The New York Times in a article this week noted how Facebook has adapted to enable more granular group activity.

But sometimes any Facebook posting is just too visble… or perhaps you are trying to do something best done by TEXT for a small group…   The Times also highlighted other services:

Path allows a small group to share photos and videos…

Frenzy lets friends share links, photos, songs and other items in an invitation-only folder on the Web storage service Dropbox, effectively turning it into a private social feed…

Shizzlr lets a group of up to 20 people decide and plan joint activities together via text message…

GroupMe allows a specific group of people to communicate by text message simultaneiously using just one “phone number”…

Give any or all of them a try and let us know what you think in the “comments” below!

Care to explore other half-baked ideas? Do you have half-baked ideas of your own? Check out the “Half Bakery” at www.halfbakery.com. The Halfbakery is a communal database of original, fictitious inventions, edited by its users, and maintained by a dictatorial cabal of volunteers. It was created by people who like to speculate, both as a form of satire and as a form of creative expression.

My favorite half-baked idea? Custard filled speed bumps! They are benign at slow speeds, but solidify or even burst when a car travels over them fast. Wheee!

Of course, you may want to check out some REAL half-baked ideas, at FreePatentsOnline, which tracks legitimate patents as well as some considered a bit crazy… 

How about a Walt Disney patent on a device to communicate with porpoises?

It’s called “Live Mesh” and is offered by Microsoft at www.mesh.com.  So if you have an aversion to Microsoft because they dominate the PC industry (or for any other reason), this service isn’t for you; it gets you MORE involved with Microsoft, not less.  I have been using it for a while now, and it’s been great. 

SYNCH and BACKUP

How does it work?  In a nutshell, you create folders on your PC “desktop” and move your vital documents, spreadsheets, presentations, pictures, music, video, and anything else into those folders.  If you have an Internet connection, Live Mesh automatically duplicates all those files onto your private area of Microsoft’s storage servers (called your Live Desktop).  If you make any changes, additions or deletions to the folders, they will automatically be synchronized to your Live Desktop as long as you have an Internet connection.  (If you make changes when NOT connected, then all the synchronization happens later when you ARE connected.  Moreover, Live Mesh also allows you to add multiple PCs and devices to the party, including your work computer, your home laptop, your Mac, and to a certain degree even your mobile phone.   So if you add a document to a “Mesh” folder on your home PC, it is automatically replicated to the Microsoft server and then to your office PC.  All in all, this is file SYNCH and file BACKUP in one easy step.

I installed Live Mesh on my sister-in-law’s older PC recently as she was having some signs of imminent drive failure…  In her case, we just created one Mesh folder and moved all her document and picture folders into that as sub-folders.  Sure enough, her hard drive crashed weeks later (pretty much as expected) and she simply purchased a new computer…  Once the new computer was up and running, it took a half minute to install Live Mesh and another minute to synch up her new PC with all her content stored at Microsoft on her Live Desktop.  Magic!

Did I mention the limit is 5 gigabytes and this is free?  No, there isn’t any advertising inserted in your files or on your screen.  The service is an offshoot of Microsoft’s Azure Developer Platform which facilitiates web-based commercial applications.  By using Live Mesh, you are actually helping Microsoft prove, refine and enhance the commercial platform.  They get to say to ther commercial customers, “See, this cloud computing technology works; we proved it with all these people using Live Mesh!”

You can learn more about the underlying technology on Wikipedia…  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Mesh

SHARE

One more feature of Live Mesh…  You can allow other Mesh “members” to add any of YOUR folders to their own Mesh…  So if I want to share some important file with my tax accountant, I can create a “tax” folder, put all my relevant documents there and invite him to share it.  The Mesh keeps track of who has updated what and when, helps you resolve any conflicts,  etc.  This tracking is especially helpful if lots of people share one folder.

