Long time ago I used to play GeneRally racing game with my friends for hours and hours. We found some maps on the Internet but most of them sucked (too many bells and whistles but zero playability) and we couldn’t get really fun and challenging ones so I started mapping my own tracks. We where so proficient at the game that I even modified the AI paths so that they would race even faster and more aggressively. From more than 300 that I had designed I could get 64 tracks back from old backups I had in my old computer and I am today releasing them for free for everyone to play, you’ve got hours of laughs and nerves in there. Here’s 24 screenshots of some of the tracks (click images to enlarge), there are many more in the GeneRally LuckyShot Tracks Pack, download link below.

To download the GeneRally LuckyShot Tracks Pack follow the link below…

Download GeneRally LuckyShot Tracks Pack

If you have a website always link to this page, not the download link directly as I will be adding more tracks to the pack as I find them and the link URL will change.

After several Monopoly games with my flatmates I wondered about the “mathematical luck” that was involved in the game so I created a Monopoly simulator and emulated up to 1,000,000 turns in a 4 players game which shows that the game has a big luck factor for every player although there are very interesting facts that can help you in having a higher chance of winning the game. I am assuming that you already know the rules and have a solid strategy playing the game.

Street names are based in the London (United Kingdom, with Mayfair) board edition although the colours and positions of the lands are the same for all Monopoly versions so you should have no problem reading the report. Here’s how it looks for your reference:

General Tips and Facts

Trading

- Trading is a human to human interaction and a good people strategy is highly flexible. Do not criticise anyone and keep quiet during the game, you do not want to appear as an asshole or be hated. Focus on your partner’s benefits when selling and be positive and polite.

- When trading, consider a mortgaged property to be MortgageValue+(TotalValue/1.5).

- Make low trading offers to players (bad for them), they will usually decline. Then wait until they need the money and tell them again, they will not see it as bad as before.

- Never trade if you benefit a potential opponent the same or more, he is nothing more than your enemy in the game and will eventually try to destroy you with it.

Money

- Save money to pay for the highest rent you may need to pay in the next 3 moves.

- Spend money the latest you possibly can to avoid surprises and nasty debts.

- Mortgage (only 10% economical loss) before selling any properties (100% economical loss) or lands (highly unrecoverable).- It is better to spend your money in upgrading unmortgaged lands (building houses and hotels) than unmortgaging other lands.

Lands

- It is wise to mortgage at the beginning of the game (for buying more land, houses or paying debts) but keeping at least 20% of them unmortgaged (for houses and emergencies).

- Stations and Utilities are a great asset at the beginning of the game until people start building 3 houses.

Houses and hotels

- Get to 3 houses as soon as possible, rent increases substantially from 2 to 3.

- It is better to separate your buildings and higher rents along the board as much as possible instead of focusing on a “death passage”.

Random facts

- It takes from 6 to 10 rounds for a player to go through the board and get through GO.

- The rents go higher as you go to the end of the board (scroll down for charts).

Game rules

- Our brain is limited so the less you need to guess, the more accurate and precise your moves will be.

- Agree to play the official rules every time you can, the more you play to the same exact game, the better your brain is at predicting the best strategy and predicting old mistakes.

- Learn and set all the house rules before playing, this will not only avoid future confusion but help you in decide your strategy better.

- The official rules do not require you to pay rent if the owner doesn’t claim it.

- The official rules say you can buy and sell buildings before and after each turn, not only yours. Wait until people are close to your lands (see The dice probabilities below) to invest in buildings.

The dices

Since we are playing with two dices the probability is not even at all. The following graph shows the results obtained after throwing 2 dices 1,000,000 times:

Not a lot can be done with the dices but it is interesting to know that 6, 7 and 8 are the most probable results when throwing two dices, good for estimating future strategies and focusing your brain power in the most probable situations.

Best places to build

This chart shows you the chances of players landing in each land/position in the board (4 players played 100,000 rounds each). Turns skipped when in Jail have been calculated (including the chance of getting out too):

As you can see, lands after Jail are visited more frequently so you should really focus to acquire these lands.

Buildings profitability

When buying land and building, this is the profitability of the rent (ignoring utilities and stations).

