Who Makes The Dish Taste Best?

I brought some ceviche I made last night for lunch today. As I plated my colorful combo of citrus marinated seafood and chopped vegetables, a coworker walked into the break room and said, "I'm interested in what white girl ceviche tastes like. You make it different, right?"

To which I replied, "I didn't know there was right or wrong way to make ceviche."

To the best of my knowledge, there are many highly acclaimed chefs that create dishes with influences from different ethnic backgrounds than their own. Do you believe ethnic background plays a role in making a meal taste more authentic or does it really not matter?

UPDATE: Poll Results 3/2/10 - 3/9/10

Do you have preconceived notions about how the food will taste when you see who the chef is?
66% Yes
33% No
00% Meh

Do You Use Your Real Name Online?

Recently I've been debating over using my real name over a pseudonym on social networks and my blogs. I see a 50/50 split between people who do one or the other. When I Google around on this subject, privacy, stalking, and hurting your chances of getting employment are reasons sited for not using your real name online. Advantages for displaying your full name include branding yourself and helping others relate to you on a more personal level.

I also have a family to look out for, and I wouldn't want to put them at risk just because I put too much information on the web, but I'm not sure something as simple as a name can put me or my family in danger. I feel we are more likely to run into bad guys in real life than dealing with some cyber stalker.

At first, I was uncomfortable with entering my full name on social networks because I didn't want anything to show up in Google search results if someone Googled my name, but I found out I can't hide from people who want to know information about me. For under $40 you can get all the dirt on anyone through various sites, and I was surprised just how much information was available for free, including: my age, my maiden name, people I'm related too, current city and past cities I've lived in including the zip codes. All of which could set me up for identity theft easier than anything I've ever posted on Twitter.

My conclusion: If I'm going to be part of the social world wide web, I might as well use my real name and make sure I maintain a positive value attached to that name. If someone Googles me, they can see all the greatness I have contributed through quality tweets such as:

@digitalAngel I could go for sushi or a bologna sandwich.

I'm curious, do you use your real name online or a pseudonym? Do you believe there are any implications of publicly displaying your full name, and if so, what are they?

UPDATE: Poll Results 2/23/10 - 3/2/10

What is your online name comfort level?
42% Full name
00% First name only
00% Pseudonym
57% Depends on the site

Facebook's Privacy Strip Tease

Facebook is pushing its users to make their profile information public, and as with any change the popular site makes, there is a lot of controversy surrounding it. As a member of numerous social networking sites, some public and some private, I have mixed feelings surrounding my privacy settings on Facebook.

First, to begin with the all too over-used comparison between Facebook and Twitter. On Twitter, I know my updates are public, therefore I don't post all my business there, and I don't use my full name on my profile because I don't want my tweets to showing up in Google search results above my portfolio site when I do a vanity search. Facebook on the other hand, advertises itself as a place to share your life with your family and friends. Maybe some people use the term "friend" more loosely, but to me, a friend is someone I would want to hang out with in real life, hence 95% of my Facebook friends are people I know outside of the interwebs. The privacy of Facebook allows me to post more intimate details of my life, as well as photos of my son to those I am comfortable showing that information to. Twitter and Facebook serve two different purposes for me and they do it well just the way they are.

I understand that Facebook is a free service that has the right to make changes to their site and policies as they please, but if they continue to knock down the walled garden, there is a lot of personal data I will have to delete and status updates and photos I will no longer be able to post, making it useless for how I want to use my account. And yes, I understand that Facebook has update by update privacy control, but those controls are not available on the iPhone app which is my main way of using the service.

Twitter provides simplicity. You sign up and can start tweeting away instantly. Facebook is the PC of the social networking world. You sign up, and have to spend some time setting up privacy settings for each section of your profile and creating friend lists to control who can see various parts of your profile before you ever post your first update.

My biggest problem with Facebook's privacy strip tease is: What are their plans for any publicly shared information? Will all my updates and photos eventually show up in Google search results attached to my full name? Will my profile picture be used in an advertisement on another friend's page? I would be more open to making more of my profile public if Facebook would be more open with me.

UPDATE: Poll Results 1/12/10 - 1/19/10

Is public the new social norm?
20% Yes
60% No
20% Meh

Updates Via Facebook iPhone App May Not Be Private.

