Written by stephaniem

Tis’ the season to be stressed out because you have absolutely no idea what gift to get that special lady friend, but I’m here to help. I am an expert in getting horrendous gifts and completely freaking out on the inconsiderate jerkbag that decided a Sham Wow was the way to go this Christmas.

I have compiled a list to assist! Below you will find the top things to ensure you have a happy, knife-wound free holiday with that special bitch in your life. Take note guys, these will save you a trip to the emergency room and/or divorce court. Share!

10. Any Special / On Sale Jewelry

Please for the love of all that is good and fashionable…stop buying heart-shaped pendants with matching earrings and bracelets, fellas. I know the abundance of lame jewelry store ads make cheap, bad necklaces seem like the right thing to do, but…it isn’t. How about you try planning for Christmas before December 24th, save your dough and buy her something she deserves and not from some mall jeweler that believes rings shaped like two hearts hugging are in fashion.

9. Electronics

Women don’t care about the latest and greatest from technerds.com — we understand you guys want your iTouch, iPhones and iPads, but giving us electronics is a ginormous iFuckingLoatheYou right to the face. We don’t care if our television is LCD or if we have a blue tooth for our drive home. We know it’s for you anyway and honestly, most of us don’t even know what any of that electronic crap does. We want pretty, nice things, not something that will distract you from sexing us up later or doing the laundry. Stop being so selfish, asshole.

8. Kitchen Supplies

I swear to Jesus if you don’t know the non-kitchen supply rule by now, you deserve to be cheated on. The last thing your woman wants to open up on Christmas morning is a reminder of the huge meal she has to prepare all by herself (mainly because your lazy ass is already drunk on eggnog) and no device you buy her from Williams-Sonoma is going to make her personal hell any easier to swallow. Maybe you should stick a bottle of vodka in her stocking so she can forget what a fucktarded cockbag she married.

7. Lingerie

You don’t know our size and you sure as hell don’t know what looks good on us. I understand that nothing turns you guys on more than some lacy, red thing you see in the window of your local Frederick’s shop, but trust me, guys, bad move. I’m okay with dressing up like a skank for my man, but some women find it demeaning (uptight bitches); I don’t know if a conversation about how the only reason you bought her this slutty outfit is because you’re addicted to porn is one best served chilly and in front of the Christmas tree.

6. Exercise Equipment

I don’t care if your chunkalicious wife keeps mentioning how bad she wants to get in shape and she needs a treadmill – she will hate you forever if you stick that baby under the tree. It’s one thing to encourage her big booty to get to the gym and work off her “baby weight” (even though your kids are in college), but it’s another to stick something under the tree that screams “I agree, Biggie! You need to slim that fat ass down!” Plus, you know she won’t use it, it will collect dust and will just cause fights about how tired she is and how you don’t help out when you bring up that she doesn’t use it anymore.

5. Car Related Items

GP…what? I have no sense of direction, but I don’t give a damn if I’m late and/or if my boyfriend gets upset. Buying her anything for her car isn’t for her…it’s for you. She doesn’t care that her car is messy. She doesn’t use that sunshield thingy you bought her for Valentine’s Day and she certainly won’t use one of those snow brush devices to scrape off ice because she will lose it in the mess of her car and just end up scraping her windows with a credit card like she’s done since she was 16.

4. Beauty Supplies

I know you guys see the piles and piles of anti-aging cream and exfoliating scrubs in the bathroom, but resist the urge to participate. If we unwrap anything that even indicates we look older than 30 you will get a death stare followed by a flood of tears and the ever-so-popular “No, I love it, honey. Thanks. Sniffle.” Buy her a gift certificate to a spa or Sephora. Don’t try to be a plastic surgeon.

3. A Stripper Pole

This has happened. My friend took a stripper class to get into shape and her husband shoved a pole under the tree the next year. WE AREN’T GOING TO THOSE CLASSES FOR YOU, DUMB ASS. I know you’re just dying to see what we are up to and you wanna see your lady’s new-found talents, but installing one of these in your house will only ensure your disappointment when you realize she sucks. Plus she will have all the ammo she needs to start accusing you of going to strip clubs all the time and not being happy with the “real” woman in your life.

