In case you missed it, Facebook’s been getting grief for their most recent privacy policy. The changes, which directly exploit your private information, have even prompted many users to close their accounts and live Facebook-free.

You’ve probably seen chain status updating advising you to turn off a new feature called “instant personalization”. It’s a feature that Facebook, in partnership with three brands (Yelp, Pandora, and Microsoft Docs), has implemented to give you a “better” experience on those sites.

For example, you can view your friends’ Yelp reviews, or see their favorite songs on Pandora. On the face of it, it’s a pretty cool feature. But, what they’ve neglected to tell us explicitly, is that these brands are also getting a slew of private information: photos, location, interests, religious views, and all the other information you handed over to Facebook.

If you followed the directions in those status updates, and have turned off the feature, great. But, your information is STILL public to those brands. How? Facebook friends who are still opted-in to the feature are uknowingly sharing your data.

Here’s a short tutorial that shows you how to keep your friends from sharing your info:

That’s the good news. Now, here’s the bad news. If you opted-in to those sites and accessed them, they are still legally allowed to keep your data, even if you opt-out now. Do you hate Facebook yet? It gets better. The same goes for any applications (*cough* Farmville *cough*). The moment you “allow access”, you’ve surrendered your data. Eternally.

In a plan to capitalize on your data, Facebook is making it increasingly difficult to protect its users’ privacy. If you do decide to close your account, please note that “deactivating” and deleting are two different things. Deactivating, only puts your account to sleep, and your data is still available. Actually deleting it is a bit more difficult, but doable.

Hope this helps! Please leave any questions in the comments below.

Baking isn’t my strong suit (the process is too slow and meticulous for me to be patient with), but when I see a unique and appealing recipe, I like to give it a try. I spotted these bite-sized desserts on Bakerella.com, a baking blog that I am hopelessly addicted to. They’re so cute! It’s a hard outer shell with a gooey red velvety surprise inside.

I spotted these bite-sized desserts on Bakerella.com, a baking blog that I am hopelessly addicted to. This was difficult! Rolling the cake balls in the chocolate was hard, as I couldn’t get them covered properly and the red velvet would crumble in the dipping process. My patience ran out after the 10th or 11th cake ball, but I got enough to show you guys some pretty pictures.

To those of you who enjoy baking and do it often, I commend you.

(Recipe after the jump)

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As an avid gym go-er, I like to track progress. Some websites or phone applications allow you to manually enter information–like miles, resistance, calories burned, etc.– which is then logged and added to a calendar. A couple great apps that do this are iFitness and Loseit! for the iPhone (I know, I’m bias).

I have to admit, though, I haven’t taken full advantage of this feature. Why? Because I either forget what my stats were for that day, or I don’t want to spend time entering it at the gym (besides, it’s a little embarrassing.)

But, last week, I was inspired. Enter: the iPhone camera tip. Most exercise machines offer a “Workout Summary” at the end of your exercise. So Instead of scrambling to write the stats down, I grabbed my phone and snapped a photo. Later, at home, I manually entered the information into iFitness– voila!

Was it a little awkward? Yes. Did anyone notice? No. It’s perfectly acceptable.

I should note that there are, however, times when cameras at the gym are complete unacceptable and inappropriate.

In hopes of squeezing a workout into my hectic day, I went to the gym last night around 9:00PM. Although many would advise against going to the gym so late (for safety reasons), my gym s still pretty crowded during late hours.

As I was doing my strength circuit in the group exercise room, I noticed two men sitting against the wall with a camcorder–not a camera phone, not a little camera, a camcorder– filming me working out. I was shocked, disgusted, violated, and angry. I quickly got up and approached the men, stating that what they were doing was completely illegal and requested they put their camera away immediately. After some resistance, they did. But, they didn’t leave. They remained seated against the wall, pretending to stretch for another 30 minutes.

On my way out, I went to the front desk, where the representative took my name and contact information. Because she was the only employee at the gym, she couldn’t leave her spot to approach the men. Nonetheless, I’m happy to report that I spoke to the manager today, who will be reviewing security tapes in search of their identity. Their membership will be revoked.

After a quick Google search, I found (illegally obtained) YouTube videos of women working out, some with millions of hits. Is this what those men intended to do? Publish the video to the public? Or was is some childish behavior? I don’t know, but there’s no way to prevent such illegal behavior. Gyms can’t search through members’ bags, nor can they monitor everyone’s activity. It’s each member’s responsibility to look out for themselves.

Today marks the first day of my new project: a small vegetable garden. I guess you can say I’m going through a hippie stage– boycotting water bottles, living sans meat or poultry, reading Michael Pollan books, and hiking once or twice a week. In Northern California, my recent choice of lifestyle is the norm, but I personaly feel like I’ve joined an elite group of environmental know-it-alls.

Okay, maybe I don’t know it all, but I’m learning. And it doesn’t hurt to have a best friend who’s an environmental science genius.

Despite the fact that I’m a pretty active person, clearing up my garden area was hard! Luckily I have a motorized rotatill that I’ll be using to finish the preparation. Here’s what the preliminary stage of a veggie garden looks like:

That plot of land is about 12′ x 3′, but I also have three huge pots for my vine vegetables. After designing my garden, it looks like I’ll be growing:

• peas
• hot peppers
• beans
• bell peppers
• eggplants
• tomatoes
• parsley
• basil
• asparagus
• spinach
• leaf lettuce
• cucumber

Tall order, I know. But I’m determined to have a sustainable garden which I can depend on for vegetables. After watching Food, inc. (free to watch online now), I’m weary of purchasing vegetables from huge grocery chains.

I’m beat. Time to rinse off and finish up “Botany of Desire”. Like I said, I’m in a Michael Pollan phase.