like you might be with an affable stranger in a lineup at a grocery store, but comfortable like I’d known him for years.”

Meg went to Boston to help Gradon with an event called Social Media for Social Change. It was a group of net savvy people trying to make a difference in the lives of others. They were using their web connections to affect change, and as they did that for others, they ended up doing it for themselves too.

“This, on a very personal scale, is the power of social media,” Gradon continues. “The tools of social media (Twitter, Facebook, blogs) introduced us into each other’s worlds. It allowed us to learn and share things about one another.”

“Think social media is useless? I can honestly and confidently say social media made my life infinitely better. Thank you, Twitter.”

BLOGOSPHERE BUZZ

If you use Twitter, you’ll want to sign up for Qwitter. It’s a service that will notify you when someone unfollows you and the last thing you said that sent them off. Some say it adds a bit too much drama to the mix, I think it will let you know when you get out of line.

If Twitter dies a slow and irrelevant death, you can look back at this week as the stroke that did it. Britney Spears is now on Twitter as @therealbritney. So does this mean twitter has it jumped the shark? Nuked the fridge? Or is it just about to go mainstream?

If all this Twitter talk is a little over your head, The Centre for Digital Media is offering a web marketing workshop this weekend. Experts in advertising, analytics and social media will lay out the fundamentals of online promotion, marketing and advertising to help optimize and drive traffic to websites.

Social Media is becoming increasingly important for industry. Rachel Hawkes, of Social Media Portal, is quoted this week as saying “Blogs will continue to play an incredibly important role for brands and they should be looking not only to be managing their own blog, but rather becoming part of the blogging community and contributing.”

Never mind getting tendonitis in your wrist and thumbs from hacking away on your blackberry, or by having your insides fried by radiation from cell phone towers, cell phone rash is the new mobile disease to strike the planet.

Doctors in the UK started seeing unexplained rashes on patients’ ears and cheeks, and have determined it’s an allergic reaction to chatting on the mobile phone.