Archive for category personal

How My Cellphone Account Got Hacked – And Yours Can Too!

Posted by Paul Holmes in personal on February 9th, 2010

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I arrived home after my family vacation to Disneyland in October. I noticed my cellphone bill was quite large, and assumed it was all the awful roaming charges Rogers (and other Canadian cellphone carriers) charge you when you go the U.S. I grumbled (particularly because we tried so hard not to use our phones when we were there), and forgot about it.

I noticed another large invoice on my cellphone in November, and decided to check my bill. I couldn’t find it, so I went on to other things and forgot about it.

In December, right before Christmas, I got a call from the cellphone company that my payment to my account had been declined on my credit card. I told them to try again in a few days, after my payment processed, and went about doing Christmas things.

In early January, they called again – they were trying to process over $800 in charges on my card, after putting through a similar amount in December. I still hadn’t received my bill since September.

Something was terribly wrong!

The Rogers operator asked me who in my family makes all the calls to Australia. Nobody in my family calls Australia.

Then she asked me how many phones I have on my account. I told her I had 2 phones, and she told me I had 5. The “fraud department” would call me back.

Somebody had “hacked” my cellphone account. I immediately freaked out. Was I in for a full-blown identity theft? I started checking and double-checking everything.

When I got a call back from Rogers’ fraud department, I put a secret passcode on my account – an optional feature I was never made aware of. I asked how on earth this could have happened.

This was when the lightning bolt hit.

Without a passcode, all somebody needs to pretend to be you is your full name, phone number and date of birth.

My response: Are you serious?!? (I would have felt OK about a colourful adjective at this point, if I was more inclined to that sort of thing, but my mother taught me better.)

Now for those who don’t know me very well, you’ll know I’m something of a social media evangelist. I give presentations about it, helped found the local chapter of Social Media Club, and otherwise help people understand the technology. Naturally, I’m also an avid user, and use Facebook daily.

Absolutely everything the hacker needed was on my Facebook profile.

But that doesn’t even mean they got it from Facebook. The fact is, it’s pretty easy to find out somebody’s name, phone number and date of birth without Facebook. Perhaps I should have been smarter about it, but I think I can be forgiven for assuming a company like Rogers Wireless would have higher standards of identification.

It turns out that the crook(s) changed my address on the account (twice, apparently, and to invalid addresses), discontinued paper invoices, ordered 3 new phones, and charged up a tonne of long distance on them. This despite Rogers’ fraud department indicating that they very likely just wanted the phones.

The good news is that the Rogers’ fraud department person was very helpful, and ensured me that I will get all the money back, and receive a full account of the phone service charges (and refunded charges) very soon. (Of course, I had over $1,000 “in limbo” for several months, while I awaited the paper invoice that was never to come.)

The bad news is that these punks probably won’t get caught, and probably won’t go to jail. Rogers will report the crime to police, but apparently they are rarely caught.

The moral of the story, if you haven’t already done so, is:

CALL YOUR WIRELESS COMPANY TODAY AND ADD A PASSCODE TO YOUR ACCOUNT.

cellphone, rogers wireless, scam, warning

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Top 10 Social Media

Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, personal, social media on December 1st, 2009

I have written various articles on social media in the past, and a few people have asked what my favourites are. The following list is not “the best”, nor specifically “the best for application X”, rather my favourites – those I enjoy using or gain specific benefit for using.

10. Ning’s (like Your Canada)
Ning is a really cool product that allows you to launch your own social networks around specific themes. Your Canada is an example of one I launched to add a social component to our popular Your Canada website.

9. FriendFeed
Everyone was getting excited about FriendFeed, the ultimate social media collaborator. It’s a cool tool because it let’s you tie all your social media activities into one stream. It can be a bit overwhelming though, so I find myself using it sparingly these days.

8. YouTube
Anonymity is still the name of the game on YouTube. As a result, you get poorly spelled and otherwise idiotic comments on videos all the time. This is too bad, given that it otherwise is the best place for exposure, and the tools to connect people socially are actually pretty good. The social aspects of video are still developing, and I suspect a number of other sites may take the lead in “social video” while Google focuses YouTube more on commercializing what they have (and doing this primarily by pushing sponsored videos, vs. an advertising model). Some to watch include Vimeo, DailyMotion, 12seconds.tv, Ustream.tv, blip.tv, and about a few dozen others.

