Facebook Updates Login and Adds Anonymous Logins

Facebook announced changes to logins. With the Facebook login to apps, the new version gives people the option to pick and choose what information apps get and what information gets shared back to Facebook.  This will help preserve privacy when using Facebook logins on other websites and in apps.

You can also login anonymously. This login lets people log in to apps without having to remember usernames and passwords, but it doesn’t share personal information from Facebook. So far, Anonymous Login is only set up in a few places, but its use should increase over time.

Anonymous Login from Facebook on Vimeo.

Also changing in the coming weeks will be a new app control dashboard inside Facebook’s settings. Using the new controls, people can see a list of apps they use, manage specific permissions, or remove apps entirely.

Changing Your Facebook Gender Settings

Your body. Your definition. Now on Facebook.

Facebook added the ability to set your gender outside the binary male/female choices just in time for Valentine’s Day. Now you can define yourself with a choice more reflective of who you really are if the binary choices don’t cover it.

Here’s how to update your gender settings.

1. Choose Edit Profile. If you’re on the page with your News Feed, it’s under your name at the upper left.

choose edit profile
Choose edit profile

2. Scroll down to the Basic Information Section and click Edit.

Edit Basic Information
Edit Basic Information

3. You’ll see a gender option. Use the pull down menu to select “Custom.”

Select Custom
Select Custom

4. Start typing in the input field. After you type the first letter, Facebook populates the list with options based on your first letter. I typed a “c” thinking that I would like to identify as “crone.”

The "C" options
The “C” options

As you can see, crone isn’t an option. I tried typing it in and saving, but got an error message. It will only let you choose one of the options offered. (There are about 65 choices in all.)

I typed a “f” in the box. Here are the options offered. As you can see, choices included options with “f” in many places, not just as the first letter.

the "f" options
The “f” options

5. Pick a pronoun. If you choose a custom gender definition, you have a chance to choose your pronoun.

Choose a pronoun
Choose a pronoun

The pronoun choices are limited and don’t offer some common choices that people who don’t fit the binary prefer. Maybe Facebook will add to the pronoun options later. They need to do that.

6. Save

Related post from 2010 (or this has been a long time coming) Have You Thought About the Gender Choices on Web Forms?

Note: This post was syndicated on BlogHer.com.

10 Places You Should Share Your Design Work

10 Places You Should Share Your Design Work

The social web has made sharing more important than ever, especially for graphic designers who are continually seeking new (and potentially lucrative) clients. Now, sharing your design work is more than simply publishing a portfolio; it’s engaging in a community and making real business-networking connections that can pay huge long-term dividends. Portfolio-driven and personal/professional websites aside, here are 10 places you should share your design work.

Facebook

Facebook is perhaps the best platform for sharing your design work. What makes Facebook (and other social sites) perfect is the fact that potential clients are likely not surfing portfolio websites – but they are paying attention to designs being shared here.

Pinterest

Rapidly growing in popularity, Pinterest is a great platform for setting up your own board to showcase your design work.

LinkedIn

Post your latest designs to the business community; with a few good connections, you’ll have the work and the references needed to land great contracts.

Forrst

Share and collaborate with other creative professionals, some of whom might just hire you for their own projects.

YouTube

Whenever you create an outstanding design, take 90 seconds and make a video that discusses your decision-making process. Share your video on other social sites and quickly establish yourself as an expert in your field.

Dribbble

Dribbble isn’t just for designers; a lot of potential buyers browse Dribbble these days.

DeviantArt

Still one of the most popular sites for designers, DeviantArt has a robust community that’s happy to “reshare” your posts.

Creattica

Unlike many other sites, Creattica reviews each work before publishing it. That third-party validation is critical and results in potentially thousands of shares across a wide network.

Press releases

Whenever you complete a big project for a client, offer to submit a press release announcing it. This is especially true for newsworthy releases such as a new website launch or redesign. The press release should include the fact that you were the designer; when it gets picked up by media sources, everyone will know your name.

Business and marketing blogs

Most graphic designers focus on getting posts published on design blogs, but designers aren’t your clients. Instead, post design-relevant information on business and marketing blogs to establish your expertise and talent.

Where else can you share your design work?

Author’s Bio: Brian Morris writes for the PsPrint Design & Printing Blog. PsPrint is an online commercial printing company. Follow PsPrint on Twitter @PsPrint.

Shared photo albums on Facebook

Mashable reports Facebook Unveils Shared Photo Albums. They aren’t exactly like Flickr groups, but they do have some similar features.

