In life, there are many decisions which we delay or try to avoid, as while your current situation is far from ideal, it isn’t until it becomes intolerable that the alternative seems feasible or preferable. While we all like to think that we chose the best person, product or service for our needs, in reality mediocrity often rules and this is especially true in areas where we lack expertise, time or inclination to comprehend an alternative.

Someone once asked me how often I had changed my dentist or hairdresser even though I might have been far from delighted with them. My dentist is frequently surly and sometimes borderline rude, and on more than one occasion at the salon, I have muttered a grudging approval when all I wanted to say is “what on earth have you done to my hair?” It is true that we often stay with the devil we know; their flaws known and tolerated.

Then one day, you suffer for days from toothache due to a botched dental job, or end up with green hair one Saturday afternoon and the balance has suddenly tipped and any anxiety of change dissipates. It is often at this point that we find people who make us wonder how on earth we tolerated all that went before. “Why oh why didn’t I do this years’ ago?” is a familiar sentiment to most of us at some point. 

Computers carry the additional obstacle of being simultaneously incomprehensible and erratic, while many of those who service and maintain them often speak in an unknown language while shaking their head patronisingly when you fail to comprehend. It is little surprise therefore that “better the devil you know” often applies in the IT support sector more than most.

It may be that you are delighted with your current IT support arrangement, and that being the case I would be the last to advocate change. Saving a couple of pounds alone is not sufficient reason to displace an excellent company and good relationship. Good people don’t come cheap, and cheap people are frequently not good for any number of reasons. If however you are less than delighted with your current arrangement, moving is much simpler and less complicated than you might have thought. Your IT is a core component of your business, and is an area where mediocrity and “that will do” just won’t do!

EasylifeIT™ offer exceptional IT support and put customer service and communication at the core of our business. We are infinitely better than the devil you know.

Lindsey Hall. Director. EasylifeIT

Source: nakedsecurity.sophos.com by Graham Cluley on January 27, 2012

Whether you like it or not, Facebook is making its new profile format - known as the Timeline - compulsory.

In the next few weeks, every Facebook account will be updated with the new-look profile, presenting a scrapbook of all of your past status updates and photographs.

Facebook hopes that you might even fill in information about your life before joining the social network.

And don't worry if you're too lazy to keep your Timeline filled with information about your activities - Facebook apps are going to do that job for you.

Spotify, for instance, defaults to filling your Timeline with details of the last song you've listened to. (As if your friends were interested..)

Other "frictionless" Facebook apps will share newspaper articles you just read online or buy movie tickets, all without you having to press the "Share" or "Like" button.

So, Facebook is encouraging users to enter even more personal details about themselves and their life experiences, and making it simpler for others to view the information.

But might this not also make it even easier for identity thieves to put together a profile about an individual, discover the name of their first pet, and so forth? That's all information which could be put to a nefarious use.

We asked over 4000 Facebook users what they thought of the new Timeline feature, and the response was overwhelming negative.

Now, we can't claim that the poll was scientific - and the kind of people who participate in our polls might be more conscious of privacy and security-related issues than the average man in the street.

Nevertheless, it does seem to me that there are some genuine reasons to pause before embracing the Facebook Timeline as an entirely positive thing.

This Twitter user's comment sums things up quite well for me:

I had the same experience as @euzie. When I voluntarily tried out the Facebook Timeline late last year, I found myself shocked by the realisation of just how much I had shared on Facebook over the past few years.

I'm somebody who was never a rabid Facebook user, and have been well aware of the various risks that come along through sharing too much online, and yet the Facebook Timeline brought home to me just how much I had shared in the way of status updates, photographs, groups I had joined and "Like"s I had made.

And it scared me. Previously Facebook had managed to keep my history of interactions with it out of my sight, but now it was there for me to see. And combined with the challenge I felt in keeping up-to-speed on Facebook's morphing privacy settings I knew it was time to go.

I ended up downloading over 48MB of photos and status updates, and permanently deleting my account .

I tell the whole story of "Why I left Facebook" on the BBC's website.

Of course, my position is unusual. I'm quoted in the media discussing social media security, so I have a very good reason for not wanting a privacy screw-up to reflect badly on me. That was a great incentive for me to quit Facebook.

And I am not expecting Facebook Timeline to be the catalyst for many people to leave. After all, we've seen Facebook revamp its site in the past, watched its users grumble, and yet still the site grows in popularity.

In my experience, there's a sizable group of people who aren't big fans of Facebook but still stay on the site, because they feel they would miss out if they weren't there. After all, if that's where all your friends are - you don't want to be the one not knowing what's going on, do you?

But, if nothing else, use this opportunity to re-evaluate what you share online, spring clean your Facebook account and online friend relationships, and ensure that you are only sharing what you want to share, with who you want to share it with.

If you do decide to stay on Facebook, and want to get an early warning about privacy issues, the latest security threats and scams, be sure to join the Sophos Facebook page where we have a thriving community of over 160,000 people.

Source: nakedsecurity.sophos.com by Graham Cluley on January 27, 2012