It is just one of the services offered by Australian company SR7, which terms the practice “risk and reputation management,” their explanation of the service follows below.

SR7 offers a unique service by auditing, monitoring and strategically managing the risks, threats and opportunities facing companies online.

What this effectively amounts to is the infiltration of social networks with the intention of informing employers of any negative comments posted by employees. Put simply this is spying, they are actively infiltrating social networks with the sole purpose of finding dirt on employees. Searches for material are done both manually and automatically. In the case of Facebook pages, monitoring a profile amounts to manually scanning pages where privacy settings have not been activated.

SR7 director James Griffin explained the company’s practices with The Age:

If there’s a competitor or if it’s a company of interest to a journalist and they stumble across [controversial posts], then it’s out there and it’s gone. I think that whilst employees have the right to have their personal conversations, if they’re going to mention or say something or do something ridiculous online in relation to a company, then that’s what they’ve got to deal with.

When asked about their level of infiltration on Facebook, Griffin states:

If their privacy settings are set so it’s publicly viewable for Joe Average to go on there then yes, we will do that.

Is the service ethical? SR7 would have people believe that it is, but I would tend to disagree. A Facebook status update does not constitute a “publication” regardless of whether it is public or not. It is likely only going to be read by a small number of people and will probably be ignored by most of the user’s friends anyway. Most people do not create a Facebook page with the intention of using it to gain publicity; blogs and websites are much better for that. For most people Facebook is a convenient way to keep in contact with their friends. With the younger generation it is becoming an increasingly important form of communication.

I will grant that a blog is a public platform and it is reasonable to consider a blog post to be a public communication. Take this post for example, it is likely to be read by several thousand people and perhaps sourced for material elsewhere giving it an opportunity to reach more, blogging about your employer is always going to be a dumb move, but the majority of people are probably unaware that Facebook even has privacy settings, and young people especially are not likely to consider the ramifications of making a post on an unsecured account. They assume that their communications are private and between friends, and indeed they would be if people weren’t actively seeking them out.

These ethical considerations and others pointed out by David Vaile, executive director of the University of New South Wales’ Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, sum up the legal ethics that may be involved in this type of practice, but when one looks at it purely from a social justice standpoint the service still strikes me as being morally questionable.

Work causes everyone stress and a certain amount of complaining about it allows people to vent their frustrations and thus do a better job. I am presently very happy in my job, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t wake up some days and think that I work is the last place that I would like to be. Is that such a scandalous feeling to express that someone deserves to be fired for writing it for their friends to see? Does having a worker who is unhappy some of the time reflect badly on a company? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding and definite no.

While James Griffin stated that the role of SR7 was to protect companies from employees who might say ridiculous things, it is a simple fact that most of the Facebook firings have been for expressing normal feelings that a person would experience wherever they worked. In all likelihood, companies are probably making use of the information to allow them to cull staff without dealing with unfair dismissal claims. If the company has a “social networking” policy then the evidence provided by SR7 allows them to fire with impunity.

Yet, should we really blame SR7? The fact is that there is a demand for the services that they offer and if they do not provide it, someone else well. There are always going to be moral gymnasts who are able to justify anything that they do. There will always be tobacco executives, parking inspectors and debt collectors and yes, there will always be spies. The only way to stop this sort of activity is to make it illegal. Until that happens, people will simply have to be more security conscious. Clamp down on privacy settings, don’t make status updates that are likely to land oneself in trouble, when frustrations must be vented, do so privately. If people were to exercise more caution, it would make the job of companies like SR7 a great deal more difficult. [The Age]

There actually is heat management on the 17″ MacBook Pro, the fans will spin at up to 3500 RPM if the conditions require it, however, on the machines that have experienced glitches the speed tops out at around 2050 RPM. Apple will probably release a firmware update to deal with the issue sometime in the future, but users can improve the situation if they find themselves a 3rd party fan management app – but they shouldn’t have to.