ACCESS

Live Mesh also allows you to access your Live Desktop from any Internet-connected computer.  Just link to mesh.com and log on to your account.  This allows you to access an important document from a public computer or a friend’s PC.

A recent featured added to Live Mesh is the ability to work remotely at another computer in your mesh… just like PC Anywhere or other remote desktop applications.  Live Mesh Remote Desktop can open a window into your remote computer and give you access to even those folders you haven’t synchronized. You can also use any programs on your remote computer, even if you don’t have them installed on your local computer.  You can copy and paste files between your remote computer and your local computer, and even connect from almost any web browser.  There are times I am in the office and need to look up some personal expense on my Quicken at home; this would allow that!  I gave it a try, connecting from my office PC to my home PC…  The connection is much slower than our company’s Virtual Private Network Connection from my home to the office, but it does work well otherwise!

ALTERNATIVES

A popular alternative to Live Mesh is Dropbox (www.dropbox.com), but the storage limit is only 2 gigabytes and there is no remote desktop feature.  Otherwise, it is very similar.  It does allow you to store more than 2 gigabytes for a fee; that’s how Dropbox makes their money.

Russ Daniels is

The gist is that to a greater and greater degree, our use of computer applications will be less dependent on what we have INSTALLED or have stored in our own devices (PCs, handhelds, etc). Instead, we will be using more applications that reside in the Internet “cloud” and pay as we go for the services we actually use; our devices will be used merely to access and interface with the services. The economic case is made that we can spend much less money on hardware, software, services and personnel when all we really use is a fraction of each or all we really need is to use the service for a short time.

You can read more at good ‘ol Wikipedia (which is itself an example of cloud computing) at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

In the meantime, here are some examples of what this is all about:

SpeakWrite

When I was a corporate public relations professional, I used to support executive interviews with journalists. As a matter of policy, every interview was taped in its entirety — sometimes an hour or more — so there was a record of what was said. Experienced PR folks know there is actually no such thing as “off the record,” so the tape ran from the moment the reporter came into view to the moment the reporter was out of sight (and out of hearing range). The problem was that “CYA” tapes like this were rarely transcribed unless there was an issue — it was simply too expensive and time-consuming — so we missed opportunities to use transcripts to support journalists in developing their stories, as a learning tool for executives, as a source of information for others in the company or for any other purpose. In fact, I still have a pile of little microcassettes from Compaq executive interviews 15 years ago. Pretty worthless!

Enter Speak-Write.com (Click HERE). Today, you can use almost any cell phone or PC to make a .WAV file of any conversation (or deposition, or narrative, or seminar, etc.). You can easily transmit the .WAV file across the “cloud” to SpeakWrite and they will type it out within about 3 hours at 2 cents per word (or less) or about $7 per page. It comes back to you as a Word or WordPerfect document that you can use for any purpose.

SpeakWrite is run by Richard Jackson.

ProofreadNow

Once a document is transcribed, you can send it back through the “cloud” to ProofreadNow.com (Click HERE!), another new service that — you guessed it — focuses on proofreading brochure copy, direct mail, newsletters, etc. With many marketing and communications departments cutting back on their staff or resetting staff priorities these days, the number of people available for routine (but important) proofreading has diminished. Starting at $11 per page, two different, well-educated editors will read your document and report back all errors in spelling, grammar, clarity and even obvious errors of fact. For a little more money, you can get faster turnaround (as little as 60 minutes) and additional attention to tweaking the writing style.

They describe one customer who was ready to go with a 4-page mailing to 2 million customers. It was already proofread internally several times over, but someone decided to run it through ProofreadNow just in case. The proofreaders found 4 show-stopping errors that would have required a reprint of the mailing (at $400,000). Total charge: $44.

Just for the heck of it, I ran this ENTIRE edition of the Grapevine newsletter, including this article, through ProofreadNow. They made 60 suggestions to fix errors or improve readability — items that we had not found after at least three people proofread it internally. Total charge: $119.

ProofreadNow is run by Phil Jamieson.

