INVESTIGATOR 563

I noticed there wasn't a facebook group for the Investigator 563 so ive created one here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/840471046047374/

Should be good for uploading hires images to show off our boats and detailed trip reports etc.

Hi Greg.

Good thought. Only thing I would say is that there has been a, and I'll put this as delicately as I can, 'lack of enthusiasm ' to people identifying themselves over three incarnations of this forum . In many ways I can understand it as annonimity is nice sometimes. I think Ian and I and a few others are the only ones to fill in anything on our profiles. Ian and I have spoken by phone but apart from that most trailer sailing forum people prefer to keep who they are private and fair enough. I once suggested a precursor to our current sail no/ boat name register but it did not garner much support.

It's a similar situation on TSP and TSCOM . TSP has few profiles filled in and other than a few who identify themselves for business reasons most prefer to keep their personal details personal. I have met a few of them at the HEAVAN CAN WAIT on LM a few years back but that's about it .

TSCOM now has a Facebook page but it is being resisted by the members as they like to swear and post jokes that would not be allowed in a public forum. Their forum is private and password protected and that's fine. On Facebook you have to be real person as I understand it. Most people over there are averse to Facebook as they feel considerably less relaxed posting as John Smith from Paynesville than as Burntfuse from Victoria or Missingbung from Central Coast.

I fell out with TSP as certain members on there wanted to post crude , sexist and mysoginistic material (even though it's againt their own rules ) but censor other stuff . So it's really no wonder many of them want to remain anonymous.

I hope your FB PAGE works for those who want to use it but I'm not a FB user as I think too much information can be gleaned from it to make it safe . I've always made sure I don't identify my mooring location over the years. Not that my boat has anything much worth punching but, if you announce you've just fitted XYZ new electronics, some people use that as a shopping list. If they know and can work out your location you may be in trouble and that can be on the trailer parked in front of your house or a mooring. My cruiser I had before Spritzig was robbed twice, now the investigator is surrounded by floating gin palaces and not a target anymore but I keep her as secret as I can .x

It's frightening how many use seemingly innocent information for crooked purposes. Last week I had a phone call from someone supposedly doing a banking survey. All the foreign sounding gent wanted to know was how long I'd been with what bank and was I happy with the service. I bit too short and cute for my liking . Googled it and sure enough it's a scam . I sent my bank an email but of course they know. The second part of the scam comes a week later. Same foreign voice. " Hello , hello it's Brian from the Bank of Dunghill here, a terrible thing has happened someone has tried to hack your online account would you like to reset your password." I kept them on the phone for a bit to run up their long distance phone bill before telling the guy he sounded suspiciously like the guy who did the banking survey last week....he hung up.

Im interested to know if others use Facebook and what they think. This is just my cynical and GOM opinion.

All

I am afraid I can't hold back from commenting.

Greg, nice thought but I will never use it, and as I suspect, many others will not either. (Might have been useful to survey the groups interest in using FB prior).

Ozzie is pretty on the mark on this one. In one of my past activities, I used to make a living from training businesses how to market via an online presence and using social media, however I never endorsed FB and in fact advised against it. A totally intrusive tool in our lives. I am happy for people to know who I am but within limits and just will not hand over my identity to FB or the myriad other social media tools. I am actually a pretty high tech person but have learned that we need to be cautious in the tools we choose to use online.

I am quite happy to use this board, its suit me fine and whilst I know its old tech, it works, and is solid and does not own my contributions or identity. I can live with small photos if someone wants to share a large image they can do it via a share using Dropbox.

Apologies in advance if my response is too rabid.

Regards

Mark

Mark. I'm curious as to your opinion of Dropbox . Personally I use no cloud services . I'm a regular listener to 'Aussie tech heads ' podcast and they have raised concerns re the safety of cloud services . My own research backs up their opinions.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropbox_ ... y_concerns.

I prefer to keep my own backups , not that I have much worth backing up. But ATH pointed out if you read the terms and conditions that no one ever does these services are not in anyway guaranteed backups anyway .

Once again curious as to your opinion, sorry if this is slightly off topic .

Ozzie

Agreed I no longer use dropbox for personal or business where information is private or confidential. However for sharing the odd doc or photos via a sharing link it works well and is no compromise to security or privacy. DB has improved however since those earlier concerns were circulated but I have made other secure arrangements which totally ensure trying eyes never set on my horizons.I think the major issue with this current board is photo sharing. Its clunky for most. A DB link would overcome this issue and there are other solutions which offer similar services mostly for free. As long as you can trust the link then all should be well. BTW Ozzie I was never talking about backups only sharing a link to a photo in a folder. DB is not a BU solution agreed, although people treat it that way. Naughty I say. End of comments and I'll end out this discussion here.

Best

Mark