Amazingly this entire 3 minute video, sound and all, was generated by just 4Kb of compressed and minified code – that’s the same amount of space a text file containing 4,096 characters would occupy. By comparison an empty Word 2010 document is 12.2Kb.

It’s called Hartverdrahtet, which is German for “hard wired”, and was created by a seriously talented coder who calls himself Demoscene Passivist for the 4Kb Executable Graphics Competition at Revision 2012. Unsurprisingly Hartverdrahtet came in first place.

If you don’t believe me you can download the executables here but be warned, you will need a beefy GPU to render them smoothly, especially the HD versions.

#FridayShort – A new digital short every Friday at 11:00 GMT (except when it’s 12 hours late. Oops!)

Not that long ago the Social Reader application was introduced which informed your entire friends list when you read an article from any of several popular news sources, then there was the instant personalisation feature which would helpfully put your friends faces below adverts for various products as though they had given their endorsement and now there is a lovely little feature that allows your friends to share your information with third-party applications at the touch of a button.

This is how it works. When you install a new Facebook application you are presented with a brief description of the application and a list of the things it wants to be able to do, like this… 

Like most people you would probably just click the big blue button to make the annoying dialogue go away. If you did, congratulations! You just shared the education history, location and work history of all your friends with the application on their behalf! Look at the fourth item in “This app will receive” list on the left. Whoops!

This is the fundamental problem with Facebook. Most users simply don’t realise or care how much information they are sharing online. The settings you can use to secure your profile are hidden away in a corner and the mechanisms built into Facebook to help you work out what you are sharing are either equally obscure or are ignored by the majority of users.

Unless you specifically opt out of this new ‘feature’ any information you share with your friends, like your name, address, religion, sexuality and status updates can be handed over to any application they install at any time without you being informed.

To opt out follow these steps…

1. Click the arrow in the top right hand corner, on the blue bar, of your Facebook profile then click Privacy Settings.
   
2. Click the Edit Settings link in the Apps and Websitessection about halfway down the page.
3. Click the Edit Settings button next to How people bring your info to apps they use.
4. You’ll then be presented with a pop-up box showing all the parts of your profile that can be shared with third-party apps by friends. Uncheck everything you don’t want to share then click Save Changes and you’re done!
   

I realise that Facebook is a commercial entity that makes money by selling my data and  using it to advertise to me. I also realise that I essentially exchange this information with Facebook for use of their service and I wonder how much more people will put up with before they lose what little faith they have in Facebook and leave for a social network that doesn’t treat them like cattle?

Thanks to Splorp for the picture

#FridayShort – A new digital short every Friday at 11:00 GMT.

What can you do to smash ACTA? Tell friends, spread the message over social networks and Write to your MEP to tell them why you oppose ACTA and why they should too. It’s easy to do, will take 10 minutes and may just convince them to say no when the EU votes on ACTA this summer. We worked together to kill SOPA and PIPA in the US, now we must do the same and smash ACTA.

#FridayShort – A new digital short every Friday at 11:00 GMT.

MarketplaceReviewTask r = new MarketplaceReviewTask();
r.Show();

Stick that in the event handler of a button on your about page or prompt your users to review your app after it’s been launched so-many times then call the code above to push them directly to your review page on the marketplace.

As long as you haven’t written a crapplication it makes sense to reduce the distance between your users and the review page. If you make it easy for them to leave you a review (especially after they have used your app for while) they are far more likely to do so.

Found an inventive way to use the MarketplaceReviewTask? Let me know in the comments!