7. Flickr
Yahoo! has one product that kicks ass and totally owns it’s vertical, and that is Flickr. Flickr is the best social medium for sharing photos/images. Picasa is Google’s alternative, and it is OK. A few others are Photobucket and Flixya, but they are a long way from successful at this point.

6. Digg
The DiggBar has revolutionized Digg (much to the chagrin of the ol’ skool Diggers). I use it all the time, and am a bit of a Diggaholic now. It’s a great tool for sharing interesting stuff you find on the web. It also has some great integration tools to very easily share “Dugg” stuff on Facebook and Twitter. I use Digg every single day.

5. Instant Messaging
Three years ago this was number one (followed by blogging and online forums). Three years ago, I did 100% of my instant messaging using MSN Messenger. Two years ago, 80% was MSN and 20% was GoogleTalk. Today, 50% is Facebook, 30% is GoogleTalk and 20% is MSN. As always, ICQ and AIM are 0%. Instant messaging is still a great way to get ahold of people in a hurry.

4. Blogging
I love to blog. I have at least 5 blogs I update regularly, and I love posting comments to other people’s blogs (which is what makes it a social medium). I also love WordPress; I am a total convert to the platform. I even organized a WordCamp in Victoria a few weeks ago, which was tonnes of fun.

3. Facebook
I was a Facebook holdout for ages, but have grown to like it. I like it because almost everyone I know is there. The platform itself is annoying sometimes, and frustrating at others, but they have the critical mass, so it remains a tool I continue to use, even if I use it despite itself.

2. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is great for business. At a recent presentation I gave at the University of Victoria to all of their business students, I asked several hundred students how many of them were on Facebook, and almost every hand went up. I then asked how many were on LinkedIn, and about 5 hands went up (I think a few of those hands were faculty, too). This is ashame. LinkedIn is a great tool for business, but also for career building. The guy sitting next to you in class today might be CEO of some big corporation in 10 years. Stay in touch and add them to your network on LinkedIn. I’m not sure if I got through to them or not.

LinkedIn is easy, passive and a great way to introduce people. It’s sort of like a virtual business mixer, but doesn’t require you to smile and dress nicely.

1. Twitter
Even people who love Twitter make fun of it. Twitter is an amazing tool for connecting with people and getting a message out. Through the power of the retweet, your potential network is huge. That conference I organized back in #4 above – I used Twitter as the primary medium through which to promote it, and over 100 local (and international) people showed up. Not too shabby for something people love to make fun of.

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I’ll review my list every once in awhile as my tastes change. It’ll be interesting to look back in the future and see what has changed.

I can already say that “FriendFeed” used to be much higher up the list, and I expect there is a good chance Google Wave and Foursquare will appear here in the next year or two. The influence of mobile and video (and mobile video) should introduce a few new angles to the equation, too.

A few others that I use that didn’t make the top list are Plaxo (11), Yelp (12), Identi.ca (13), Vimeo (14), Meetup (15), SlideShare (16), MySpace (17), and StumbleUpon (18). I have profiles on a few others, but don’t use them much.

I’m always happy to connect with people I know on any of these networks, see my social media links in the right column to link to my profile, or visit my Contact page.

blogging, digg, facebook, flickr, friendfeed, instant messaging, linkedin, ning, social media, twitter, youtube

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Dammit LinkedIn, I’m a college dropout!

Posted by Paul Holmes in business, humour, internet, personal, social media on November 20th, 2009

My LinkedIn profile is 85% complete. It has been since I first signed up, and probably will be in 5 years. Why? Because I have not included my education. Here’s my recent correspondence with LinkedIn:

I do not wish to include education in my profile. I am a self-employed college dropout, and it is not relevant.

Yet LinkedIn does not allow an option for “include none”, and insists my profile remains only 85% complete. I find this really annoying, and would appreciate the option to include no education component in my profile.

Is my life incomplete according to LinkedIn because I have been largely educated within the University of Life?

Here is the response:

Dear Paul,

Thank you for contacting LinkedIn Customer Support.

