iPhone Photo Mapping

I read this morning about a pair of UK citizens that were detained by the US Department of Homeland Security.

This once again underscores the need for people to be mindful of what they post online. Whether it is Homeland Security, a current or future employer, or even the burglar/psychopath/molester down the street, too much information online can bring negative consequences.

I have some simple rules that I follow online:

• When signing up for online accounts, enter home address information only if it is really needed. If you just have to post your personal details on Facebook, take time to tighten your security to limit who can see them.
• If you have your own blog, you may have registered your own domain name.  Your registration information, including home address, phone numbers, etc. can be seen by anybody.  Spend the extra money to pay for domain privacy, and then only law enforcement can retrieve your personal info.
• Limit how much information you provide on blogs or in social media. Revealing too much information about your children or vacation plans, when combined with address information (see above)  can be an open invitation to “bad guys”.
• Pretend for a minute that the Internet doesn’t make you anonymous. You’ll think twice about trash talking people on social media or web sites, and you may just avoid pissing off current or future employers.  Google yourself and check out what you find.
• Selling on eBay, Kijiji or Craigslist? Watch how much personal information you reveal. If you are posting pictures of your goods, review them to ensure you haven’t inadvertently included identifying data like house numbers, license plates or dangly bits (NSFW).
• If you geocode your photos, fuzz the coordinates so they don’t identify your immediate neighbourhood. The same holds true for smartphone social media apps that record your location, such as Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook Places.

I don’t want to sound alarmist but like the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Anything you post online is there for almost all to see and for a long time.

What do you want people to see?

I am like most people when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. We start the new year with plans of making it different that the previous year, or make different choice to become better people.

My new year has started quite differently than ever before… I am dealing with the loss of a loved one; my father.

The death of a parent or other loved one is never easy to deal with; doubly so when you as the primary caregiver. As the caregiver, you see your parent deteriorate slowly, and your own personal life deteriorates imperceptibly as well. It isn’t until the end that you realize that two lives have been lost… it can be a very lonely time.

You can’t prepare yourself for the so-called “Five Stages of Grief”; these coping stages are experienced differently by each person. You may not even experience all of them.

Something that does tend to be the same, however, is guilt. You might have survivor’s guilt, or feel guilty that you were unable to save them. As the primary caregiver, you may need to make some serious end-of-life choices, and those are not without guilt. Finally, you may feel guilt in moving on and having a life of your own.

At some point in the coping process, you get to a point that you accept your loss and feel better. It is at this point guilt can manifest again because you may feel you are forgetting your loved one.

As I said previously, everybody experiences grief differently, and we all cope differently too. I wouldn’t presume to tell others how to move on, but I will share what I am doing to come to terms with my loss.

The relaunch of my personal blog, bradrowley.net, is dedicated to my late father, Alan Brawn. I choose not to dwell on his absence, but rather to focus on what made him such an awesome person and father. I remember him for the positivity he brought into other people’s lives, for his drive for ongoing personal growth and education, his sharing with others and his professionalism. He also had a great love for the outdoors and revelled in bringing that same joy to others. It is with these remembrances in mind that I choose my path into the new year, a new life and a new beginning.

My blog will focus this new life I find myself setting out on, sharing what I learn about business, leadership, technology, life, etc. with others. I hope to bring the same wonder and joy into the lives of other people, just like my father did for me.

Welcome to my new everything!

• I am an amateur photographer… wildlife is my favourite subject.
• Camping in one of Alberta’s parks.  I enjoy the mountain parks most of all.
• Hiking, best done with good friends or somewhere there are wild raspberries!
• Geocaching… looking for dollar store crap with multi-million dollar satellites.

I am also a trivia buff, news junkie and armchair political analyst.

Speaking of my day gig… I love my job!  I am a systems analyst and aspiring software architect.  I enjoy learning about new technologies and finding new and exciting ways of using them support business needs.  I believe in life-long learning, coaching others and becoming the best leader I can.

Technology is always changing, and that’s why my interests also continue to change.  I’m currently working on:

• Social media, with an emphasis on gamification and location based services.
• Apple technologies (says the guy with almost 20 years Windows experience).
• SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence.

I plan to write about these things and more on bradrowley.net… some about me and some about my work.

Dedicated to my father, Alan Brawn (1945 – 2011)