Would you be able to defend yourself and your loved ones if someone were to physically attack you? It's a question most of us don't want to consider, but violence is, unfortunately, a fact of life. Thankfully, regardless of strength, size, or previous training, anyone can learn several effective self-defense techniques. Here's how to prepare for and stay safe in common real-world violent situations.

Prevention Is the Best Self-Defense

First, remember that prevention is the best self-defense. Attackers, whatever their objectives, are looking for unsuspecting, vulnerable targets. So be sure to follow general safety tips like being aware of your surroundings, only walking and parking in well-lit areas, keeping your keys in hand as you approach your door or car, varying your route and times of travel, and other personal security precautions.

Apart from avoiding confrontation, if you can defuse a situation (talk someone down from physically assaulting you) or get away—by handing over your wallet/purse or whatever they want, do that. Hand over your money rather than fight. Nothing you own is worth more than your life or health.

If violence is unavoidable, however, to really defend yourself, you'll want to know ahead of time how to fight back effectively—it's possible even against someone bigger or stronger than you. Here are some basic self-defense techniques that can keep you safe:

Get Loud and Push Back

As soon as the attacker touches you or it's clear that escape isn't possible, shout loudly ("BACK OFF!") and push back at him or her (for simplicity's sake we're going to use "him" for the rest of the article, although your opponent could be female). This does two things: it signals for help and it lets the attacker know you're not an easy target. The video at left from Rob Redenbach, a former trainer of Nelson Mandela's bodyguards, shows why this is the first thing you need to do. It may not dissuade all attackers, but getting loud will warn off those that were looking for easy prey.

The Most Effective Body Parts to Hit

When you're in a confrontation, you only have a few seconds and a few moves to try before the fight may be decided. Before an attacker has gained full control of you, you must do everything you can—conserving as much energy as possible—to inflict injury so you can get away. (This is no time to be civil. In a physical confrontation that calls for self-defense, it's hurt or be hurt.) So aim for the parts of the body where you can do the most damage easily: the eyes, nose, ears, neck, groin, knee, and legs.

Su Ericksen, who writes the very helpful Self-Defense for Women website, offers techniques for striking these pressure points so you can defend yourself and get to safety. She writes:

Depending on the position of the attacker and how close he is will determine where you will strike and with what part of your body you will employ. Do not step in closer, say, to strike his nose with your hand, when you can reach his knee with a kick.

When striking a target on the upper half of the body you will use your hand. Effective strikes can be made with the outer edge of your hand in a knife hand position, a palm strike or knuckle blow for softer targets or a tightly curled fist.

Here are some photos Su offers on attacking these highly sensitive pressure points (you can view others for additional pressure points on her website):

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Eyes: Gouging, poking, or scratching the attacker's eyes with your fingers or knuckles would be effective, as you can imagine. Besides causing a lot of pain, this should also make your escape easier by at least temporarily interfering with his vision.

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Nose: If the attacker is close in front of you, use the heel of your palm to strike up under his nose; throw the whole weight of your body into the move to cause the most pain and force him to loosen his grip on you. If he's behind you, you can strike his nose (from the side or front) with your elbow. Either way, aim for the nasal bones.

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Neck: The side of the neck is a bigger target, where both the carotid artery and jugular vein are located. You could possibly temporarily stun your attacker with a knife hand strike (all fingers held straight and tightly together, with thumb tucked and slightly bent at the knuckle) at the side of the neck. (For even more injury, you could thrust your elbow into your assailant's throat while pitching the weight of your body forward. See the Target Focus Training video below.)

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Knee: Su says the knee is an ideal self-defense target, vulnerable from every angle and easily kicked without risk of your foot being grabbed. Kick the side of the knee to cause injury or partially incapacitate your attacker. Kicking the front of the knee may cause more injury but is less likely to result in imbalance.

How to Maximize Damage

Use your elbows, knees, and head. Those are the parts of the body that are most sensitive when hit. Now here are the parts of the body used most effectively for inflicting damage: your elbows, knees, and head (they're your body's bony built-in weapons). This video from Elite Defense Systems in IL explains how to defend yourself against three most common attacks by using these key body parts.

Use everyday objects. Everyday objects you carry around with you or things in your environment can also be used to your advantage as weapons. Hold a key or pen between your middle and ring finger while you're walking home in the dark for more assurance. Outdoors, you can toss some dirt or sand into your attacker's eyes. Women are often told to spray perfume or hairspray into an assailant's eyes. The point is, use what ever you can to make your defense stronger (for more inspiration, watch some Jackie Chan movies).

Leverage your weight. No matter your size, weight, or strength in relation to your opponent, you can defend yourself by strategically using your body and the simple law of physics. This is the principle behind martial arts systems like Jujitsu and other self-defense programs where a smaller person is able to defeat a larger one.

