In this article I will list the most common programs, what type of notifications they put out, and how you can disable them.

Windows System Tray / Notification Area

Generally, you can individually turn off desktop notifications for any programs or services represented in the Windows system tray. Right-click the task-bar and select Properties. Under Notification area click the Customize… button. This will open the respective Control Panel window with a list of icons for any program or service that was ever registered in the notification area.

To turn off the notifications for a specific item, find it in the list, and select Hide icon and notifications from the drop-down menu to its right.

Skype

As far as I’m concerned, Skype is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to annoying notifications. Whenever someone comes online or goes offline, a little message pops up to share the event with you. Haven’t we all seen this obtrusive little notification jump on top of full screen videos or public presentations?

To manage your Skype notifications, click through to > Tools > Options… and switch to the Notifications side tab. Under Notification settings you will find a list of Windows tray notifications which you can check or uncheck.

While you are at it, you can also jump to the Alerts & messages section and turn off the unwelcome Help and Skype tips as well as Promotions.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird is a great desktop email client, but when it comes to notifications, there is room for improvement. It has been a long time since I started from scratch with it, but as far as I remember, the default setting is to show a system tray alert and play a sound.

To stop this impertinence, go to > Tools > Options… In the General tab under When new message arrives you can uncheck the boxes to Show an alert and Play a sound. If you were a fan of incoming email notifications, you could also customize them to include the subject and sender or play a favorite sound. But seriously, who wants that?

Google Talk

When I recently re-installed my computer, I suddenly received all these new email messages and had no idea where they came from, especially since they were turned off in Thunderbird. Finally it dawned on me, that the source was Google Talk.

As with the previous programs, you can easily turn these notifications off if you know where to find them. Click Settings in the top right of Google Talk, then navigate to the Notifications tab and uncheck Show notification for New email.

Windows Balloon Tips

Windows is set up to deal with DAUs (dumbest assumable users). Consequently, it likes to pop up messages about things the average user either doesn’t care about or already knows. These unhelpful notifications are called balloon tips.

To disable balloon tips, go to the Start menu and search for Group Policy. Open the result Edit group policy, then navigate to > User Configuration > Administrative Tasks > Start Menu and Taskbar. In the list find the entry Turn off all balloon notifications and double-click it.

“If you enable this settings, no notification balloons will be shown to the user.” Hence, to disable the balloon notifications, you have to select Enabled for this setting. To enable the balloon tips, select Disabled or set it to Not Configured.

You can also disable or enable balloon tips with a registry hack. A registry fix for either enabling or disabling the tips, which will save you messing around with the registry itself, is available from SevenForums.

Do you frequently have to write essays or do you enjoy undisturbed creative writing? Check out OmmWriter, which I have reviewed here – Meet Your Writing Deadlines In A Distraction-Free Writing Environment With OmmWriter.

What do you find most distracting when you work on your computer and are there any notifications you have struggled to get rid of?

Image credits: Kitch Bain

Some would say this only happens to Windows/Mac/Linux/Laptop/Whatever users; some will say these things only happen to people who don’t actually know how to use computers (until it happens to them, too). Don’t get me wrong, I love computers – they play a huge part in my everyday life and I cannot do without them. But we all have our own personal computer nightmares. These are mine. What are yours?

Broken Laptop Keyboard

This is one of the most annoying things I ever had to face as a laptop user. As long as you use a desktop computer with a standalone keyboard, a broken key is a mere annoyance. But when your laptop’s keyboard breaks, it’s elevated into a true nightmare status.

The image above may be extreme, but I definitely felt the urge to do just that on the several occasions I had to deal with a broken laptop keyboard. I don’t know about your laptop, but my keyboard breaks extremely easily. I can’t take the keys out to clean or do other  maintenance without breaking at least one key. Sometimes, I come home to find one of the keys lying loose on the keyboard. Why? Just because!

Even when not broken, putting a loose key back in place is comparable to rocket science, and sometimes it pops out again again every time I brush my finger next to it while typing. Did you know that some laptop keys have a complex plastic mechanism underneath, with microscopic pins and clips that break and bend when you breath on them? And did you know that every laptop, even similar  models from the same company, use different mechanisms for keys?