Built 0 houses and 1 player paid rent

Built 1 hotel and 5 players paid rent

Profitability VS Probability

These charts compare the profitability of earning rent based on the times players land on them (100 rounds):

4 players, all lands with 0 houses (1,000 rounds)

4 players, all lands with hotels (1,000 rounds)

Further observations

I keep adding interesting charts and tips to this report every now and then so you may want to bookmark it or share it for future reference. Feel free to comment or add your own tips in the comments.

Script code available to download for free

The full code for the Monopoly algorithm is available at GitHub as a PHP script, if you know PHP programming feel free to extend the investigation with your own calculations so we can discover the most advanced tricks in this game and post them in the comments or send me an email to add your contribution and credits to this page.

Original post image by compujeramey.

After trying several mobile phone network companies such as Orange, Tesco and Vodafone I’ve finally discovered the best mobile phone network company in the United Kingdom. It is called GiffGaff (strange name but keep reading) and it is by far the cheapest and best of them all. Better than T-Mobile, O2, Orange, Vodafone, Tesco, Three, Lebara and so on…

For just £10 a month you get unlimited 3G Internet (there is a flexible limit of 6,000 MB per month which is much more than you can use in a mobile phone), unlimited texts to any UK mobile phone, 250 minute calls to any UK mobile or landline phone and unlimited free calls to other GiffGaff mobile phones (get your friends and family to switch to GiffGaff and you can call them for free).

Already convinced? Click here to get a free GiffGaff SIM card now

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the network coverage quality?

It uses the O2 network so it is by far the best in the whole United Kingdom.

Is there a permanent/fixed-term contract required?

None at all! If you don’t like it you can switch to any other mobile network company whenever you want. Period. No need to tell them or anything.

Can I keep my old number?

Yes! You can try GiffGaff and if you like it transfer your old number whenever you want so you can keep using it seamlessly. To transfer it you need to ask for a PAC code to your current company and then GiffGaff will switch your number during the night so you don’t have any downtime.

Are there any hidden fees or small print?

Transparent as water! GiffGaff has proven to be a serious company, not like other dodgy mobile companies that say you pay X and at the end of the month you end up paying two times what they promised because you forgot to read the small print in the contract.

Can I get a phone with it?

Nope… for that cheap and without contracts they can’t offer free phones but with the money you save you can buy an unblocked phone and still save money. I bought an unlocked iPhone and have been using GiffGaff for the past several months so saved quite a lot of money.

Can I go on a contract mode instead of Pay-As-You-Go?

If you are looking to not have to worry about topping up: Yes! You can set up auto-topup so that every month (or whenever you run out of credit) your SIM card gets more credit and you never run out of it. It is better than a “contract” since you can cancel it or pause it through the website at any time.

What if I have any problems with it? How is the support like?

Here comes the best part, GiffGaff is mostly web based (you still have a support phone number) but I hugely prefer its web based support. The good thing of being web based is that the support is completely free for you and it is also immediate since other expert giffgaffers earn free credits for answering questions successfully so there is always people there helping you out in a few minutes instead of calling and waiting on the line for a useless operator to come available and drive you nuts.

How about roaming and international calls?

Great! They are also surprisingly cheap compared to other mobile phone network companies and they keep lowering the prices every now and then:

• All EU countries, Australia, Andorra, Croatia, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Iceland, India, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Vatican City: 8p/min landlines, 16p/min mobiles, 8p/text, £1.50 per MB
• USA and Canada: 8p/min landlines and mobiles, 8p/text, £5 per MB
• Other countries: £1/min, 20p text, £5 per MB

250 minutes is not enough for me, is there anything else?

I’ve been using the £10 (250 minutes) for the past several months and never reached the limit but if you speak a lot on your phone you can pay £15 a month and get 400 minutes, or for £20 you get 800 minutes per month, for £25 you get 1500 minutes… which is insane! All of these are with unlimited Internet, texts and GiffGaff calls included so you may want to get your frequent callers to switch to GiffGaff and then you don’t waste any minutes.

YEAH! Where do I get my free SIM card?!

Use the link below to request your free SIM card and get an extra £5 credit thanks to my recommendation. Important: Fill in the form there and in the next step top up £10 of credit but make sure to get a Goodybag, goodybags are the best!

