A playful Facebook message to his pregnant girlfriend about pancakes saved Rodney Bradford, 19, from being convicted of a crime he didn't commit. Prosecutors dropped a robbery charge against the Brooklyn teen after learning his Facebook account status had been updated with the inside joke "WHERE MY IHOP?" from a computer inside his father's Harlem apartment one minute before an Oct. 17 stickup of two men in Brooklyn's Farragut Houses.

Bradford said, "They had on me Rikers Island for 12 days. It was really miserable. If it wasn't for Facebook I'd still be on Rikers Island."

His stepmom, Ernestine Bradford agreed. She said:

"Facebook saved my son. Normally, we yell at our kids, 'Oh, you're on the computer!" It's completely different. If it wasn't for Facebook, my son wouldn't be here."

Electronic footprints created by Bradford's posting on Facebook backed up multiple witnesses who said that he was at his dad's house that day. It also refuted a victim's claim that he recognized one of the robbers as Bradford, who lives in Farragut Houses.

Bradford's lawyer, Robert Reuland, said:

Unlike your Yahoo email account, which ceases upon death, Facebook wants to keep your profile alive. Upon the request of friends or family, Facebook will "memorialize" profiles of those who have died.

These accounts will be different than regular Facebook profiles. For example, any contact information will be removed and people will be barred from logging in. The profile also will not be included in the "suggestion" section, and only the deceased person's confirmed friends will be able to find them in a search.

According to the billionaires over at Google, the recession is over and things are improving. During the opening moments of a New York City press conference, Google CEO Eric Schmidt used the time to reinforce a message he has been giving for a few months now: that Google thinks the worst is behind us, things are looking up now, and that the company is spending accordingly:

"We are clearly seeing aspects of recovery, and what is notable is that we’re seeing aspects of recovery not just in the United States but in Europe. I had been in error in assuming that there would be a lag, that it would the US first and Europe second. Asia, of course, was never significantly hit in the first place. So that means from a Google perspective that.. we never stopped hiring, but we told our team internally and again, we’ve said to many other people tht we are increase are hiring rate and our investment rate in anticipation of a recovery."

Google co-founder Sergey Brin was also present. During the hour long press conference they covered quite some ground.

Gmail users will happy to learn that Brin was upset by the recent Gmail outages. He said that Google is now working to both prevent future failutres as well as to react more quickly if and when they do happen. He noted, however, that conventional email systems fail much more frequently (Gmail uses cloud computing).

Previously, Schmidt has said that he expected Google to begin making an acquisition per month. At today's press conference, he noted that those would likely be small, 5 to 10 person companies, and that it is unlikely they would be in the market for something similar in size to their YouTube acquisition. Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube. Reading between the lines, Schmidt is saying that we shouldn't expect them to offer up billions for Twitter.

Further speaking on acquisitions, Schmidt commented:

"I think that DoubleClick and YouTube will be two of our best acquisitions. DoubleClick is already close to paying back, and YouTube will get there soon. But bear in mind that any major acquisition now will involve a regulatory review, because of our size and because our competitors will make sure of that."

After a New York Supreme Court judge ruled that Google reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who created the "Skanks in NYC" blog on its Blogger.com platform, the woman whose identity was revealed - Rosemary Port - plans to sue the Internet giant. Speaking for the first time since the ruling, Port also says that model Liskula Cohen should blame herself for the uproar.

Port said,

"This has become a public spectacle and a circus that is not my doing. By going to the press, she defamed herself. Before her suit, there were probably two hits on my web site: one from me looking at it, and on from her looking at it. That was before it became a spectacle. I feel my right to privacy has been violated.

Port, 29, added that she is furious with Google for revealing her identity. She is so upset that she is planning to file a $15 million federal lawsuit against them.

The Fashion Institute of Technology student added:

Three of the web's most popular social networking websites - Facebook , Twitter and LiveJournal - were both targeted in malicious Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks Thursday morning. Twitter first acknowledged that their downtime was a result of a DDoS attack, followed sometime later by Facebook, and then LiveJournal.

