How information leaks on Facebook: a semi-private URL vs. Picasa web albums

This is mundane, but worth noting.

For years we kept some shared family material private by not sharing the URL. It worked, the site was never indexed -- until recently.

I'd shared one of the album URLs on Facebook. That did it. Even though my page contents are shared only with friends, I suspect Facebook indexes any URLs it comes across. Probably most of my friend's Pages are not themselves public, so their view of my post was probably shared.

It's not a surprise that the URL leaked, but it's noteworthy that it remained private through tend years of Google. It only broke when I started using Facebook.

I renamed the URL, so it's secret again. I won't publish the new URL to Facebook, I'll return to sharing by email.

So what about Picasa Web Albums? They are also commonly shared by exchanging a "secret" URL, and I've shared some on Facebook. Interestingly these aren't indexed in Google, perhaps because Google doesn't index non-shared albums.

Google IMAP and the intractable duplicate IMAP email problem

I've only recently returned to using Mail.app; for a couple of years I was almost pure Google. Since I integrated my personal Contacts across OS X Address Book/MobileMe/iPhone/Google Contacts however I've returned to enjoying the power of a dedicated email client.

Alas, there's a catch. In my time away I'd forgotten the Gmail IMAP to Mail.app sync duplicate email problem. It's not really a Mail.app specific problem, every IMAP client has the same problem.

This is an intractable problem. The standard model for email is that that every message belongs to exactly one folder. Folders can contain folders. It's very much like traditional directories since the days of DOS and well before. (Tree data structure)

Google has a very different model. Google's mail "folders" are an illusion, in reality all Gmail messages are in a single repository. Each message can have many tags, and a single tag can be used for many messages. Each tag is treated in the UI like a "folder", but a message belongs equally to each "folder' (they're just tags).

This is more than a mere "physics" problem -- it's a math problem. 7 != 3, and a tree-type folder hierarchy cannot represent a tag collection.

There are two approaches to "synchronizing" a traditional email application with Gmail. You could make the first tag of an message the "folder" tag, and ignore the other tags. The other approach, which Google took, is to replicate emails. So a single message in Gmail with 4 tags becomes 4 messages in Mail.app in 4 folders.

Of course this wastes space, but space is cheap. Much worse, however, is that it clogs up searches.

I don't see this problem going away - unless Google admits defeat and regresses to using standard folders. For now, however, I'd love to see a program that would go through my Mail.app database and remove all the duplicate emails - even if it randomly assigned them to a single folder.

See also:

• TidBITS Networking: Achieving Email Bliss with IMAP, Gmail, and Apple Mail. I don't think he's anywhere near bliss, but there are lots of details. Alas, if you use tags in Gmail, all of this explication won't help.

Why are my Canon images names with a _MG_ prefix instead of IMG_?

This happened to me a while ago.

My Digital Rebel images started having the prefix _MG_ instead of IMG_.

I figured I'd run by some strange numbering threshhold. It was odd though. Sometimes I'd see IMG_ again ...

It bugged me.

I should have googled it long ago. Photo.net explains - this is what Canon does when you switch from sRGB to Adobe 1998 RGB color space. It's a JEITA specification mandate. I probably see IMG_ when I shoot JPEG instead of RAW.

Thanks photo.net.

Blogger lives - mobile templates in draft

Last June I put Google's Blogger on the Dead list, in part because of the lack of a mobile template. This morning Blogger in draft offered me a mobile template.

Blogger isn't dead after all.

Google apps for our family: now with email monitoring (delegation)

It wasn't designed to support parental control and supervision, but Google's new email delegation function is very helpful (emphases mine) ...

Google Apps update alerts: Email delegation now available for all Google Apps customers

.... Administrators must first enable mail delegation by checking the 'Mail Delegation' checkbox under 'Email Settings' in the administrator control panel.

To enter a delegate, users can select the 'Accounts' tab under 'Settings' in Gmail and click 'Add another account' to enter their delegate's email address.

Once the delegate is signed into their own own Gmail account, they can then access the other person's account from the account selection menu at the top of Gmail....

You can only add delegation accounts that are a part of the Google Apps domain, you can't add external Gmail accounts.

It takes a while for the "account selection" menu to appear. About fifteen minutes after I set up delegation on my son's account a small arrow appeared to the right of my bold email address on the top right of my Google Apps Gmail page.

In fact currently my son does not directly use Gmail, it's just an IMAP service for OS X Mail.app. Only I know his Gmail password. So this doesn't let me do anything I couldn't already do, but it's much easier to monitor his account.

Troubleshooting MacBook wake from sleep problems

Our 3 yo Dual USB MacBook (Intel dual core) is having intermittent wake from sleep problems. It's on a WiFi network and running Leopard - 10.5. On lifting the lid it spins up then hangs with a faint blue screen. There's no cursor.

