The Flashback/Flashfake Trojan has been infecting Mac computers left and right. It disguises itself as a mainstream browser plug-in, but will steal your data if left unchecked. Antivirus companies estimate that more than 600,000 Macs have been infected so far.

Fortunately, Kaspersky’s free Flashfake Removal Tool will detect and remove this malware from your system. I recommend that all Mac users run it immediately.

Once your computer is clean, make sure you install the latest OS X update from Apple. It has a fix that will prevent Flashback/Flashfake from installing in the future.

According to business intelligence firm RJ Metrics, 17.2% of all pinboards are categorized under Home, followed by Arts and Crafts (12.4%), Style/Fashion (11.7%), Food (10.5%) and Inspiration/Education (9.0%). Of those, food is the fastest-growing category. It’s also the category that gets the most repins, generating on average more than 50% repins than the second most reshared category, Style and Fashion.

The results were drawn across a sample of approximately 1 million pins across 9,200 different users.

The study also identified the most popular board names on Pinterest. More than 3% of all boards are titled “For the Home,” followed by “My Style,” (1.97%), “Products I Love” (1.86%), “Books Worth Reading” (1.68%) and “Food” (1.23%). (UPDATE: One of our commenters pointed out that the first three of these are default boards Pinterest gives users when they sign up.) Interestingly, pinboards about products tend to generate the most “likes” from users.

• More than 80% of all pins are repins.
• Online crafts marketplace etsy.com is the most popular source for pins, accounting for a little more than 3% of all content on the site. Google.com, flickr.com, tumblr.com and weheartit.com round out the top five sources. 
  
• Users who have joined Pinterest more recently (between November 2011 and December 2011) are less active than those who joined the site between August 2011 and October 2011.

Given the above, it’s little wonder that Pinterest has become a top traffic driver to the websites of women’s lifestyle magazines as well as independent blogs. The two-year-old site has 11.7 million active registered users, according to estimates from AppData.com.

Top 10 Categories on Pinterest

1. Home (17.2%)
2. Arts and Crafts (12.4%)
3. Style/Fashion (11.7%)
4. Food (10.5%)
5. Inspiration/Education (9.0%)
6. Holidays/Seasonal (3.9%)
7. Humor (2.1%)
8. Products (2.1%)
9. Travel (1.9%)
10. Kids (1.8%)

10 Most Popular Board Names on Pinterest

1. For the Home (3.15%)
2. My Style (1.97%)
3. Products I Love (1.86%)
4. Books Worth Reading (1.68%)
5. Food (1.23%)
6. Favorite Places & Spaces (1.00%)
7. Recipes (0.75%)
8. Craft Ideas (0.74%)
9. Christmas (0.72%)
10. Crafts (0.65%)

The process of development for any project is extremely involved. The amount of time and effort spent preparing to write code can be just as involved as the actual act of writing code.

As the blog post discussed, the amount of thought required into understanding the infrastructure requirements to support an iOS app can be substantial. What does the app communicate with? Where is user data stored? How is it transferred? As slick as iOS is developing for it is not simply pulling in different components and flipping a switch.

The same can be said for just about any other type of development project. Many times we look to open source out-of-the-box solutions for our clients, but usually implementing these solutions is like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.

There are two ways to look at a development problem:

You can either build a solution that conforms to the business OR you can conform the business to the solution.

That is why we like customized solutions – you look at how the business operates, what technical needs exist and then build something to match.

Doesn’t the cost of going custom far outweigh the benefit? Building a customized solution doesn’t mean that it is any more intensive than trying to customize an out-of-the-box solution. Trying to customize Magento for anyone other than a Zend Framework expert can be rather daunting. Looking at Magento code will reveal nested directories inside nested directories containing files with a 100 lines of code in each file with no clear way to connect the dots. Taking a request to add a form field to an existing form can involve changing template files and expanding the existing object (address object for example). Simple things can become rather complicated to implement and what might have been a 2 hour job becomes 8 hours.

So, don’t be fooled into believing that an out-of-the-box solution will be cheaper and less intensive to implement than a custom solution. Tedious application development even exists in the world of iOS applications despite the wealth of tools that Apple provides. Just like Magento, simple changes can require substantial code changes in iOS app development.

All the more reason to do proper planning and documentation before you even begin writing code. Lack of proper planning can easily double your development costs, waste precious months, and have you end up with the wrong solution to the problem.

Bottom line: Don’t skimp on your application development budget and be sure to include adequate time and money to do proper planning and documentation.

If you’d like some perspective and want to get an idea of what’s really involved in developing an iOS application read this post from a developer of Twitterrific.

Here is the Moore County Chamber press release announcing the award nominees and details of the Awards Banquet.

This one really got on my nerves and I just found the remedy:
When you copy an email address out of mac mail you end up with something like this: john doe <johndoe@johndoe.com>. So you have to delete the name and the < > characters every time you copy an address – doohh.

Here is the solution:
Shut down Mail app – Enter the following line into your terminal:

defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool NO

Finally – pew ….

When done right, social media can create a “black hole effect” around a brand in which customers not only create excitement around your brand but also immerse themselves in it. The keyword here being “customer”. The secret is to put yourself in their shoes and portrait this way of thinking on your web presences. In essence it is not about your company and products but about the clients and how they see your world.