Click here to get a free GiffGaff SIM card

Once you request the SIM it should arrive home in about 3 days (it can take up to 5, don’t stress out). Use it for a few days and let me know your feedback, I am pretty sure you will LOVE THIS COMPANY, personally, it changed the way I saw mobile phone companies, for me they where money suckers, now GiffGaff changed that. Wish we had the same in Spain…

Disclaimer: This is a personal opinion, I’ve done extensive research though. If there is a better option post it in the comments and I’ll update this post. I do not work for GiffGaff or anything similar, I just get free credits when someone asks for a free SIM thanks to my recommendation, the asker also gets free credits so it is a mutual win-win. You can get to recommend other people once you get your GiffGaff SIM card too! :)

So you don’t want to waste any money in iPhone stands nor care about looks. You are looking for a stand where you can have your iPhone in portrait mode to read, listen to music and use most apps and also in landscape mode to watch movies too. You are lucky because thanks to one of the best inventions in the world… Yes! you got it right, the toilet paper roll! With just a single roll we can create a highly customized iPhone stand without too much effort or complex professional tools. It will just take you 60 seconds to create (without counting step 1). Keep reading for step-by-step instructions.

Instructions

1. First of all, finish a toilet paper roll as you would normally do (no image will be provided for this step).

2. Now get the roll and some scissors and cut it along the dashed line like in the following image:

3. You are done!

If you would like your cheapest iPhone stand to also be able to charge the iPhone… What?! Srsly? Yea! the cheapest iPhone stand can also charge your iPhone while it’s on it. Just cut an extra whole in the back like in the following image and put your cable in:

So that’s how you get a free iPhone stand. In fact, this stand will work for any phone so Androids are also welcome. Furthermore, I guess you could use a kitchen paper roll to create the cheapest iPad stand too.

Did you like this DIY tutorial? Share and tweet it to your friends and Apple fans!

These iPhone apps are must-haves

The most important apps in my iPhone.

Reeder

By far the most used app in my iPhone. Reeder is an RSS feed reader that gathers all your feeds from your favourite websites (blogs, newspapers, comics, etc.) and displays them all in a nice ordered list ready for you to read one after another. But that’s not all, its offline caching ability allows you to download up to 5000 new articles/posts in just 10 seconds and then read them anywhere (tube, airplane, pub or even bathroom) without needing an Internet connection or 3G. Since I’ve got this app I no longer get the free newspaper every morning as I can read tons of online newspapers in my iPhone and I get to read news that happened a few minutes ago. I prefer how MobileRSS Pro works but it is incredibly buggy and Reeder synchronises incredibly well with Google Reader.

Rating: 9/10. Use it 3 times a day. £1.79

RememberTheMilk

The best Get Things Done app ever. RememberTheMilk is my favourite To-Do list. Since I started using this app I have improved my personal and professional organisation a lot. The simplicity of the app is something I still find surprising. You open the app, tap, enter a task and a time such as “meeting w john 8:55” and RTM will remind you on the task at 8:55 (if today is later than 8:55 then it adds it for tomorrow). There are many date shortcuts such as “next tue” or “august” and also features such as priority, repetition, lists, tags, location or sharing. Another nice touch and well done feature is the reminder notification, you can fully customise it to your liking with the perfect sound and timing. The web interface is also great and full of features in a beautiful and simple interface which allows you to either use it for a couple features or utilize its maximum power. Wunderlist is very nice but not as featured as RTM.

Rating: 10/10. Use it 2-5 times a day. Free or £15/year

You should get an iPhone just for this

Anyone without a smartphone should get one immediately just because of these ones.

Skype

Free national and international calls to smartphones and computers at anytime. That is something really amazing. Just for that, people should invest in a smartphone and recycle their old mobile phone. For the chat I stay with Imo app as I find the Skype chat pretty slow and bloated.