TripIt

Once you get all your documents typed up and proofread, it’s time for a trip!

TripIt.com (Click HERE) is an interesting new service — still in beta testing — that helps you sort out all your travel plans… You just forward all your itinerary confirmation e-mails from your airline, car rental, hotel, etc. to one special address. TripIt interprets them, and builds out a trip itinerary that you can then share with family, friends and colleagues as you see fit.

This is an especially handy tool if you are going on a trip with many segments and destinations. You can manually add any kind of transportation, lodging or car rental, plus planned activities, meetings, restaurants, notes and articles. TripIt keeps track of your maps, the expected weather, etc. It can sync with your work and personal calendars and will work through your handheld device or a web browser.

Business travelers, frequent travelers and travel planners who support those folks will love this. It can also serve as a “dream trip” planner for those of us waiting for the economy to recover!

TripIt is run by Gregg Brockway.

What are your thoughts about cloud computing? We always enjoy feedback! Contact me at john.sweney@brookwoods.com.

—
(Cloud photograph © 2004 Michael Jastremski.)

A penny for your thoughts; maybe even more…

Have you ever wondered why the US continues to mint the penny? These days a penny won’t get you much – really it won’t get you anything at all by itself in monetary form, or face value; however, if you’re patient and know what to look for, a penny could be worth more than you may think! I thought with the anniversary of Lincoln’s birthday and the anniversary of the Lincoln cent, as well as, the unveiling of the new designs that this was the perfect time to delve further into the coin.

In our house we never spend our pennies – it’s against the law! The numismatic bug bit us and it’s actually a lot of fun.

The penny made its appearance long ago in different forms known by different names; silver in content and called novus denarius or drachma or cent or pence…the list goes on. The penny, originally pressed in silver and then reduced in weight over time, was finally pressed in the US around 1787 and first pressed in copper here. It is widely believed that Ben Franklin actually designed the first US penny. The image on the first cent was of a lady facing left with flowing hair symbolizing liberty. The look of the penny has changed over the years and if you have a penny of original design you may be pretty well set for retirement!

The penny’s many designs include the Indian cent which was 100% copper and the Wheat-back Lincoln cent minted long after the Civil War where the copper content was decreased to 95% and the added metal was 5% zinc. Throughout WWII pennies were made of steel with a zinc cover because the copper was necessary for military purposes. Today it costs about 1.23¢ to mint a penny.

Today’s penny is morphing yet again and the Lincoln cent is getting a face lift! In recognition of the bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth and the 100th anniversary of the first issuance of the Lincoln cent, this year the US Mint is minting and issuing four different pennies with various themes including Lincoln’s birth and early childhood in Kentucky to his formative years in Indiana followed by his professional life in Illinois ending with his presidency in Washington, DC.

Many believe the penny should be done away with however economists warn that this will lead to rounding up to the nickel causing an increase in cost to consumers at every turn from the filling the gas tank to buying groceries. Pennies are important to our every day lives and to our nation’s economy.

Why not get a mint set for your kids? Check your change jars and see what you may have. You never know what you’ll find!

Interesting Internet sites to find numismatic information:

The United States Mint – The United States Mint was created by Congress on April 2, 1792. It receives more than $1 billion in annual revenues. The US Mint is a self-funded agency and turns over revenues beyond its operating expenses over to the General Fund of the Treasury. The primary mission is to produce an adequate volume of circulating coinage for the nation to conduct its trade and commerce.

Coinflation- This site put together by Alec Nevalainen is dedicated to daily updates pertaining to measuring intrinsic metal value of coins around the world. He coined, pun intended, the term coinflation and went on to define it as: Coinflation [koin-fley-shuhn] noun. 1. A persistent rise in the metal value of silver and base metal coins. 2. An inflationary effect on coins. 3. The difference between the metal value and face value in coins.