During the attacks, Twitter was completely inaccessible to users. Facebook fared a bit better and worked, although not completely. Facebook users encountered quite a few errors rather than an inability to access the site altogether. LiveJournal users also encountered a number of problems.

What does this mean? This was a deliberate attempt by some nefarious group to take down three of the most popular social media sites. Given the strength and size of the infrastructure of these sites, the attacks had to have been coordinated and planned for months.

It's likely that the FBI will jump in to investigate the origin of these attacks today. Just when we the public might find out who was behind it, however, remains to be seen.

There could be other sites out there as well that were or are still affected. Have any of your favorite social media sites been acting funny today? Let us know in the comments.

Google CEO Eric Schmidth has resigned from Apple's board of directors it was revealed on Monday. According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, because Google is entering more of Apple's core businesses, Schmidt would have had to excuse himself from large portions of the board's meetings had he stayed on.

Jobs indicated that the decision for Schmidt to resign was mutual. The decision comes just a few months after Schmidt said that a government inquiry into his role on Apple's board wouldn't turn up any evidence that ties between the two companies throttle competition in the mobile phone arena or elsewhere.

Two of Google's most formidable rivals in online search - Microsoft and Yahoo - have forged an Internet search partnership, finally putting an end to years of back and forth negotiations. The agreement was announced Wednesday, and gives Microsoft access to the Internet's second largest search engine audience.

Microsoft stands to gain the most in this deal, giving them yet another weapon to use in the battle against the web's top search engine and advertiser, Google. Microsoft will now be able to process more search requests, which is a critical component in selling online advertising.

Yahoo was forced to make some kind of a move after years of financial decay and distress. Yahoo is also hoping to recover some of the money they passed on in 2008 when it turned down the opportunity to sell the entire company to Microsoft for $47.5 billion.

General motors and its dealers will soon be testing out a partnership with online auction giant eBay that would allow customers to bid on new vehicles, or buy them at predetermined prices online. GM unveiled the plan on Friday.

GM will begin testing the program in California, but they also have some other innovative ideas that they will be trying out over the next few weeks.

CEO Fritz Henderson said on Friday:

"We'll be testing this and other ideas with our dealers over the next few weeks and hope to expand and build upon them in the coming months.

Experiments are experiments. ... We are excited about it, but I wouldn't commit to rolling it out more broadly until we find out if it's successful."

Are you an inspired writer who has what to takes but can’t get published? Well, that problem is a lot easier to handle in today's internet world. If you think you have the next ‘Da Vinci Code’ or ‘South Beach Diet’ on your desktop and you want to bring it the masses I will clue you in on what you need to know.

The first site to look at is called lulu.com. At lulu you can publish Books (both hard and paperback), calendars, e-books, music, and DVD's. For additional fee’s you can have your item inventoried with an ISBN number which get the product to the masses. It would also be available at mega-stores like Amazon and Barnes and Noble online.

The next one I found is called iUniverse. iUniverse.com looks to be about the same type of thing on my first glance it looks like it’s a little more pricey. With the money that you spend, however, you will get more than just the basic printing. They will have experts help you pick the best cover for your item and give you the digital resources to make it an e-book automatically.

Blurb is another option. Blurb.com is only $18.95 (and you get a copy of your new book with the cost) and then any copy you sell you begin to amass profits as soon as you sell the first item. Each copy is a pricey $18.95 but everything above that price lets you keep the profits.

Greece's Data Protection Authority (DPA) has banned Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) from gathering detailed, street-level images within the country for a planned expansion of its panoramic Street View mapping service until additional privacy safeguards are provided. DPA would like clarification from Google on how it will store and process the original images, and safeguard them from privacy abuse.

The decision was announced earlier this week, despite assurances by Google that it would blur faces and vehicle license plates when the images are displayed online. Google also said that they would promptly respond to removal requests.

DPA is also seeking clarification on how the U.S. internet company plans to inform the public that its camera-mounted vehicles are being used to take photographs.

"Simply marking the car is not considered an adequate form of notification. The authority has reserved judgment on the legality of the service pending the submission of additional information, and until that time will not allow (Google) to start gathering photographs," said a DPA statement.