Chic Galleria » computers

Should I Adjust My Communication Style for Electronics?

Jane Mudgett — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:10:01 +0000

I’m not always the best verbal communicator, but many people feel comfortable conversing with me. Years ago I realized that my bold Aries personality and my New York upbringing were not always viewed as a positive attribute when it came to well, interpersonal skills. So, I solicited help from communications books, and training. I attended the $100 day seminar for resolving conflict and how to communicate with your co-workers and employees and with each session I became more confused and yet a bit more adept too. I had numerous good role models and mentors, but the one that had the biggest influence was Deborah Tannen, PhD, Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University Tannen wrote the book, You Just Don’t Understand. Tannen, a linguist, author, professor, focused her second book on the subject of how men and women communicate. And since I had two older brothers and was at that time working exclusively with men (except the support staff), I thought this book would be interesting.

I scan my bookshelves and the yellowed paperback is still there – next to another one of her books, (her first, I think), That’s Not What I Meant. I open a page to something that I now understand (but when I read the book, I didn’t), the difference between men and women asking for help. I’m sure this triggers thoughts and real life examples of this up to and including, getting directions. Take a moment to think about status, knowledge and skills and connections and helping; now think about men and women and which gender connects with these adjectives. The point is not to pass judgment of right or wrong, simply observe traits that we have learned and observed, and made our own. Further, when men and women do not act according to their gender, it throws a real curve ball to us – I don’t mean in big ways, I mean in subtle ways. Ok, here’s an example, when you observe when listening, they often nod their heads and occasionally say, yes, or ok, uh huh; men, not so much. So with that one example could men misinterpret a women who is listening as a woman who is agreeing with him? Could a women be offended that a man is listening because he is not giving her acknowledgment cues? Absolutely. Enough comments to illustrate my interests and background and to let you know that I still recommend the books, although some of the examples used are outdated.

Sociologically speaking, I suspect some of her research has changed over the decades, yet so much of it is still, well, appropriate…up to a point. For example, tone of voice and body language USED to be more important than words themselves (it’s backed up by research.) BUT where does looking down at the phone while emailing come into play? OR, my friend who is listening intently to a problem I have until her phone rings and she says, she has to get it. Why was the call from the poodle parlor more important than me…and doesn’t she have voice mail on this phone. Could this really be a dog emergency?

In the new decade, I hope we all find a balance between the efficiency of mobile electronic interaction – phone, email,internet – and real personal interaction. I realize I’ve been trying to stay current because technology changes so quickly. I really like my phones and computers. Yet, I realized that my behavior was trying to keep up too – working while on vacation, talking on the phone in public places, and answering email when I was with friends. How often was I missing a current experience or existing friendship because of my Blackberry? So, I’m going back to the books to re-learn personal interaction skills. I’m reminded of the saying in the 1970′s, “Be Here Now” and think I’m going to try this more often in the new decade. I’m going to start by discovering the color of my friends eyes.

Photo Credit© Ron Chapple Studios | Dreamstime.com

Confessions of a Cafe World Addict

Carrie Castleman — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:23:56 +0000

Cafe World Baby. Yes, Cafe World. Wait! What do you mean you have no idea what Cafe World is? Everyone knows what Cafe World is right?
Right? No. Are you sure? You are!?
UGH. Another addiction of mine raises its ugly head.

Well for those of you not in the know, Cafe World is a game on Facebook (FB). Oh wait, my Super Chunk Fruit Salad is done. Let me get it off my stove and I will be right back.

Ok I am back. Now where was I? Oh yeah I was trying to convince you guys I do not have an addiction to Cafe World. Well I guess I blew that out of the water, and now I only have 13 minutes left before my next round of salads are done.