With shared albums, more than one person can contribute photos to the album. The person who created the album can choose to delete or modify photos that get submitted. Contributors can edit the photos they submit themselves.

A shared album can have up to 50 contributors, each of whom can submit up to 200 photos. This might work well for an event like a wedding or a shared vacation. It isn’t for something like a BlogHer conference or a SXSW conference where thousands of people attend and take photos. It’s more for events you shared with people you know on Facebook, because each contributor is invited.

The privacy settings for shared albums allow for public, friends of contributors and contributors only. Only the album’s creator can set the privacy controls. The album’s creator also sets up who the contributors will be.

The shared album option is rolling out today. When you upload photos to create a new photo album, look for a new button that says “Make Shared Album.” Here’s Facebook’s Help page on Shared Albums.

A Review of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

[Disclosure: Links to Amazon are affiliate links. Here is my review policy. I did not receive a review copy of this book, but bought it myself.]

Lean in book cover

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead is by Sheryl Sandberg, published by Knopf in 2013. I thought this was a positive and inspiring book in many ways. I’ve read reviews by other women who criticize Sandberg for being too rich or too privileged, or too whatever for them to learn anything from her. I don’t want to do that here. What I am going to do is share some of the positive things about the book that I think do apply to all women.

My biggest takeaway from this book is that Sheryl Sandberg is everywoman. She has the same struggles, worries, and concerns that we all have. She isn’t some other species who somehow magically became a success through no effort of her own. What she does have is the fact that she’s smart, she works hard, and she takes the risks she needs to take in order to achieve.

I’m going to let Sandberg speak for herself by quoting some of the things from the book I found particularly powerful. Instead of blockquoting them all, I’ll just make a list. These are all direct quotes.

  1. When a girl tries to lead, she is often labeled bossy. Boys are seldom called bossy because a boy taking the role of boss does not surprise or offend.
  2. For women, feeling like a fraud is a symptom of a greater problem. We consistently underestimate ourselves. Multiple studies in multiple industries show that women often judge their own performance as worse than it actually is, while men judge their own performance as better than it actually is. . . . I learned over time that while it was hard to shake feelings of self-doubt, I could understand that there was a distortion. . . . I learned to undistort the distortion.
  3. Research backs up this “fake it till you feel it” strategy. One study found that when people assumed a higher-power pose (for example, taking up space by spreading their limbs) for just two minutes, their dominance hormone levels (testosterone) went up and their stress hormone levels (cortisol) went down. As a result, they felt more powerful and in charge and showed a greater tolerance for risk. A simple change in posture led to a significant change in attitude.
  4. I believe this bias [Ed.: we evaluate people based on stereotypes] is at the very core of why women are held back. It is also at the very core of why women hold themselves back.
  5. Owning one’s success is key to achieving more success.
  6. People expect men to advocate on their own behalf, point out their contributions, and be recognized and rewarded for them. For men, there is truly no harm in asking. But since women are expected to be concerned with others, when they advocate for themselves or point to their own value, both men and women react unfavorably.
  7. Women need to shift from thinking, “I’m not ready to do that” to thinking “I want to do that – and I’ll learn by doing it.”
  8. I am now a true believer in bring our whole selves to work. I no longer think people have a professional self for Mondays through Fridays and a real self for the rest of the time.
  9. What I am arguing is that the time to scale back is when a break is needed or when a child arrives – not before, and certainly not years in advance. The months and years leading up to having children are not the time to lean back, but the critical time to lean in.

There’s a lot in this book to inspire women to take the lead in their own lives and in their careers. I suggest that all people (not just women) should read it. I recently read books about Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, which were both enlightening and fascinating. Lean In however, is an example of how a woman can succeed in a very male industry. Both men and women need to be aware of what their female colleagues think and do (or don’t do) in order to advance in their careers.

Summary: An inspiring guide to how a woman can become a leader.

A review by Virginia DeBolt of Lean In: Work, Women and the Will to Lead (rating: 5 stars)

Mad Scramble

I haven’t had time to writing anything for Web Teacher today because I’ve written two posts for BlogHer.

The first is What I Remember about the 2013 Oscar Show. I figure if Dori can write about the Oscars at Backup Brain, I can too.

The other post is Moms Join Facebook to Creep on Kids. Oh, REALLY, Mashable? This one is about an unrealistic infographic that Mashable published.

Please check them both out.