Once I took the bus halfway across town to try to track down a used keyboard which I could use for spare keys. It turned out to be from a slightly different model, and therefore used a totally different mechanism. True, you can find spare keys online, and I already had to order some in the past, but does it really have to be this complex?

Adobe Flash Plug-in

This is a good one. Adobe Flash Plug-in. Do you shudder just reading the name? I do, sometimes.

Before I dive into the rant, I will say that I appreciate what Flash has done for technology, and I do believe it has some positive aspects to it, but in everyday life, Adobe Flash browser plug-in can single handedly ruin my browsing sessions, my entire day and my sanity.

The all too familiar screenshot above is the least of it. When the Flash browser plug-in crashes, I actually know where I stand. It’s when pages take ages to load, or simply get stuck, all because of some small Flash element in an ad which you are not even aware of – this is when it gets dirty.

Lately, following a friend’s advice, I blocked my browser’s Flash plug-in. When I want to use Flash, I enable it manually. You wouldn’t believe the difference this has made to my browsing experience.  If you’re having similar experiences with Flash, I urge you to try it as well. This is one nightmare we can actually fight!

Windows Not Loading

I know Mac/Linux lovers will be all over me for this one. Some Windows fans might be too. But yes, this is one of my worst computer nightmares, although it has not come true in the past few years.

Let me start by saying that I grew up in a Mac house. I did not touch a non-Mac machine until Windows 95 was out (and we all remember what a fantastic OS that was…). It came as a complete surprise to me that the thing can decide not to load whenever it wants to. I remember the frustration of watching that “loading” screen, praying for it to go on and finish the loading process, only to have to give up and try to reboot – yet again.

This is something I went through again and again, until Windows 7 came out. Since then, this computer nightmare has not come true even once. But I still hold my breath for a few seconds every time I reboot my machine. Will it actually load again, or will it hang? I wonder how long it will take me to stop being slightly scared every single time I restart my computer and have to sit there watching that pretty “loading” animation. Maybe in Windows 2020.

Bottom Line

I have to stress again that I am not a negative person. We all have small things that drive us crazy, and these are just some of mine. After all, if we don’t talk about it, how will we ever be able to treat these lightly?

Now it’s your turn. What are your worst computer nightmares? Broken hardware? Bad software? Strangers playing with your setup? Share them all in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

When Google+ was first announced, I immediately assumed it would be a hit. Not because of how Google is so interlaced with the rest of our internet, but because of “Facebook fatigue“. Change is very refreshing and exciting (as long as it’s not Facebook changing… itself) and seems to have a gravitational pull online.New stuff is cool to us. The great transition from MySpace to Facebook was a clear example.

But, how does one fall victim to Facebook fatigue? While that’s a question that is conditional to the temperament of each individual user, I can bet that experiencing any of the following five antics will have you begging for a Dislike button.

We ranted a bit with 5 Things You Need To Stop Posting On Facebook. I rant on with five more.

Indirect Status Updates

If you’re above the age of 30, you probably don’t experience this horrible Facebook phenomenon quite as often as the rest of us. This is the go-to move of every disgruntled 16-year-old girl. It’s also high up there with males who need a cowardly and passive-aggressive way to openly rage at their ex-girlfriend. In the end, both end up looking pathetic, psychotic, and/or immature. Come on, you know what I’m talking about:

• “I hate him so much. I can’t stand being around him every day of my life.”
• “I like how my best friend seems to never be there for me…”
• “Seriously, who hangs up on somebody in the middle of a conversation?”

All of these are cries for attention. All of these are very narrowly directed at one person or one small group of people. All of these are weird and annoying. All of these could just as easily point directly at the person, but that would still be immature. Send them a damn personal message, don’t go embarrassing yourself and looking like a wreck in front of your friends. Stop it.

I feel a little different about cute messages or ones that are positive and cheerful in nature. You get a pass on that, just don’t do it more than three times per week please.

MySpace-esque Behavior & “Games”

I hate to be the guy to claim, “That’s so MySpace!” but listen: The general quality of the Facebook community was at its peak when MySpace was alive and well. MySpace was for glittery graphics, profile songs, Mafia Wars, and comment spam. It generally seemed to appeal to kids in high school and younger. Facebook was for the clean-cut college student and above. It was for people who enjoyed an organized, no-nonsense approach to social networking.

