Morning Toolbox is a daily digest of interesting tools and techniques that skeptics can use online.
Facebook said on the Today Show this morning that it now has 1 Billion users. That means negative Web of Trust ratings could potentially affect 1 Billion people now. Those clicks count.
September finally gave us some time to breathe after the twin excitement of TAM in July and Dragon*Con Skeptrack in August.
It also saw the issuance of my third patent: U.S. Patent #8,266,700 titled “Secure web application development environment“. It belongs to Hewlett Packard, so I don’t get anything from it other than an interesting footnote for my resume.
An unfortunate milestone this month was the return of David Mabus to bothering people using email and Twitter. (He had been posting on YouTube, forums and blogs for a couple of months). That was the reason I posted a how-to on reporting threatening emails this month.
So if you missed any of that, here’s a way to catch up. Below are links to the content I’ve been involved with in the last month. It includes this blog as well as the material I post on other blogs, my podcasting activities, my best posts on Twitter as well as key shout-outs or mentions elsewhere.
In an effort to practice what I preach, I’m also trying to document on a monthly basis what my contributions are to several skeptic-relevant crowdsourcing projects.
Read on to see what you might have missed…
Because we criticize the claims of others, skeptics are often attacked. In the world of Internet skepticism, these attacks often come in digital form.
I’ve often written about using Web of Trust (and tools like it) to warn unsuspecting users about dangerous misinformation websites. It is inevitable that the owners of these sites will become aware of the negative ratings we’ve given them. But what if they decide to retaliate against skeptics?
It’s not really a question of if. Judging from a few instances I’ll document here, some are not only fighting to repair the reputations of their own sites in Web of Trust, but some are voting against skeptic sites in Web of Trust and other online site rating services as well. (Yes, there are other services that rate websites for end users beyond WoT).
So what’s a skeptic webmaster to do? What’s the best way to become aware of malicious activity like this as quickly as possible? Unfortunately there’s no one silver bullet, but I can recommend a few tips and one site that will let you monitor your site’s reputation in 30+ services in one fell swoop.
Read on for more details…
August didn’t offer much time to recover from The Amazing Meeting before we had to jump right into Dragon*Con. Phew, who has time to read blogs?
Here’s a way to catch up. Below are links to the content I’ve been involved with in the last month. It includes this blog as well as the material I post on other blogs, my podcasting activities, my best posts on Twitter as well as key shout-outs or mentions elsewhere.
In an effort to practice what I preach, I’m also trying to document on a monthly basis what my contributions are to several skeptic-relevant crowdsourcing projects.
Read on to see what you might have missed… Continue reading
July was all about The Amazing Meeting, both prep work and posts which related to the convention.
There were a couple of non-TAM highlights for me this month too. One was I discovered that back in March, IBM received a second patent in my name (US #8,141,157) on work I did for a subsidiary of theirs over a decade ago.
But the biggest one was the creation of a Wikipedia biography page for me by Susan Gerbic. Thank you so much, Susan, it looks great!
If you missed TAM, or if you were there and wanted more info from one of my presentations, here’s a way to catch up. Below are links to the content I’ve been involved with in the last month. It includes this blog as well as the material I post on other blogs, my podcasting activities, my best posts on Twitter as well as key shout-outs or mentions elsewhere.
I’m also trying to document on a monthly basis what my contributions are to several skeptic-relevant crowdsourcing projects. This ties in with both the workshop and plenary presentation I gave at TAM.
Read on to see what you might have missed…
In June I got very busy with preparation for TAM, so I wasn’t able to maintain the blog post pace I set in May.
But I did post some things over at JREF, and there was some good action on other blogs and so on that you may have missed. Here’s a way to catch up. Below are links to the content I’ve been involved with in the last month. It includes this blog as well as the material I post on other blogs, my podcasting activities, my best posts on Twitter as well as key shout-outs or mentions elsewhere.
I’m also trying to document on a monthly basis what my contributions are to several skeptic-relevant crowdsourcing projects. This is in part because of the workshop I’m presenting at TAM 2012 in July, titled “The Future of Skepticism Online: Crowd-sourced Activism”. I hope many of you will join me for that.
Read on to see what you might have missed…
In May I’ve been getting close to the post frequency I had hoped to. I’ve been shooting for about 3 or 4 a week. Yes, I know many bloggers post multiple times per day. I’m what some call a slow blogger, and I’m fine with that.
But even at a slow rate, I know people are busy and can’t always follow the posts. If you missed some of the action in May, here’s a way to catch up. Herein are links to the content I’ve been involved with in the last month. It includes this blog as well as the material I post on other blogs, my podcasting activities, my best posts on Twitter as well as key shout-outs or mentions elsewhere.
I’m also trying to document on a monthly basis what my contributions are to several skeptic-relevant crowdsourcing projects. This is in part because of the workshop I’m presenting at TAM 2012 in July, titled “The Future of Skepticism Online: Crowd-sourced Activism”. I hope many of you will join me for that.
Read on to see what you might have missed…
April is the start of skeptic event season in the US, so there was a bit of activity around that. In social media, a tweet of mine about American Airlines quickly became my second most retweeted item ever, thanks as usual to the Bad Astronomer. Also on Twitter, I picked a bit of a fight with some atheists, which resulted in lots of page views here.
Anyway, if you were busy during April and missed some of the action, here’s a way to catch up. Herein are links to the content I’ve been involved with in the last month. It includes this blog as well as the material I post on other blogs, my podcasting activities, my best posts on Twitter as well as key shout-outs or mentions elsewhere.
I’m also trying to document on a monthly basis what my contributions are to several skeptic-relevant crowdsourcing projects. This is part of the build-up to the workshop I’m presenting at TAM 2012 in July, titled “The Future of Skepticism Online: Crowd-sourced Activism”. I hope many of you will join me for that.
Read on to see what you might have missed…
Spring is arriving in my part of the world, so it is time for some spring cleaning. Some of that is literal, I spent some time cleaning up around the house.
But digital spring cleaning is a good habit too. One thing I’m doing is making a renewed effort to post more regularly at this blog. Cross your fingers, it starts this week. Another was a format change and new title for my Skepticality podcast segment, which debuted last week. Read on below to find out more about that if you haven’t heard it already.
Anyway, if you were busy during March and missed some of the action, here’s a way to catch up. Herein are links to the content I’ve been involved with in the last month. It includes this blog as well as the material I post on other blogs, my podcasting activities, my best posts on Twitter as well as key shout-outs or mentions elsewhere.
I’m also trying to document on a monthly basis what my contributions are to several skeptic-relevant crowdsourcing projects. Part of the reason for that is the workshop I’m presenting at TAM 2012 in July is titled “The Future of Skepticism Online: Crowd-sourced Activism”. I hope many of you will join me for that.
Read on to see what you might have missed…
Usually one tries to jazz up these “roundup” or “wrap-up” posts with some sort of unifying theme or lesson. But I’m afraid February is a short month, and it was short of obvious unifying themes as well.
Ah well.
Anyway, if you were busy during February (as I was) and missed some of the action during the month, here’s a way to catch up. Herein are links to all the content I’ve been involved with in the last month. It includes this blog as well as the material I post on other blogs, my podcasting activities, my best posts on Twitter as well as key shout-outs or mentions elsewhere.
I’m also trying to document on a monthly basis what my contributions are to several skeptic-relevant crowdsourcing projects. The reason for all that will become more obvious later in the year, when I reveal the results of some super-secret projects I have in the works.
But meanwhile, read on to see what you might have missed…
Skeptical Software Tools 
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