2. Anything from Walgreens

I don’t care if it’s candy, stuffed animals or candles. We will know. That place has a distinct, weird smell and the second we open that wrapping paper it will waft out. Plus, most everything there is crap and literally has “As Seen on TV” on the box. Again, I don’t care if they are the only store open on Christmas Eve; plan better, idiot.

1. Pictures of Yourself

I get that you are trying to be romantic here, but if we want to show your grubby mug in our office, we will snap a pic, print it out and frame it. This gift screams cheap and insecure. Are you that narcissistic to go through the pictures, find the one that you look the most handsome in and then give it to your sweetie? If so, how about you buy her a camera and you get some therapy, egomaniac.

Bonus: Filmography 2010

Written by Alexia Tsotsis

Since French artist Alexandre Oudin took advantage of the new Facebook design to express himself, we’ve been seeing some creative ways to mess with your (and your friends’) profile pictures. As we predicted, Oudin’s hack has inspired other users to play around with their profile to pretty interesting effect. And for those of you that don’t want to trial and error around with the 532 px by 180 px and 97 by 68 px image limitations, photographer Florian Stravock has made the above Photoshop tutorial to help you perfectly execute on your super profile pic. Abridged steps, below:

1) Take a screenshot of your current Facebook page.

2) Create a new Photoshop doc.

3) Grab the Slice tool (same family as the Crop tool) and select around the pictures.

4) With the Marquee tool, select around the sliced areas.

5) Bring the image that you want on Facebook into Photoshop and position it roughly the way you want it.

6) Drag the image layer under the Facebook layer and refine your positioning.

7) Go to “File,” select “Save for web and devices,” select all your document area, click “Jpeg, set the quality to 100% and save. Under slices select “All user slices.”

8) Upload your pictures to Facebook and tag them from last to first. When you get to the first picture click “Make this my profile picture.”

You can download Stravock’s Photoshop document here. Don’t have Photoshop or too lazy to sit through a tutorial? TechCrunch reader Trevor Farbo has created a profile picture generator that allows you to get the same effect in half the time.

Check out more reader customizations here and upload your own works of Internet art in the comments.

Bonus:10 Creative Uses of the New Facebook Profile

Collected by nerve

Lesbians who look like Justin Bieber, animals that don’t have asses, and 18 others. In convenient list form!

1) The 15 Douchiest John Mayer Quotes

Nerve readers love talking about how douchey John Mayer is almost as much as they like arguing about pubic-hair styling. In other words, a lot.

2) 109 Cats in Sweaters

Ten cats in sweaters isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? One hundred cats in sweaters.

3) 25 Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber

A recent list celebrating 2010 as “The Year of the Lesbian” started with Jane Lynch’s wedding — followed by “lesbians who look like Justin Bieber.” The rise to super-stardom of a sixteen-year-old boy with lesbianic bangs seems like a weak victory for gay women. But it’s a huge coup for the list community.

4) 23 Cheerful Ditties About Murder, Death, and the Apocalypse

We’re all going to die. But as these musicians show, that’s no reason to be gloomy.

5) 6 Animals That Just Don’t Give a Fuck

This list teaches us about the honey badger — probably the cutest li’l furball you’ve ever seen. Until it rips out your fucking throat.

6) The 90 Types of Bitches

This list may not be verisimilitudinous (look it up), but it’s very thorough. It takes a true mind to recognize the distinction between Buck-toothed Bitches and Cheesy-Teeth Bitches.

7) The 50 Worst States in America

Every state has its problems. But Arizona really blows. Not even its iced tea tastes good.

8) 7 Terrifying Celebrity Face Swaps

A “celebrity face swap” is when you take the face of one celebrity and Photoshop it onto another, creating a humorous effect. It’s not generally considered a productive way to spend an afternoon.

9) 14 Pre-Gaga Meat Outfits

Historians take note: Lady Gaga is not the true originator of raw-meat clothing, merely its popularizer. The true honor belongs to the bacon-bra people.