Unfortunately, that has all changed. Here are a few of the cancers that Facebook has unfortunately inherited:

• The “TBH” word game – “LMS TBH” (Like my status, to be honest) is a little social game where users who Like another’s status will receive an honest opinion about themselves posted to their Wall.
• “Inbox me numbers” – This is basically a private and more ridiculous mutation of TBH. You send a private message to a user with a random number. Instead of posting to your Wall, they post the numbers they received to their own Wall and then an opinion or memory about the corresponding person who sent them that particular number.
• Ridiculous chain messages – “Repost this status or 12 kids will die of cancer”, “R.I.P. David: Just kidding. If you had an emotional response to David’s fake death, repost this on your Wall”, “Facebook is going to shut down in three days unless you pay them $50 for an account, let’s repost this a million times and stop them”, etc.
• Friend-tagging word games – “Look at your friends displayed to the left. The first five are your co-stars in the next terrible sci-fi movie,” with five witty character names to label for each, etc.

There are more examples out there, but I’m annoyed in even describing these four.

Using Apps that Spam Walls or Tags

Okay, you definitely know this one. FarmVille? Sims Social? Horoscopes? The “Report Card” app that tags a ridiculous amount of your friends? Every birthday calendar app that obnoxiously invades your Wall?

This is just flat-out annoying. A lot of these applications spam your friends’ Walls, too. The fact that it spams yours is annoying enough. This hits hard because you’ve got to be considerate about things that not only affect your friends’ profiles, but yours as well. We see it on our News Feed. It spams the hell out of us. How about an application for horoscopes that messages you privately? Don’t get your hopes up, it’ll never happen because these apps thrive on virability and they need exposure through you so that they can be monetized.

Being a Downer

Sometimes it’s like Frownbook. Lighten up! If you use your Facebook only to vent out your frustration and depression, you’re doing it wrong. I’ve never done it myself, but I can’t imagine that it is the best form of therapy. See a professional if it becomes a habit.

Again, it goes back to being considerate and we all see it. I don’t want to be brought down by your six depressing posts per day. If that happens, I’m going to have to remove you, and then what if you notice? That’s going to upset you even more, maybe!

Using Facebook as Twitter

You know that friend who blows up your News Feed with a new status every 30 minutes? Have them look into Twitter. Maybe they’ve heard of it. Facebook’s not the place to tell us you’re waking up, driving to the store, watching TV, eating food, feeling sick, and laying in bed all within the same day and in separate posts.

So, who among you is saying – guilty as charged? Facebook is a social network. Just like our real world one, it falls upon us to keep it clutter free. Don’t you think so? What are your pet peeves when it comes to Facebook.

Another thing Facebook keep changing is the way we view images. While Photo Theater keeps improving and is no longer a major source of agitation to Facebook users, and while thumbnails keep growing, some people are still looking for an easy and quick way to view images in full size.

If one or more of these things are bothering you, I’ve rounded up some Chrome extensions that are sure to make you a happier Facebook user.

Facebook Classic

Facebook Classic is a Chrome add-on for people who dislike the new ticker, but want to be able to easily toggle it on again. It also gets rid of the new top stories and arranges the newsfeed in chronological order again.

After you install the add-on and refresh Facebook, the news ticker will disappear completely, leaving only the bottom half of the sidebar with the chat. You’ll also see the “Latest Stories” header instead of the “New Top Story” and “Recent Stories“. The change is not only to the titles – the small triangle to the left of each newsfeed item will also disappear. This triangle is usually used to mark a story as a “top story”.

If you want to turn on the ticker, find the “Show Ticker” link on the right side. This will toggle the news ticker on. You can toggle it back off whenever you want using the “Hide Ticker” link.

Facebook

Facebook– is another Chrome add-on which deals with similar issues. Once you download Facebook–, the news ticker will be gone. Use this add-on if you really don’t want to see the news ticker, because there’s no easy way to toggle it on and off.

As opposed to Facebook Classic, it also doesn’t leave you with half a sidebar for the chat, but expands the chat so it takes up the entire sidebar, the way it used to be before the news ticker joined the party.

