GeekSugar

Should Posting an Inappropriate Comment Get You Fired?

GeekSugar — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:45:00 -0800

Remember the state representative from Kentucky who wanted to ban anonymous Internet commenters? I wonder what he'd think about this story: A teacher in St. Louis was fired for a comment he left on a news story that ran on a newspaper website. The author of the article, titled "What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it?" was not amused by the comment (which, to be fair, was pretty vulgar) and tracked down the commenter's IP address.

After realizing the comment came from a local school, he contacted them immediately, thinking it must have come from a student. Turns out it was posted by a teacher, and when confronted about it, he resigned. The reporter is pretty unapologetic, and judging by the 16 pages of comments on the follow-up article, people have strong opinions on the subject.

When I asked, most of you thought banning anonymous comments was a bad idea. What do you think about this case?

YouTube Comment Criticism, Set to Baby Got Back

GeekSugar — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:09:21 -0800

Yes, YouTube comments are whack. A couple of young ladies have taken it upon themselves to be the grammar police for the out-of-control comments and rapped it to a classic song. It's very pleasing to grammar geeks. This is valuable advice, people!

Do You Ever Send Mean Emails?

GeekSugar — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:00:48 -0800

When I saw the following clip on Live With Regis and Kelly, I couldn't help but LOL. Mainly because of Kelly's annoyed reaction, but also because of the "they're just like us" aspect. Even Regis and Kelly get quite the variety of emails sent to their inboxes.

I know I've discussed online rants before and how people have a tendency to do things online that they would never do in "the real world," but I'm curious to know if you've gone the distance and said something really mean in an email that you probably wouldn't have said to someone's face. Do tell below!

iPhone Tip: More Keyboard Shortcuts

GeekSugar — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:02:31 -0800

Thanks to reader T S for commenting on my latest iPhone tips post. Turns out, holding your finger down on different keys on the keyboard opens up quite a few options while you're typing. She writes:

You can also type letters with accents by holding your finger on the letter, so if you put your finger on "e" and hold you'll get the option of é, è, ë, etc.

I just spent the last hour holding down various keys to see what would happen, and found more shortcuts! To see my list, read more.

Holding down the period button when entering someone's email address gives an option of adding a ".com," ".net," ".edu," or ".org" suffix (I love this one!)
Holding down the period button gives the option of ellipses.
Holding down the "0" key gives the option for the º symbol. (I've never had to use it, but nice to have the option!)
Holding down the "-" key gives the option of an em dash (-).

I also knew that touching any image in Safari gives you the option to download it to your phone - am I missing anything else?

Geek Tip: Another iPhone Typing Shortcut

GeekSugar — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:30:48 -0800

I'm starting to think Apple might be reading my mind - every time I find something I don't like about my iPhone, I realize they've already thought of a solution. Similar to learning how to quickly scroll to the top of the screen on my iPhone, I wish I would have known about this quick shortcut months ago.

If you're typing a URL into Safari on your phone, there's a convenient ".com" button on the keyboard - great when the suffix to the site you're trying to visit is .com. Not so great when it's a .net or .org site and you have to type it out - or so I thought! Turns out, you just have to touch and hold the ".com" button for a few seconds and a pop-up window appears, displaying .edu, .net, and .org suffix options. Brilliant!

I love learning new tricks for my iPhone, so if you have any to share, please tell me in the comments below.

Do Celebs Get Preferential Twitter Treatment?

GeekSugar — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:50:30 -0700

A much publicized post on Slate asserts that Twitter is intentionally removing unflattering tweets to celebrities from search results. The author claims that he posted a tweet "teasing" the president of CNN (which he also describes as "as nasty an item as I thought I could write" without sounding like a complete jerk). Later, he tried to search for this "hostile" tweet, but it was nowhere to be found within Twitter search results. A few unofficial experiments later, he deduced that only positive comments directed at celebs were showing in search results.

The author references another article, speculating on the connection between celebrity publicists and Twitter. That article describes detailed processes that publicists go through to create a good image of their famous clients on Twitter.

To see what I think about the whole ordeal, just read more.

If you ask me, Twitter is still a bit like the wild west. Some celebs, like Ashton Kutcher have happily adopted the 140-characters-only platform as a means to communicate with fans. Others, like Miley Cyrus, have made very public departures from Twitter, citing privacy reasons.