10) The 11 Best Nude Moments in Old-School Nintendo Games

If you squint, she looks like a very pixelated version of the girl from Total Recall. And you can totally see her butt.

11) The 10 Greatest Four Loko Tributes

Last Friday, Four Loko as we knew it disappeared forever. American college students will now be forced to obtain their alcohol and caffeine fixes from separate beverages.

12) 11 Mugshots of Actual Hoes from Ludacris’ Area Codes

This might be the heaviest list on the list. But, someone listened to all of Ludacris’s songs, picked out every reference to a prostitute, and dug through crime records to find a mugshot in a corresponding area. That sort of pointless diligence must be rewarded.

13) 17 Best Invisible Cat Pictures

You might be thinking, “What? Another cat-picture list?” If you are, you need to click this. And shut up.

14) The 10 Most Iconic Crotches in Rock History

If your average crotch is a sensible grey sedan, David Lee Roth’s is a tricked out yellow Ferrari.

15) Top 10 Hungover Owls

These owls woke up in their clothes fifteen minutes late.

16) The Top 10 Boob Trick Videos

This list is a very good way to make your breasts feel inadequate. Much like Cosmo and Dolly Parton.

17) 13 Comedies with Cinematic Bad-asses Playing Second Fiddle to Kids, Dogs, and Adorable Old Ladies

One minute you’re starring in a gun-shooting, explosion-blossoming action flick. The next, you’re reading a script where you get humiliated by a gang of plucky primary-school kids, thinking, “Yeah, I’m totally going to do this.”

18) 11 Trees That Look Like Genitals

Truth: All trees look a little bit like genitals. These trees, however, look a lot like genitals.

19) 9 Ridiculous Things That Most Americans Believe

Which is more embarrassing? That eighteen percent of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth, or that three percent of Americans have no opinion on the matter at all?

20) Top 10 Animals That Don’t Have Asses

You too are a member of the animal kingdom, friend. Don’t take your ass for granted.

Bonus:”Booboo kills Yogi” alternate ending.

Written by rtcrooks

There are certain rites of passage that boys face along the righteous path to becoming a man. A trip to the strip club is one of them, and found in the category marked; mandatory. It signals the turning point in life where a young boy graduates from glossy magazines, to the real thing–well silicone mostly these days. Young men today learn strip club etiquette from auto-tuned vocals, and rap videos. To really fully understand strip club etiquette, one must grasp that strippers are people too. These ladies are under constant scrutiny every time they lace up their bustiers, hike up their g-strings, and double check their extensions. Their bodies, faces, and personalities are up for review. So set yourself apart from the pack of ravenous perverts, and show the girls you have some class. Whether you are a seasoned veteran of the strip club scene or a newbie, here are some guidelines you should abide by to make your next trip to the strip a success.

Dress Code: Avoid Sweatpants

Source

It is fairly logical to assume that sweatpants, athletic shorts, or thin pants are on the list of dress code “Dont’s” at any strip club. You won’t be the first douche bag to try and pull that trick (or the first guy the dancer has laughed at for being a complete tool). Are you so helplessly lonely that a centimeter less of fabric will make that much of a difference? The problem with this move is that you’re treading in murky waters. Either it’s not that kind of place, and your dancer will stay far, far away from your sweatpants boner. Or it is that kind of place, and you will contract something very unpleasant. Try wearing khakis or Dockers – something “a cut above.” Jeans might chafe when she’s giving you a lap dance.

Remember They Are Dancers, Not Hookers

Source

There are an abundance of popular reasons why men love to frequent strip clubs. Celebrations: you and the boys have some serious partying to do for a birthday or bachelor party. Bonding: you and your buddy haven’t seen each other in a while, and need to blow off some steam to the tune of 30 naked females. Just remember one important thing; PROSTITUTION in most places is 100 percent illegal. Don’t solicit, suggest dinner or ask for a date; these women are working, and by that we mean dancing not hooking.