Another thing Facebook– does is restore the title bar to the way it used to be. You get your Settings button back, and you lose your name and thumbnail in the title bar. Nice if you miss Facebook’s older look.

Sidebar Disabler

Sidebar Disabler is a Chrome, Firefox and Opera add-on which leaves your news ticker alone in its non-sidebar position, and turns the sidebar into the good old Facebook chat.

If the news ticker is not your problem, but you’re just sick of the sidebar as a concept, you’ll be able to forget about it with this add-on. The old chat returns in full glory, along with the old options and friend lists. You also get to see only your online friends again, which is one of the most sorely missed features in the new chat sidebar.

FB Photo Zoom

Moving on to quite a different subject, FB Photo Zoom has nothing to do with news tickers and sidebars, but has a lot to do with the way you view images. Some people still don’t like Facebook’s Photo Theater, and others (like me), are just too lazy to click the thumbnail every time they want to view a full-size image.

With FB Photo Zoom, hovering over a thumbnail with your mouse cursor will automatically open a preview of the full size image. This preview even moves along as you move your mouse, but disappears immediately if your cursor leaves the thumbnail.

FB Photo Zoom also comes with some configurable settings. You can use it to disable Photo Theater if you still hate it. You can create a keyboard shortcut to toggle the zooming effect on and off, and another shortcut to force-enable it even when it’s off. You can even control the delays of the fade in and fade out of images.

This also works with the tiny “Friends on Chat” thumbnails, which are so small they’re often unrecognizable. Quite an upgrade to your casual Facebook image viewing experience.

Bottom Line

The more changes Facebook makes, the more add-ons like these we’re going to find. I think it’s awesome that so many different ones exist – this way we can each create a user experience that suits us best, and make the most of Facebook without the things that annoy us.

If none of these add-ons hit the spot for you, you can find some more of them in this post by Steve. If there are even better Facebook add-ons, or if you think people should stop complaining and enjoy the changes, do tell us about it in the comments!

There are a few scams known to be circulating the Internet right now. Perhaps the most widely known so far combines two powerful forces – the death of a public figure, and free stuff. It propagates on Facebook in the form of a link that claims Apple is offering free iPads, which sends you to a survey. Another scam claims that if you enter your email address, you’ll have the chance to win a free MacBook Pro.

Yet another dupe, spotted online by a Kaspersky Lab’s employee, involves a website that claims to have photos of Steve Job’s funeral and coffin, as well as other details. Again, visitors are prompted for their email address in exchange for a chance to win free Apple products.

All of these scams are relatively low on the scale of potential security threats, but high on potential annoyance. They exist to harvest email addresses and sell them to spammers, or make money through affiliate programs.

That’s not to say a scam using the death of Steve Jobs couldn’t be a security issue, however. Malicious websites containing exploits are common. As usual, it’s best to be careful, and approach unknown Facebook links with caution.

Source: Time Techland

From security messes to major nuisances, there are a lot of things that shouldn’t be shared on the Internet. Get ready to readjust your security and delete your posts, for here are five things you shouldnt post on Facebook.

Current Locations

Ladies and gentlemen, how many times must we tell you that nothing is sacred on the Internet? If you put it out there, anyone could see it, so why would you post truly sensitive information? Yes, Facebook offers you the ability to publish information about your current location (and who you are with), but do you really want that online?

Consider the unfortunate New Hampshire tale of the thieves who used Facebook to find out when homeowners happened to be away. The second you put it out there that you’re “going to party it up in Louisiana for the next three days with Gordon”, then your home is automatically open game (and so is Gordon’s). Furthermore, don’t tell me that you’re fine just because your account has private status updates. Your friends’ accounts could be compromised, so you never actually know who’s watching your feed.

New Technological Toys

This one goes right in line with the first section of this article – “Hey guys, just got my brand new really expensive MacBook Air….gonna leave it at my house totally unguarded and out in the open while I’m down at the bar with Gordon! Hope no one finds the spare key under my welcome mat!”

As much as I want to celebrate with you on your brand new toy, you have to keep in mind that some people might want to do a little more than celebrate. They may just want to take it, so if you are unlike me and do not keep your Mac on you everywhere you go, then it might not be best to put that kind of information out in the open.