Pennies.org – This site is dedicated to inform and educate policymakers, consumers, and the media about the penny’s economic, cultural, and historical significance. This group, Americans for Common Cents (ACC) propagates penny fundraising initiatives that prove when pennies come together they sometimes add up to thousands of dollars.

American Numismatic Society – Organized in 1858 and incorporated in 1865 the American Numismatic Society’s original objective was “the collection and preservation of coins and medals, the investigation of matters connected therewith, and the popularization of the sciences of Numismatics,” have evolved into the ANS’ current mission. The current mission statement may be found on the site along with other great educational information on the subject.

I hope as you check out at the register and pay with paper money – a rarity these days – that you’ll take a closer look at the pennies you get for change. Who knows – you may find a penny that will change your life or have fun looking!

What are your thoughts about pennies? We always enjoy feedback! Contact me at trish.cunningham@brookwoods.com.

Writing underwent its first stage in evolution when it moved from cave walls to stone tablets, making documents portable. Eventually those stone tablets were abandoned for lighter, more portable materials, like cloth and paper. Distribution was no longer limited by the document itself, but by the speed at which someone could write. This limitation disappeared with advent of the printing press, allowing books to be printed en masse and as a result, widely available.

In the present day, we are witnessing the newest stage in the evolution of writing. The internet provides access to information matched by no other medium – ever. Below are some sites that are taking full advantage of the freedom provided by our most revolutionary meduim to date.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is an internet library dedicated to providing free eBooks. There are two kinds of free: free from cost and free from copyright, both of which are offered on the site. Most of Project Gutenberg’s 25,000 eBooks belong to the public domain and are free of U.S. copyrights. This means anyone can work with and/or distribute the books in the U.S. For example, you could turn A Tale of Two Cities into an audiobook; or translate Les Trois Mousquetaires from French to English language; or adapt Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein to a book geared toward children.

The eBooks on Project Guttenberg are also available free of charge. This is accomplished by the dedicated volunteers who post eBooks for free. Since anybody can provide content to the site, a variety of formats are available. You can find eBooks in PDF, Word or plain Text formats. There are even some audiobooks offered on the site. Thousands of books have also been translated into over 50 languages, so there is a little something for everyone. See www.gutenberg.com.

Questia

This subscription based online reference library is perfect for anyone doing research. Boasting over 300 publishing partners, they provide access to over 65,000 books as well as 1.5 million journal, magazine and newspaper articles. This library has a lot going for it. For example, they have a large collection of material with a list that continues to grow. They are “open” around the clock and books can be accessed anywhere an internet connection is available. You never have to worry about a book being out when you want it. They have helpful tools to bookmark pages and highlight important passages, as well as tools to create your bibliography and footnotes. You won’t break your arms carrying books to the checkout counter. And the best part…no late fees! See www.questia.com.

eBooks.com

eBooks.com is all about convenience, consistency and quality. You can download over 130,000 titles in a variety of fiction and non-fiction subjects. Since the books are available a la carte, there are no recurring fees and you only pay for what you want. Most books are available in three formats—Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket Reader, and Adobe Digital Editions—which, between the three, can be read on PC’s, Mac’s, or portable devices. Convenience is key with this site. You get your books when you want them. There are no trips to the bookstore and no shipping time from online sellers. One quick download is
all it takes to get your book and go. See www.eBooks.com.

AddALL

If you prefer books—books that you can actually hold—there are many sites to choose from. Everyone knows Amazon, the online book superstore. But what if your tastes are very specific? Where could you find a signed first edition of Ernest Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms, with its original dust jacket? AddALL, a search engine for new and used book vendors, can meet all of your needs. AddALL searches many popular websites, matching you with links to books and store inventories, sellers contact information and even online purchasing. They can find everything from cheap used paperbacks to rare books like A Farewell to Arms mentioned above. And if you would like to buy that copy of A Farewell to Arms, it can be yours for the low, low price of $10,000 from Antiqbook; it’s a steal compared to the $35,000 copy from Biblio! See www.AddALL.com.