Ask Permission Before You Touch

Source

In fields such as engineering, architecture, and computer sciences; rules are meant to be broken. Pushing the envelope is how the human species makes progress; how do you think we put a man on the moon? With that said, not all rules are meant to be broken. Especially rules that are strictly enforced by huge, intimidating bouncers. Remember that even during a private lap dance, your hands shouldn’t be anywhere near the dancer; keep them at your side. The girl is already grinding all over you, so you’ve gotten what you paid for. No extra touching is needed – or allowed.

Tip! Tip!! Tip!!!

Source

One of the most important things you need to learn about a strip club is this: you are going to spend some cash. If you’re going to be sitting at one of the seats around the main stage, tip. When dancers are on stage, setting down a couple dollar bills per song is an acknowledgment of a job well done. So show your appreciation for the dancer’s hard work. Try giving her one dollar at a time, she’ll spend more time with you that way. If you give away all your money prematurely, she’ll move on to the next guy. Then you’ll be spending the rest of the night nursing your $8 Coors Light. So remember: Tip! Tip!! Tip!!!

Remember Why You’re There

Source

We have got some wisdom nuggets for you here: remember why you’re there – it’s all about the lap dance. According to Kerr Fuffle, author of Paying for Sex: The Gentlemen’s Guide to Web Porn, Strip Clubs, Prostitutes & Escorts without Humiliation, Job Loss, Bankruptcy, Infection, Bloodshed or Incarceration, “You can go to hang out, but the girls will get you to buy them outrageously priced drinks, so either way you’re going to pay,” says Fuffle, who advises that, even if you don’t buy a lap dance, you should . . . .”

Don’t Buy Her A Drink

Source

If you thought you could hit the strip club and not give any tips, then you weren’t thinking intelligibly. Our favorite strip club guru Kerr Fuffle has more wisdom for us. Buying a drink for a dancer is just giving money to the house. Instead, say, “I appreciate your spending time with me. Can I give you a little money instead of buying you a drink?” “She’ll tell the other dancers,” says Fuffle, “and more will come by.” Soon dancers will be flocking around you like the salmon of Capistrano.

Learn To Say No

Source

Saying no in a strip club is a major contradiction. Girls are sauntering between patrons, topless, dancing onstage in g-stings, stockings, and garter belts. That “Yes” attitude is what powers the fantasy for you, and buys new school clothes for her 7 year old. If you’re sitting with a dancer whose company you enjoy and she has to go reapply body glitter, don’t let another dancer swoop in with the full court press. This other dancer saw you spending cash and wants a piece. Some of the girls are vultures, waiting to pounce on you after you’ve been mesmerized by a mind blowing lap dance. Learn to say no to this intruder, your dancer will love you for it.

Don’t Apologize For Getting “Excited”

Source

If there was ever a better system for which to assess a dancer’s worth, we would like to hear it. You can never go wrong by judging from that fuzzy feeling you get below the waist. She’s trying to get you “excited,” so don’t apologize if she succeeds. For a lot of dancers it’s a point of pride, and the way their bosses assess job performance. Unless it’s the girl’s first night, they know what to expect. They know being a hot girl in lingerie is going to give you an erection. Just try to not cream your jeans.

According To Gucci Mane

Source

Gucci Mane is an Atlanta-based rapper who is known as much for his ridiculous chains as he is for rapping. “So much ice make ya eye sight blurry,” he raps on his 2008 mix-tape Mr. Perfect. Back in May of 2005, Gucci was attacked by a group of men. Gucci and his boys shot back at the group in self defense, killing one of the attackers. He turned himself into Police a week later, and charges were dropped for insufficient evidence. Afterward he went straight to the strip club to celebrate. Here is some lap dance etiquette from Atlanta’s strip club connoisseur. He only has a few but they are gems: “Don’t watch your friend’s dances” and “Don’t take $50 out, and give her a $10.” We concur.

