A little while back I introduced InTheRooms , which is a leading recovery website that caters to people who are recovering from any form of addiction. I think that this is the kind of support that recovering members welcome because everyone in the community is going through something similar and they can provide the friendship, understanding and support that people who are not in the same boat cannot.

If you use Facebook (who doesn’t these days?), you would be happy to know that there is a new InTheRooms Facebook App that allows you to add a box to your profile which displays your time in recovery. On the other hand, if you would like to protect your identity, you could also add your time to In The Rooms community.

Time is very important for someone who is recovering. Even though I do not have personal experience, I have friends who would report to me jubilantly how many days or months that they are clean, from smoking for example. That is one difficult habit to kick!

If you are coming out of one form of addiction or another, using this Facebook app by In The Rooms would probably strengthen your resolve to be clean. Try it out, and good luck!

I am not surprised that despite the high traffic of Google, Facebook is found to be stickier than even Google. But of course. I personally spend many, many hours, practically my whole online time logged in to Facebook, either updating my own status, checking out my friends’ activities, viewing their photos, or play games.

Yes, there are many simple yet fun games on Facebook thanks to their game apps that make my friends, I dare say about 80% of active Facebookers, stick to Facebook. Games alone, you know.

Really, compared to Facebook, I use Google to search and read the news which have outward links which take me AWAY from Google. I access Gmail via Windows Live Mail and while I also use its Reader, like Google Search and News, Reader also consists of a list of links that take me away from a Google product.

Web users used to spend a lot of time on eBay as well but traffic to eBay’s slew of marketplaces have seen a decline in traffic. This is probably due to the fact that many of us are trying our best not to shop, not to spend. Facebook, well, it’s free.

Logging into my Gmail account the other day, I was alerted to the fact that I did not enter a secondary email address to my Gmail profile. It is kind of dangerous in the sense that should I forget my Gmail password, Gmail would not know where to send the password hint to since there is no alternative email. It could send my password to my Gmail account but if I have forgotten my password to it, there is no way I could retrieve it.

Anyway, Gmail has innovatively enabled us to request for our password in the event that we have forgotten it to be sent via short message service. Although it is not stated on their blog, I am going to assume that this service is only available to Gmail users in the United States.

Also, Gmail did not state if this is a free service or if there will be a nominal (or even premium) charge, either by Gmail or the respective telcos. Also, I understand that this is an option to “change” password recovery and not an alternate way. I think we should have both options available simultaneously; not either or.

I remember writing about Yahoo!’s announcement that they will be closing Geocities sometime at the end of the year, though they did not mention an exact date. Well, it is now revealed that 25th October, 2009 will be the final day that our GeoCities website will be live.

I remember telling a friend, who still has a GeoCities website about this and she said that she would have to copy her posts from GeoCities to WordPress free blog. No, she will not be moving her website to Yahoo! Web Hosting.

I know of another friend who is still keeping his GeoCities website although he has his own popular website now. I thought that he had already migrated all his content but he said that he hasn’t. I will have to remind him of this and let him know the deadline. Yahoo! says that from 26th October, 2009 onwards, GeoCities webmasters will not be able to access any of their files or photos.

If you still have a live GeoCities website, you may want to take up this friend’s idea of copying all content over to free WordPress or Blogger blog.

Following racial riots in China a few days ago, China has blocked access to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Earlier, about two weeks ago, the Chinese government has already blocked access to Google’s communication applications from Gmail to Talk.

Well, who else is not surprised? While China tries to project a liberal image, they are still heavily dependant on censorship, thought the reason for Google’s blockage was said to be because of porn content and not because of the riots.

But even with heavy censorship, those who are so inclined could still access these websites via proxies, which are readily available online. Now, the Chinese government should ban those sites if they want to go all out in stopping the dissemination of information in China! LOL