Think about everything Google knows about you based on your Google searches alone. They can now use that data to recommend videos for you to watch on YouTube. That goes for all the data they’ve amassed through all the Google services you use, including Google Calendar, Gmail, Picasa, G+…

There is no opting out of this, other than closing your Google account. So things with Google are about to get more personal than ever, starting on March 1.

Here are some articles with additional information:

• FAQ: Google’s New Privacy Policy, Washington Post
• What actually changed in Google’s new privacy policy, Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Google knows too much about you, CNN

Black March is the latest movement spurred by hacker group, Anonymous, in response to all the Internet censorship bills in circulation lately.

Anonymous is asking consumers everywhere to boycott the entertainment industry (the big guys pushing these bills forward) for the entire month of March. More specifically, they’re saying:

“Do not buy a single record. Do not download a single song, legally or illegally. Do not go to see a single film in cinemas, or download a copy. Do not buy a video game. Do not buy a single book or magazine.”

A lot of people are against SOPA, PIPA, and other censorship bills but still nervous about Black March. The boycott is intended to hurt very large entertainment companies. But it could end up doing a lot more damage to small businesses that sell entertainment products and have nothing to do with SOPA.

So some people have proposed an adjustment. They’re saying consumers should boycott the big entertainment businesses while still supporting small businesses. If people do that, Black March could end up being a positive thing for small and independent businesses. Hollywood? They’re not too excited about it.

View multiple non-consecutive/random days in your Outlook calendar

1. Select the “day” view in your Outlook calendar.
2. Click any day in the small calendar at the top left corner of the page (see calendar picture at right).
3. Hold CTRL and select any additional days you’d like to view.

Firstly, students will require an iPad (ideally) to gain access to iBooks, which today may be a bit steep for the average child in my mind, but who knows how these may be subsidized or provided in the future?

What are iBooks, and what’s new in version 2?
iBooks are essentially electronic books, often a direct translation from the printed form, much like Amazon and Barnes & Noble provide.  However, in iBooks 2 we now have multimedia rich books that embed video, interactive 3D images, pages that dynamically rearrange based on iPad orientation, and much more!  It’s in its early days right now, but some of the most well known publishers of text books are already on board: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw Hill, and Pearson for starters.

Furthermore, these books truly take the old-fashioned textbook into the modern era.  You can make notes, highlight and even refer to a dictionary or thesaurus for more information.  It gets better!  All those notes and highlights can be made into flash cards to study from, with the click of a button.  Imagine that!  Why carry 2-5 books in your backpack when you can have one iPad that contains all of your study materials?  Lost your book or device?  No problem, borrow someone else’s or buy another, log in and re-download all of your books.

Basics of iBooks Author
iBooks Author is a relatively easy to use tool to create interactive books from your written word, video, audio or all of the above.  Both applications are available now on iTunes, and for free!  The books themselves are $14.99 or less, and may be subsidized with iTunes Coupon Codes by the schools, publishers, etc.

Apple has successfully taken over the cell phone and music markets and is committed to the future of textbooks as well.  I’m certainly excited for my little ones as they begin to enter elementary school next fall!  I have a feeling they’ll be learning differently than we (and generations before us) were taught.

We appreciate ALL the survey feedback we received in November and December. Thanks everyone! Here are some of our favorites:

10. “I love our NWA Convergence support team! Extreme IT’ing! This could be a whole new image!” – Teresa W.

9. “Once again, Convergence walked me through an issue, helped point out it was operator error, and didn’t make me feel like an idiot…once again :)” – Susan G.

8. “Dillon should wear a super-hero cape!” – Judi C.

7. “To borrow a phrase from my younger employees…You guys rock!” – Jeff K.

6. “Gets a very satisfied :) rather than an “n/a” on tech skills/knowledge for not making me feel stupid for not thinking to just reboot. (That takes skill too.) Thanks!” – Elizabeth B.

5. “Hello my name is Hung
I’m Chinese not Hmong
And when I really need a hand
Naliko is my man
It was he that fixed the issue, it was not you.
But if you change your support hours
To closely mirror ours
I will give you another ticket
And you will surely fix it. Peace.”
– Hung N.

4. “In our age of bail outs, this one ranks very high. Thanks.” – Dennis G.

3. “Ben did a great job. He worked with Craig and I to change the e-mail size limits in our Outlook. Craig’s response was “Wow… Benjamin has a lot of acronyms after his name. He must be AWESOME!” And he lived up to it.” – Kathy H.

2. “Who needs an iPhone when I already have an iKarl? Up to 2x faster performance. He sends me reminders and helps me search for information. And his iCloud feature stores all the information that I can’t remember. The best business decision I’ve ever made!” – Marion S.

1. Okay, we have a tie for first place. How could we choose between these two comments?!

“The wizardry and skills with which Rich is bestowed are truly at mage-like levels. No warlock could match the speed of his response. Working with him is always a magical experience, there’s no roll of the dice here – he is spot on every time! It is like he has put a spell on my computer that ensures that every curse it receives is eradicated like a bad enchantment. If it didn’t mean the possibility of losing him from our team, I would recommend that Rich be leveled up!” – Shanan P.

“Dave Mitchell strikes again. Seriously, how good is this guy? One of you computer geeks has got to dream up an algorithm that can quantify the benefit of his work to the organization. I think Dave raises the IQ of pod Charlie just by breathing. That’s not a knock on Aaron or Ray, it’s the Michigan Fan I’m worried about here. But seriously, close your eyes and take a minute to visualize what CNWI would be like with the “other” DM in the corner office…you know what I see? I see a skate park in the parking lot, a swim spa pool with a kayak in it for break time paddling, Mac “computers” at every work station, Apple TV playing in the NOC and a Steve Jobs shrine in the late Ryan Katsanes‘ office (yes, Ryan is dead to me). Ah…sounds enchanting…but I think it best to keep the current DM in charge and just let Mitchell breathe on John.” – Naliko M.

