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How to delete address, cell number from Facebook

Update January 18, 2011 at 12:52 PST

As reported by Lance Whitney, Facebook has temporarily suspended providing cell numbers and addresses to application developers. Still, it's a good idea to at least consider not posting that information or limiting who can see it. This post shows how to delete the information. For details on how to control access, see my post at SafeKids.com.

On Friday, Facebook made yet another change to its privacy policy, enabling third-party application developers to access your street address and cell phone number. This information was made public Friday night on the Facebook … Read more

How to avoid growing number of Internet scams

Hard times seem to make people more vulnerable to ploys designed to separate them from their money and personal information. At least half of BBB Online's list of the Top 10 scams of 2010 occur in whole or in part over the Internet.

The best way to avoid being victimized by scammers is to be very careful about who you trust. Here are five ways to protect yourself from attacks on your bank accounts and private data.

Don't pay upfront One thing several recent scams have in common is a request by the scammer for you to pay … Read more

Future-proof your data archive

It's easier than ever to make sure copies of your most important records, documents, photos, videos, and other personal data will be readable/viewable/playable long after the hardware and software used to create the files have bitten the dust.

The four keys to safe data archiving are to choose file formats that won't become obsolete, use storage media that won't deteriorate or become inaccessible, make multiple copies stored apart, and check your archived data regularly to ensure it's still readable.

Don't get stuck with outdated data formats Most of the files you want to … Read more

Fix Gmail's failure to launch in Chrome and other browsers

Google's Chrome browser is noted for being faster and smaller than Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. That's why it caught me by surprise when Gmail wouldn't load in Chrome but would open without a problem in Firefox and IE.

A quick Web search led to a thread on the Chrome Help forum dating back to March 2009 but updated as recently as this month. Several solutions to the Gmail slowdown were proposed in the thread, but it appears that Google engineers haven't yet figured out why Gmail sometimes balks in Chrome.

The fix … Read more

Get a $220 software bundle for $19, help charity

I've got something special today. A few months back, I approached AppSumo (known for putting together great software and service bundles) about creating a package that would benefit charity.

They agreed, so I got to work rounding up some of my favorite programs, games, Web services, and so on. And I'm happy to share the result: The Windows Holiday Bundle for Charity. It has a combined value of $220, but a sale price of just $19.

For every bundle sold, AppSumo will give a full 40 percent of the proceeds to Charity:Water, which provides clean drinking water … Read more

Delete accounts in Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Windows Live

The Internet makes it so easy to share data that once a bit of information gets planted on a Web server, it's nearly impossible to remove all traces of it. The e-mail, photos, and other data we upload to Web sites will travel far and wide, whether we intend it to or not.

(The dark side of this sharing is shown by the recent Gawker security breach, as reported by CNET's Steven Musil. See below for links to more information on the Gawker data leak.)

When it comes time to remove an account, we can only hope the … Read more

Five air travel apps for the holiday weekend

America will be on the move this Thanksgiving week as millions crowd airports, highways and trains in search of that tasty turkey or Tofurky meal. Though travel rarely stresses me, I know the prospect of braving the tired masses and the TSA pat-downs can be daunting. So to help you navigate from home to holiday, and complete your journey with as little pain as possible, I've pulled a few must-have smartphone apps. Being the aviation nut that I am I'll focus on air travel, but I'd love to hear your titles for braving the roads and rails. And please tell me about your favorite flying apps as well.

FlightTrack Whether you're picking Mom up at LAX or flying to O'Hare as I am, a flight-tracker app is essential. There are quite a few options available in both the iTunes App Store and the Android Market, but FlightTrack by Mobiata is one of my favorites. You get a lot of information in a clean and easily digestible format and the maps are the best I've seen. Cheaper titles are available, but I think FlightTrack is worth the money.

Before a flight departs you'll see the scheduled departure time and any delay information. And once a flight is in the air FlightTrack shows the airspeed, arrival gate, baggage carousel number, present altitude, a shortcut to the airline's phone number, and the local time and temperature of the departure and arrival cities.

Availability: iPhone and Android Price: $4.99

Point Inside Though it's not devoted solely to air travel, Point Inside is the perfect app during a long airport layover or when you're delayed. For most major airports around the country, and a selection in Europe and Asia, it shows maps of everything you'll need, including shops and restaurants, departure gates, baggage claim carousels, ticketing desks, airline lounges, and related services. … Read more

Speed up Firefox 4 with a BarTab tweak

The latest Firefox 4 beta comes with an easy hack to help tab addicts cover the high cost of memory-devouring tabs. Watch how to enable this key function of the BarTab add-on, without installing the add-on itself.

How to remove personal information from Google search

In this video, Natali Morris shows you how to keep your personal life out of Google search results.