Facebook Photos Help to Incriminate Bigamist

Facebook Photos Help to Incriminate Bigamist.

A word of caution to any would-be bigamists who may be reading this: If you’re posting photos of your second wedding to Facebook, you might want to make sure your first wife can’t see them.

That’s precisely what Richard Barton Jr. of Grand Rapids, Michigan, did; he’s now out of jail, perhaps but briefly, on a personal recognizance bond.

Barton, 34, had been estranged from his first wife, Adina Quarto, for a period of several years. The couple, who have a six-year-old son, had discussed getting a divorce in the past, but neither party followed through on those discussions.

As Quarto told The Grand Rapids Press, “He told me he just wanted to ignore the situation and pretend I didn’t exist.”

Barton had also become engaged in 2010 to a woman who thought he was divorced; shortly after that, he unfriended his first wife on Facebook and married the other woman, posting wedding photos to his Facebook profile.

Unfortunately for Barton, he never adjusted the privacy settings on those photos to disallow viewing by his first wife. Although she and Barton were no longer Facebook friends, Quarto was able to see pictures of what appeared to be a beach wedding.

After a few months and still none of the promised divorce papers in the mail, Quarto did the only thing she could do: She called the police. Barton was arrested Wednesday.

We know that Facebook photos have recently been providing some pretty damning evidence in divorce cases, but this latest misstep takes Facebook faux pas to an entirely new level.
Facebook Photos Help to Incriminate Bigamist.
Facebook Photos Help to Incriminate Bigamist.

Japan Earthquake & Tsunami: 7 Simple Ways to Help

Japan Earthquake & Tsunami: 7 Simple Ways to Help.

While the devastating Japan earthquake and tsunami have passed, the recovery and mourning have just begun. The disaster could become the most expensive earthquake in history. The crisis could get even worse, depending on what happens next at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Now, more than ever, the Japanese people need our help and support to get through this crisis.

You don’t need to pack your bags and fly out to Japan to help, though. There are plenty of ways you can help online, whether it’s with your wallet or simply with your Twitter account. New technologies make it possible to lend a helping hand with your texts or even with virtual crops.

Every little bit counts. Here are a few ways you can help the victims of the Japan earthquake and tsunami:

1. Text to Donate

The American Red Cross has once again launched a texting campaign to raise money for relief efforts in the Pacific region. Last year, the Red Cross was able to raise over $20 million for Haiti relief through simple text donations.

If you would like to donate to the American Red Cross for Japan Earthquake Relief, just text REDCROSS to 90999. Each text will provide $10 towards the Red Cross’s humanitarian efforts.

2. Donate via Facebook

The Red Cross has also launched a campaign on Causes to raise at least $25,000 for relief efforts. By logging in to Facebook, you can donate anywhere from $10 to $500 to help Tsunami victims and their families.

As of publishing time, the Causes campaign has raised over $40,000 from over 1,000 donors and 3,000 promoters.

3. Buy Virtual Goods

Virtual sweet potatoes and the Japanese Tsunami may not seem related, but buying digital crops could help children affected by the earthquake.

Zynga, known for its effective social good campaigns, has partnered with Save the Children’s Japan Earthquake Tsunami Emergency Fund to get its users to donate money through the purchase of virtual goods in CityVille, FrontierVille, FarmVille and its other games.

100% of the proceeds from the purchase of sweet potatoes in CityVille, radishes in FarmVille or kobe cows in FrontierVille will go towards Save the Children’s efforts to provide relief in the Pacific. The world’s largest social gaming company is shooting to raise $2 million for relief efforts.

Zynga has raised millions of dollars over the last few years with these types of social good campaigns, most notably for the relief efforts in Haiti.

4. Embed Some Code

If you run a website and want to get your customers or users involved in relief efforts, all you need to do is embed a simple snippet of code.

The Hello Bar places a simple message at the top of your website with just a few lines of code. The service, which is in private beta, has decided to open its doors to anybody willing to help the victims of the crisis in Japan.

Simply sign up with the invite code “helpjapan” and you can quickly get the code snippet you need to embed a customized Hello Bar that will drive donations. Check out our full article for more instructions on how to add the donation bar to the top of your website.

5. “Like” a Facebook Page

The people over at Explore.org are donating $1 for every “Like” of the “Dog Bless You” Facebook page, up to $100,000.

Explore.org founder Charlie Weingarten delivered the challenge at South by Southwest yesterday. “Search and rescue dogs are a critical resource for emergency situations,” he told the audience.

6. Ways to Help on Twitter

Harness the power of your Twitter account to do some good for the people of Japan.

Earlier this morning, Twitter published a blog post detailing ways you can help with the relief efforts. Not only have they updated Japan’s mobile website with the latest information on the disaster, but they have also published a list of hashtags to tweet and/or follow related to the crisis.