Don’t Act Like “Frank The Tank”

Source

Alcohol is the culprit when it comes to turning a mellow outdoor BBQ into a slip-and-sliding, beer-soaked, hot dog eating contest of a party. Alcohol also has the ability of turning mild-mannered accountants into drooling, wiggling, pants-dropping idiots (who wants to wear bras on their heads and pay a stripper’s cell phone bill for a year?). This bit of advice is pretty obvious. Watch your alcohol intake. If it was any other bar, drink yourself into oblivion. But going to a strip club is a night you want to remember. Going to sleep counting boobies is better than blacking out. Be careful you don’t drink and drive either, you might spill your drink.

Bonus:  Best apology ever…

Visit Operation leakspin

Written by Jason Wire

Photo by Dullhunk

Tips, tricks and resources to help you find that digital needle in the huge cyber-haystack.

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Learning to navigate the World Wide Web effectively is an important skill, and there are lots of different ways for you to find the information you are looking for. Whilst the following list of tips and websites is by no means exhaustive – and we’ve missed out some massive topics such as travel, which deserve a post in their own right – they should be enough to get you started.

Using Google Operator Hacks

One of the things I love about Google is its clean layout – just type your query and hit enter. As well as the advanced search function, there are a load of operator hacks you can use to refine your search results. Check out the excellent Google Guide for a full list.

Here is a selection of some useful ones:

• salsa -dance will find pages containing “salsa” but not “dance”
• castle ~glossary will find pages containing glossaries and terminology related to “castle”
• define:matador will bring up definitions of the word “matador”
• ~crocodile will search for the word “crocodile” and similar words
• lon sfo to book flights from London to San Francisco
• delta flight 5778 to check the status of this flight
• what time is it in New York to find out the time in this city
• love site:www.matadornetwork.com/life to search only Matador Life for the word “love”
• love -site:www.matadornetwork.com/life to exclude Matador Life results from your search for “love”

And don’t forget if you want to visit a site that is down, or that your company’s server won’t let you access, you can view the Cached version to see a Google snapshot of that page from when it was last crawled.

Photo by author.

Finally, if you’re fed up with all the annoying affiliate links clogging up the Google search results, check out Give Me Back My Google.

Online Research

Conducting online research is about more than just typing a few words into Google, even if you do know the operator hacks! There are a lot of resources out there to help you. Here’s how to find:

Biblical text: Find specific text from the Bible at BibleGateway.

Bibliography formatting: I’ve been using Easybib since my ninth-grade English teacher suggested it. Even if you know your style formatting from memory, this makes citing sources much easier with its instant ISBN lookup feature.

Books Online: Google Books has a surprising number of free books available online, and includes search features which are great for research. It’s also worth checking out Project Gutenberg, which has freely available digital copies of over 33,000 previously published titles.

Court Cases: LexisNexis has quite a few cases available for free.

Etymology: Find the root of any word at Etymoline.

Photo by Shirone Koeuro

Human Sources: Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a service that lets you connect with people around the world who can give you information or quotes on topics you are researching.

Newspapers: Newspapers dating back hundreds of years are available at the Google News Archives, but you can also use LexisNexis if you’ve got a subscription or can log on via a university network.

Primary Materials from Around the World: The UNESCO World Digital Library is a digital compendium of “significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.”

Scholarly Sources: Google Scholar is a compendium of thousands of research articles. Other good resources include the JSTOR database, and the excellent paid service, Questia.

And if you want to tap into the ‘digital brain’ of the Internet, use the twitter search feature and check out the most popular Google Insight stats to see what the online population are thinking about.

Note: If you are interested in learning more about research techniques and resources, the MatdorU New Media School has a Pro Module on How to Do Desk Research.

Finding Multimedia

Pretty pictures and lovely sounds make the (cyber) world go round. Here are some resources for finding free photographs, video and music on the World Wide Web. Just, don’t breach any copyright laws, OK?

Photo by Yassef

Identifying Songs off the Radio: Use the iTunes Music Store’s Radio Charts, listed by city and station, to listen to song clips from tons of radio station playlists. Perfect for nabbing the details of that elusive radio song that’s been stuck in your head all day long.

