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prostuff1

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 29, 2005
1,482
18
Don't step into the kawoosh...
Well, i finally got around to putting a website together about my trip to Japan. I have not put it up yet because i am unsure how much personal info to put on the site.

I used iWeb, which i know is very basic but it works just fine for my purpose. I also signed up for the free .mac service so i should be able to host the site while i decide if it is worth paying for .mac.

I just used the standard about page in iWeb and i was wondering what i should include and not include?

Thanks
 

grapes911

Moderator emeritus
Jul 28, 2003
6,995
10
Citizens Bank Park
That depends on your comfortability. My personal site has my name, college, age, major, stuff like that. I have a small business with a website that has my full name, cell, and city. How much information are you willing to put on the web and still be secure?
 

prostuff1

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 29, 2005
1,482
18
Don't step into the kawoosh...
grapes911 said:
That depends on your comfortability. My personal site has my name, college, age, major, stuff like that. I have a small business with a website that has my full name, cell, and city. How much information are you willing to put on the web and still be secure?

I am pretty comfortable with it. I was just wondering what was "normal."

As of right now i have my first and last name, age, college, major, then some other crap. I also have a pretty long paragraph about my family, where my mom and dad work (general area), where sis goes to school and what she is involved in, and a little about me and my trip to Japan. Nothing much really.
 

mad jew

Moderator emeritus
Apr 3, 2004
32,191
9
Adelaide, Australia
I try to keep personal info to an absolute minimum. Anyone who's actually interested in that sort of stuff is usually pretty creepy. :cool:

'Specially credit card info.
 

prostuff1

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 29, 2005
1,482
18
Don't step into the kawoosh...
mad jew said:
I try to keep personal info to an absolute minimum. Anyone who's actually interested in that sort of stuff is usually pretty creepy. :cool:

'Specially credit card info.


Yeah i agree.

I actually just tried to upload it and it did not work. It was not a fault of apples or anything it is actually mine. I guess it is my fault for adding so many pictures. The free .mac account evidently has 25MB of storage...well my project website is... about 550MB...just a little over my limit lol. Oh well, guess i will just have to look into paying for .mac for a year then and making sure i take full advantage of it. Darn it too, i really wanted to get this up for my parents to see and so my relatives could see also.

Oh well, should be up soon
 

munkle

macrumors 68030
Aug 7, 2004
2,580
1
On a jet plane
I think the answer has to be as little as you can get away with. If the site is just for friends and family, then the answer should probably be none at all - they already know you after all.
 

blackstone

macrumors regular
Dec 12, 2005
213
0
Washington, DC
prostuff1 said:
As of right now i have my first and last name, age, college, major, then some other crap. I also have a pretty long paragraph about my family, where my mom and dad work (general area), where sis goes to school and what she is involved in, and a little about me and my trip to Japan. Nothing much really.

Here's my paranoid strategy for deciding whether to put personal information on the web: Assume that someone creepy is stalking you, your sister, or your parents but has at least one of your names already. Does the web site provide the stalker with any additional information that they couldn't get for free from other sources (e.g. by googling your names)? If so, then do not post that information unless you have a really compelling reason to put it on the site.
 

ldburroughs

macrumors 6502
Feb 25, 2005
258
0
Virginia Beach, VA
At minimum: SSN, DOB, home phone number, and address! That way you will save everyone the trouble of hassling with more difficult online search methods.

Quite honestly, you don't want to make it easy for someone to gather information on you but you must realize that most of the info can be obtained online in one way or another. I have an online presence and I probably share more than I should, even if it's for friends and family. Even sharing your personal tastes can prove to be more dangerous than an SSN for someone who is truly "creepy". You can always fix your credit problems (with much hassle of course) but it is another thing to worry about people getting to know you a little too well when you don't know them. That's just my paranoid personality speaking. Like I said, I don't practice what I preach but I'm starting to convince myself it may be necessary. Then again, why put something up that is so generic it isn't worth the time to visit? Content counts for something.
 

jeremy.king

macrumors 603
Jul 23, 2002
5,479
1
Holly Springs, NC
ldburroughs said:
At minimum: SSN, DOB, home phone number, and address! That way you will save everyone the trouble of hassling with more difficult online search methods.

You forgot mother's maiden name ;)

I don't really put a whole lot on my site. Unless pictures count as information. I will also usually have a resume "hidden" on the site....which reminds me...
 

prostuff1

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 29, 2005
1,482
18
Don't step into the kawoosh...
Thanks for the input everyone. I really appreciate it. I will take another look at it and i will probably ask my parents opinions on it as well.

When i get the site up (it will get up eventually because i have put to much time into it to not put it up) i will post a link here and probably in the photo gallery.

Thanks again.
 

TodVader

macrumors 6502a
Sep 27, 2005
596
0
Quebec, Canada
unless its a VERY large website, 550MB seems way too big for a amateur website. What size are your images? If they are are anything over 200K, people might have a hard time visiting your website.

My camera gives me pictures that are 3-4MB and when changed to JPEG, they are less than 100K. I would check that out and maybe your website could be less than 25MB.
 

notjustjay

macrumors 603
Sep 19, 2003
6,056
167
Canada, eh?
The internet is a big place. By and large, nobody cares who you are. Those that do, already know you, so the information is redundant.

If, however, you are a child or teenager (I know the original poster isn't, but I'm using the generic "you"), I strongly recommend putting up as little information as possible. As a webmaster for a children's summer camp, I've had my share of being creeped out by some of the weirdos on the internet. Once upon a time my camp's website posted nice big pictures of our kids at play. Then one day I was checking our server logs and discovered a good chunk of traffic was coming from a website which linked to hundreds of sites where you could find pictures of young boys (Scouts, wrestling teams, family photos, camps like mine). Needless to say I wasn't too happy! Since then I've scaled down the resolution of the pictures we post on our website, I never identify kids by name, and generally take far more precautions.

