addresses

Today, Facebook was kind enough to replace the e-mail account listed on your profile with the @Facebook.com e-mail address it provided you with awhile back. Wait, you didn't give Facebook permission to make the change? No one did. Not cool, Facebook.

Changing the e-mail account listed on your Facebook profile will only take a few minutes out of your day, but is well worth the time if you want people to know the best way to get in touch with you.

Here's how:

View your Facebook Timeline.

Click on your About section.

Click on Edit in the … Read more

Apple will offer users a way to manage which applications have permission to access their contact information as part of a new privacy control panel that's coming in iOS 6.

The feature comes in tandem with a new privacy pop-up that asks whether users want to give a particular application access to contacts, as pointed out by MacRumors today.

Apple said it would add such a feature as part of a "future software release," back in February, though the company did not specify when exactly that would be.

At the company's annual developer conference earlier this … Read more

Most people these days keep their contacts stored somewhere that they're frequently used, such as on a cell phone or in an e-mail client. If you prefer a standalone program for this task, My Agenda is a no-frills option that lets you record contact information and even dial numbers automatically.

My Agenda's interface consists of a small rectangular box with a handful of buttons. Contact names are displayed in a scrollable list, organized alphabetically by first name; since there aren't separate fields for first and last name, you can easily change this by simply creating your contacts … Read more

Google announced today that it's aiming to help users control their settings to more easily avoid answering those pesky anonymous callers on Google Voice. Be it an unknown, restricted, or blocked number, the Web giant says users can now fit those callers into one specified group.

"Many users have asked us for controls aimed at people who are NOT in their address book," Google software engineer Tom Ford wrote in a blog post. "So today, we're adding two groups of callers for Google Voice users."

Besides grouping anonymous callers into one group so users … Read more

Remembering all the details about a contact can be difficult if you're speaking with many people across many companies. To combat this issue, CallApp for Android will provide a wall of information about each person you're contacting.

You might be wondering: why do I need another app when I can add notes to contact profiles on my phone? Well, that little text box is definitely handy, but it simply doesn't compete with CallApp's features.

CallApp will let you see publicly available social media and other related information for individuals and businesses. For individuals this is helpful … Read more

SEATTLE--A new company that plans to track millions of retail shoppers through a unique ID emitted by their smartphones says it wants to be privacy-friendly.

Will Smith, co-founder and chief executive of Euclid Elements, showed up at the PII privacy conference here today to say that identifying repeat visitors by these unique IDs -- the so-called MAC addresses broadcast when Wi-Fi is turned on -- shouldn't be an issue.

"We put a sensor in the store," Smith said. "It passively detects smartphones that come near the store."

Euclid, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif. … Read more

A California judge has dismissed 15 lawsuits against John Does accused of sharing pirated adult movies on BitTorrent, saying the court lacks jurisdiction because the geolocation tools relied on don't always accurately identify the state in which the IP address is located.

In order to serve Internet service providers subpoenas to find out which individuals are behind IP addresses linked to alleged pirated content on BitTorrent, the lawyers for plaintiff Celestial needed to convince the judge that the IP addresses are located in California. But the judge said he was not persuaded that the geolocation tools had a high … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week people wrote in with questions on how to tackle an IP address conflict error, an issue with Apple's Hardware Test suite not loading, and whether or not Time Machine backups need to be started from scratch when attaching the local Time Machine disk to an Airport Extreme router. We welcome alternative approaches and views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, post them in the comments!

Question: Tackling a duplicate IP address error MacFixIt reader … Read more

In a likely setback to the MPAA and RIAA's antipiracy efforts, a federal judge has ruled that an IP address alone is not enough to accuse a specific individual of illegal downloads.

An IP address only identifies the location at which any number of Internet-connected devices may be located, much that a single telephone number can be used by many telephones, Magistrate Judge Gary R. Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York said in a ruling earlier this week.

"Thus, it is no more likely that the subscriber to an IP … Read more