Here are some key hashtags to remember:

* #Jishin: focuses around general earthquake information
* #Anpi: a hashtag for the confirmation of the safety of individuals or places
* #Hinan: Evacuation information
* #311care: a hashtag regarding medical information for the victims
* #PrayforJapan: A general hashtag for support and best wishes for victims of the crisis

7. Donate via iTunes

Apple is also dedicating resources to the crisis in Japan. They have created a simple donation page in iTunes [iTunes link] that makes it simple to donate anywhere from $5 to $200 to the Red Cross with just a few clicks.

Google Responds to the Japan Earthquake With an Online Crisis Center

Google Responds to the Japan Earthquake With an Online Crisis Center.

Google has reacted to the devastating 8.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan on Friday with a tool that helps you find a person or provide information on missing persons. The site also aggregates important resources, maps and other related information.

Google has previously used the Person Finder tool, for example, during the Christchurch earthquake and the Egypt protests.

The Japan earthquake version of the tool currently lists about 5,500 records, but the number is rising quickly as news about the catastrophe spreads around the world. Although the tool can be useful for finding information about a friend or a loved one, Google warns users that it doesn’t review or verify the accuracy of the data. Furthermore, all data entered will be available to the public, as well as viewable and usable by everyone.

Google’s Crisis Center also shows a map of the earthquake, the latest related news and lists link to warning centers, disaster bulletin boards, and train and blackout information.

The Google Crisis Center is available here, but it also shows up on top of searches for “Japan earthquake” and similar phrases. During these times of disaster, it’s good to see Google taking swift action and leveraging its vastly popular search engine to help people cope and find information.

What tools are you using to track the Japan quake? Tell us in the comments.

Angry Birds Game Coming to Facebook

Rovio CEO Mikael Hed says the immensely popular Angry Birds game is coming to Facebook next month with “completely new aspects to it that just haven’t been experienced in any other platform.”

According to All Facebook, Hed used the word “collaborative” to describe aspects of the game, adding that “the pigs will have a more prominent role.”

Take a look at the Angry Birds page on Facebook, and you’ll see that something is up. If you “like” the page, Rovio promises to keep you posted on all the latest news about the upcoming Angry Birds migration to Facebook.

Other game developers must be envious of the meteoric rise of Angry Birds. First it starts out as an iPhone game, then it’s ported to Android, Palm and Nokia, then suddenly there are multiple versions of the game, and it’s showing up on PCs, PSP/PS3, Windows 7 Phone, there’s a movie tie-in, an animated series, and there’s even a 3D version in the works. And next month we’ll be playing it on the largest social network in the world.

Please tell us in the comments how you think Angry Birds will do on Facebook, and what you think that collaborative aspect of the game might be.

Google Declares War on Content Farms

Google has announced a major algorithmic change to its search engine, subtle in nature and perhaps unnoticeable to many users, but one that should dramatically improve the quality of Google’s search results.
With this move, Google is targeting content farms – a common name for low quality sites whose main goal is to attract search traffic by piling up (mostly) useless content, usually by either producing large amounts of low-quality text or by copying it from websites with original content. Google does not go into details of the change which should impact 11.8% of Google’s queries (currently only in the US, with plans to roll it out elsewhere over time), but it does say that it will affect the ranking of many sites on the web.

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on,” explain Googlers Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts in a blog post.

While the change will surely have many website owners up in arms, complaining that their website was unfairly ranked lower than before (we’re sure that in some cases they will be right), it’s a very welcome one.

The popularity of Google’s search engine is still second to none, but Google has been plagued by black hat SEO practices and content farms for a while now, with the complaints from users slowly mounting over time. If Google manages to put an end to content farms or at least significantly reduce their influence in search results, it will be an important step in regaining the trust of its millions of users.

Google Unveils Delicious Bookmark Importer

Google has just rolled out a convenient new tool for importing your Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks.
The simple importer takes your Delicious login credentials (or lets you use a one-click OAuth button) and imports all your bookmarks, preserving labels or tags.
Considering Google’s rather broad reach as a company, the importer is likely more than just a friendly bid for more Google Bookmarks users.

Bookmarks was launched in 2005, but it’s never been a huge hit — or a money maker — for the company. Last year, Google launched Lists for Bookmarks, a more social feature for bookmarking that put the product into direct competition with Yahoo’s Delicious. At the time, Delicious founder Joshua Schachter was still a Google employee. However, what makes the Delicious importer timing so interesting is Yahoo’s recent decision to “sunset,” i.e., to sell, Delicious. As more startups and other web companies have promoted their own Delicious importers, a successful sale of the once relatively popular web service grows ever more unlikely. Google’s importer may be the nail in the coffin, in fact.

This isn’t the first time Google has made overt overtures to Yahoo services users. But it’s definitely a direct stab at Yahoo’s bottom line.

But Machiavellian maneuvers aside, Google’s importer is a pleasure to use and will likely be a good fit if you’re a user of other Google apps, such as Reader or Gmail. Here are some screenshots: