GeekSugar

Do You Still Receive Chain Email Forwards?

GeekSugar — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:07:32 -0700

There was a time in my life where I really wanted to help that terminally ill child whose family was reaching out to me vial email forward, or grew seriously concerned about the risks of my deodorant giving me cancer. I call that time 1999, when chain email forwards were coming at me in all directions, namely from my friends, who also sent me email questionnaires about different aspects of their life, which were interesting the first 50 times I received them.

Now, my friends have realized how annoying and scam-worthy these forwards all were (though the questionnaire people moved on to MySpace bulletins). But that doesn't put me in the clear; it seems as some of my (let's say, older) relatives have finally "figured out" email, a certain email forwarding abuse has come with this newfound skill. So, I sort through them, scanning for anything new under the forward sun. Occasionally, if it's someone who won't be offended, I'll reply with the Snopes article disproving the forward they just sent. Hey, they have to learn too.

So tell me - are you still getting email forwards?

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How to Get People to Stop Sending You Forwards

GeekSugar — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:00:15 -0700

Remember when sending email forwards was totally in vogue and not at all annoying? It was about, oh, 1999 or so, and you and your friends would send each other chain letter forwards, quizzes about yourself that you filled out, inspirational poems about girlfriends and sisters, warnings to each other about deodorant causing cancer, and how to save a kid dying of a life-threatening disease you've never heard of.

Maybe it was the advent of social networking sites, but somehow, people stopped sending forwards. And I stopped getting annoyed every time I checked my inbox.

However, some people haven't really gotten that memo - and I'm sorry, but Mom, I totally have to call you out - and if you're afraid to tell them straightforwardly, the website StopForwarding.us will send an anonymous message on your behalf with a gentle but firmly-worded cease-and-desist email. Really, you're doing all of their email contacts a favor.

And as for you, Mom - well, you can keep on doing it. I like seeing your name in my inbox, even if it does mean getting a forward.

Daily Tech: The New iTunes 9 Is Available For Download Today

GeekSugar — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:25:29 -0700

iTunes 9 includes a new interface, application management tools, and media sharing - Engadget
A Facebook app for Android handsets surfaces - Gizmodo
With Google Voice you can now forward emails and reply to SMS - Lifehacker
The cutest video about Google Street View you'll ever watch - Boing Boing
Here's how you can use Facebook Chat without having to open FB - Digital Inspiration
Keep track of your fave sports teams schedules and add birthday reminders for your contacts in Google Calendar - TechCrunch

A Whole New World: My Fave Things About the iPhone 3.0 OS

GeekSugar — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:56:05 -0700

Since downloading the iPhone's new 3.0 OS, I've had a chance to try out pretty much everything and decide what I love and what I like (so far, nothing to hate).

I will say this: the copious changes are like having a whole new iPhone - I definitely felt like I had a new device, the experience is so different. What do I like the most? To see my favorites, just read more.

Spotlight: I have to say, Spotlight is definitely my favorite thing to have on the iPhone, as simple as it is. It's probably because I keep swiping my main screen to the right and accidentally going into the search, so that does take some getting used to. I'm still impressed, though, that Spotlight searches everything: apps, contacts, songs, and video. I like it best for apps since I've downloaded so many and they're not organized in any fashion at all.
Email Search: Sense a trend? I'm a simple girl. Having gotten used to Google and Gmail, I simply need to be able to search efficiently and get extremely frustrated when I can't. But the new search changes all that - before, if you wanted to use Gmail's great search function, you had to sign in to your account from Safari, which was such a hassle, I just wouldn't use search unless it was an emergency. Now that the mail app has search, I can finally hunt for stuff in my mail without going anywhere. But beware: this is not Gmail search. You can't search your chat records like you can in Gmail, but you do have access to your entire inbox. And it's pretty freakin' fast.
Find My iPhone: The one feature I hope I never have to use! Since I have MobileMe, I get to use Find My iPhone and tested out pushing a message on my phone. Take that, would-be thieves!
MMS: Not having the multimedia messaging functionality was the one thing that drove me nuts. It wasn't even that I loved being able to receive MMS, but getting a message saying I had one and could check it only online with some crazy username and password just meant that I never ever saw those videos or photos. I'm still looking forward to it though - soon, please, AT&T?
Copy/Paste: Sure, I'm psyched to get copy/paste, but it's not an everyday feature that I need like search. But still, knowing I can cut, copy, and paste is certainly comforting.