Rating: 8/10.Use it twice a month. Free

Imo instant messenger

Imo is a free online chat with support for Facebook, Skype, Gmail and many more. I discovered this app a few weeks ago and now I can be online on more than 7 different chat services and always available to speak to anyone. This is a feature I was missing in my phone but didn’t care too much until I actually had it in my hands and saw the main advantages of the “new mobile texting”. Some people love WhatsApp (Blackberry users mainly) but I find it annoying and heavy to use. Plus you need all your friends to have a Blackberry or a smartphone to contact them while with Imo you can speak to anyone online in their computer or smartphone. The notification system at Imo is pretty sweet and unobtrusive too.

Rating: 8/10.Use it once a day. Free

Very nice apps I’m glad someone invented

Non-essential apps that you could live without although having them available makes a difference in your life.

RunKeeper

Tracks your speed and location by GPS and provides you with statistics and maps. As RememberTheMilk made me a more organised person, RunKeeper makes me healthier. Since I go running with it every week I know how much I run, my average speed, time and route and I can compare it with previous runs to monitor my physical improvements in stamina and speed. You can also use it while driving and it is quite interesting to see the fastest routes around the city and how well/safe you drive.

Rating: 7/10.Use it once/twice a week. Free or £12.50/year

Dropbox

Synchronises a super folder between computers and smartphones so you can access your files anytime/anywhere without the need of USB sticks or emails. I found it to be the best way to move photos from my iPhone to the computer in big bunches as iPhoto from Apple is slow and tedious (I still haven’t figured out how). And Dropbox is completely free (use this link to get an extra free 250MB).

Rating: 8/10.Use it once a week. Free or £6.20/month

Shazam

Tells you which song is playing from any place. You put the phone close to the speaker and hold it there for 10 seconds, wait 5 seconds more and the app tells you the name of the song, the artist, etc. Shazam is not one of the most used apps in my phone but the one I sometimes appreciate most when there is a good track playing and I don’t know the name of it.

Rating: 7/10.Use it twice a month. Free or £3.49 (unlimited)

Millionaire Tycoon

Better game than Monopoly. I payed for Monopoly and I haven’t really played it yet since I’ve spent decent hours with this addicting game, much similar to Monopoly but with more features and a richer gameplay and smarter computer AI that allows for a more complex strategy and challenging game.

Rating: 7/10. Use it once a month. Free or £0.59 (more levels)

TuneIn Radio

Radio is something I started neglecting five years ago until last week I discovered TuneIn. Every morning I use to listen to music while having a shower and getting dressed to go to work but listening to someone telling the news is something much better.

Rating: 6/10.Use it every morning. Free or £0.59 (no ads)

Life saver apps

These are apps I rarely use but occasionally I need them.

Tube Exits

While travelling by underground it tells you which carriage to board to arrive right by your platform exit allowing you to save crowds of people and time. London’s Tube gets specially crowded at peak times and this app makes my travels much better and less annoying. Easy to use and with a great interface.

Rating: 7/10.Use it twice a week. £0.59

Amazon UK

Online price comparison. Anytime I go shopping for anything except groceries I check the prices online from the best and biggest online market. Yesterday I purchased directly from it for the first time and it was very simple and easy.

Rating: 8/10.Use it once a month. Free

Camera+

Full-featured digital camera. I had always been using the default’s iPhone camera and edited the photos with Photoshop/Fireworks later until I finally decided to purchase Camera+ as I saw a lot of people had it and after using it for a while I must say that it has been a great decision. The app is very powerful and can 80% of the times do what I would do in a computer in terms of edition and photoshopping and it actually saves me a lot of time.

Rating: 7/10.Use it 2 times a week. £0.59

Honorable mentions

• SimpleNote: note taking with sync functionality
• ShopShop: groceries list
• 0870: free phone alternatives
• AroundMe: shops and places around you
• Tube Deluxe: Tube status updated live
• Wikihood: sights around you
• Sleep Cycle: intelligent alarm
• WordPress: update your blog through the iPhone
• TeamViewer: see your computers’ screen
• TouchMouse: use your iPhone as a trackpad
• XE Currency: currency conversions
• Light: flashlight with the iPhone
• Pro HDR: nice photos on the fly
• 360 Panorama: awesome 360 degree photos
• Justin.tv: video streaming
• WhiteNoise: relaxing noise
• SongKick: latest concerts
• SoundCloud: great music radio

There are 30 apps mentioned and they are basically the ones I use. I have more than 130 apps installed right now in the iPhone from which I may use about 60.

