Q. Are Instagram posts that ask for a direct message some sort of privacy hack?
A. Some Instagram posts ask you to send them a direct message, and it promises more information in the reply to you. Sometimes this works, and sometimes silence.
A direct message might be read by a real person, or more likely by a robot.
The whole auto-reply robot mechanism is fragile. It is not surprising when it fails.
Social media, especially when it comes to commerce, has the same problems that have been long standing challenges on the web.
Anyone can post nearly anything.
Many posts direct users to a link outside of Instagram, and a link can lead anywhere. That’s the core problem.
Just like with web, there are honest and dishonest destinations, with little effective oversight.
Users have to be on guard always. Unfortunately, because Instagram posts are short and the designs are restrictive, there is very little information available to help sort out good and bad.
Although you asked directly about Instagram, the same advice applies to everything online.
The risks of surfing the web or social media and reading anything online are minimal if all you do is read.
However, the moment you participate, regardless of whether it is a social media post or a comment, you give up some of your anonymity and some degree of safety.
Websites and social media networks curate their sites with differing levels of attention. Nevertheless, the online world contains a broad spectrum of human behavior and we each need to be on our guard with every click.
Q. Do you have a favorite to-do app?
A. It depends on your device. I use an iPhone, and I always start with the free apps that are built into the phone.
Apple’s Reminders app has become a powerhouse in the last few years, adding features like urgency, sub-tasks, and hashtags, just to name a few.
It is only after exploring a built-in app and finding it lacking do I seek alternatives.
For new programmers, creating a personal to-do app has become an informal rite of passage. As a result, this app category has countless choices, from simple apps to complex apps suitable for managing a construction project.
Apple’s built-in apps have a feature that allows app developers to create unique app experiences using the same information that is shared with the built-in apps.
GoodTask is a personal favorite. It uses the same data internally shared with the Reminders app, which means I can view my reminders in Apple’s built-in app, or GoodTask. Same data, different experience.
What GoodTask does for me is a useful extension to the Reminders app: it can track overdue items and bring them to my attention in novel ways. Rather than a single push notification, it presents a countdown clock, for example.
The bottom line is to start free and built-in, and wait until your needs increase beyond that to try something else. And whenever possible, try to use a shared data scheme in the same way that GoodTask extends Reminders.
Q. Most websites I visit end in .com, occasionally .org. Is there something special about .com compared to other addresses?
A. There’s nothing special about a dot com address. It’s one of the oldest top-level domains in web history.
Top-level domains (TLDs) follow a dot in a URL address. Early TLDs ended with .edu and .gov, representing the parent institutions that gave birth to the web.
As the web gained increased popularity, businesses and large institutions demanded online spaces. This led to the rise of .com for businesses and .org for non-profits.
The dot com explosion made .com the most desirable TLD, limiting sensible combinations and necessitating new TLDs.
A URL name is just a name. While it was limited to a few TLDs in the past, the future holds many new possibilities.
For historical reasons, .com remains the most common TLD, but its uniqueness ends there.
Wander the Web
Here are my picks for worthwhile browsing this month:
Millions of Free Books
Search the world’s libraries and other sources for books that are available for free. openlibrary.org
What’s That Line?
Search on a line of movie dialog to view clips from different movies. playphrase.me
Global Streaming Media
This search engine reveals the live streaming television signals from around the world.
Bob has been writing about technology for over three decades. He can be contacted at techtalk@bobdel.com.