“We like to look at topics differently here at Tangram Media”, says Jamie Adams who is their Director of Social Media. Once marketers “get hold of something, they tend to ruin it,” he says. “Most brands are trying to control the social media conversation. Many firms have poured resources into social media and now they’re scratching their heads trying to figure out how to make money from it. Our approach is more about participating in the community and celebrating it.”

That is a direction we’ll see more companies taking, he predicts, it’s based on a really simple idea: treat your customers the way they want to be treated.

Adams says the first thing a retailer getting into social media needs to consider is “what are you going to talk about?” A lot of companies come out “blabbing about themselves all the time basically,” and that’s the wrong way to go. “People like to associate themselves with brands,” Adams says, “But they don’t want to hear about them all the time.”

“Stop trying to use social media as an acquisition channel.” In fact, he says, company’s would be better off putting their social media into the hands of staff responsible for customer satisfaction rather than acquisition. “Put it in retention, not acquisition,” he says.

What brought the customer to you in the first place?

Be careful before you outsource your social media functions, he warns. “A lot of large firms outsource to PR companies or corporate communications. Those folks are not always in touch with your brand, so that may not be the best strategy. Find someone in your company who uses social media and is passionate about your brand. That’s the type of person you want handling your social media.

He suggests, “Think about what draws that customer to you in the first place.” In Tangram Media’s case, he notes, “We’re a forward looking company and we celebrate the fact that the marketing landscape is changing. Everything will evolve into a customer orientated ecosphere where selling yourself becomes unnecessary.” One way to get the customer involved is to spin stories around your products and services. “Get into it,” he says. “Interact with followers. Point out other people in the community.”

Adams says you should do as much tracking as you can, but don’t obsess over it. “We’re very heavily into analytics and insights so it’s in my nature to collect a lot of data and analyze it. But don’t obsess. Build tracking in where ever you can.”

It’s probably a mistake to look at social media just for ROI, he notes. “When you’re really good at social media, you get a black hole effect,” he says. “Social media sharing creates deep interest in a brand. People get excited about what you’re doing and share it, creating excitement around your trademark.”

James Adams Director of Social Media at Tangram Media Inc.

Here are a few pointers to help ease your mind!

There’s a seven-day review period. Once upgraded, Facebook users will be able to work through their Timeline and get things ready before it goes public. During the seven-day review period, the Facebook user will be able to publish it at any time. If he or she chooses to wait, it will automatically go live after the week is up.

Your cover photo is your chance to make a splash. The most striking feature at the top of the new Facebook profile is the cover photo, which stretches across the page’s width. The Facebook user’s profile photo, which is seen across the site, is now just a small square. Most are using this opportunity to make the profile photo a simple face shot and have used the cover photo to show something more personal, like a pet or favorite vacation spot.

For the business owner, you can get very creative and import an image that you have added business info or content too. Remember, you still want to give it a personal feel.

Keep in mind, you can not add links but certainly add call to actions such as “Follow me”

Another thing is to try and place contact and call to actions in the lower third of the image. That is because at times that is the only portion of image displayed until the viewer expands it.

No new information is being shared. Yes, Timeline is bringing back a bunch of old posts. But these posts have long been viewable on Facebook. Before, a friend would have had to go to a profile and click again and again for more posts, but would eventually travel back in time.

Your privacy settings on old posts will remain. A post shared four years ago that was set to be viewable to just friends will continue to be viewable to just friends. The only concern here lies in how a user’s definition of friend has changed. A photo or status update that in college that was OK for friends might not be OK for friends now, which might include coworkers.

Posts can be expanded. Timeline already tries to guess which of your posts will be the most interesting and it makes those viewable. It can try and guess here by how many likes or comments a post has received. If there is a post that should be expanded and is not — like a new job or college graduation — you can expand it.

The Activity Log is the best place to edit a Timeline. Facebook has built a very helpful new page called the Activity Log, which can be accessed from a profile page, that shows every single piece of content Facebook has from a user. Each item can be deleted or tweaked from this page.

For your eyes only. If there is a post in your Timeline that you don’t want to zap completely from Facebook, but don’t want anyone to see, you can change the post’s visibility to “Only Me.”

Users can add other life events. Facebook is hoping that users flesh out their Timeline with information from B.F. (Before Facebook), too. Anything added to the Timeline can now be given a date. So, if a user uploads an old photo from summer camp, he or she can set the date to June 1995 so that it appears chronologically in the Timeline.

As with all change it will take time but this is one change that I think most users will come to embrace.

Information gathered from Mashable.com and USA Today Tech News

To get set up, watch the video above or just follow these steps:

1. Open the Settings app on your device’s home screen.
2. Tap the iCloud tab.
3. Log in to iCloud using an existing Apple ID or MobileMe account, or create a new account from the screen.
4. Select the types of data you want to sync with iCloud by flicking the switches beside them to the “on” position.
5. Tap the Storage & Backup tab at the bottom. You’ll find that you have 5GB of complimentary storage. You’ll also see how much storage you have available, which should diminish as your data begins to sync with iCloud. If you need more than 5GB, tap the Buy More Storage button. It will cost you $20 per year for 15GB, $40 per year for 25 GB, and $100 per year for 55 GB.
6. If you’d like to back up your device to iCloud as well, you can enable that from within the Storage & Backup tab. Towards the button you’ll see a tab labeled iCloud Backup. Make sure the switch is in the “on” position if you want your device backed up to the cloud.