Movie Scripts: Drew’s Script-O-Rama has film scripts, TV scripts, film transcripts, and even a fun section on movie-themed haiku!

Movie Subtitles: OpenSubtitles.org is the “biggest multi-language subtitle database.”

Music: Wanna turn Google into your own personal Napster? Copy and paste the following complex operator into the search box and replace “Beastie Boys” with whichever band or artist you’re looking for.

-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wma|mp3) “Beastie Boys”

For a kick-ass music player, check out Grooveshark. And for an interesting pop music aggregator, The Hype Machine will often find awesome new songs before anyone else.

Music Based on Your Mood: Musicovery is an interesting little song aggregator for your mood, and AllMusic has just about every artist and band sorted by emotions too.

Photographs: As well as flickr.com, you can search the Creative Commons archive directly through Google: create an advanced image search and check the box for “Search only CC material.”

Torrents: Torrents are “map” files you download to your computer that let you see and download different pieces of the file you want from multiple users simultaneously, which makes download rates much faster. All types of file are available, from movies to audio to programs and more. Search directly at The Pirate Bay or at ISOhunt.

Photo by Robert S. Donovan

Video: These have always given me the best results: Frontline – Google Video – Journeyman – MatadorTV – The Hub – Tripfilms – VBS.tv – Vimeo – YouTube

Technological Know-How

For when you’re bored, or Facebook is down, or your printer is blinking at you in a strange code, here’s how to find:

Blogs You Might Like: Google Blog Search is Google, but for blogs. Cool, huh?

Deleted Files: It’s not easy, but the instructions at this site helped me recover three years of documents.

Down Websites: If you want to know whether Gmail – or a number of other popular sites – are broken or just not working for you, visit DownRightNow to find out.

How Much Energy Something Uses: You can use the nifty app at GE’s website or check out the list at Michael Bluejay.

Instruction Manuals For Anything: These two websites mean you’ll never need to worry about throwing away an instruction manual again: Manuals Online, and Safemanuals.

IP Address: WhatIsMyIPAddress.com will let you know your IP address just by visiting the site, which could be useful for those interminable calls with technical support.

Stars in the Sky: You can’t always find the North Star, but PBS’s Your Sky Tonight makes pointing out the constellations easy.

Your Own House: The Google Maps Street View covers nearly the whole inhabited world, and Bing’s Bird’s Eye View is a seriously awesome companion. I use these both religiously when searching for an apartment.

Just For Fun

Photo by Manuel Bartual

The Internet wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t use it to waste time that we could be using productively. With that in mind, here’s a few lighthearted sites where you can find:

Anagrams: WordSmith will give you anagrams of whatever text you type in. Names are particularly good. Did you know an anagram of Jason Wire is I jaw snore?

Chuck Norris: You’d think you could just Google him, but….

Connections Between Random Things: Omnipelagos knows how Lady Gaga, Ebeneezer Scrooge, and rocking chairs are connected. Do you?

How Much Money You’re Worth: Answer a bunch of questions on Human For Sale, and you’ll finally know the answer!

P.S: Help this guy to find the people

Click here for More information

The missing Snowmass Village resident George Aldrich

Colleted by Eric S

The characters in Star Wars are some of the most recognizable figures in the world, thanks to the fame of the original trilogy, the infamous prequel trilogy, the large number of videogames, spinoffs, books and other popular culture influences. With the characters introduced throughout the various media, there are plenty of unique and original characters as well as names.

So, in this creative collection, you’ll see how to learn the alphabet…Star Wars style!

Written by Kevin Purdy

When it launched, millions of us grabbed free Gmail addresses, and associated Calendar, Docs, Voice, and other apps followed. But personal domains are cheap, and claiming an @yourname.com address to use with Google Apps is easier than ever. Here’s why you should.

Future-Proof Email Address that You Control

It’s scary, but it’s true: There’s a possibility that Gmail might not always be the coolest email service in the world. For all we know of the future, there might be two hackers in a garage right now re-inventing the inbox. There might be some desktop software that merges the convenience of the cloud with killer OS integration. Or you might just decide some day that, heck, Yahoo has more of what you need, or that Google’s reach across your data is too deep.