And I want to apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.

Unfortunately, this option cannot be changed at this time, I will sent your information to our research and development team for future consideration.

[...]

We appreciate your commitment to making LinkedIn a stronger community!

It was mostly written in a late night moment of jest, but I do wonder how many others fall into a category like mine. Is Bill Gates on LinkedIn? OK, Bill Gates has been a bit more successful than me, but he’s had a few years headstart.

For those who don’t know me terribly well and aren’t already bored by this post, I’ll fill in some of the mundane details of my life.

As a teenager, I was very interested in computers, and would often stay up very late working on them. I wasn’t interested in games, but communications. One of the first things I did with my new 80286 computer and 1200 baud modem was open my own bulletin board system (BBS), which allowed people to dial my computer up from their computer, using the phone line, and post messages, download files (ironically, usually games), chat (when I was around), and send private messages.

Before the Internet came into popular use, my BBS was a node of FidoNet, a global network that operated across phone lines around the world (my address was 1:340/36).

I also found high school exceptionally boring, so much so that I barely graduated. They’d always enroll me in special classes for smart kids (or smart asses, in my case), but I’m fairly certain I never once applied myself. I had a C- in English 12, due primarily to the fact that classes began at 7:45am, so I missed about a third of them.

After high school I took an operations job with a medical software company and worked my way up the ladder there. I quit after a few years to take Political Science and History in college (I even took an English placement test, which ironically allowed me to skip the first English composition class, despite almost failing English 12). I went for one semester, but was given an opportunity to go back to my previous employer. The offer was for far more than what I might have earned with a PoliSci degree, so I dropped college and went back to work.

In 2000, I made a strategic exit from that company to start my own web company, and have been doing that ever since.

Let me be clear: I am not anti-education. Far from it, I am an enthusiastic supporter! I am often invited as a guest speaker for business students, and often work with people in my community to support the local University. I have a tonne of respect for anybody with an MBA, a Masters Degree, or a Doctorate – they clearly have a hell of a lot more patience than me!

So when people ask about my alma mater, life experience is my response.

BBS, Bill Gates, College Dropout, Education, FidoNet, History, linkedin, Political Science

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The “Other” Paul Holmes

Posted by Paul Holmes in humour, personal on September 27th, 2009

Every once in awhile I get an e-mail for another Paul Holmes. The most famous one is a noted broadcaster from New Zealand. He sounds very interesting, it might be fun to meet him one day.

Today I had an e-mail from somebody who wanted to interview this New Zealand Paul Holmes for a book she is working on. Very exciting stuff, indeed, and supporting a very worthy cause too.

Here was my response:

Sometimes I really wish this other Paul Holmes guy wasn’t so famous. There’s another Paul Holmes in Great Britain (he’s the Member of Parliament for Chesterfield, wherever that is).

I’m not a politician or broadcaster. Just a computer geek, blogger, and social media educator (http://twitter.com/tpholmes). But one day my fame will eclipse that of any other Paul Holmes who came before!!!!!

All the best with the book, and that other Paul Holmes. You seem nice, I hope he doesn’t snub you.

Sincerely,
The most famous Paul Holmes in all of Canada

P.S. In Canada, a Chesterfield is another name for a couch/sofa. Is it the same in New Zealand?

P.P.S. I have some great stories from people who have mistaken me for this other Paul Holmes in the past.

I sure hope I make a new pen pal from this.

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Swan Lake

Posted by Paul Holmes in music, personal, photography on May 11th, 2009

One of the most beautiful places in the world is Swan Lake. It is an amazing urban ecological reserve right in the heart of Saanich, the most populous municipality in Greater Victoria.

I had the privilege of spending my early years living just down the street from this place, from about age 3 to 8, and though we live a bit further away now, I enjoy every minute I spend there with my son, who is now at the same age I was then.

Swan Lake wasn’t always loved, and wasn’t always preserved. In fact, with years of neglect, it became something akin to an urban dump, the wildlife were abandoning it, and there was talk of filling it in and developing the land. Through the heroic efforts of a vocal few, it was preserved, and remains today as a tribute to what can be in a well-balanced urban setting.