Of course, there are a ton more new features - an improved camera, Voice Memos, a landscape keyboard, but the above features have already made a big difference for me. What's your favorite thing about OS 3.0?

Do You Let Your Significant Other Read Your Texts and Emails?

GeekSugar — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:32:21 -0700

Cute couple alert! Joshua Jackson and Diane Kruger were caught at Cannes both peeping her BlackBerry with rapt interest. These two are used to sharing gadgets when they're dressed to the nines - last year it was with a Flip camera - and seeing them read a text or an email together reminds me not only of how much I like them together, but how often I share my texts and emails with my boyfriend.

I have to say, I'm all for a relationship with no secrets, and we are a close, but we don't really read each other's texts and emails. (Maybe our messages are just not that interesting!) I may forward the occasional thing that comes in, but in general, I keep my eyes on my own screen, and think it's rude (tempting as it is) to peek at his texts when he's reading them.

I know many couples read each other's texts often though, sometimes for them - do you?

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Gmail Makes Switching Easy With New Mail and Contact Import

GeekSugar — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:40:12 -0700

There are many reasons why Gmail is the best free email service on the Internet, but I'll save my diatribe about that for another day. If you were already thinking of switching to Google's email, they've just rolled out a new feature that automatically imports all your mail and contacts from your old email account - be it Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, and more, into your spankin' new Gmail account, no complicated extra steps necessary.

They're even letting you forward your old mail into your new Gmail account for 30 days, so you can test out Gmail and start replying to those emails with your new address.

I have a couple of friends who I've been trying to convert to Gmail for years, and this news renders their excuses totally invalid.

Geeks We Love: Doug Aamoth of CrunchGear

GeekSugar — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:06:23 -0800

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, we're kicking off our third annual Geeks We Love interview series to showcase some of the most talented and loved tech writers in the industry. And who better to get things under way, than the charming Doug Aamoth, who spends most of his days reviewing high-tech gadget goods for CrunchGear? I had the pleasure of meeting Doug at the HTC Touch Diamond Event in London last year, and found him to be very much the way he comes across in his work - passionate and knowledgeable about technology, and a really great guy with an addictive sense of humor. By the end of this interview, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about - enjoy!

GS: Considering you're the king of product reviews, what types of gadgets are you most excited to take for a test drive?

DA: I'll review just about anything, but I really like to take a look at stuff that has some sort of technological slant to it instead of being a full-fledged technology product. Basically, if I think it's something that would be interesting to other geeks, I'll review it. We get some pretty good response from stuff like the Penguin Home Soda Machine and a little four dollar keychain breathalyzer that also has a built-in stopwatch and flashlight. Of course, right? Every breathalyzer should have a stopwatch just in case you want to have an emergency footrace outside the bar before you figure out if you're okay to drive home.

As far as "real" technology products go, I'm really enjoying this netbook craze right now. I think it'll get much better, too, once Intel sees some more competition from AMD, NVIDIA, and VIA. Other than that, I also really like reviewing things that make people's lives easier. The simpler the better. Oh, and energy drinks. I love taste-testing energy drinks.

To learn more about Doug, including his "ah-ha" moment and his thoughts on technology and dating, read more

GS: What's the most outrageous and hilarious gadget that's arrived on your doorstep?

DA: I think that one of the best reviews I've done was for a product that never showed up. I spent a few days waiting for the new Flip Mino to arrive, at first thinking it would be here on a Tuesday morning, then being told Wednesday instead, then getting a press release envelope but no camera on Thursday, and finally having it show up Friday morning after all our competitors had gotten theirs on Wednesday. It wasn't really that big of a deal but I thought it'd be funny to chronicle the event as though it were an episode of The Office.

