Facebook for teens - and an update on privacy settings

With due consideration, and for relatively good reasons, I gave my 13 yo a Facebook account. It's not something I'd recommend generally, but the circumstances are atypical.

Of course we're "following him", but that's a weak monitoring measure. More importantly, he doesn't know his password and if he does a password reset he'll lose access.. That was a condition of giving him an account. I've also configured it so email notifications are copied to my personal email.

We'll see how it goes. I'm cautiously optimistic.

That is not to say I've changed my opinion of Facebook. Jesse Stay swears they're not Evil, but check out the default privacy settings that a new user gets (the default are all that matter, click to enlarge);

The access given to Facebook "apps" is particularly impressive. I don't see any evidence that FB has "reformed".

I flipped everything to a the same very secure settings I use. As usual in the troubled world of "Parental Controls" I ran into a glitch. Some settings changes require an https connection, and OS X Parental Controls can't manage most https connections (an increasingly serious problem). So to change his settings I had to use an account with more privileges. One side-effect is he can't change his preferences, which is not entirely unwanted.

I hope to update this post as I learn more ...

Parental controls bugs in Safari 5: can't add sites to whitelist and more

I posted this to Apple's Discussion forum:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Parental controls bug with 10.6.4 and Safari 5 

When Safari is locked in Parental Controls it only opens approved sites. If a user tries to go to a non-approved site a dialog appears allowing an admin to add the site. If the admin authorizes ongoing use, the site should be added to the Safari bookmarks bar.

That's not working any more. The site is not added. THe Admin has to drag the url to the bookmarks bar and reauthenticate. If the admin does not do this the authorization will not stick.

Anyone else see this?

Might be a new 10.6.4/Safari 5 bug.

Also users are able to edit Safari 5 settings even when Parental Controls are on. I need to retest, but I think that's broken too.

Lastly, today is the first time I tried copying parental controls from a remote to a local account. I have a feeling there are bugs here as well. In the app access control I am seeing apps listed as local that I think are only on the remote account.

It's always been easy to find serious Parental Control bugs, but I think some of these are Safari 5 problems. I don't think Apple QAs OSX Parental Controls.

Update: I've submitted a bug report  on this.

Stealing your kid's iPhone upgrade

If you have an AT&T family plan you may have one or two kids with data plan free simple phones. Did you now you can steal their iPhone upgrade through the AT&&T eligibility transfer process? This has been available for a while, but AT&T has better defined the process.

The catch (you knew there was one) is that iPhone contracts come with mandatory data plans and phones that can never be unlocked (barring an Act of Congress - which is not impossible in this case).

So you'll be getting your kid a data plan whether you want to or not. It really only makes sense if you want to do that, and if you're going to give them a data plan phone (like an old iPhone). You'll also be making it harder to quite AT&T, which they are quite in favor of.

Why you should buy your iPhones and other iOS devices in September

OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) was released on August 28, 2009. Version 10.6.4 came out last in June of 2010; it’s now a good upgrade for a 10.5 machine. It took Apple about 10 months to beat the OS into decent shape, which is a bit of a problem if you’re considering a new desktop machine. Unless you enjoy computer hassles, you should buy new Macs a few months before, or six months after, a major OS X update.

Apple’s iOS environments are much simpler than OS X [2], and Apple has many fewer “system apps” to test [1] – so it’s not surprising that their iOS updates have been more reliable than their OS X updates. The first couple of iOS upgrades went pretty well. Things are getting more complicated though [2], and now we’re seeing real problems …

Google Apps phone-lock issues with iOS 4

… In a strange twist with what appears to be a security issue, users of Google Apps who set up their accounts using the Microsoft Exchange settings (aka ActiveSync) may find that their iPhones have been set to auto-lock in one minute…

and

iOS 4- Updating woes with iPhone 3G

…. While we can't help much with the activation errors that some of you have had (potentially due to overloaded communications between Apple), we can help with the infamous error 3002 that many iPhone 3G owners are seeing when attempting to update their device…

Both of these bugs would have been a waste of time and energy for us. It’s summer in Minnesota, I have better ways to spend my sunny days.

These bugs will get sorted out through a combination of third party, iOS and iTunes updates over the next month or so. If you only have older phones, the smart move is to wait until August to upgrade. If you’re buying a new phone, however, you have to use the new OS [3].

Which is why you should buy a new iPhone or iPad in September. Apple seems to have very consistent phone release cycles (though not all will be major updates), so if you get a new phone and a new 2 year contract in September you’ll be in phase with the release cycle. iOS device prices tend to be stable over their life cycle, so a purchase in September gets you the best life cycle value with the least upgrade troubles.

In my own case my 3G is painfully slow [3] so I’ll probably buy in August, but I’ll aim for September for our next upgrade cycle.

--

[1] I’d like Apple to get the heck out of the apps business altogether due the very long bugfix and upgrade cycles of systems apps, but that’s another post.

[2] The complexity is increasing very quickly with the iPad and with iTunes OS X and Windows XP/Vista/7 dependencies. There are also some iPod dependencies due to a shared DRM infrastructure. For example, iTunes 9.2 sounds like bad news for older iPods. I’m waiting for 9.2.1. Since iOS4 may require iTunes 9.2 that’s another reason to delay iOS updating.

[3] At least for that device, you don’t have to update all devices you sync to the same iTunes account

[4] Apps are being developed for modern devices, so upgrades expect more RAM and more CPU – especially the former. I also sync way too many calendars, contacts sources, etc for this device – I’m basically flogging it.

July 17, 2010: Wow, I sure called it for 2010. This year it's probably a good idea to wait until November and see if Apple is going to come up with fixes for the proximity sensor and antenna design flaws, not to mention the worse than 3GS connectivity.