Tim Larkin teaches in his Target Focus Training self-defense system that striking is not about punching or kicking, it's about throwing your body weight strategically at someone. You don't want to be standing there trading punches or kicks with an attacker; in a violent situation, it's critical to injure him using efficient, targeted moves. Basically, target those pressure points mentioned above, but leverage your weight to cause the most damage. (Note: The video at left is a bit long, though all of it is insightful; if you want to skip to the demonstration part showing how to use your body weight in this "point of injury" technique, scrub to about the 4-minute mark. Also note that this technique, used by law enforcement agencies, can seriously injure the attacker.)

Moves for Getting Out of or Defending Against Common Holds or Attacks

Wrist Hold: Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is another school of self-defense, one that offers modified Jujitsu techniques that normal (or even weak) people can carry out. This video from Gracie Academy shows what to do when an attacker has grabbed your wrist. Instead of pulling back to try to get out of the hold, squat down into a strong stance, then lean forward and bend your elbow towards him all the way towards his forearm until he can no longer hold onto your wrist.

Front and Back Choke Holds: Similarly, this video from Ford Models suggests bending your elbow in to get out of the wrist hold, but then pushing upwards to break free. The video also offers techniques to get out of a front choke hold and a back choke hold: Swing one arm across to break the attacker's hold then use your other arm's elbow or hand in a knife strike position to hit the attacker.

Bear Hug: Krav Maga is the official hand-to-hand self-defense system of the Israeli Defense Forces, with techniques to defend against realistic grabs and holds. This video shows a Krav Maga defense for when someone holds you from behind: Drop your weight and try to hit his head with your elbows or stomp his feet with your feet. If that doesn't work, pull his fingers back to force him to release you, rotate out of his hold, and attack him with your knees/kicks. (Pulling fingers is also an effective move in a choke hold in some cases.)

Mount Position: If the attacker has you pinned on the floor, you can pivot to be on top with this Gracie Jiu-Jitsu technique. Hook onto his wrist with one hand and use your other hand to grab behind his elbow, trapping his arm to your chest. Then use your foot to trap his foot and leg, lift your hips and turn over onto your knees to get on top.

Sexual Assault: In my interview with Rener Gracie, whose grandfather established the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu method 90 years ago, he told me there are four phases to nearly all sexual attacks on women: 1) Identify an unsuspecting target, 2) Subdue the target, 3) Exhaust the target, and 4) Execute the sexual assault. We want to fight with all our might and the moves we have above in the second phase. In the third phase, however, right before an assailant executes his sexual attack, all he wants to do is exhaust the victim and gain complete control, so fighting back actually may backfire at that point, wasting energy. Gracie's Women Empowered training program teaches women to recognize when they've entered that phase where they are truly trapped and are no longer in the defensive movements phase—and to feign giving in. Pretend to be compliant (kind of like playing dead for a bear). In those split moments, the predator will think you have given up and will loosen his grip, giving you a chance get away.

Apple is more worried about Facebook as a competitive threat than any other tech company, according to a source who works with Apple.

Our source was surprised since it would make more sense for Apple to worry about other companies. Google has Android. Microsoft dominates the PC business. Amazon is threatening to enter the tablet space.

But Facebook is coming on like a freight train in a space Apple doesn't really understand and it's not willing to play nicely with Apple.

Another source who works with Facebook backed this up earlier this year, telling us that Apple hates Facebook because it worries Facebook could co-opt the iOS platform thanks to its strong user base.

A few other reasons we think Apple would fear Facebook:

It was burnt once by Google, so it learned its lesson: When Apple negotiated with Google to get Maps and search on the iPhone, it thought it was starting a great partnership. That didn't last, as Google built Android, which is now beating the iPhone in market share. Facebook is equally ambitious, and there's reason to believe it's going to build its own mobile OS.

Apple doesn't do social (or the web) particularly well: Apple understands the PC business, and therefore Microsoft. It gets the mobile business and Google. It gets Amazon's entry into tablets and its digital media business. Social? Apple doesn't get that at all. It doesn't really do social.

Facebook credits could be a threat to iTunes: In the long term people will be buying virtual goods, digital media, and real goods through Facebook. Facebook is already encouraging developers to work around Apple on its web platform.

Facebook has 650 million users and growing. Just like Google is worried about Facebook fencing a big portion of the world's population, Apple should be worried about Facebook controlling hundreds of millions of people. It's a platform war out there, and Facebook is in a good position.

Whatever the case may be, we're guessing something happened when Apple was negotiating with Facebook over Ping that opened its eyes and now it's keeping its eyes on Mark Zuckerberg.

Don't Miss: The Facebook Versus Apple Rivalry Is Starting To Get Nasty

Last week, Google rolled out a beta of its highly-anticipated new social networking platform, Google+. Reaction to the launch so far has been mainly positive, with praise for the app’s design and features. But having played with Google+ over the last few days, I think that it may find a home in a somewhat unexpected market: the workplace.