I haven't found a fix yet, but here's a list of what I've tried [4]. They're listed in the order I'd suggest. Of course the first thing to do with any ill-behaved machine is to check that your backups are good...

1. Run Safe Mode start, (aka Safe Boot) then restart [2]
2. Remove share mounts
3. Login items - remove all
4. Clean out list of remembered WiFi networks - Network:AirPort:Advanced. [5]
5. Do not inactivate the ethernet port - even if you don't use it. Delete all Locales. [6]
6. Disable Bluetooth
7. Update Flash (or consider removing it forever)
8. Input Managers - remove all. They are Satan's tool.
9. StartupItems - remove all from Library\StartupItems and ~\Library\StartupItems if it exists. Do not mess with System\Library.
10. Onyx: check corrupted preferences, check disk, delete caches including font caches
11. Onyx: Repair Permissions :-) [1]
12. Install disk, run disk utility check disk
13. Reset SMC [3]
14. Zap PRAM [2]
15. Run hardware test in loop mode on install DVD
16. Remove or update any low level software
    1. Look in /System/Library/Extensions for ideas, but dont' mess with /System. Look in Library/Extensions.
    2. Cisco VPN for example - uninstall requires terminal
    3. Retrospect Client [7]
    4. Fusion is another - it loads early. Update it.
17. Console.app: Look for messages on startup. Unfortunately Console captures a vast number of warnings and error messages even in a "healthy" system.
18. Disable Safe Sleep (more a Leopard than Snow Leopard option?)
19. Look for more ideas here: Tutorial: Dealing with Wake-from-sleep issues | MacFixIt - 2006
20. Reinstall OS X (desperation move). If you're on Leopard, might as well upgrade to Snow Leopard.
21. Send out for repairs - likely a hardware issue. Bad memory can do this and problems may not show up in the hardware test.

I'll update this post with the eventual outcome. As of this moment I'm trying Permissions [1] and SMC reset (more likely to help) and I'll try run the hardware test tonight in loop mode.

Update 12/18/10: The hardware test worked. The problem is much better. I wouldn't say it is perfect, but clearly some of the above measures helped. The two I'd most favor are "clean out list of remembered WiFi networks" and "reset SMC". I suspect this problem is less common with 10.6 and that, at least with 10.5, there are many contributing factors to "wake from sleep" failure. The fixes I made reduced the frequency, but it will still occur.

By way of comparison, there were NEVER any issues with the pre-hibernate sleep mode of 10.3 and MacOS Classic, but XP sleep mode is completely unusable. (I've no experience with Win 7 sleep.)

Update 6/17/11: This problem resolved. I think it was finally fixed in 10.6

See also:

• Gordon's Tech: Things to do if your Mac doesn't boot (2/2005)
• Gordon's Tech: My 10.6 iMac is crashing - a debugging exercise (2/2010)
• Inquirer confirms apple macbook pros have nvidia bad bump material (12/9/2008)
• Can’t Wake MacBook Pro from Sleep (5/2008)
• How to Turn Off Safe Sleep
• Set newer portable Macs' sleep mode (return to the good old days - 10/2006)
• Tutorial: Dealing with Wake-from-sleep issues | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews (3/2005 - problems were more common then)
• Solving Macbook Wake from Sleep issue | Tancredi
• Computer sleep vs hibernate | Scott Gruby’s Blog 12/13/10

-- footnotes

[1] OS X has reams of permission related issues. I have never, however, seen repair permissions help with any of them, much less anything else. It always finds things to "repair", but the "repairs" fix nothing. Repair Permissions is the OS X equivalent of a disconnected thermostat. It's there to distract the customer. Still, when all else fails, I suppose it's worth trying. Onyx will conveniently run Repair Permissions.

[2] Safe Boot, loop mode hardware test and zap PRAM all need a wired keyboard. There are terminal workarounds for Safe Boot.

[3] An Apple identified cause of wake from sleep issues - Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC): "A portable Mac doesn't appear to respond properly when you close or open the lid." I have noted that sometimes the green light on my magsafe connector doesn't come on ...

[4] An infamous Discussion thread on MacBook Pro problems is a good source of ideas.

[5] I had at least 20-30 in my machine. I removed every one.

[6] I have done this in the past, but not on this machine.

[7] I had a leftover version from when I used a Win XP Retrospect Pro backup server. I had to find an old installer to safely uninstall this low level app that runs on startup.

Picasa web uploader - Google Data Freedom scores

Credit to the data freedom team at Google - the new OS X web uploader can also download albums and even ALL albums - including video.

Does any other free image service allow such easy download of "all albums"? (I pay for extended storage, but most don't)