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NICE, Calif.--Over the last few days, I spent hours with my wife's parents, Tyler and Donna, helping them adapt to the first Internet connection they've ever had. For them, living on top of a mountain at 4,000 feet, in the middle of a national forest, and entirely off the grid--this has been a big step.

For my wife and I, it's also been a big project, at least in terms of teaching them the basics, and helping them get ready to learn on their own. While their Internet proficiency is still low, they are learning … Read more

The Isle of Man is, perhaps, one of the lesser-known parts of the world.

Perched in the Irish Sea, slightly to the left of some of the more miserable parts of England, it is most famous for a motorcycle race in which someone always seems to get killed.

Now the Isle, whose strange three-legged flag looks like something the Masons might appreciate, is famous for something more: a Ku Klux Klan Facebook group.

It seems some wise and sensitive people decided to get together and "Keep the Isle of Man white and free from foreigners." They dubbed themselves … Read more

On today's show, Molly, Rafe, and Brian Cooley take over for Tom, Natali, and sanity. Between ISP censorship in Minnesota, Faceook phishing attacks, and search on Twitter, it doesn't sound rant-tastic but it really, really is. Enjoy.

Minnesota orders ISPs to blacklist gambling sites http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10231683-38.html

Facebook hit by phishing attacks for a second day http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10230980-83.html

Manipulating the Palm Pre supply is just wrong http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10230970-17.html http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a7H6bfrDqVPE&refer=us… Read more

In running for attorney general of California, Facebook executive Chris Kelly is returning to his roots.

"Ever since I worked in public life when I was very young, I thought it was something that I might do at some point," said Kelly, a former Clinton campaign and White House staffer who serves as the massive social network's chief privacy officer and head of public policy.

"Over the past few years at Facebook, it's become clear to me that the role of the attorney general is incredibly able to help make change in the world, and … Read more

Facebook stopped a phishing attack on Thursday, its second day in a row of dealing with a worm on the site that lures people to a fake Facebook page and prompts them to log in.

Unsuspecting Facebook users get a message from a friend urging them to "check this out" and including a link to a Web page that appears to be a Facebook log-in page, but it is a fake site that steals their information when they type in their username and password. The worm also sends a copy of the message to the infected Facebook member'… Read more

Though the iPhone gets much of the attention when it comes to mobile apps, RIM recently launched its BlackBerry App World to compete with Apple. I've been using apps from that store (and a few other Twitter clients that can be downloaded online) that bring social networking to the social networker. Some are better than others, but they're all worth trying at least once. And they're all free!

Facebook The BlackBerry's Facebook app is the best social-networking app in the App World. It lets you update your status from your phone, upload pictures to your profile, and send messages to friends. One of my favorite features is the option to use a Facebook friend's profile photo as their image for your BlackBerry contact list. It's really well put together.

ITookThisOnMyPhone ITookThisOnMyPhone lets you snap pictures on your BlackBerry and upload them to your ITookThisOnMyPhone profile. You can also upload all those pictures to your favorite social network, like Facebook or MySpace. It didn't do it as quickly as uploads in the Facebook app, but it still worked as advertised. ITookThisOnMyPhone is useful for those who want to send pictures to their social-network friends. But if you already have the Facebook app, stick with that.

Loopt As long as friends have Loopt installed on their BlackBerry or iPhone, you can find them through the app's location-based positioning, and you can send messages. You can also share photos and comment on their images. Messaging friends is easy and sharing photos works relatively well. But finding those friends is made difficult at times, since the location-based service isn't perfect. I like Loopt, but it needs improvement.

MySpace The MySpace app on the BlackBerry App World is outstanding. You can send and receive MySpace mail and update your status. Like the Facebook app, you can also upload pictures to your profile from your BlackBerry. That feature works well. That said, I found that sifting through friend profiles is more difficult than it should be. But it's still worth downloading if you're a MySpace user.

Qik Livestreaming The Qik LiveStreaming app lets you stream video from your BlackBerry. It boasts an extremely simple (and slick) interface that gets you streaming video in seconds. And the quality of that video is quite impressive. I streamed a few times over the past couple days. There was little lag. I enjoyed using the app.… Read more

Relationships are difficult. They have their ups. They have their downs. And they have their outs.

As was recently discovered by Antonio M., that rare Italian with a romantic streak. Antonio has a Facebook page. He is proud of that page. So much so that he posted a picture of himself in partying mode.

Atlas liked to party with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Antonio's partying mode, on the other hand, seems to include staring at a camera while two naked breasts are placed on his head.

Now it isn't for me to judge how … Read more

In a move that some Silicon Valley insiders had anticipated might happen, Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly has announced his exploratory bid for the elected post as attorney general of California.

He has set up the Web site www.kelly2010.com as his online campaign headquarters. Kelly also has an official Facebook fan page for his campaign.

"Over the past year, many people I respect have asked me to run for California Attorney General in 2010. Today, after much consideration, I am announcing that I've launched a committee to further explore the race," Kelly, who is … Read more

Updated at 11:30 p.m. PDT: This blog misreported the percentage of swine flu interest on Facebook member pages in the states of Texas and Mississippi. The correct percentages are 0.82 percent and 0.29 percent, respectively.

There have been a lot of resources that have surfaced to help track the newly spreading swine flu. On Monday, we covered some of these online resources to help you stay on top of it. Tuesday night, Facebook released some interesting data on the conversations taking place around the swine flu outbreak. The company has posted a photo album on Facebook'… Read more