Please consider supporting the ongoing efforts of the Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary by joining my wife and I at the Birds Of A Feather Flock Together event on Saturday, May 23, 7:30 p.m.

event, photography, swan lake

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The definitive iPhone strategy for iGoogle users

Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, personal on February 25th, 2009

So you’re thinking about an iPhone?

I am a heavy user of iGoogle (e-mail, calendar, RSS reader, bookmarks, movies, weather, shared documents, stock market, etc.). I went out and bought an iPhone to replace my old Nokia plain-jane model. Since then, I have gone through the motions to make it more and more useful.

While I expected a life-changing transformation, I had no idea of how amazing it would be.

It is possible to truly “synch” your contacts, e-mail and calendar with Gmail, essentially in real-time. So, now if you lose your phone, you will not “lose” any data.

My old BlackBerry had it’s own little inbox/outbox, so stuff sent on the phone was only on the phone. The truly integrated iGoogle solution actually creates a sent item in your Gmail.

I have a few tips for people that I would have found helpful before I got my iPhone and had to try to figure it all out.

Step I – Gmail Cleanup

Before you get your iPhone, go clean up the contacts in Gmail. Until very recently Google added every person you e-mailed to your contact list. Thankfully they stopped doing so, making this a reasonable place to store real contacts now.

I had about 1000 contacts in my list. I started by merging a whole bunch of contacts (people’s work and home e-mails), and deleting junk entries. I got this down to about 350 contacts.

Next, I created some categories and started categorizing people. While this is useful in Gmail, it is not so useful on your iPhone. However, it has the effect of also adding people to your “My Contacts” folder, which are the ones that appear on the iPhone. (So why not kill two birds with one stone – categorize them for Gmail AND add them to your iPhone.)

LASTLY I took my old phone and added phone numbers to existing Gmail contacts (and created entries for the few people I know who have no e-mail address).

Don’t get discouraged, this is all very worthwhile! Don’t create two contact lists! Merge it, simplify your life!

Serious Twitter users should also add a contact for TwitPic to e-mail photos directly from their iPhone with a scarily simple process (if you get drunk a lot, skip this option).

Step II – Go Buy Your iPhone

Do this second, only because Step I took me about 6 hours. I crunched mine into one all-nighter, but reasonable folks like you might need to spread this out over a few days.

Step III – Update Firmware

Do this by plugging your phone into your computer and using iTunes on your computer. Don’t mess with iTunes on the phone – at least not at this point.

While you’re in there, download some applications. For Twitter, TwitterFon is the best. FaceBook and LinkedIn have applications. Serial Instant Messengers might try IM+ Lite (it’s not awesome, but it’s the best I’ve found so far). Don’t go too crazy yet.

Step IV – Connect to Home Wi-Fi

I remember reading about these phones of the future in The Economist a few years ago that would let you do everything through your home Wi-Fi. Well, we are half way there – you can do all the data functions through your LAN (in fact, you can do this stuff with the Touch). But the cellphone companies wouldn’t want to sell you a phone that doesn’t rely on their towers, so voice is not on Wi-Fi.

Go into settings and turn your Wi-Fi on. See if it works.

Hopefully it doesn’t work. If you have a protected network (which you should), you may need to add the IP to your whitelist in its configuration, or you may need to do a password, or minimally type the name of your network into your phone (because it doesn’t broadcast), depending on what security options you have enabled for Wi-Fi.

For whitelisting the MAC address on your router, go to Settings, General, About, then scroll down. They call it Wi-Fi Address.

Step V – Synch Calendar and Contacts

Google has a step-by-step example of how this is done that works perfectly, and takes about 60 seconds.

Step VI – Synch Email

See documentation here. Also takes about 60 seconds.

Step VII – Embrace Your Inner Geek

Applause.

Complaints

My two complaints are less about my iPhone and more about getting the world to conform to my iPhone.

Wi-Fi that requires a login like at Starbucks, is just a royal pain on your iPhone.

I get a nasty blue screen of death on my PC whenever I have any photos on my camera roll, so I have to e-mail photos to myself and delete them. Next computer will be a Mac!

bsod, gmail, igoogle, iphone, starbucks, twitter, wi-fi

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