Facebook’s New Payment System

Oh my goodness! My friends, Facebook has told you time and time again that they will never make it a paid service, so why do you insist on posting these status updates?

FACEBOOK JUST RELEASED THEIR PRICE GRID FOR MEMBERSHIP. $9.99 PER MONTH FOR GOLD MEMBER SERVICES, $6.99 PER…

You’ve seen it before, folks. These chain updates have been passed around numerous times over the past few years, and nothing has ever come of them. Besides, I’m pretty sure Zuckerberg might have a better way of notifying us of a new paid service than an all-caps lengthy chain update, so please stop. If you want to check out how Facebook makes money, check out Steve’s article about how social networks make money.

Impersonal Personal Messages

This one is a little more of nuisance than the other ones, but it is definitely worth mentioning. For some reason, people feel the need to vaguely express their feelings about others through status updates. Sometimes, they will even write seemingly indirect messages that are actually meant for someone else.

“I wish SUMBODY hadnt cheated on meh wit SUMBODY that MITE B mii best fran!!!11!1!”

I don’t think I really have to go into it much further, for one of two things will happen because of this. Either the people reading this status update know exactly who you are talking about, or the people reading this status update don’t know who you are talking about, and quite frankly, they probably don’t care. Help stop wall pollution by refusing to publish this type of status update, and as a matter of fact, spread the word!

Your Vacation Pictures

This one is mostly directed at the ladies, but I can think of a few situations where it might affect the men, too. Look, I’m not here to judge you on what you do in your spare time, but I thought you might want to know that some of your vacation pictures – particularly ones of you at the beach – may end up on the Internet in places you would prefer they weren’t.

You see, there’s a download link next to mostly every picture – real easy to find. Keep in mind that you may have added a few creeps on Facebook “just to be nice”, and they may have a tendency to make use of it. Also, like I mentioned above, anyone’s account could be compromised.

Oh, and this goes beyond your vacation pictures. Halloween is coming up pretty soon, too.

Conclusion

I obviously can’t tell you what to stop posting on Facebook, but I can do everything within my ability to explain why you should stop posting these things. It’s really your choice on the matter, but keep in mind that this advice goes for other social networks too (like Google+ and Twitter).

What types of things do you think people need to stop posting on Facebook? Do you disagree with any of the items mentioned above?

Obviously, this is just my opinion, and I probably do many of these annoying things myself from time to time, but I still think it’s necessary to put this stuff out there and try to keep the Twitterverse clear of annoying things as much as possible. So without further ado, and since you guys seemed to enjoy the first article about how annoying people can be on Twitter, here goes another list of five more annoying things.

Using Underscores In A Username

This is a pretty personal annoyance, but I do almost all of my tweeting from my iPhone, and typing an underscore is a pain in the butt. Have you tried to find the stupid underscore while tweeting and driving? I can tell you from first hand experience that it isn’t fun, and it could very well lead to certain death. So please, when creating a username think about all the lives you could be saving by just avoiding that underscore.

I know you want a space in your name, and it’s annoying that Twitter doesn’t let you have them. Still, you don’t have to type in your Twitter name, so think of the poor innocent souls who do!

Tweets That Take More Than One Tweet To Finish

Twitter set a 140 character limit for a reason. It is to keep thoughts clear and concise. If the thought you are trying to put out there cannot fit into 140 characters then the chances are it is not really meant for Twitter, and you should consider making a Tumblr blog and linking it to your Twitter. This way the people who want to see your long thoughts can click through on the link and read them, and the ones who don’t want be subjected to your tweet, that actually span 4 or 5 tweets, will be spared.

Also, please don’t compensate for a long tweet by typing like this: “I tryn 2 mk dis shrt so it ftz in twtr lmts n mk ma pnt 2 al u on twtr.” Yes, this fixes the problem of your tweet taking a million tweets, but it also creates a whole new problem of speaking gibberish.

People Who Stalk Celebrities

I think it is awesome that celebrities are all over Twitter as it gives them a quick and easy way to interact with their fans. However, some people take this to extremes and constantly tweet celebrities hoping for that one @ mention from them that will apparently change their life forever.

