CHANGE ALL THE PASSWORDS

Yes, I would strongly recommend coming up with a new set of passwords and go through as many of the key services you know of and change them.  It’s of course impossible to go to every site you have ever set up an account on, but it would be worth your time to change passwords on any site that has important personal information on you.

Also, if you get any email from any services asking your to update your information, DO NOT CLICK on the link the in the email.  Odds are pretty high its spoofed.  Here are some tips for your new passwords

First, do not use the same password for everything.  I have one password for through away accounts, another for that does not have much information on me, one for those that do, and unique passwords for each account that has high level of information, like my bank account for example.

Do not use password, or 12345 or anything simple like that.  If you have to use a word to remember something, choose a word that does not mean anything to anyone except you.  Miss spelling it and adding numbers is best.  For example, I have passwords that are from other languages but spelled incorrectly (as well as a few other memes).

DO it now.  I know its a pain, but better safe then sorry.  And again DO NOT CLICK on anything from email.  ONLY go to the site direction in a NEW WINDOW!

So, lets start at the top..

AOL Radio:  First, it will detect your local stations based on your location which is great.  That is how I get my local news. AOL also have a wide range of music and other news available.  Revised.  AOL is out, Tunein is in.  Here is why I dumped AOL Radio
Stitcher:  Just updated last week to include many many more pod casts including BBC.  This is not a true radio as AOL Radio is, but pretty close since each pod cast will cue up another pod cast.
Pandora:  Just great.  What more can I say that has not already been said? For those of you that do not know, Pandora will learn what you like based on feedback you provide. Since Pandora is a desktop app as well, I tend to do most of my profile training on the desktop.  It takes a bit a time to get it trained well, but worth it.
Last.fm:  This is a bit like Pandora, but instead of matching based on music qualities, it matches based on the songs your friends listen to or the Last.fm population in general.  More on this in a bit.

For those of you who would like to start using your iPhone as a radio, make sure it has power (more on car iPhone power). Since I use it in the car, I had to use a power adapter which has it own issues of creating engine noise.  More on that here.

For those who have not used either Pandora nor Last.fm, here is an excerpt from a pretty good write up by Steve Krause:

Nature versus Nurture
Algorithmically, Pandora versus Last.fm is something like the nature versus nurture debate. Taking the nature side, Pandora’s recommendations are based on the inherent qualities of the music. Give Pandora an artist or song, and it will find similar music in terms of melody, harmony, lyrics, orchestration, vocal character and so on. Pandora likes to call these musical attributes “genes” and its database of songs, classified against hundreds of such attributes, the “Music Genome Project.”

On the nurture side (as in, it’s all about the people around you), Last.fm is a social recommender. It knows little about songs’ inherent qualities. It just assumes that if you and a group of other people enjoy many of the same artists, you will probably enjoy other artists popular with that group.

Read the full article here..