Aside from that, the most outrageous review would definitely be for a product called FyreTV, which is a set-top box that streams, um, "non-traditional" video. It's weird because it's basically a review just like any other. We rarely look at the media content for set-top boxes, but more at the actual hardware and how well it handles streaming. So for the FyreTV review it was like, "Here's the box, here are the connections, here's the remote, it streams stuff really quickly, and the video quality is pretty good. Oh, whoops, sorry I had to blur everything out and block the camera with my hand at certain points but you get the idea."

GS: Describe one of the most memorable moments of your career thus far. . .

DA: I had an "a-ha" moment about six months into my career when I was at this Acer conference in Spain. It was my first real work trip and I postponed my own bachelor party to go to it. I remember getting into this big conference hall with a bunch of other reporters, and sitting down at this long table with my laptop and my voice recorder waiting for the presentation to begin. I looked around and thought to myself, "This is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I love this stuff." I've had over 30 jobs in my lifetime (I get kind of restless) but I finally felt pretty calm for the first time.

In retrospect, I wouldn't have moved my bachelor party for a work trip but at the time I didn't know how often an opportunity like that Acer conference would come around. Turns out, it was a lot. It was still a great experience, though. Singing White Wedding at CES this year was pretty cool, too.

Also, any time I meet someone that I used to read before I started blogging is always really cool. Every person I meet always looks at me weird when I tell them I'm a big fan of theirs or that they're like a hero to me. I used to read tech blogs and magazines and think "Man, that would be the best job." Now that I'm actually doing it, I still haven't forgotten that feeling. I consider myself to be really fortunate.

GS: How geeky is your significant other? Who makes the final decision when it comes to gadgets for the home?

DA: My wife is probably about a three out of ten on the geekiness scale. She's not into tech stuff whatsoever, but she'll think some of the things I tell her about and some of the products I show her are cool. So she's definitely not against technology and she's pretty savvy with the stuff she uses on a daily basis. She does NOT like all the boxes we have around the house, but I can't blame her for that. It gets pretty out of hand sometimes.

I handle all the IT administration and technical support in the Aamoth household. Interestingly enough, I've been terrible about picking a good cell phone for my wife. I got her the LG Chocolate a few years ago and she didn't like it. Then I recommended the Samsung Glyde and between the non-responsive touchscreen and the poor reception, it's really been a terrible device as far as our relationship goes. One of these days, though, I'm going to pick out a good phone for her. It's just tough being in the doghouse for two whole years while we wait for her contract to come up for renewal!

GS: In the new movie He's Just Not That Into You, Drew Barrymore's character has the following to say about technology and dating:

"I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, and so I called him at home, and he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting."

What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you think technology makes dating more complicated?

DA: Sure, I can see technology complicating things for people who don't embrace it. As someone who's into all this stuff, though, the thought of having seven different technologies that don't synchronize with one another is mortifying to me. I have a single Grand Central phone number that forwards to any other phones I might currently be using and my various e-mail addresses all funnel into a single Gmail account.

It's funny, though, because people will be like, "Give me your cell phone number, I can never get a hold of you at your work number," and I'll try to explain that my work, home, and cell phone numbers all forward to the same place. So they'll leave a voicemail on what they think is my home number saying that they'll try me on my cell, which leads to them leaving the same message in the same voicemail system two minutes later. Same thing with email: the same message three times to three different email accounts.

I think just starting to date someone would be really weird nowadays with Facebook and Twitter and everything. Do you friend this person right away or what? Is there a rule as to how many dates you go on before you can friend someone? And it'd be super weird if you were dating someone for a little bit and then they told you they were getting too busy with work or whatever, and then all of a sudden you see their status change on their profile and you see photos of them with someone else and all that. My buddy told me he watched his little brother's relationship with his girlfriend fall apart over Facebook, which seems totally surreal to me. That's what happens now, though, I guess. Everyone has access to everyone else's private lives with all the social networking stuff.