I’m sorry but celebrities are people too, just like you or I, and I can guarantee that they don’t want their @ reply box filled with the same person trying desperately to start a conversation with them. Think about how much it would annoy you if you had one person constantly tweeting you telling you they loved you, or how amazing you are and how you should totally follow them. Thankfully, Twitter has a block feature, and if you e-stalk celebrities, you can expect them to use it.

Four Square

I really hate to admit it because I love Four Square and I use it every single day, but truth be told, it is annoying. No one really needs to know where everyone else always is. I really wanted to leave this off the list because Four Square doesn’t particularly bother me. My cousin checks in everywhere he goes, and since I mobile follow him I get a text message every time he does. But some of my followers are adamant that my checking in on Four Square annoys them, and I can see their point.

Recently, I have only been sharing select check-ins on Twitter, since Four Square allows you to choose when you push an update through to Twitter. Basically, just use common sense. If you have something to say along with your check in then share it. If not, maybe it’s better to just keep in Four Square.

Automatic Direct Messages

This is literally the quickest way to get unfollowed in my book. If I follow someone new, which is a rarity, because I only follow something like 30 people, and I get an automatic direct message thanking me for following them and suggesting some kind of link to check out their stuff, that is an instant unfollow.

I’m really glad you appreciate me following you, but if you really appreciate it, how about an actual @ mention or hand-typed message? Having a bot send a message to me doesn’t really show me that you appreciate it, and therefore it will be time for me to say goodbye.

Conclusion

There you have it, it seems like Twitter is just full of annoying people. Around every corner there is someone doing something bothersome. I realize these articles make it sound like I hate Twitter, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Think of me instead as a Twitter vigilante, here to clean up Twitter, one annoying person at a time.

So I’ll ask again, what annoys you on Twitter? Nothing? Everything? Are you a masochist who likes annoying people? Let me know in the comments!

In Scandinavian folklore, a ‘troll’ is a supernatural creature that lives in the caves and mountains. On the web, a troll is nothing but a pest who thrives in the anonymity that it provides. The Urban Dictionary has quite a few definitions lined up. But – one who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument – is the most point blank.

So, how do you take the war to the Internet trolls? First, by reading the pugmarks and recognizing a troll from a guy who just wants to start a one-off flame war.

Putting A Troll In The Crosshairs

Fortunately, it’s easy to spot an Internet troll from a distance. They have their own sets of socially unacceptable behaviors.

• Trolls generally use provocative and confrontational language. A clever one will mix it up with relevant and friendly posts.
• Trolls hardly ever stick to the topic; they beat around the bush with the intention to confuse the reader.
• Trolls of the subtle variety flag off their attack with innocent questions. You will often find them dressed up as new members of forums and chat rooms.
• Trolls lack understanding of a topic. They will not respond with a proper answer to a proper question.

• Trolls (especially the clever variants) use catch phrases to win sympathy. For instance, they may portray themselves as victims or specially challenged.
• Trolls use web addresses or fictitious online identities that lead to dead ends.
• Trolls may make desperate efforts to make themselves liked. Sugar coated responses or overt-flattering comments are signature troll moves.

There are different types of trolls. Most are hit-and-miss and are far easier to deal with. Some are more strategic in the way they embed themselves online so as to cause maximum mayhem with minimum fuss. Identifying an internet troll is half the battle one. You can only count on your experience to get one early before you are baited by them. Now, comes the relatively easy part of dealing with these internet trolls.

Surefire Ways Of Dealing With Internet Trolls

Thankfully, you don’t have to call 911 to deal with Internet trolls. No destruction of property has been reported yet. Effective troll management calls for equal parts of caution and common sense. Here are a few guideposts to follow.

Avoidance is the best policy: If you can catch them shooting their mouths off, totally ignore remarks left by trolls. Don’t feed the trolls should be stuck up on a yellow sticky always.

Avoid arguments: If you do get on a one-to-one with someone you suspect to be a troll, keep your remarks to an absolute minimum. State your facts and move on. Put the ball in their court. By the second remark or so, a troll would have identified himself.

