Not "liking" it

As Andy from Little Britain might say…”don’ like it”.

The like-that-I-don’t-like is the Facebook “Like” button. It’s fine and dandy in its natural habitat of, well, Facebook. It’s the best apathetic way to show people you care about something, with minimal effort. But when it’s used outside Facebook, by third parties, it’s not so snazzy.
I had followed a link to a page that was talking about the business uses of being able to place the Like button on external websites. It explained that when you click on the button on those websites, that action (e.g. “Jennie liked x page”) gets fed back and posted on your profile. There was also a Like button at the foot of the page, if you felt like trying it out. That was fine: the page was interesting, relevant, and I was happy enough for it to be posted in my news feed that I’d liked it, so I clicked the Like button at the foot of the page to test it.
Sure enough, it fed back to my profile, and that was fine. The original external website also showed who else in your Facebook friends group had liked that page, which was fine too, and interesting.
So, I forgot about having done that until a week or so ago, when I was tidying up my public profile, and removing any groups I’d joined or things I’d Liked that were no longer relevant, or I just didn’t care about. On Facebook, you can do this by going into your Profile, and clicking on the groups / interests area, which will take you to the page of any group you’ve joined. Once there, you can leave a group, or unlike the page you’d liked, and the information disappears from your profile. However, if you’ve used the like button on an external site, there’s no obvious way of getting rid of it. Clicking on the link to what you’d previously liked just takes you back to that page. I was stumped as to how to get the link to this (perfectly useful, professional) page off my profile. I didn’t need it gone (it’s not like it was anything controversial; it was actually professionally relevant), but I don’t like not being able to change things that I should.
In the end, some experimentation by Phil Bradley meant that he could help me out. It turns out that to NOT like something on an external site, you have to…erm…like it again. Somewhat counter intuitive, yes? So I pottered off and unliked something I did actually like, all in order to remove it from my public profile.
Anyway, that ramble was triggered by this “clickjacking” on Facebook, which means those hijacked by clicking a link are then posting on their own profile that they “liked” the site…I wonder if those clickjacked now also have a permanent link in the Likes on their Profile to the clickjack site. Because, to unlike it, you have to go and like it again…which would need the “Like” button to be visible to unlike it, which in this case seems to have been disguised as an “I am over 18” confirmation button.

We’ll tell you about privacy…but only if you use Internet Explorer

So, I bought a can of Coke. It had a code under the ring pull, that advised you to either text (for a cost), or visit the Coke Zone website, to see if you’d won a prize.

So, I toddled off to the website, entered the code, and hit return.
Oh.
I got a pop-up, telling me to log in if I was a member, or register if I was a new user. It wouldn’t tell me if I’d won anything without me being a member. Which is annoying – I don’t mind giving my details in exchange for certain things, but in order to find out if I’d maybe won a prize? No ta.
So I decided to look at the Coke Zone privacy policy (which you must agree to in order to register with the site). I ran into a problem here – when I clicked on the link, I got nothing. Well, I got a page, with a big expanse of white where the content should be. I was using Chrome, so I decided to try Internet Explorer….yay! The content was all there!
So I wondered if it was just me and Chrome that had issues viewing the content…nope. Others said they couldn’t see anything if they used Safari, Opera or Firefox (although one person said they could see it when using Firefox on a Mac).
So, the privacy information’s sort of magical…for a large number of people, it’s invisible. But if you’re using IE, it’s there.
Needless to say, I didn’t register, so if I won something, I’ll never know. But at least I can be sure Coke aren’t randomly distributing my information about the internet with my blind agreement…

Vanilla and wood, mushrooms and sometimes cigarettes

Apparently, that’s some of the scent “notes” to be detected in the distinctive smell of “old books”. For me, old books are those manky things that it’s almost guaranteed I’ll need to copy/carry a big pile of, almost always when I’m wearing a white top. Orange/brown smudges from when they lean against you is maybe not the most professional of looks…

There’s even a test been developed to help determine damage to older books, based on their distinctive smell. From that article, I’ve now learned that books made between 1850 and 1990 are more likely to deteriorate quickly due to the level of acidity in the paper. However, I’ve also learned from experience that law books, whenever they were made, in the hands of eager solicitors may deteriorate faster than you would have believed possible too. Hello detached-chucks-of-books!

Of course, if you object to the old book smell, the Hive Mind of the Internet has a few tips for getting rid of it. Although I can’t say that the smell of pot pourri would be much of an improvement, in my mind. And there’s also this spoof “Classic Musty” spray, if you’re more inclined that way, or have created a Steampunk style library that you need to smell old, and fast, before all your friends start picking on you for being too modern….