Thanks again everyone for your creativity, and for bringing happiness to our morning huddles!

Pictured Top Right: Rich in his “mage-like” attire, eradicating one bad enchantment at a time! Bottom Left: Superhero Dave, raising the IQ of Pod Charlie just by breathing.

1. Google+ posts that you or your friends have shared, related to your search.
2. Google+ profiles of people whose names match your search terms.
3. Google+ profiles and pages related to your search, like artists if you search for “art”.

Search results look something like this:

In this example, you can see posts by a business page I follow (not to be too promotional, but yes, Convergence Networks) showing up in the main column of my search results.

Those who don’t have a Google+ profile won’t see anyone’s posts, but everyone will see links to Google+ profiles and pages. You can see People and Pages on Google+ in the right column above, highlighting people who talk a lot about technology and might be of interest to me.

Above the search results, there’s a link to 80 personal results, so I can see all the posts my friends have shared with me that include my search word, technology.

Further to the right, there are three icons. The person icon is currently highlighted to Show personal results – meaning I can see Google+ posts shared by me or my friends in the main column of my search. By clicking on the earth icon, I can switch to the Hide personal results view. Google+ people and pages will still show up, but the posts will not. That’s an easy way to turn off personal results on a case-by-case basis.

CAN I TURN THIS OFF PERMANENTLY?

Yes and no. You can remove the personal results from all your searches, but again that just includes posts, and posts only show up if you have a Google+ profile. People and pages will still appear in your searches and can’t be turned off, whether you have a Google+ profile or not. To hide the personal results from all your searches:

1. Click on the sprocket icon (to the right of the person and earth icons).
2. Click Search settings from the dropdown menu.
3. Scroll down to the Personal results section.
4. Select Do not use personal results and be sure to save.

So that’s Search Plus Your World. Some love it, some hate it. What do you think?

Update Jan. 18: Google’s Search Plus Your World may be in violation of antitrust laws.

“SOPA and PIPA are the effective equivalent of blowing up every road, bridge, and tunnel in New York to keep people from getting to one bootleg stand in Union Square — but leaving the stand itself alone.” – Nilay Patel, The Verge

The Internet is exploding with passionate opinions about SOPA and PIPA (aka the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act).

Many major corporations support the bills, while tech giants like Google and Facebook oppose them. Reddit is even planning to shut down their site for 12 hours on Wednesday Jan. 18 in protest of SOPA, and people are urging other companies to do the same.

Here are a couple articles that explain what the bills would do and why people are so upset about them:

• The problem with SOPA and how to stop it
• What is SOPA and how does it work? The Stop Online Piracy Act [and PIPA] explained

UPDATES:

Jan. 13: PIPA may be amended in response to concerns.

Jan. 16: Representative Eric Cantor announced that he is stopping all action on SOPA. So apparently SOPA will be dead soon, but PIPA lives on. It looks like Reddit and other Internet companies will still have site blackouts on Jan. 18 in protest of PIPA.

Jan. 17: SOPA is not officially dead but has been shelved for now. In protest of SOPA and PIPA, Wikipedia is joining the blackout for a full 24 hours starting at midnight tonight. Google is adding a link to its homepage tomorrow to raise awareness of the two bills.

Jan. 18: Wow, it’s interesting to check out all the blackout pages today: Wikipedia, Reddit, The Oatmeal, and Craigslist to name a few, plus Google’s End Piracy, Not Liberty doodle in solidarity. I also enjoyed Seth Godin’s commentary on SOPA and PIPA: When the world changes… followed by Learning leadership from Congress. While support for the bills is weakening, it looks like the House of Representatives will resume SOPA work in February and the Senate is voting on PIPA on Jan. 24.

Jan. 19: Over 4.5 million people have signed Google’s anti-SOPA petition.

Jan. 20: SOPA and PIPA have been postponed indefinitely. If you’re curious, here’s an easy way to find out where your Congress members stand on the SOPA and PIPA debate.

Feb. 3: The hacker group Anonymous has asked the American people to boycott the entertainment industry during the entire month of March, because media companies continue to lobby for Internet censorship bills. The entertainment industry boycott is called “Black March”.

What is the cloud? How does it affect your business? Is it secure?

Some people tell you the cloud is safe and affordable. Others tell you it’s risky and can cost more in the long run.

We’ve selected a balanced panel of cloud and IT experts to answer all your questions at this breakfast, coming up on January 25.

To register, visit the official Portland Business Journal site.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Do you want to see more Milwaukie Shore episodes in the future? Let us know in the comments.

1. In Outlook, go to the Tools menu and click Options.
2. In the Options box, click to the Mail Format tab, and then click on Signatures.
3. Click on New, and enter the name for your new signature type, like Christmas 2011.
4. Copy and paste your regular signature into the blank space, and then add the new icons. I found some nice Christmas social media icons at the ExtremeJohn.com blog. Download the icons you want, from a trusted and safe website, of course.
5. Add the links to each icon by highlighting the icon, and then clicking the Insert Hyperlink button.
6. Finally, be sure to update your default signature for new and forwarded messages.

The final product should look something like this. Pretty festive! To see pictures of each step in this process, get the complete tutorial here.