I'm really apprehensive to admit this but a former girlfriend and I actually broke up over AIM once. And we'd been seeing each other for a long time - like a couple years. We'd been living together in Seattle and I'd moved home to Minneapolis and I think we were both kind of ready to move on, so the mutuality of it made everything easier. I don't think most breakups would work that well over AIM but if you're both pretty much on the same page and it's going to be a relatively clean breakup because you both want the same thing, then it actually kinda works. Weird, huh?

GS: Now for the lightning round!
Mac or PC? DA: PC
iPhone or BlackBerry? DA: I love my T-Mobile G1 but I'd take a BlackBerry. I need a real, physical keyboard.
MySpace or Facebook? DA: Facebook (as the lesser of two evils).
iPod or Zune? DA: I really like my iPod Touch.
The Hills or Gossip Girl? DA: I've never seen Gossip Girl, but The Hills is absolutely, positively, 100 percent the bane of my existence. My wife has to watch it in our bedroom with the door closed or when I'm not around because the way the brats on that show talk is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me. So Gossip Girl.
Steve Jobs or Bill Gates? DA: Bill Gates. His acting in the Seinfeld Microsoft commercials was mesmerizing.
Picasa or Flickr? DA: Picasa. Great example of a desktop app working harmoniously "in the cloud."
Texting or Emailing? DA: Email. I like the cost better.
WiFi or Wired? DA: I'll borrow from a golf saying here and say WiFi for show, Wired for dough.
Pac Man or Space Invaders? DA: Pac Man, preferably Ms. Pac Man.
Star Wars or Star Trek? DA: Star Wars
Laptop or Desktop? DA: Ouch. That's like Sophie's Choice. I have both and could never part with either of them.
The Bachelor or the Bachelorette? DA: ABC should cut out the fluff and have them marry each other. I mean, they're both looking for the same thing, right? Set them up together and spare us all from having to sit through it.
Coffee or Tea? DA: Monster Low Carb energy drink. Coffee will do in a pinch, though.

Geek Tip: Send Anonymous Messages Thanks to NiceCritic

GeekSugar — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:00:40 -0800

We've all been there. You desperately want to tell someone something (like their cubicle has a horrible stench coming from it) but you don't want to hurt their feelings. Sure you could slip a note under their cubicle, or pay off someone to do the deed for you, but why go to all that trouble when you can use a website called NiceCritic.

When I saw this site on Lifehacker, it reminded of StopForwarding.us, the website that will send an anonymous message on your behalf to tell a certain someone to stop sending you forward emails. Except with NiceCritic, you can choose from a variety of categories, including "Neighborly Suggestion" and "Personal Hygiene," then go ahead and add the recipient's name and email and it'll go directly to their inbox.

Gmail Tip: Never Forget Anyone in a Group Email

GeekSugar — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:01:11 -0800

It can be embarrassing to forget someone in a big group email - when you remember, do you forward the whole string, or resend it to everyone? To avoid alienating anyone, Gmail can help.

From home, open up Contacts. Start checking off people you'd like to add to a group (which you can edit to add more or delete later), and then click on the Groups drop-down to the right. Click Add to New Group, and a field will open asking what you'd like to name the group. Maybe you'd like a group for your book club, or everyone you usually invite to events. After entering the name, you've just created a Gmail group.

When you go to compose your next invite, just start typing the name of the group, and everyone in the group will get your email.

Geek Tip: Don't Send Money to Nigeria

GeekSugar — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:02:14 -0800

Do you really have to read gadget blogs every day like I do to recognize that sending money to someone in Nigeria via sites like Craigslist is a terrible idea?

Because you could knock me over with a feather every time I hear another story about someone falling for a Nigerian scam, and this new one, about a women who lost $400,000 to a Nigerian racket, is a real doozie. I mean, she was promised over $20 million dollars if she just helped this stranger in Africa . . . what could go wrong?

Seriously people, you don't have to be up on the latest technology in computers, cell phones, or televisions, but listen to me here: Never send money to a stranger in another country. Never send money to a stranger who contacts you via email, period. If someone is responding to a Craigslist ad you've posted, only deal locally and in person.

You're probably savvy enough as you're reading this blog, so do your less-aware family members a favor and forward this along.

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