You should have an email address that’s as portable as your cellphone number—meaning you can switch email providers without losing your current address. With your default @gmail.com address, that’s not really an option. With your personal domain, it is.

Sure, if you’re using a Gmail address, you can technically access your account from other clients through IMAP, auto-forward email, and otherwise stream your messages out. But if you ever decide on a new line of work, a different kind of username (sayonara, [email protected]), or a new email service, you’re better off having your own domain. Your options for forwarding and import are more robust when you control your own domain, and you never have to send one of those click-and-pray “Hey everyone I’ve ever emailed throughout time—my address has changed!” messages.

With Google Apps installed on your own domain, your data is still running through Google’s own servers. But Google’s pretty good about portability, and if it starts looking like they won’t be down the road, you’ve got side door where you can step on out and maintain your identity elsewhere. The great part about using your own domain is that you’re not tied to any one email service provider. You can pick up and move your domain to another email provider any time you want.

Professional Polish, Family Friendly

Maybe your Gmail address is a bit better than [email protected]. Gmail, too, holds a more proper imprimatur than AOL, Hotmail, or other eyebrow-raising domains. It still holds true that having an email account on your own server, with a name you can change at any time, makes good sense.

If you do freelance work on the side, it’s easy to create another account ([email protected]), one that pipes into your main personal account ([email protected]). If you decide to help organize a fundraiser, it’s a few minutes to create another account for that ([email protected]), one that doesn’t give away your personal address to folks you’ll only message once or twice. When your kids get to the age where they get web-savvy, you can set them up with an email address ([email protected] and [email protected]) that you have ultimate control over. And for relatives with occasional tech troubles, you can throw them a lifeline and set them up on your server, too.

It’s Not That Painful to Switch

The hardest part about getting your own domain name these days is finding a URL that isn’t taken—and that’s only hard if someone has already registered your exact name. Get a little creative, use a reliable but cheap name registrar, buy a little hosted space and set up the free Google Apps on that domain—some hosts do that automatically for you. And nearly every mobile platform where Google offers some kind of syncing, an Apps address works just fine.

Note: For a full walkthrough of switching from a Gmail account to Google Apps, read Whitson’s detailed take on migrating your entire Google account to a new one.

When you’ve got a domain name and space, you’ll find that nearly all of Google’s services are available to Apps users. Not every single app, as commenter mawcs points out, but if you can live without History, Buzz, Google Storage, Health, Powermeter, and Profiles, or at least live without for the time being, you’re on your way. Even if you have other Google-assisted domains to log into or control, there is an early version of multi-account sign-in available that covers the Apps basics.

In other words, it’s possible to live out the entire Google experience—Mail, Calendars, Sync, Docs, even Voice—with your own domain name, rather than Google’s Gmail.

That’s just one editor’s thoughts on Gmail, email, and data portability—and after writing it, he’s pretty set on practicing what he’s preaching himself. Share your own thoughts and decisions on migrating from Gmail to Apps—or why you won’t—in the comments.

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Written by Shirky

Like a lot of people, I am conflicted about Wikileaks.

Citizens of a functioning democracy must be able to know what the state is saying and doing in our name, to engage in what Pierre Rosanvallon calls “counter-democracy”*, the democracy of citizens distrusting rather than legitimizing the actions of the state. Wikileaks plainly improves those abilities.

On the other hand, human systems can’t stand pure transparency. For negotiation to work, people’s stated positions have to change, but change is seen, almost universally, as weakness. People trying to come to consensus must be able to privately voice opinions they would publicly abjure, and may later abandon. Wikileaks plainly damages those abilities. (If Aaron Bady’s analysis is correct, it is the damage and not the oversight that Wikileaks is designed to create.*)

And so we have a tension between two requirements for democratic statecraft, one that can’t be resolved, but can be brought to an acceptable equilibrium. Indeed, like the virtues of equality vs. liberty, or popular will vs. fundamental rights, it has to be brought into such an equilibrium for democratic statecraft not to be wrecked either by too much secrecy or too much transparency.