So, the initial question remains: does Twitter suspend negative comments about celebrities from search results? We'll probably never know for sure, given Twitter's tight-lipped nature when it comes to revealing insider details. My question: does the Internet really need another dose of negativity?

Oops! Top Internet Blunders of All Time

GeekSugar — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:06:33 -0700

Last week, Time magazine posted a list of the Top 10 Internet Blunders of All Time. My favorite is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist credited with creating the Internet in 1989, says he added the annoying forward slashes to "http://" on a whim! He also admits if he could change one thing about the Internet now, he'd get rid of the slashes.

Also on the list of blunders? Apple mistakenly posting an episode of Stargate Atlantis to the iTunes store in 2007 four weeks before it was scheduled to air; AOL releasing users' search histories to the public, having to apologize by saying, "This was a screw-up," and a small code error in Sweden (just last week) that took down the entire country's .se domain.

Have you ever made a major technology or Internet blooper? Share it in the comments below.

Are You More Tech Savvy Than Your Boss?

GeekSugar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:15:23 -0700

Have you found yourself in this situation? Your boss is either a bit of a technophobe or just doesn't understand how email/her BlackBerry/the office scanner works and asks for your help every time she turns on the device? One writer at Marie Claire confesses she has to help her boss with even the most mindless tech issues - and she's not alone. After swapping war stories, the writer and her friends doubled over with laughter from tales of bosses adding "www." to the front of email addresses, trying to use the computer's calculator function by tapping the numbers as if they were on an ATM screen, and the inability to silence a cell-phone ring.

It makes sense; many of our superiors rose through the ranks working in far less technical environments. (Can you imagine working without a computer!?) But it's still a strange feeling. As the writer says, "Aside from technology issues, I'm not used to teaching my boss something she doesn't know."

Have you had to deal with a similar situation? Do you have a funny story? Share it in the comments after taking the poll.

Ask a Geek Girl: Dealing With Annoying FB Status Updates

GeekSugar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:30:31 -0700

We probably all have one or two in our update feed: a friend whose Facebook status updates - for any reason - drive you nuts. Maybe they update too frequently, are serious oversharers, or post updates about things you just don't find interesting. Reader DefyAllLogic posted this etiquette question in our Ask a Geek Girl group:

"I've already created lists of 'friends' and 'not really friends' and have my homepage set to only show the 'friends' updates. But I'm starting to think I need to only be Facebook friends with people I'm friends with in real life. Is it wrong to defriend people because their status updates are annoying?"

For my advice, read more.

Now that the friending frenzy seems to have ended, a lot of people are looking to streamline their Facebook friends list. When I asked, 82 percent of you said you've had to unfriend someone, whether it was the result of a failed relationship, a falling-out, or just because you didn't feel close enough with the person to consider them a Facebook friend. I'm a big fan of Facebook's "hide" features that allow you to block out status updates, photos, and other unwanted content from friends. This begs the question: if you don't want to receive someone's Facebook updates, what's the point of being their Facebook friend?

If you're ready to pare down your friends list, create a list of friend standards. Try, "I'm only Facebook friends with people I'd feel comfortable calling on the phone." Having a set of rules in place gives you a defense if your former Facebook friend confronts you after figuring out you've defriended them Besides, if Miss Manners says ignoring friend requests is OK, then gracefully defriending is acceptable, too!

Do you have more Facebook friend advice for DefyAllLogic? Share your thoughts with the group in the comments.

Do you have a tech question you'd like to ask us? Join the Ask a Geek Girl group where you can ask everything and anything related to technology. And you never know, it could be featured on GeekSugar! Here's a detailed guide to posting questions or posts to groups if you are new to the PopSugar Community.

OnSugar Tip: Turn on Anonymous Comments For Your Blog

GeekSugar — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:27:07 -0800

If you have an OnSugar blog, you may have been annoyed in the past that only users registered with OnSugar could leave comments, but happily, now anyone can leave them!

Just go into your site settings and you'll now see a check box for "allow anonymous comments."

Check it (since by default, it's unchecked so that you'd only be able to get comments from registered users), and you'll be ready to unleash your blog into the commenting universe.