What are your favourite apps you can’t live without?

The image was created in 20.2 seconds and quickly rubber stamping the margins with Adobe Fireworks. I wasn’t even willing to create it, just playing around and I’m pretty sure if you spend a bit more dedication you can accomplish really neat stereographic projections. Here’s a video on someone using it:

Photo is from the Brighton Pier, United Kingdom
(by Xavi Esteve, Creative Commons Attributive Share Alike).

Es el eterno problema de las redes sociales, en este caso Facebook, hay usuarios que postean el minuto a minuto de sus vidas diarias y otros usuarios que publican con menos frecuencia centrándose en el interés y utilidad de sus mensajes hacia sus lectores (conocidos también con el nombre de “amigos que se preocupan por tu problema de procrastinación”).
Google Reader sacó hace un tiempo un método de ordenación en su lector de RSS al que llamaban “mágico”, así, da la opción de ordenar por “más antiguo”, “más reciente” o “ordenar por magia“. El sistema mágico consiste en ordenar por relevancia, recomendación o interés basado en tu uso: artículos leídos, cliqueados, favoriteados (“starred”), compartidos… y funciona muy bien para tener un “stream” variado y de calidad. Evitando así que algunos blogs con 60 posts semanales acaparen tu bandeja y difícilmente puedas llegar a leer aquellos artículos de blogs con 1 post semanal (que proporcionalmente suelen ser más agradecidos).

El objetivo de este artículo es el de conseguir un stream de calidad en el News Feed de Facebook sin tener que borrar o bloquear a algunos amigos que postean demasiado frecuente e irrelevantemente (también llamados “amigos SPAM”), sólo limitar su número de posts.

Así que después de investigar diferentes opciones y a la espera de que Facebook se de cuenta de este problema, aquí está la solución.

El SPAM amigo de Facebook

El principal problema con el que nos encontramos es la frecuencia con la que se usa, visita y postea en Facebook. Algunos usuarios visitan Facebook 10 veces al día o más, otros lo visitan una vez al día o incluso una vez a la semana. Y ahí recae el problema. Cuando los usuarios menos frecuentes entran en Facebook, se les muestra la acumulación de todo lo que ha pasado desde su última conexión y aparte de la actualización de estado de muchos amigos, la mayoría de notificaciones suele consistir básicamente en un grupo de gente adicta a la red social con una altísima actividad publicando estados, vídeos, fotos, comentando y gustando páginas y frases de Belén Esteban a doquier. Si esa información fuera útil e interesante todo bien, pero normalmente no es el caso. Además, lo que nos interesa en las redes sociales es justamente que sea una red y no un blog o diario personal de una persona que acapara todo nuestro muro.

La implementación que Facebook debería hacer

Sería que Facebook adaptara el “ordenar por magia” de Google a su sistema, es decir, ordenar por relevancia, variedad e interés mostrado, o incluso que pudiéramos ordenar nuestros amigos por orden de importancia y/o grado de amistad. Pero lamentablemente esto no existe aún, así que tenemos que optar por otros métodos.

La solución más cercana

Ya que no existe la solución perfecta todavía, a continuación se expone la solución encontrada teniendo en cuenta que no queremos eliminar a nadie de la lista de amigos, ni bloquear o alterar la relación que tenemos, simplemente queremos variedad en nuestro feed evitando tanto SPAM de ciertos amigos.

Existe una opción que es la de “ocultar” las actualizaciones de determinado usuario (haciendo click en la X arriba y a la derecha del mensaje). Pero no es una opción válida ya que así bloqueas a ese usuario de poder comentar en tu muro o incluso etiquetarte en fotos.

La solución que mejor funciona a día de hoy es la de utilizar las Listas de Facebook, que aparte también nos sirven para blindar nuestra privacidad en Facebook.