Don’t let them flatter to deceive: There is a high chance that a troll will pay a compliment or two to ingratiate himself before he starts his attack. This is a tough one as there are many real admirers who do sugar coat their comments.

Ask For Supporting Data: To net a troll in the anti-spam net, you can ask for data that can quickly verified like an email address or domain name. Genuine commentators usually have an online persona to back themselves.

The power of the webmaster: You can use blacklists and whitelists to separate the bad from the good. IP addresses can be tracked and persistent attacks from an IP or a range of IPs can be effectively blocked.

Did Einstein know a few trolls when he said – “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I am not sure about the universe.”

Where do you fall on the Internet troll scale? Check out this infographic for a light-hearted look at internet arguments. Cracked.com has its own list of ways to deal effectively with internet trolls. There are quite a few other resources if you ever fall short of advice on how to tackle this cyber-menace. Like the ones in our Geeky Fun section:

• Guide to trolling
• Typical Internet Troll
• The 4 Levels Of Internet Trolling
• Troll Your Facebook Friends
• Epic Troll Video

How do you deal with trolls? Do you have a magic potion to use against them? Do you think they are a menace or do you believe that it’s all harmless fun? Tell us (but don’t troll) in the comments.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons; xkcd; Flickr(openfly)

Yet some try to side-step advertisements by using browser extensions or features that block them. There’s no doubt that ads can be annoying, but without ad revenues, there’d be nothing to read. What does this mean for the Internet? Could a downward spiral result?

Looking For The Free Lunch

Personally, I am not a fan of using the world “entitlement” as an insult. Yet it does seem to apply to many who choose to use an ad blocking extension to remove ads from their favorite sites. Ars Technica’s experiment, in which the site prevented visitors using ad blockers from viewing the site’s content, was an excellent example. While some fans were supportive, others acted as if Ars was withholding what was rightfully theirs.

This is the definition of obtaining something for nothing. Anyone who is choosing not to view the ads on a site is making a deliberate choice not to support the site in question, with a few exceptions aside (a handful of sites offer premium subscriptions which remove some or all advertisements).

Yes, advertisements can be an annoyance, but they’re the only way sites can provide content without charging for it. Some argue that advertising is an outdated business model, but so far, the replacement for it remains a unicorn – a creature that’s kinda cool to think about, but ultimately mythical.

Suffer The Consequences

Suggestions that ad blockers are ethically sound remain dubious. It’s obvious that without revenue to support quality content, that content will disappear, and the world will be worse off because of it.

Modern American media serves as an excellent example of what happens when revenues dry up. Consolidation has put most American print and television media in the hands of just a few companies, which wield considerable cultural power and have little incentive to care about factual reporting.

The race for the bottom’s most putrid result yet is the creation of citizen journalism programs such as CNN’s “iReport” in which unqualified amateurs upload their own videos, photos and commentary.  As one would expect, the quality of iReport is abysmal. CNN is quick to highlight any decent clip, but dig deeper into iReport and you’ll find a hoard of terrible photos and barely explained videos, many of which are lined with descriptions that contain misspelled words and unfinished sentences.

If advertisements disappeared from all sites today, this is what would become of the web. Most sites would have to rely on subscriptions, a revenue model that would only encourage consolidation. The rest of the web would devolve into iReports – an incoherent, amateur, and uninspired sprawl.

Unlikely Champions

All of this seems very doom-and-gloom. Ad blocker extensions aren’t hard to use, and some web browsers (Opera, I’m looking at you) are starting to include the functionality by default.  While I’ve already argued why blocking advertisements is a bad idea, there are plenty of people who simply don’t care, and are happy to devour content without ever supporting it. So what’s going to keep us slip-sliding down this slope?

Microsoft and Google.

Yes, these two corporate giants hardly seem like the best choice for stewards of online quality. Microsoft has been involved in numerous past anti-trust disputes, and Google is the new target for them. Yet for now, the interests of these two companies are in line with the interests of people who want to see quality content on the web at no charge.

The connection is obvious. Google derives much of its revenue from advertisements. Microsoft would quite like to have a piece of that action as well. In addition, both companies distribute web browsers. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Google’s Chrome together represent about 65% of all web users. Google also owns the most popular mobile operating system.