While Facebook and Twitter have been massively successful in the consumer space, they’re not really suited for use in the workplace, as they make it difficult to keep personal and work-related information separate, and few companies would be happy about the possibility of potentially confidential information being broadcast to the world. Google, however, has produced an app that’s much more suited for use in the workplace by building Google+ around its Circles feature, which enables users to limit the sharing of information to specific groups of people, and by incorporating some very useful built-in collaboration features.

Circles, effortless contact management

Google+ is a lot like Facebook, offering users the ability to connect to other users, post status updates, share links and photos, and so on. But where it differs from apps like Facebook is its use of Circles, which allows users to define groups of contacts and then only share specific updates and other information with that group. Circles are effectively easy-to-understand privacy controls. They can be set up via an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, and there doesn’t appear to be any limitations on the number of them you can define.

You could, for instance, have a Circle for all of your work colleagues, a Circle for your team and then also create ad hoc Circles for project teams as required. This ability to easily control who you share specific pieces of information with is powerful, and very useful in the workplace: you may only want to send an update regarding the status or a project to only those colleagues working on that project, for example.

Facebook has tried to give users a similar degree of control over contact management with its Lists feature, but it’s clunky and nowhere near as well-implemented or as central to the experience as Circles is; while Google + is effectively  built on top of Circles, Facebook’s Lists feature feels like an afterthought.

As Google+ is a general-purpose social networking tool, a user can connect with any other Google+ user. This means that, unlike with many of the private enterprise social networking apps like Yammer, Jive, tibbr, Socialtext and Salesforce Chatter, people can use the app to easily communicate and collaborate with people outside of their organization — contractors or clients, for example.

Hangouts, Google+’s killer app for remote teams

Hangouts is Google+’s built-in multi-user video chat tool. It allows users to chat with up to ten people simultaneously and it’s really well implemented. Unlike other video chat apps, where you generally have to ping the other people you want to chat with on IM or email, get them to open their video chat client and then connect with them, Hangouts enables you to “hang out” in a video chat room, advertising your availability to chat to your contacts. If no-one else is around, you can leave it running in the background.

It’s all browser-based, so the user doesn’t have to fire up another app, and allows for much more spontaneous and effortless collaboration than other video chat app I’ve tried. I think it could potentially come close to replicating an “in office” experience for remote teams, allowing for the virtual equivalent of wandering up to a colleague’s desk to discuss a problem, or the traditional “water cooler” social chat.

Hangouts has an intuitive interface: Whoever is currently talking is highlighted in the large central window, with everyone else displayed in  strip of smaller windows underneath. In my testing, it works really well, with little lag. There’s a built-in IM feature for sharing links and so on, and also a YouTube feature, which enables users to share the watching of YouTube videos (which is neat, but probably not all that useful in the workplace). As Om noted, Hangouts is group video chat done right. It’s much better than Skype’s somewhat clunky group video chat feature, it’s free, and as it’s standards-based, it could be integrated into other applications, too (if you’re curious, Janko has written an interesting overview of the standards-based tech used to build the service).

Hangouts isn’t Google+’s only collaboration tool. It also features a built-in group texting feature called Huddle (see Stacey’s review here), which is currently only available on Android handsets.

Keep your team up-to-date with Sparks

Another great feature that differentiates Google+ from Facebook is Sparks. It lets users define an interest (robotics, for example), and then trawls the web looking for articles related to that interest, making it easy for users to find relevant articles to share. This could be useful in the workplace for research or keeping abreast of industry news, for example, helping users to stay up-to-date with topics of interest to them and their team, and then easily share and discuss any particularly interesting bits of information.

Why Google+ isn’t the perfect enterprise social-networking tool — yet

While Google + is well designed and has a lot of really great features, it’s not the perfect enterprise social networking tool just yet; it’s got a way to go before companies like Yammer and Salesforce should begin to really worry. Firstly, as Mathew noted, it needs users. Google+ is still in beta, but even after it launches to the general public, even if Google is massively successful in getting new users to sign up it will be a while before Google+ can get anywhere near rivaling Facebook’s numbers.

Secondly, Google+ isn’t yet set up to work with Google Apps accounts, which precludes a large number of potential enterprise users from using it with their main work email accounts. However, it’s probably safe to assume that Google+ will be made available to users of Google Apps soon — and the prospect of integrated social features in Google Apps powered by Google+ is a tantalizing one.

Finally, although Circles is an easy to use and intuitive way for users to determine who they share specific bits of share information with, it’s not perfect: there have already been reported privacy concerns with Google+ and Circles, with updates being forwarded on (or “reshared”) beyond the original Circle it was intended for. Google is being responsive to the concerns and is now addressing that particular issue, so hopefully any lingering privacy concerns will be ironed out before the product sees a more widespread release.

Of course, as Jess noted earlier today, the success of enterprise social networking tools depends on much more than just the technology itself. But Google’s latest foray into the social space is very well designed and offers a a great range of features. Assuming the company can tackle any privacy concerns that pop up and can persuade enough users to join the service and give it the initial traction it needs, Google+ could well become entrenched in the workpla