Lista de Facebook para mejorar el stream en tu muro

Es muy sencillo siguiendo estos pasos repletos de imágenes para dummies y gente con prisa:

1. Ves al apartado de amigos
   
2. Haz click en Editar amigos
   
3. Haz click en Crear lista
   
4. Llámala algo descriptivo como “VIP” o “IMPORTANTE” y añade a la gente que realmente te interesa, no selecciones a amigos SPAM
   

Ahora ya tienes tu lista creada, cuando entres en Facebook verás el stream de actualizaciones de siempre pero mediante un par de clicks podrás filtrar el SPAM y centrarte en aquella gente que te interesa. Desde la página principal de Facebook:

1. Haz click en “Más recientes”
   
2. Haz click en la flechita
   
3. Selecciona tu lista VIP
   

I voilà! Tu stream sólo mostrará aquellos mensajes, fotos y demás de gente que antes quedaba sepultada ante los adictos al Facebook sin la necesidad de eliminarlos o bloquearlos con sus consiguientes represalias.

Alguna solución mejor, sugerencia o comentario? Feliz 2011!

Foto por Xavi Esteve (Chandigarh, India)

Listas de amigos de Facebook

Las listas de amigos son un metodo muy util de agrupar a tus amigos acorde a su relacion contigo (familia, companeros de trabajo, universidad, etc…)

La ventaja que tenemos es que podemos usar las Listas de Amigos como Listas de Acceso. Explicado a continuacion:

Planeando las Listas de Acceso de Facebook

Vamos a crear una lista por cada tipo de acceso. Estas son las listas de acceso que tengo configuradas actualmente:

• 01 – Estado y enlaces (los amigos en este grupo podran ver actualizaciones de estado, Intereses y de que grupos soy fan)
• 02 – Wall Posts (podran ver los mensajes del muro y escribir en el)
• 03 – Fotos (podran ver mis fotos)
• 04 – Videos (los videos son un poco mas delicados que las fotos asi que prefiero separar su acceso, por ejemplo, algunos familiares o mi jefe no quiero que vean algunos videos en los que salgo)
• 05 – Educacion y Trabajo (podran ver informacion de trabajo y mis estudios)
• 07 – Info de Contacto (podran ver donde vivo, mi numero de telefono, mi e-mail y demas informacion de contacto)
• 00 – NADA (la gente en este grupo no podra ver nada de nada aparte de la foto de perfil, perfecto para aquella gente que tienes en el Facebook y no conoces de nada, normalmente seran gente que has agregado para tener mas puntos en el algun juego de Facebook: FarmVille, Mobwars, etc. o gente que agregaste estando borracho/a y ni te acuerdas)

CONSEJO: Usa un prefijo tipo “01 - ” para diferenciar entre las listas de amigos y las de acceso.

Puedes crear mas listas y ser todo lo especifico que quieras (separar educacion de trabajo, etc.) aunque con esta configuraciontu cuenta de Facebook ya estara muy protegida. Una vez hayas acabado de configurar las listas, vamos a crearlas.

Crear Listas de Acceso en Facebook

NOTA: Las imagenes estan en ingles aunque siguiendo las instrucciones que os doy podeis llegar perfectamente, si no entendeis algun paso preguntadlo en los comentarios al final del post y lo actualizo :-)

Ves a Amigos:

Haz clic en Crear una lista arriba a la derecha:

Ahora escribe el nombre del primer grupo de acceso: 01 – Estado y enlaces.

Selecciona aquellos amigos que quieras que tengan acceso a tu estado y enlaces. Sigue este proceso hasta que hayas creado todas las listas de acceso.

Por ultimo, crea la lista 00 – NADA. Este grupo no tendra acceso a nada (aunque pertenezca a otros grupos).

Configurando las Listas de Acceso en Opciones de Privacidad

Ahora que tenemos todas las listas creadas, accede a Cuenta y luego a Configuracion de privacidad:

Recorre todas las secciones que encuentres:

Y en cada una selecciona Personalizar:

Al clicar en Personalizar aparecera una ventanita. En Hacer esto visible a selecciona Personalizar y selecciona la/s lista/s que mas se adapten a ese apartado. En Ocultar a selecciona 00 – NADA.