As social networking gains in popularity so does concerns about privacy. One of the most widely adopted sites, Facebook, offers a lot of customization when it comes to who sees what on a member's profile. Recently, Facebook gave users the option to open up their profiles and allow any section to be visible by everyone on internet. They also added a publisher control so users could modify who is able and not able to see content published on their profiles.

On my Facebook profile, everything was set to either "Friends of Friends" or "Only Friends" except anything that had to do with promoting my blog. The website was visible by everyone who visited my profile as well as any announcements about new blog entries. My default publisher control setting was set to "Only Friends" and I selectively choose when something was supposed to be publicly available. Personal status updates that had nothing to do with my site had a tiny lock icon under the post indicating only friends were allowed to see it.

After I upgraded to the Facebook 3.0 iPhone app, I noticed that status updates via the app did not have the tiny lock under the post. At first, I figured these updates would follow my default publisher control setting and would only be viewable by friends. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I created a dummy account to see what my Facebook profile looked like to non-friends. To my surprise, every update made via the iPhone app was visible on my wall and did not follow my privacy settings. Since there are no privacy controls on the Facebook iPhone app, the most logical thing would be for any update to follow the default publisher control setting unless given the option to choose otherwise.

After my discovery, I felt my only option was to lock down my Facebook profile and make all my status updates visible by only friends until Facebook allows me to have more control over who sees posts made via my iPhone. I conclude with a word of caution for those using the Facebook iPhone app: If your profile privacy is set to "Everyone" yet you want to selectively control which updates are visible on your wall by non-friends, just keep in mind any updates made on the iPhone offer no privacy control and are all public.

UPDATE: 9/8/09 - According to TechCrunch, Facebook has resolved this bug with a server-side fix, although I have not tested it myself. The article also addresses other privacy bugs on the Facebook iPhone app.

UPDATE: Poll Results 9/2/09 - 9/9/09

How open is your Facebook profile?
00% Open to everyone
40% Visible to friends only
60% Customized privacy
00% I don't use Facebook

My Love-Hate Relationship With iTMS

iTunes Music Store, why can't I quit you? Since the beginning, I have had a love-hate relationship with you and your ways. I put up with paying the price you ask in exchange for ease of use and the ability to quickly find and download tracks I want. Your seamless functionality with my iPhone makes me forget that you sometimes only carry partial albums of the electronic music I love so deeply. I tolerate your lower audio quality and DRM in exchange for your music recommendations and guilt-free listening enjoyment knowing that did not jip my favorite artists out of a few bucks.

With all your good qualities like the App Store, movies, and podcasts how can a girl not be satisfied? Well, dear iTMS, let me tell you why you're in the dog house. I paid for a collection of children's music for my son and when I tried to burn a MP3 CD of the songs to play in my car, you denied me. You jumped up and down in the bottom of my screen and alerted me the tracks I purchased from you could not be burned to an MP3 CD. How dare you!

Yes, I know I could burn a bunch of individual audio CDs of the music, but have you ever had to listen to the same 10 children's songs in the car over and over again? It is torture! A second option is to take the time to burn audio CDs and reimport the music as MP3s and then burn them yet again to a single MP3 CD. Exhausting! Furthermore, explain to me why it is easier to illegally download music and burn a MP3 CD in less steps than music I legitimately paid for using your service? Why are you making me jump through hoops? Even if you're business model is to sell iPods and iPhones, I'm curious why your top priority would not be making me and your many other loyal customers happy.

I've given you my support and my hard earned money, but you spit in my face and tell me I cannot do what I want with the music I purchase from you. But alas, I cannot quit you because I am entangled in your evil web of hardware and software that I cannot live without, so for now, our love-hate relationship will go on.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the children's music was purchased before iTMS went DRM-free, and of course I can update the music in my library at a cost. I checked and DRM-free tunes can be converted to MP3, and I assume they can be burned to MP3 CD. However, I don't feel I should have to pay extra money to convert songs I paid for in the first place.

UPDATE: Poll Results 8/7/09 - 8/14/09

Do you love or hate the iTunes Music Store?
50% Love it!
25% Hate it!
25% It's ok.
00% I've had better.