If you’re concerned about online privacy, take heed: you’re certainly not the only one. Although there may be some comfort in numbers, that all falls by the wayside when someone gets a hold of your financial accounts. Online privacy is such a concern because it really is so important. The data that is stored on us online is enough fro someone to be able to assume our identity, steal our money and ruin our credit.

Some people might tell you that you’re just being paranoid; millions of people shop online safely every day. But, (on the other hand) about 10 million Americans are victims of identity fraud every single year. The biggest challenge law enforcement agents tackle in the fight against identity theft is public education. There are many things you can do to ensure you’re browsing safely online – especially when you’re ready to turn personal information over to a company through its website.

That might be why the world’s largest search engine, Google, has launched an awareness campaign to help people understand how and why they need to protect their privacy and identity online. Known as their “Good to Know” campaign, Google has spent millions of dollars to spread the word about protecting yourself from identity theft.

The ads will start to appear this coming Tuesday in many newspapers and billboards across the country. The ads point out some of the basic things you can do to protect yourself against malicious attackers.

Some ads will cover how to protect your passwords and others will focus on knowing who you’re communicating with online.

While Google is spending millions of dollars on public service ads across the nation, the ad buy raises some other questions about Google’s business practices. It’s no secret that Google makes its (vast amounts of) money off of following your browsing habits (and serving ads based on that info). There’s no doubt that their ads offer a vital public service, but I can’t help but see the slight hypocritical nature of this. Protect yourself from everyone else; just let us know what you’re doing. On the plus side, Google isn’t tracking your online habits for a malicious reason – but, others may be. Look out for the ads and take note. You just might learn something about how to protect your information from hackers.

I like to talk about online privacy often because I think it’s an issue that people really are in the dark about. When you fill out a form online, do you know who has access to your information? Do you care? I guess the real question here is should you care. If you’re asking me, I say yes. Keeping your information private can help keep your personal information safe, which means you’re less likely to be a victim of identity fraud – and even home burglary.

Sadly, social sites have become notorious for selling their user’s information to companies that want to advertise en masse. It’s against the law, and both Facebook and Google have been fined over the misuse of user’s information. However, you might inadvertently be allowing access to sensitive information through your privacy settings.

Whether signing up for an email account or buying something online, your private information is being delivered from your home to what you hope is a responsible source. Sites that receive secure transactions will have a green block before the “http.” If they do not, they are not SSL protected (meaning they are not secure). Never use a site to make a purchase that does not use SSL. The information on your bank account and anything else you offered up might just be accessible to someone with malicious intent.

If there’s one thing you should know about communicating with people on social networks, it’s this: Never ever announce that you’re leaving your home or going on vacation. This is an open invitation for someone to break into your home. Say something like “Headed to the city with hubby so he can finally get that full-sleeve tattoo” and you’re telling everyone that your house will be empty for hours.

Although many people don’t list their physical location on Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus, simple logic and reasoning can lead a crook straight to your home. Keep your privacy settings high and never divulge sensitive information about you, your family, or your activities in an email or on a social site.

One of the biggest concerns I hear people voice about Facebook is its privacy settings. People get frustrated every single time there is a change in Facebook’s privacy policy – which is very often – because they’re left feeling exposed. The trend at Facebook is to make everything public by default, so if you want to keep things hidden, you’ll have to figure out how to do it yourself. Here are a few tips for navigating Facebook’s privacy settings.

1. Sharing on Facebook – You can share content with everyone (default), friends of friends (and friends), or only your friends. The latter is the most private setting you can have. That’s what mine is set at. It means that someone has to be your Facebook friend in order to see your pictures, wall posts or info. If you’d like to cast a wider net, you can also allow anyone who is friends with your friends to see your stuff. Get to these settings by going to Account>Privacy Settings>Sharing on Facebook.
2. Allowing Friends to Check You in to Places – If you’re a very private person, you probably don’t want to give your friends the ability to tell everyone on Facebook where you are at the moment. If you don’t want to let them check you in to places, you can disable this feature. Follow the path above to get to Sharing on Facebook, and then go to Customize Settings>Friends can check me in to Places.
3. Stop Facebook from Following You Around the Web – You know how your Facebook account seems to follow you everywhere these days. You can comment with Facebook or easily share a page. The Instant Personalization feature is where this type of interaction is controlled. If you don’t want the world knowing you shared a page or like an article, you can disable Instant Personalization by going to Privacy Settings>Apps and Websites>Instant Personalization.

How we record, play, and listen to music has changed drastically over the last few decades. Much like technology has greatly affected society, it has also affected music. Some say music has changed for the good, while others would argue for the bad. What do you think?