Aqui tienes un ejemplo de mi configuracion para que amigos pueden ver mi numero de telefono movil:

Otro ejemplo:

Sigue haciendo esto con todos los apartados. Una vez termines te quedara algo como esto:

Mantenimiento de las Listas de Acceso en Facebook

Si necesitas agregar o quitar a gente de las listas de acceso lo puedes hacer facilmente siguiendo estos pasos. Haz click en Amigos:

Apareceran todas las listas que tienes creadas. Clica en la lista que quieras modificar:

Y a la derecha clica en Editar lista:

Ahora selecciona o deselecciona amigos que quieras agregar o quitar de la lista.

Confirmando y configurando nuevos amigos

Cuando confirmes un nuevo amigo:

Al darle a Confirmar aparecera un boton que pone Anadir a la lista, haz clic ahi y aparecera una ventana:

Personaliza que listas quieres que tu amigo tenga acceso. Si no lo conoces de nada agregalo simplemente a 00 – NADA y no te preocupes que no tendra acceso a nada.

Fin :)

Ya esta! Espero que esta guia os ayude a mantener vuestra privacidad en estos tiempos que corren en Facebook.

Si tienes alguna idea o sugerencia comenta en este post y mejorare la guia.

—
Imagen de cabecera: bejealousofme

Here’s a nice way to keep your privacy settings in Facebook up-to-date and secure. It is really easy to set up and you can customize every friend individually really fast and easy. I’ve been using it for the last year and my account is as secure as I want, just sharing what I want to whom I want and hiding what I don’t want to show too in an easy way to set up and maintain.

Facebook Friend lists

The friend lists are useful to group people regarding your relation with you i.e. Family, Work colleagues, University, High School, London…

But you can also use Friend lists to create Access lists. That’s what we are going to do…

Planning the Access lists

What we will do is to create a list for each type of access. Thiese are the access lists I’ve got:

• 01 – Status and Links (friends in this group will be able to see wall posts, status updates, Interests and groups I belong to)
• 02 – Wall Posts (friends here will be able to POST on your wall)
• 03 – Photos (will be able to see your photos)
• 04 – Videos (videos are usually more embarrassing/private than photos so I prefer to separate people that can see photos and videos)
• 05 – Education and Work (will be able to see Education and Work information)
• 07 – Contact info (will be able to see your address, phone number, etc.)
• 00 – NOTHING (this people will not be able to see anything! useful for those Facebook friends you don’t know at all but you’ve added through Facebook games, because they are hot, you were drunk or [insert strange reason here])

TIP: Use a prefix like “01 - ” to differentiate between Access and normal Friend lists.

Once you’ve got your lists planned (you can be more specific and differentiate between Status updates and Interests, etc…) let’s create them.

Creating Facebook Access lists

Go to Friends:

And click on Create list:

Now type in the first access group: 01 – Status and links.

Select those friends you want to be able to see your status and links. Maybe you want just some of your family members to be able to see them, or only some work colleagues.

Keep doing this with all the above groups mentioned.

Last step is to create the 00 – NOTHING group. This group will have no access to anything, I use it for those people you just add from Facebook games like Mobwars, Farmville and so, just because you need to have more friends playing it to improve in the game but they are not really your friends.

Configuring the Access lists in Facebook Privacy Settings

Now that we’ve got all our Access lists created let’s go to set them up. Click Account, Privacy settings:

Go through all the sections:

And in each item select Custom:

A popup window will show some settings.

In Make this visible to select Custom and select one or more of the Access groups you just created. In the Except select the 00 – NOTHING.

Here are my settings for Mobile phone:

Another example:

Keep doing this for all the settings. Once you finish it should look something like this:

Editing Access lists later

If you need to edit Access lists later you can do that by clicking Friends:

A list of all the lists will show, select the one you want to edit:

And then click on Edit list at the top right:

And select or de-select friends.

Confirming or adding a new friend

When confirming a new friend:

An Add to list button will appear, click it and a popup window will show:

Customize your new friend’s access to your Facebook stuff. If you don’t know him/her just select the 00 – NOTHING and he/she won’t have access to anything.

The End :)

That’s it, hope this helps everyone be more secure online now that Facebook is messing around with their policies.

Feel free to post any suggestions or ideas to improve this.

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Heading image credit: bejealousofme

El colegio es un montón de habitaciones donde te sientas unas 2,000 horas o así y tratas de memorizar cosas. Estas 2,000 horas se reparten en 4 años. Pasas el resto del tiempo durmiendo, de fiesta y tratando de ligar.

