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DISCLAIMER: This is my personal blog. The blatherings here aren't (necessarily) the views of the current company I work for, companies I've previously blessed with my presence, my loving parents, the Illuminati, or anyone other than me, me, me!

The RIGHT way to author privacy policies

You'd think that companies would "get it" by now. Most don't.

Privacy policies aren't rocket-science, but they're absolutely critical to the long-term success of a company. Without earned trust and strong communications, firms have little hope of surviving, and thank goodness!

So without further ado, here is my free advice to companies wanting to create or update a privacy policy:

A privacy policy must do all of the following:
- INFORM: Let visitors know, in accessible language, how the site collects and manages data acquired
- REASSURE: Offer confident and truthful promises about the safeguarding and respect of this data
- PERSUADE: Successfully invite visitors to fully utilize the site's functions, and to provide honest data and feedback without fear
- PROTECT: Guard the company itself against basic legal or public relations challenges that may arise from improper or incomplete disclosures

Ideally, every company should offer both a comprehensive privacy policy (though preferably not in 'legalese' -- whip those lawyers into speaking English, please) and also a concise one paragraph summary of what they will and won't do with their customers' data.

And then -- though I shouldn't have to say this -- they need stick by their promises... and they'll then be rewarded with greater loyalty and fewer lawsuits

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, May 3, 2004 at 17:31 Permalink
- Filed under Business and consumers • Society • Law • Workplace • Tips
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

Got a Gmail account? Here are a few interesting tricks ‘n’ tidbits

[In case you didn't already notice, I wrote a pretty detailed review of Gmail earlier, in which I also noted that I'm unfortunately unable to procure accounts for folks. Sorry! For those who already have accounts, I hope the tips below are useful and/or fun

- Adam]

So, you're one of the Gmail testers and you want more bang for the buck, eh? Try these tips on for size:

SENDING & SHORTCUTS
- Send mail to fellow Gmail'er by just entering their username in the TO, CC, or BCC spot. No need to include @gmail.com

- Did you reserve and now wish you had left out the darn period? It's not too late! For whatever reason, Gmail treats that e-mail address the same as one without a period (and visa versa), so works just as well as . As you may have guessed, Gmail is flexible with regards to capitalizations, too!

- Using the handy-dandy spell-checker and want to quickly Resume Checking without using the mouse? Just hit 'R', an undocumented shortcut key in this context.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Tuesday, April 20, 2004 at 21:20 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Communication tools • Search engines • Google • Grab bag • Tips
- Commented on by 38 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Privacy, paranoia, and Plaxo

For those of you reading my blogs and primarily interested in the TIPS category, I'll get the useful / utilitarian part of this post out of the way first:

The Plaxo service is pretty darn cool. Despite some annoying quirks, it's useful, it's fun, and it's free. I definitely recommend giving Plaxo a try.

What is it? Well, in a nutshell, Plaxo is a service (with optional software) that allows you to:
- Keep your addressbook up-to-date pretty effortlessly.
- Send out contact-info changes to your friends easily.
- Access your entire addressbook securely on the Web from anywhere.

Read on for my detailed thoughts about Plaxo.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Saturday, February 28, 2004 at 21:14 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Society • People and relationships • Tips
- Commented on by 13 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Fabulous garlic fries

Tonight I had a hankering for garlic fries.
Unfortunately, I wasn't near a ballpark, and I had wisely NOT stocked up on the horrible hydrogenated fat artery-clogging excuse for garlic fries sold at the local supermarket.

Instead, I decided to make my own... and man, did they turn out great! Read on for my (formerly) super-secret AdamRecipe!

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, February 2, 2004 at 21:21 Permalink
- Filed under Food and nutrition • Tips
- Commented on by 2 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Find a cool Web site? Just Furl it!

I recently discovered the coolest site and service.

It's called Furl (http://www.furl.net), which stands for File URL. In a nutshell, it is an excellent free resource that will help you save and full-text-find any Web page on the Net.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, February 2, 2004 at 0:58 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Tips
- Commented on by 2 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Digital camera advice

I'm no stranger to digital cameras... having bought and used one for myself around 3 years ago, and also shopped for friends and family. I'm also shopping for a new one myself this week, since I'm tired of not having a camera after having my Olympus 3030z stolen in Estonia last summer :|

Since I'm in a digicam-shopping mood, I figured I'd share some advice. Feel free to chime in with additional tips via comments!

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Thursday, March 27, 2003 at 11:29 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Photography • Tips
- Commented on by 10 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Amazon.com’s got… food?!

Just when you thought Amazon.com couldn't branch out any further... now they're featuring Restaurant Menus for Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 at 18:00 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Happy body • Food and nutrition • Tips
- Commented on by one person so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

MusicBrainz: Intelligent music tagging and much more

Many folks are used to being able to insert their CDs into their computers and have the disc and tracks recognized via one of the online databases, such as GraceNote or CDDB. That's decidedly cool and useful.

But MusicBrainz, a new open source service, takes music tagging to a new level.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 at 17:28 Permalink
- Filed under Arts and entertainment • Geekery • Tips
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

I hate spam

More than 200 spams are sent to me DAILY. Yes, I'm not exaggerating.
Luckily, a bunch of 'em are stopped before they hit my inbox due to Brightmail filtering offered by my ISP (Earthlink) for free.

But that still leaves tons of spam hitting my inbox.

I was using a program called POPfile, which had an admirable 97-98% effectiveness with sorting my e-mail. Unfortunately, some of that 2-3% was painful, since I couldn't 'whitelist' e-mail from my friends. In other words, there was no way to tell the software to automatically accept (and not mark as spam) e-mail from people in my Outlook addressbook.

So I ditched POPfile and I've been trying the embarrassingly aol'ishly named "ihatespam" program.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, February 3, 2003 at 14:41 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Tips
- Commented on by 5 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Online dating—tips for success

A while back, I wrote an essay about online dating -- particularly aspects of posting an ad.

I didn't publicize it much on my site, and so I think it's largely gotten lost in the shuffle... and I'd still love to get some feedback. If you've tried the online dating thing, know folks who have, or even just have some thoughts about the issue, I'd love to have you check out my essay and leave a comment or two here

- Blathered by Adam on Thursday, January 23, 2003 at 20:51 Permalink
- Filed under People and relationships • Tips
- Commented on by 2 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

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