Netflix via Wii - works so far

I've streamed Netlfix to my iMac with acceptable results. Like all (yech) Flash based technologies it is buggy and inefficient on a Mac, but it works. I knew Netflix could also be streamed to X-Box and Roku, but I'd not realized you could stream to a Wii until I saw a notice when editing my queue.

I ordered the Netflix wii disc and tried it out. It worked well while streaming over our 802.11g WAP encrypted WiFi LAN. Some of the interface graphics are blocky and ugly, but the movie itself was fine. The control UI uses the arrow keys on a Wii wand.

The Flash stream results are at least as good as what I see on my vastly more powerful iMac, and there's no fan noise. Apparently Adobe just hates the Mac.

You need a computer, iPhone, or iPad to validate your account and manage your queue. I assume Netflix would like to remove that requirement eventually.

Activation took less than a minute. You can stream from one Netflix account on up to 6 unique devices (iMac, iPad, iPhone 4 soon, Wii, Roku, etc).

From their site today, here's a list of the streaming Netflix supports. They're clearly well on the way to eliminating DVD mailing (main problem -- too easy to rip and distribute).

• Roku Streaming Player
• Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player
• WD TV Live Plus HD Media Player
• PlayStation®3 System
• Wii™ console
• Xbox 360
• Insignia Connected Blu-Ray Player
• LG Network Blu-ray Players
• Panasonic Networking Blu-Ray Player
• Philips Netflix ready Blu-ray Player
• Samsung Network Blu-ray Players

• VIZIO Blu-ray™ Player with Wireless Internet Apps
• Sony Network Blu-ray Disc player
• LG HDTVs with NetCast Broadband
• Sony® BRAVIA® LCD HDTVs featuring BRAVIA Internet Video
• VIZIO® XVT Series HDTVs with VIZIO Internet Apps™ (VIA)
• TiVo® Digital Video Recorder
• Insignia 5.1-Ch. Home Theater System with Blu-ray Disc Player
• LG Network Blu-ray Home Theater Systems
• Panasonic Blu-Ray Home Theater In A Box
• Samsung Blu-Ray Home Theater Systems

We don't have cable at home, we get 3 DVDs a week for the kids to watch. This gives us some new options. I really don't miss cable at all (we do have free broadcast HD via a D/A converter box and some rabbit ear antennae -- works surprisingly well)).

Major iOS4 feature: You can turn off all data services on the phone

You can't unlock an AT&T iPhone, but after your contract contract is done you can give it to another person who has an AT&T account. If they insert a GSM card [1] they can use the phone. I've gotten contradictory reports from AT&T, but it appears that under current policy if that GSM card does not have a data plan then the iPhone can be used without a data plan.

Of course that iPhone will then run up a large bill -- since it will inevitably do some network data transactions and they will be billed at very high rates. The current workaround is to pay $5/month for an AT&T plan that less you monitor a phone, limit data use, etc.

As of iOS4 though you can just turn off the data service on the phone ...

iOS 4 walkthrough | TiPb 

... You can now choose to not only turn off 3G data or roaming data, but all cellular data...

I think you can use the Parental Controls to lock settings so the user will not be able to turn cellular data back on. So I can give my old 3G to my son and he can use it as a phone and for texting, but will only have data services when he's on a WiFi. I won't have to pay $180/year for minimal 3G data services. Over two years that pays for my new phone.

[1] iPhone 4 uses a micro-SIM that is not compatible with SIMS from older phones. This does work for a 3G or 3GS.

Two ways to find a lost iPhone

Apple has produced a well done iOS app for conventiently location an iPhone, sending it a message, locking it or wiping it completely. TidBITS has the best overview ...

TidBITS iPhone iPad iPod: Find My iPhone App Enables Mobile Device Discovery

... To enable Find My iPhone/iPad/iPod touch on a given device, tap Settings > Mail > Contacts, Settings, and tap your MobileMe account under Accounts. Set the Find My iPhone switch to On, if it isn't already, and tap Done. In the Fetch New Data view, either or both Push and Fetch need to be active. If Push is set to Off and Fetch is set to Manually, Find My iPhone cannot work, because the location is never updated. (Apple recommends Push for MobileMe.)...

It's hard to imagine now, but the BB Pearl of 2008 was a proto-gPhone. It ran Google Mobile and you could track it on Google Maps. I came to despise the phone and I was delighted to get rid of it, but I missed the free location tracking. Now I have an easy way to track a phone; unlike Latitude it's strictly on demand tracking - the phone isn't routinely updating its location.

I tested the new iPhone app on Emily and my phones -- and discovered I hadn't enabled tracking on my phone. That was an oversight! I was lucky to discover my mistake because you can't enable tracking remotely, though you can wipe a phone remotely. (For reasons good or greedy, Apple has a far more conservative attitude towards location sharing than Google.)

The new app with MobileMe services is a good way to find a lost phone, or to see how far your spouse is from airport pickup (though you need his/her MM password -- again, conservative on the privacy). However it only works if you enable it, and you need a MM account.

A friend of mine came up with another approach that doesn't require a MM account -- or any advance planning. When he lost his iPhone bicycling to work he had AT&T add the family tracking feature to his account. You can add it at any time, and you don't need possession of the phone (it does have to be on however). This is less precise than MobileMe tracking since it relies on cell tower triangulation, but in urban areas that can work well. It worked very well for him -- he found his phone quickly. He then canceled the service; AT&T allows customers to add and remove services as needed. The AT&T locator service, of course, works with any phone.

So there are two approaches, but if you're primarily concerned about finding a lost phone the on-demand AT&T tracking service is quite a bit cheaper than MobileMe -- and it doesn't require setup. If you have a MM account for other reasons (it's really a pretty crummy service to be honest) this is well worth enabling and testing.