People pay a premium for Apple hardware, but does Apple really deliver a premium product. Sure, the new MacBook Pros look good, and for the most part they no doubt perform well in most cases, but for the extra cost, people should be able to expect a flawless product. The occasional faulty product is unavoidable, but the screen glitch appears to affect a significant number of machines and that is inexcusable. Further, you have to wonder at whether the heat is causing any longer-term damage to the screen; something that a simple firmware upgrade will not be able to fix.

With these kinds of faults occurring with Apple, you really have question their claim to hardware supremacy. There are plenty of cheaper machines that are not released with widespread defects. Make no mistake, a MacBook Pro working as it should is a great machine, but a MacBook Pro working as it shouldn’t is no different to any other piece of half-baked junk that could be had for a lot less money. [Slashgear]

Read on for our top ten posts of February.

1. Dude Gets a Flashdrive Cake By Mistake

This was my personal favorite, cake shop incompetence saw a thumb drive cake, that should have had a picture of the boss. If you ask me it probably serves whomever ordered the thing right for going so far as having the boss’s mug put on a dessert.

Police in Colorado Springs were searching for a six-foot-tall white male who robbed a 7-11 using a Klingon Bat’leth sword.

3. Samurai Sword Handle Umbrella Might Make the Temptation to Chop Stuff Too Difficult to Resist

As a student of the martial art, Iaido, I often find myself resisting the urge to practice techniques with an umbrella. If said umbrella had a sword handle, then I am afraid the temptation would be impossible to resist.

4. Videos: Microsoft Pwned By Thieving Lowlife

It seems no one likes the Microsoft Zune. In this CCTV footage, you see a dorm room thief treat the Microsoft PMP with the utmost contempt. He takes the earphones and discards the Zune, owned.

5. Videos: R2-D2 Steambot from Crabfu

Crabfu has produced some amazing bots, but his steam series takes the cake as far as I am concerned, with this R2-D2 Steambot being the big daddy of them all.

6. Chronophage: Monstrous Cambridge Clock Eats Time

I am hesitant to call this work steampunk because a lot of stuff that falls into the steampunk category simply tries too hard. It is without a doubt the coolest clock I have ever seen and the interview with the maker, a Cambridge alumnist, is well worth the time it takes to watch.

7. “The Shining” Hot Water Bottle Gives You a Warm Night of Sweet Dreams

To me, The Shining was one of Nicholson’s coolest roles. It was an awesome movie and he was a frighteningly believable maniac. Why not celebrate a piece of cinematic history with a hot water bottle?

8. Steampunk Frankenstein Computer Casemod the Steampunkest ‘puter Ever

Whatever you think of the steampunk trend, this case mod is very, very well done. One can only hope that it packs some monstrous specs to go with that case.

This awesome little add-on can turn any bicycle into an electric bike with a very respectable range. It charges up on downhill runs and has a respectable range of 20-miles without pedaling. It is set to cost a few hundred dollars, which is a lot cheaper than an electric bike.

10. Gaping Hole Halloween Costume a Perfect Mix of Technology and Tomfoolery

Halloween is months away, but this was too good to wait. A camera positioned at the wearers back captures a scene from behind, which is displayed on a small screen on the wearers front. The effect makes it look like the person has a gaping hole in their torso.

To make life easier, we have included a difficulty scale: 1- a very simple project with almost no skill required, it is just a matter of screwing a few parts together; 2 – a simple project with some specialized knowledge or skills required; 3 – a moderately difficult project that may need several skills and/or basic soldering to complete; 4 – a difficult project that requires a range of skills and may demand some intricate soldering; 5 – an extremely difficult project that requires detailed knowledge and a range of skills.

Note: even the most difficult projects that we have selected are buildable, but will likely require a good deal of research. These projects are difficult, not necessarily due to the building involved, but because there is likely to be a certain amount of improvisation necessary to get the job done. For this reason, people are going to have to know or be prepared to learn the why not just the how of the design process. As long as it doesn’t involve doing anything particularly dangerous, we thoroughly recommend biting off more than you can chew. It is the best way to learn!