Woot (www.woot.com) is the autistic savant of shopping sites.

They don’t sell a broad array of useful items, they sell just one thing each day — usually some kind of gadget at a ridiculously low closeout price — starting at midnight and continuing until they either sell out or until 11:59 pm that night. They don’t offer responsive customer service, they don’t take calls, they don’t take returns (unless the item is clearly defective), they discourage any direct communications and they tell you that if you change your mind and don’t want something you bought, go sell it on eBay! If it breaks, they say, go complain to the manufacturer.

What makes them so interesting?

Each day’s item is accompanied by a totally irreverent diatribe that serves as the product description and sales pitch. For example, a recent Woot product description for a HP Pavilion Quad Core Media Center PC went like this:

Take it from me, man: the human race is screwed. Just the other day me and Rabbit were minding our own business, skating in the Lowe’s parking lot, not hurting nobody, when these cops come along and yell at us just for doing nothing, you know? I mean, yeah, Rabbit had tagged all over the Dumpsters, and I broke a couple of their potted plants, but we did that stuff, like, last week. They couldn’ta known it was us. Anyway, what else is there to do when you’re a teenager in this suburban wasteland, huh? Down with society, that’s what I say. When we overthrow all the cops, man, we can skate wherever we want.

Or listen to this.

I was in my room messing around with my HP Pavilion Media Center TV m8330f Desktop PC the other day, looking at everything but then again looking at nothing. And then my mom came in, and I didn’t hear her because I was watching some TV I’d recorded on the HP with its NTSC/ATSC high-def TV tuner and personal video recorder. And she starts screaming, “Mike! Mike!” And I go “What?” And she goes “You’re on drugs!” And I’m like “No, Mom, I’m not on drugs, I’m just enjoying the multimedia playback capabilities of this HP Pavilion, you know? Why don’t you get me a Red Bull?” She goes “No! You’re not playing with your computer! You’re on drugs! Normal people don’t watch TV that way!” So I’m all “Mom! Just get me a Red Bull!” All I wanted was a Red Bull, just one Red Bull, and she wouldn’t give it to me! Just a Red Bull! And maybe a better video card!

The PC was refurbished and cost $555 including shipping. It sold out by 2:37 PM central time.

Since July 2004, Woot has been the pioneer of the “one deal a day” business model on the Internet. They also offer a similar one-day deal on T-shirts and one-week deal on wines.

Customers and members of the Woot community (described by Woot as “suckers”) can post their comments. Sales statistics are also posted throughout the day for each item.

While you are snooping around, check out their job postings (www.woot.com/Jobs.aspx)

We really do think they are “onto” something… At the same time, we are pretty sure they are “on” something!

We all know about collecting antiques or cars or stamps or coins. But you would be amazed at the things people seriously collect, things you may have around your house that you have no idea are valuable or interesting to someone else. Thanks to the Internet and EBay, all the obscure collectibles are visible to us all.

For example:

MARBLES

We have a friend who showed us his marble collection housed in surplus display cases off his workshop. There were hundreds of marbles on display. Unless you knew what you were looking for, they all looked like ordinary marbles. But some of them were worth thousands of dollars each. Others were worth hundreds. He showed us one Marble King “watermelon” marble from the 1950′s worth about $700. Then he pulled out an original unopened bag of 25 “watermelon” marbles in the original cellophane with the original label. He wouldn’t guess it’s value, but it had to be in the tens of thousands — valuable enough to inspire fakes (photo at right). See marble collection at http://www.marblemuseum.org/ or — for a real shock — see the marbles for sale HERE on E-BAY at the moment!

GROCERY LISTS

My friend David Strom pointed this one to me. In 1997, a guy picked up a discarded grocery list at a St. Louis supermarket. He found it to be a fascinating glimpse into a stranger’s life and decided to pick them up whenever he found them. By 2004, when the New York Times Magazine profiled him and this collection, he had about 500. Now, he has thousands of lists and recently-published book See grocerylists.org.