Básicamente, aprenderás dos tipos de cosas en el colegio:

1. Cosas que necesitas saber en tu futura vida (2 horas).
2. Cosas que no necesitas saber en tu futura vida (1,998 horas).

Lo mejor son esas cosas que aprendes en las asignaturas que acaban en -ología, -osofía y demás. La idea es que memorices todas estas cosas, luego las escribas en pequeños exámenes, y más tarde las olvides. Si fallas en olvidarlas, acabas siendo profesor y tienes que quedarte en la escuela para el resto de tu vida.

Después de primaria, necesitas escoger una dirección, que es la que más intentas memorizar y en la que más acabas olvidando la mayoría de las cosas. Aquí va un muy buen consejo: Asegúrate de escoger una especialidad que no implique “realidades” ni “respuestas correctas”. Esto significa que no debes especializarte en Matemáticas, Física, Biología, Química o Geología porque implican hechos concretos. Si por ejemplo te especializas en Matemáticas, un día estarás en clase y el profesor te dirá: “Define el coseno integral de la raíz cuadrada de un romboide de eje binario y extrapola el resultado a cinco vértices significativos.” Si no sales con la respuesta exacta que el profesor tiene en mente, suspendes.

Lo mismo pasa con Química: Si escribes en tu libro de examen que el Carbono con el Hidrógeno forman el roble, tu profesor the cateará. Él quiere que escribas la misma respuesta que él y los demás químicos han acordado. Los científicos son muy temperamentales con esto.

Así que deberías escoger materias como Lengua, Filosofía, Psicología o Sociología (asignaturas en que nadie realmente entiende de lo que se habla y que no implica ningún hecho real.

Atendí a clases en todas estas asignaturas así que os daré unas breves pautas:

Filología

Implica escribir redacciones acerca de libros largos que has leído a trozos el día antes de clase. Aquí va un consejo para tener buenas notas en las redacciones: Nunca digas nada acerca del libro que nadie con sentido común diría. Por ejemplo, supongamos que estás leyendo Moby Dick. Nadie con sentido común diría que Moby Dick es una ballena grande y blanca ya que el libro se refiere a una ballena grande y blanca casi 11,000 veces. Así que en tu redacción, tienes que decir que Moby Dick es en realidad la República de Irlanda. Tu profesor, quien está harto de leer redacciones y a quien nunca le gustó Moby Dick, pensará que eres enormemente creativo. Si puedes encontrar interpretaciones lunáticas de simples historias, aprobarás con buena nota.

Filosofía

Se trata básicamente en sentarse en una habitación y decidir que no existe tal cosa como la realidad y cuando acaba la clase ir a comer. Escoge Filosofía si tomas muchas drogas.

Psicología

Trata de hablar sobre ratas y sueños.

Los psicólogos están obsesionados con las ratas y los sueños. Una vez estuve un semestre entero entrenando a una rata a apretar pequeños botones en una secuencia determinada, y luego enseñar a mi compañero de piso a hacer la misma cosa. La rata aprendió más rápido. Mi compañero de piso es ahora doctor. Si te gustan las ratas o los sueño, y más que eso, si sueñas con ratas, deberías escoger Psicología.

Sociología

Por simple falta de inteligibilidad, la sociología es la asignatura número uno. Me senté durante cientos de horas en cursos de Sociología y a leer escritos de sociología, y nunca leí ninguno que tuviera una explicación coherente. Esto es porque los sociólogos quieren que se les considere científicos, así que dedican la mayoría de su tiempo a convertir simples y obvias observaciones a jerga científica.
Si planeas escoger Sociología, tienes que aprender a hacer eso. Por ejemplo, supón que has observado que los niños lloran cuando caen al suelo. Deberías escribir “La observación metodológica sobre las tendencias comportamentales sociométricas en individuos prematuros indica que existe una relación causal entre el tropismo y las formas de comportamiento lacrimológico.” Si puedes escribir más como eso unas 50 o 60 páginas obtendrás una sustentosa subvención del gobierno.

Adaptación al castellano por Xavi Esteve.
Fuente original en inglés: The Truth About College.