So long as Google and Microsoft remain powerful companies with great influence over how people view the Internet, advertising will remain the primary means of generating revenue. Some portion of users may block ads, but these companies would never let them threaten their business models, which by extension protects the sites that rely on advertising to generate revenue.

Conclusion 

If you care about the sites you visit, and you want them to be successful, you should not be using an ad blocker. It’s that simple. Just say no to blocking ads!

With that said, ad blocking extensions are not killing the Internet, and have no hope of doing so in the near future. Despite what some supporters of ad blocking believe, the use of advertisements to generate revenue is the dominant paradigm and will likely remain dominant for decades. If it is interrupted, it won’t be because some geeks were blocking ads, but rather because of the elimination of net neutrality.

Let us know what you think in the comments.  Do you block ads or not?

However, Twitter also has a darker side. It is also filled with annoying idiots who seem to tweet for the sole purpose of making everyone who has the misfortune of meeting them annoyed. These are the places on Twitter that are most closely akin to a dark alley somewhere. A place you never want to end up. Avoid acting like these people on Twitter, and you may just find your life, and the lives of your friends, that much more joyous.

1. People Who Are Constantly Hashtagging

I hate hashtags. I think they are the absolute most annoying thing on Twitter. I hate them even more when people decide to put like 20 words in a single hashtag. #ImsorryIcantreadyourstupidtweetwhenyouputamillionwordsbehindahashtagwithnospacesinit. When I see something like that on Twitter I immediately click the big “Unfollow” button.

I don’t just hate them when they are long though, I also hate them when people put one in almost every one of their tweets. I’m sorry, but that does not make you cool, and it is not going to get you more followers. Hash tags have a place, but they need to be used sparingly, and they need to be kept short so they are actually readable.

2. People That Follow Thousands Of People

This drives me crazy. Why follow thousands of people just so they will follow you back? That is completely defeating the point of Twitter. There is no way you can keep up with your Twitter timeline when there is a new tweet every 3 seconds. Twitter was designed for following along with your friends, and people who interest you, not to get 100,000,000,000 people flooding your timeline and the same number reading your tweets who do not care about what you have to say.

Before following someone on Twitter you must ask yourself one simple question: Do I actually care about what this person might be tweeting? If you cannot answer yes to this question than you mustn’t follow them.

3. People Who Use Twitter For One On One Conversation

This drives me absolutely insane. Please, if you want to conduct a conversation, text message or direct message the person. It is completely unreasonable to expect all your followers to read your conversation with someone if it extends past 2 or 3 tweets each. Once you realize this is going to become more than a quick exchange, it is time to move along and not force your conversation down everyone else’s throat.

If you don’t like having Twitter followers, go ahead and try this, because it will be a quick way to see your number of followers drop like a lead balloon.

4. People Who Do Nothing But Retweet

I understand you want to let people know that you like what they said, but please, have an original thought on your own just once! Twitter is all about sharing, so if you think that something that Justin Bieber said is just super cool, then by all means re-tweet it, but attempt to follow it up at some point with something that you thought of yourself. Why even make a Twitter account if you never intend to actually type something out yourself?

5. People Who Only Use Twitter To Advertise Their Stuff

Twitter is an invaluable tool for promotion. We all know this, and I will admit, I may be a little guilty of this myself when it comes to tweeting my articles from MakeUseOf. Sometimes it is easy to forget you are posting things to your friends, and real people who aren’t looking to have your links shoved in their face. Please, post your links, and if it interests me I will happily click it, and if not, at least you tried, but also post other things that are interesting.

Maybe a link to someone else’s article from another website? Maybe you could let us know where the party is going to happen tonight, just please, be a human, and not a link posting robot. The obvious exception is if your Twitter account is specifically for a website. People know what they are getting into if they follow an account like that, so it is acceptable.

Conclusion

Twitter is great, if you don’t use it like some of these annoying examples. Please, think of your followers when you tweet, they are the ones who have to suffer through reading the garbage you are posting. Just use common sense, if you think something would annoy you if anyone did it in your timeline, maybe you shouldn’t do it either.

What annoys you on Twitter? Do you follow anyone you wish you could get rid of and can’t because they are a “real life” friend? Let us know in the comments.