1. The Wi-Fi Predator

This is highly illegal in some areas and perfectly acceptable in others, so review your local laws before going ahead with this build. It turns a Buffalo wireless router and a Yagi antenna into a long-range Wi-Fi sniper that offers a secured connection. We wrote it up extensively here. Difficulty: 1/5

2. Radio Controlled Lawnmower

This DIY project makes use of some parts from an electric wheelchair, which most people don’t have lying around, but you never know what you will be able to find if you put your mind and the Internet to use. Once you have found all of the parts that you need, you will need to put your electronics skills to use to get your RC parts to interact with the wheelchair parts. From there you need to weld it all together. If you can do all of that, you will be able to put your feet up every mowing day and command your mower with your fingertips. It doesn’t get much cooler than that. Difficulty: 5/5 [Hack-a-day via Engadget]

3. Pop Can Solar Water Heater

4. Poor Man’s Portable Computer Casemod

You have to love the utilitarianism of this project. The DIY part is the case more than the actual computer, but you will need to know how to put a computer together to make it work. The case build seems to require only rudimentary carpentry skills and the wood is recycled, so the costs of learning on the job would not be too high. The advantage of doing things this way rather than using a ready-made case is that you can build the case to fit the components, rather than having to fit the components to the case.
Difficulty: 3/5 [Gizmo Watch]

5. Lightning Activated Camera Shutter Trigger

Have you ever tried to shoot lightning? It is pretty hard to do, because thanks to reflexes and shutter lag, by the time you take the shot, the show is generally over. A light activated shutter trigger solves that problem, as soon as it detects light it will shoot. The designer posts a commonsense disclaimer, don’t connect it to your DSLR during the daytime or it will shoot indefinitely. Difficulty: 4/5 (you need a pretty solid understanding of electronics to put this project together, but the parts should be fairly affordable. [Solorb via Gizmodo]

6. IR Controlled Light Dimmer

I like this project because it is cheap to put together and it makes use of whatever remote you want to use. While it requires a little electronics knowledge, the circuit is pretty simple and most people will be able to figure it out as the go along. The important thing is that it is wired into the light switch properly, it is connected to the mains power and that means it is potentially very dangerous. If you don’t have experience working with electricity, you could get an electrician to install it for you. At the end of it, you will have a light that you can dim by remote control, pretty cool.

Click here to view the embedded video.

7. Portable Wind Generator

This project turns PVC pipe into propeller blades and the motor and flywheel from an old treadmill into a generator. The result is a tiny wind generator that is able to charge up a 12-volt battery, or in this case, two 6-volt batteries. This is simple enough that pretty much anyone can do it, but you will need access to some power tools. Difficulty: 3/5 [Make]

8. USB Microscope

This is a really simple project that is cheap to reproduce. All you need is a hot glue gun, a cheap webcam and a cheap microscope. By coupling the webcam and the microscope together, you get a cheap but functional digital microscope. The pictures from the microscope on the Instructable are rather low resolution, but as t was put together for just $15, they are not that bad. It would definitely be worth trying with better quality equipment, but learn on the cheap stuff first. Difficulty: 2/5 [Instructables]

9. Lego Valve Stem Caps

Putting together your own valve stem caps for your bike or car is an easy project that you should be able to accomplish without getting your hands too dirty. All you need are some 2×2 Lego blocks a sharp hobby knife and a hot glue gun. I want to see these on a Harley. Difficulty: 1/5 [Instructables]

10. Lego Quick Release Camera Mount

This is a quick and easy way to create versatile camera mounting solutions out of Lego. The trick is in the coupling of the a Bogen Manfrotto Camera Mount with a Lego 6 x 8 Technic brick. You will need enough skills to be able to remove the studs on the top of the Lego. The coolest thing about this project is that it can be the starting point for so much more. Difficulty: 1/5 [The Stretta Procedure]