As Tom Slee puts it, “Your answer to ‘what data should the government make public?’ depends not so much on what you think about data, but what you think about the government.”* My personal view is that there is too much secrecy in the current system, and that a corrective towards transparency is a good idea. I don’t, however, believe in total transparency, and even more importantly, I don’t think that independent actors who are subject to no checks or balances is a good idea in the long haul.

If the long haul were all there was, Wikileaks would be an obviously bad thing. The practical history of politics, however, suggests that the periodic appearance of such unconstrained actors in the short haul is essential to increased democratization, not just of politics but of thought.

We celebrate the printers of 16th century Amsterdam for making it impossible for the Catholic Church to constrain the output of the printing press to Church-approved books*, a challenge that helped usher in, among other things, the decentralization of scientific inquiry and the spread of politically seditious writings advocating democracy.

This intellectual and political victory didn’t, however, mean that the printing press was then free of all constraints. Over time, a set of legal limitations around printing rose up, including restrictions on libel, the publication of trade secrets, and sedition. I don’t agree with all of these laws, but they were at least produced by some legal process.

Unlike the United States’ current pursuit of Wikileaks.*

I am conflicted about the right balance between the visibility required for counter-democracy and the need for private speech among international actors. Here’s what I’m not conflicted about: When authorities can’t get what they want by working within the law, the right answer is not to work outside the law. The right answer is that they can’t get what they want.

The Unites States is — or should be — subject to the rule of law, which makes the extra-judicial pursuit of Wikileaks especially nauseating. (Calls for Julian’s assassination are even more nauseating.) It may be that what Julian has done is a crime. (I know him casually, but not well enough to vouch for his motivations, nor am I a lawyer.) In that case, the right answer is to bring the case to a trial.

IIn the US, however, the government has a “heavy burden” for engaging in prior restraint of even secret documents, an established principle since New York Times Co. vs. The United States*, when the Times published the Pentagon Papers. If we want a different answer for Wikileaks, we need a different legal framework first.

Though I don’t like Senator Joseph Lieberman’s proposed SHIELD law (Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination*), I do like the fact that it is a law, and not an extra-legal avenue (of which Senator Lieberman is also guilty.*) I also like the fact that the SHIELD Law makes it clear what’s at stake: the law proposes new restraints on publishers, and would apply to the New York Times and The Guardian as it well as to Wikileaks. (As Matthew Ingram points out, “Like it or not, Wikileaks is a media entity.”*) SHIELD amounts to an attempt to reverse parts of New York Times Co. vs. The United States.

I don’t think such a law should pass. I think the current laws, which criminalize the leaking of secrets but not the publishing of leaks, strike the right balance. However, as a citizen of a democracy, I’m willing to be voted down, and I’m willing to see other democratically proposed restrictions on Wikileaks put in place. It may even be that whatever checks and balances do get put in place by the democratic process make anything like Wikileaks impossible to sustain in the future.

The key, though, is that democracies have a process for creating such restrictions, and as a citizen it sickens me to see the US trying to take shortcuts. The leaders of Myanmar and Belarus, or Thailand and Russia, can now rightly say to us “You went after Wikileaks’ domain name, their hosting provider, and even denied your citizens the ability to register protest through donations, all without a warrant and all targeting overseas entities, simply because you decided you don’t like the site. If that’s the way governments get to behave, we can live with that.”

Over the long haul, we will need new checks and balances for newly increased transparency — Wikileaks shouldn’t be able to operate as a law unto itself anymore than the US should be able to. In the short haul, though, Wikileaks is our Amsterdam. Whatever restrictions we eventually end up enacting, we need to keep Wikileaks alive today, while we work through the process democracies always go through to react to change. If it’s OK for a democracy to just decide to run someone off the internet for doing something they wouldn’t prosecute a newspaper for doing, the idea of an internet that further democratizes the public sphere will have taken a mortal blow.

Nice burn, Wikileaks.