AIR SICKNESS BAGS

You would think that no one would collect barf bags, but guess what? They do. Lots of people. As one collector puts it, “One can tell a lot about an airline’s image from their air sickness bags. Some barf bags are no more than a baggie with a twist tie, while other sickbags could win international design competitions. Are they art? I think so. You decide.” See collections at www.airsicknessbags.com and www.sicksack.com. My personal favorite is the “Design for Chunks” series by Virgin Atlantic, in which graphic designer worldwide compete for the privilege of having their art printed on the airline’s barf bags. “Retch for the Sky!”

SOVIET RADIOS

Vitaly Brousnikin used to listen to radios with his grandfather, and eventually started a collection of old Soviet Radios. He writes, “We have seen with our own eyes the eclipse of the whole epoch – the epoch of the Soviet Union. And somehow imperceptibly the things of our common surrounding became pieces of antique… Generations change in technology but even now who of the people over 35 does not feel nostalgic of the scale and the ‘green eye’ of an old radio gleaming in the darkness.” See his collection at: oldradio.onego.ru. (Thanks also to David Strom.)

TYPEWRITERS

Typewriter collectors note that the typewriter is one of the great inventions of 19th Century communications technology. Between the 1860s and 1920s engineers, inventors and even carpenters invested
all their creativity in the development of the ultimate writing machine. This virtual museum, that is based on private collections of antique typewriters from around the world, is a tribute to their
ingenuity. See.www.typewritermuseum.org. In case you are curious, one company, Olivetti, still makes manualtypewriters… You can buy them online for about $100.

[marbles photo by Sam Fentress]

Moreover, some routines of life are now MORE DIFFICULT thanks to criminals. We cannot get more than $50 in gasoline at the pump thanks to credit card criminals. We cannot get cold medicine off the shelf thanks to drug lab criminals. We cannot carry our luggage on a plane thanks to terrorist criminals. And we have to spend extra money every month to help protect ourselves from burglary criminals, SPAM criminals, identify theft criminals, car theft criminals, and phone solicitation criminals.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the prevalent REAL scams and what resources are on the Internet to help keep YOU from being a victim.

National Fraud Information Center at www.fraud.org

Sponsored by the National Consumer League, this site offers a handy calendar (click here) that outlines the most common frauds. For example, this month’s calendar (March) highlights money transfer service frauds. The frauds change day by day, but the object is always to get you use one of the wire transfer services like Western Union to transfer money to them. Once transferred, the money can never be traced or recovered. Typical money transfer frauds involve sending money to pay “taxes” on a lottery or sweepstakes winning, sending money for “overpayment” on a fake cashiers check you receive from someone “buying” your car, sending money to a stranger with a sob story about needing to pay for medical expenses for their child, etc. etc. etc. Be sure to read each month of the calendar; all the common frauds are summarized here.

The Skeptic’s Dictionary at www.skepdic.com

This site offers a wealth of information for skeptics in general, and descriptions of “perfectly legal” scams as well. This includes: multi-level marketing programs (click here) in which the promise of wealth is actually being sold, not any really great products.

Fraud Guides at www.fraudguides.com

This site appears to be compiled by a website designer in his spare time. It offers a wealth of fraud information and prevention, all sorted quite logically. The idea is that the more you know about frauds and scams, the more you can recognize them when they come at you.

Consumer Fraud Reporting at www.consumerfraudreporting.org

This is a comprehensive outline of frauds and schemes. It includes a great page on how you can best defend yourself from fraud (Click HERE).  In summary:

• get off the direct mail, phone solicitation and pre-approved credit card lists
• guard your social security number
• shred (don’t discard) your credit card statements and other documents with personal information on them
• guard your personal identification numbers, ATM cards, etc.
• remember that any offer that’s too good to be true IS a con game.