11. Hard Disk MP3 Player

This is a really simple project, but it is not particularly cheap, especially when you factor in the cost of a hard drive. You have two options with this project: 1) You can buy the assembled version for $150, then all you will need to do is buy and install the RAM and the HDD; 2) You can buy the unassambled version and enjoy the experience of soldering in 700+ parts. Either way, you are going to pay the same amount of money, but there is only one way where you can truly claim to have built it yourself. Difficulty: 2/5 if you get it assembled; 4/5 if you get it unassembled [DIY Audio Projects]

12. Tube Amplifier

A worthy project if ever there was one. Prices for tube amplifier kits range all over the board, but even a cheap one can get some pretty good sound. Throw it together with some homemade speakers and you will have an audio setup of which you can be truly proud. Difficulty: 4/5 [DIY Audio Projects]

So, without further ado, here are my top ten pet peeves with this somewhat overpriced laptop of mine.

10. Weak-ass wireless reception
I live in Japan in a three-bedroom apartment that would fit into the living room of a regular sized house. The internal walls are paper thin, yet if I am in the furthest room from the access point, I often see the reception drop down a bar from full. I can only imagine what the situation would be in a house of reasonable size.

9. No delete key
I know there is a key on the keyboard that says “delete” but it isn’t a delete key, it is a backspace. You get used to it, but seldom a day goes by that I don’t wish that there was one there.

8. Pathetic battery life
When I first got this machine the battery life was acceptable. It is a powerful system, so there is always going to be the power-battery trade-off, but six months later it has noticeably diminished. I might be able to prep a day of posts in a single charge, but it is a push.

7. It gets hot
I know that it doesn’t get hot enough to actually cook eggs, but it gets more than enough heat to turn milk into yogurt. Sure, there is software that you can get to get the fans cranking, but one would expect a finished product to be completely thought out.

6. The AC adapter
Fortunately Apple does provide an extension cord in case you don’t want to use the plug that connects the AC adapter directly into the wall, which is lucky. That thing is so heavy that it pulls itself out of a loose socket and it sometimes gets scarily hot.

5. It sucks at burning DVDs
I have a number of computers in my house, but my Mac Book Pro is always the last choice when I need to burn something big. It is slow at copying and I get more failed burns than I experience with either of my Windows based desktops.

4. Programs don’t close properly
This is not a criticism of my MBP so much as it is a criticism of OSX, but I don’t get why a program minimizes but doesn’t close when I hit the “x” button in the top left of the program window. You can exit by hitting Command-Q, but you have to jump through some hoops if you don’t want to leave the comfort of your trackpad.

3. One trackpad button (now no trackpad buttons)
I don’t know where anyone got the idea that it was better to have a single button when two do the job so much better. This is clearly an aesthetics over functionality move and is the reason that the Apple Mighty Mouse sucks. If you hold Control and click then you get the right-button functions, but that is an extra finger movement that I can live without.

2. CDs and DVDs getting stuck in the drive
I can’t think of anything more annoying than when a disk gets stuck in the optical drive and hitting eject does absolutely nothing; then you have to reboot to get the stupid disk out.

1. No screen of death
I am not sure why this happens, but every once in a while when I close my Mac Book Pro without shutting it down, it goes to sleep but won’t come back on. More than once I have had to resort to a power button shutdown and it can take a ridiculous amount of time to make that work.

That wraps up the ten things I hate the most about the Mac Book Pro. There are other things that annoy me, the fat power cable, likely due to the amount of insulation that they need to use to keep it from catching fire; the Mag Safe connection, which only serves to make replacement parts more expensive; and finally there is the fact that it a rather hefty piece of machinery. Still, it has plenty going for it. It gets the job done and at least nine out of ten times it does just work.