I've seen some of the MySpace and Piczo sites that some of our campers put up and I am shocked by how open they are about their names, ages, names and ages of younger brothers and sisters, and posting webcam pictures of themselves. Sooner or later someone is bound to be in for a rude shock. :(

On the other hand, when I established my personal website with blog and photo gallery, I knew it was only going to be for my family and friends, and anyone else wishing to look up information about me already has plenty of avenues to do so (Google can be creepy sometimes), so I didn't worry too much. My address and phone number aren't posted online, but you can find my full name and email address as well as school and research details. Half the reason I put up the site, after all, was to establish some academic credibility (having written a few papers).
 

Peyton

macrumors 68000
Feb 2, 2006
1,615
0
I'd say less is more. Especially with a business website, you don't want to appear TOO easily accessable. You know that if a client is interested they will at least email you. I'd say generic things like age, background, try to keep dates at a minimum unless they are impressive (ie 30 years at Apple, I don't know). I'd say NO to a cell number because anyone and their uncle could get it including new cell spammers.

just my 2 cents
 

prostuff1

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 29, 2005
1,482
18
Don't step into the kawoosh...
TodVader said:
unless its a VERY large website, 550MB seems way too big for a amateur website. What size are your images? If they are are anything over 200K, people might have a hard time visiting your website.

My camera gives me pictures that are 3-4MB and when changed to JPEG, they are less than 100K. I would check that out and maybe your website could be less than 25MB.

I was thinking the same thing after i said how big it is. I have three pages of photos and when i check the resolution on them they are all about 2592 x 1944 :eek:. I know exactly why they are that big to. I have a Canon A95 and i like to take photos...just something i do and i had all the settings set to highest while i was in japan taking photos. When i was setting up the site in iWeb all i did was add photos not even thinking about size.

So what do you guys suggest i do for shrinking the size of the photos?? What is the best way to do this and still keep the originals i have now?? I like to mess around with the photos so i would like to keep high res ones forbackup.

Thanks
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
mad jew said:
I try to keep personal info to an absolute minimum. Anyone who's actually interested in that sort of stuff is usually pretty creepy. :cool:

I resent that! ;) :eek: :D

I have a professional website that has a fair amount of identifying information. My pbase and myspace don't, really....
 

florencevassy

macrumors regular
Jun 1, 2004
204
0
Princeton, NJ
redAPPLE said:
imo, if i can help it? no personal information at all.

Agreed ! I would keep any info to a minimum - on my site I just have my first name and email. I would suggest not using your main personal email, just open an additional free gmail or yahoo! account and have that forwarded to your main email address.
 

Le Big Mac

macrumors 68030
Jan 7, 2003
2,809
378
Washington, DC
florencevassy said:
Agreed ! I would keep any info to a minimum - on my site I just have my first name and email. I would suggest not using your main personal email, just open an additional free gmail or yahoo! account and have that forwarded to your main email address.

I would also suggest not coding in the email but using something like

"me at website.com"

so the email trollers don't pick it up automatically.
 

munkle

macrumors 68030
Aug 7, 2004
2,580
1
On a jet plane
prostuff1 said:
So what do you guys suggest i do for shrinking the size of the photos?? What is the best way to do this and still keep the originals i have now?? I like to mess around with the photos so i would like to keep high res ones forbackup.

Thanks

Export from iPhoto (directly into iWeb?).
 

jaseone

macrumors 65816
Nov 7, 2004
1,245
57
Houston, USA
Le Big Mac said:
I would also suggest not coding in the email but using something like

"me at website.com"

so the email trollers don't pick it up automatically.

Does that still work? I thought spammers figured out all of those tricks long ago...

I used to be real careful about not posting my real email address anywhere but now I don't find it gives me that much spam at all and all of it gets caught by the spam filter anyway. I prefer people being able to conveniently email me rather than possibly reducing the amount of spam I receive.
 

dornoforpyros

macrumors 68040
Oct 19, 2004
3,070
4
Calgary, AB
meh my website really doesn't leave much to the imagination, my phone # and personal e-mail address are both on there. About the only thing it doesn't have is my home address.

Then again I'm a graphic/web designer and I sort of want ppl on my website to be able to find me.
 

prostuff1

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 29, 2005
1,482
18
Don't step into the kawoosh...
Thanks for the input guys/gals.

As of right now i am not going to put the site up. Still working to see if i can get the photo sizes down to a decent size. Ass of right now they are all about 2.1MB :eek:. Me and the high settings on my camera had a little to much fun in japan. Anyway, it will probably be a while because i am getting ready to move into a dorm for college and transfer to main branch so everything is kinda hectic right now (not to mention books and dorm room cost a fortune).

I will eventually get the site up, i will just be a matter of time. I figure i spent enough time putting the stuff together i am not going to just scrap it now. School gets out in about 5 weeks for exams so it might get up then. You all here will be the first to know (besides family). I will probably just ask my parents about the info i put up about the family before i post it (solves that problem pretty easy). Whastever they dont want me to put up i wont.

**Oh and if anyone has good suggestions to making my images smaller but still decent resolution that would be great.

Thanks
 

SharksFan22

macrumors regular
Dec 29, 2003
177
35
Bay Area, CA
I'd also suggest getting an additional email address to put on the site and then foward that email address to you main address. That will help to cut down on spam programs that harvest email addresses. If you get flooded with spam, you can always change the alias and not have your primary email address affected.
 
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