Music through the availability of computers and Smartphones is much easier to achieve than ever before. Of course, we can all thank Apple for their introduction of the iPod and iTunes into our lives. As a result, it is much easier to hear a song on the radio, look it up on iTunes, purchase it, and upload it to our iPods. That’s it. No waiting for the album to arrive at the store; no waiting for the radio to play that song again; no waiting, period. While this is awesome for us, some artists and bands would beg to differ.

Many bands, such as Metallica, dislike the ease in downloading music. Before iTunes really hit big, back in the late 90s, we used to use Napster, a site that we could access to download music…for free. Once this news became widespread, Napster was hit with a lawsuit soon after and later bought out in the early 2000s. While it doesn’t seem that long ago, we as a society have come a long way on how we distribute content on the Web, particularly copyrighted material.

There’s a new music plug-in for Facebook that we will start to see more and more. This allows you to search and listen to music while surfing the Internet. While searching for music, blogs and bands will have a “play” button next to their name or song, which you can click and it will allow you to listen to that particular song or artist. One of the best features is you can listen to the music while surfing and visiting other sites. Of course, with Facebook’s limitless features, you can “share” songs with your friends via messages as well as “post” them on your wall.

So where does music go from here? How much easier can achieving music from your favorite bands get? What is the next music player that we will be using? What is after the iPod? No matter what we are in store for next, it is bound to be some gadget that will just make things even easier…if that’s even possible to imagine. But is easier necessarily better? We think so…but is it really?

© Chris Schmid | Dreamstime.com

Are you aware of how often companies track your online history? There’s probably about five companies tracking you right now – as you read this post. Creepy, huh? They aren’t doing it for malicious reasons (well, most don’t). They do it to learn more about you – and hence, more about “us” as a whole. Google wants to know what you’re interested in, so it can deliver more targeted ads. Facebook wants to know the same thing. Have you ever found it strangely coincidental that you’ll see ads for forensic psychology jobs after researching the salary of a forensic psychologist? Ok, maybe your search wasn’t psychology related at all, but you know what I’m talking about. It’s as if someone is following you around the web. In essence, they are.

Some people get really agitated by this while others don’t let it bother them. If you’re among those who are really irked by the idea of someone tracking your online habits, there are options. There are a few companies that have popped up to fill this need and rescue you from having large corporations looking over your shoulder as you surf the web. Sure, you could try not to allow cookies on your browser, but you’d have trouble shopping online and doing a lot of other things too. It’s actually much more efficient to download a program that will block these tracking cookies for you.

Ghostery is among the best-known of these companies. I’m not endorsing it over any of the others, but this is the one I downloaded myself. It’s only been a few days, but it’s working great so far. Every time I visit a site, I see a message containing all of the tracking cookies that have been blocked. It pops up in the upper right-hand corner, and it goes away upon clicking. I could probably disable the notification completely, if I really wanted to. Some of the others that you might want to check out are Adblock Plus, Do Not Track Plus, and TrackerBlock.

As a music fan, you probably have your own genre that you prefer. Your favorite band, your favorite song, or your favorite sound. Everyone that enjoys music has their own preference. However, the well-rounded musician can also appreciate other musical styles and genres.

As a student musician, you are probably still in the process of deciding on a career, and maybe that career is in music. While music may seem like a small industry, or a difficult one, and in part this is true, unless you know already that you are destined to become a rock star, a popular choice is music education. You get all the benefits of becoming a teacher (salary, tenure, summers off, etc.), but you are teaching one of the greatest gifts…music.

However, as a teacher, you must teach music appreciation to your student musicians. Music teachers have very different styles in going about this. Some teachers will teach the basic characteristics of each music genre and decade. For example, Baroque, classical, jazz, Baroque, right up through 50s rock and roll, the 60s “free love” movement, and into Disco and 80s hair bands. While this is all well and good, you always have the luxury of incorporating music through, well, music. You could incorporate old rock and roll songs into choral sections, or write out famous jazz pieces for your students to play, or even let them study and write reports on their favorite musicians and why. The possibilities are endless.

All in all, whether you decide to become a teacher, or become a solo artist, a music therapist, or you really become a famous rock star (“because we all just wanna be big rock stars”, right?), music appreciation is key. A well-rounded and intelligent musician should be able to discuss and appreciate music of all forms. It doesn’t mean you actually have to like it, because let’s face it, a lot of music out there is, well, questionable…but you should be able to appreciate it and all its forms.

Finally, deciding on a music career is indeed tough. However, no matter which career you choose, it is no doubt that as a student musician and artist, you will incorporate your talent and your love for music and music appreciation in your musical “Journey”.

© Jean Schweitzer | Dreamstime.com