Direct Marketing Association at www.dmaconsumers.org

Even the Direct Marketing Association — whose members are arguably part of the problem — has taken steps to educate consumers about perfectly legal scams that just barely comply with laws. In a typical perfectly legal scam, you receive an official looking letter about a sweepstakes. In fine print, it asserts that no purchase is necessary to win, but in bold print it offers a “special notification” if you are winner! The special notification costs only $20, and many people believe they are the winner and want to be notified. Once you send in your $20, you are a proven “opportunity seeking direct mail customer, known to be impulsive and looking to win in contests and sweepstakes”. Your name is sold to dozens of other companies for 8.5 cents each. You are then inundated with similar solicitations and sweepstakes offers. Older folks are most vulnerable to this scam. See the DMA’s guideline for older consumers by clicking HERE.

In 1997, Time Magazine declared “The Death of Privacy“. Most privacy discussions these days focus either on “Big Brother” tracking and collating your activities or on the ease with which crooks can steal your identity.

But it is also interesting to know how much can be learned about you by people who are just curious — neighbors, family members, co-workers, potential employers, or potential mates! If you are an active member of society, you leave a digital trail that anyone can pick up:

START WITH A CAR LICENSE PLATE

Let’s start with the barest piece of information and take it from there: Let’s assume that someone sees me getting into my car. They know nothing else about me but the license plate of the car I drive.

They go to www.publicdata.com where, for a cost of pennies per search, they use the license plate number to lookup who I am, my address and how much I paid for the car, the car’s Vehicle ID Number, and whether the car is financed. With one click they find all the other cars registered at this address and have insight into who I live with. They see that there are more cars than people at this address and discover we have an interest in owning collector cars.

With my name and address in hand, they look up my drivers license number and my birthdate. They see any other licensed drivers at my address (do I have teenage kids?) and see their birthdates as well. They also look up my property tax payment, see the value of my house and know when I bought or financed it. They see that I am a registered voter, and check whether I have any professional licenses, whether I am named in any criminal or civil suits, or whether I am a sex offender. All this in one place, instantly, for about 10 cents.

Next stop is www.yellowpages.com to use my street address to look up my phone number. This shows all the phone numbers at this address and all the other people listed at this address.

THEN USE THE PUBLIC FACTS TO BUILD A PROFILE

Next, they type my phone number into a search at www.google.com. This confirms the people at my home address, provides a link to a satellite picture of my home (Oh! Look! A pool!) and reveals any web pages where I may have published my home phone number. They would see that in the late 1990′s I worked out of my home as a freelance public relations person.

They type my name (in quotes) into the Google search engine or one of the services (like www.metacrawler.com) that collates the results from several search engines. Here they would find that I run a company, that I am a member of several car clubs (now the old cars make sense), that I am on a board at Brown University, etc. Clicking “images” would show pictures of me at various events, as well as pictures of my house, cars, and even a video of our dogs — some of which were taken by others and posted on their own websites. They will even find a reproduction of my signature. (Smart of me to have that out there, isn’t it?) Clicking on the “Groups” search in Google, they would see that I am mentioned in a couple newsgroup discussions relating to Brown (favorably, thank goodness!)

Going to the Federal Elections Commission at www.fec.gov, they find that I contributed $260 to John McCain in 2000 and they draw some conclusions about my political views. (Despite my vast contribution, the other guy won!)

Of course, in Texas, relationships are everything, so they type my name into a fairly new website called ZoomInfo at www.zoominfo.com. This website collates web information (like the search engines), then automatically analyses each page to make educated guesses about the business relationships. In my case, they would learn about the organizations I am involved in, my company, and other people who have worked for me.

AND VOILA!

Keep in mind that my entire profile was generated for little or no cost, without my permission, without my social security number, perfectly legally, and starting with NOTHING but my car license plate.

Makes you think twice before making that colorful hand gesture to another driver, doesn’t it?