Cafe World is mindless, dumb, but yet so much fun. I was first introduced to it by my husband about 1 month ago and now I can’t stop. Since I work from home I leave my cafe up in the background while I work away and cook mouthwatering dishes like, French Onion Soup, Kung Pao Stir Fry, Voodoo Chicken Salad and even Strawberry Cheesecake. The catch is that each dish has a cost and a time to cook so you have to plan out your day around when you can get your dishes prepared and served. If you do not serve them in a timely manner after they are done, then they spoil and then you have lost all that money, time and have a nasty kitchen. You think I am kidding about planning your day right? Well I guess that is another sign of a Cafe addict. Let’s review them shall we.

You might be a Cafe Addict if:

You call/text your friends to notify them that their dishes are done and they need to serve them before they spoil or your receive calls/texts from friends notifying you of your dishes.

You wake in the middle of the night in fear that you are out of food in your cafe and your rating will plummet.

You actually get out of bed to go and check your cafe in the middle of the night.

You shamelessly beg your friends on FB to send you free dishes so you don’t run out of food.

You fear others will not like the set up/decorations of your cafe so you ask for decorating ideas.

Man–when you read all that, I really sound pitiful. Well the first sign of treating an addiction is admitting you have a problem so here we go.

I AM A CAFE WORLD ADDICT AND I DON’T WANNA STOP. HA! So there! Yeah I really told you guys huh? If you are on FB check it out and give it a whirl. It is fun, mindless and–Oh there is the dingy telling me my Super Chunk Salads are ready. Gotta go.

Carrie Castleman

Photo Credit © Andres Rodriguez | Dreamstime.com

Back Up or Lose More Than You Expect

Gabrielle & Paul Krake — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:01:00 +0000

Computer tragedy finally happened to me! My first computer was given to me by my parents in 1987, yes we had computers. We had the fancy upgraded one that had an “amber” screen and the improved graphics to play computer Tennis. But, other than those two features, there was word processing and games that consisted of word clues that followed the “C: prompt” and you had to use your imagination to “see” the game.

I have had numerous versions over the years and for my birthday two years ago, I received the latest and greatest as a gift. It was beautiful, with a 24″ screen and the whole computer was in the 2″ space behind the screen. Every time I sat down to it, I was grateful. As the weeks unrolled and the work I did began to fill the hard drive, glitches started appearing. I would call tech support and they would assure me that everything was fine. Then my external hard drive started filling too quickly and not purging correctly upon backing up. I ignored it and kept working. After all I have had a computer for over 22 years and nothing adverse had ever happened to my files. The errors continued and I had to have work done twice to fix hardware that failed. A small twinge kept telling me to take care of my back up issue. I decided that I had better get a larger external HD and made arrangements to sell my 250 GB to a friend. I wiped it clean and was going to pass it on so I could put the money from the sale toward my new one. That very evening when I went to work on the computer I got a big gray screen with a flashing question mark, sounds funny, but I assure you the lump in my throat wasn’t from laughter. I immediately called my tech, he told me the bad news, I had a FRIED hard drive. You’ll instantly think to yourself, “you had everything backed up, right?” Well, I can say yes and NO! Since I had wiped the other without burning everything to CD’s I had nothing! The same day as doing this, it crashes? THAT SAME NIGHT, what are the chances?

COMPLETELY FRIED! The computer is still under warranty so I took it right in for repair and any retrieval they might be able to do. NO BACK UP and a fried hard drive is a writer’s and business owners worst nightmare. I threw a really big internal tantrum, asking WHY? The timing is unbelievable, I mean really… how often could that possibly happen to ANYONE! Well… according to the Mac experts, NEVER! They have never seen this happen since opening 10 years ago, EVER! After my tantrum, I resigned to the inevitable and let it go. I prayed that maybe just my photos could be saved, that I could start over with everything else. As it turns out my user file was the only thing left, therefore my personal files were transferrable and safe. Thankfulness washed over me. 12 years worth of photographs were okay and the website was still intact.

I could not spend any time on the computer when I got home with it today, so until this very moment I have been wonderfully optimistic and ready to load all the programs that were wiped out. But, as I sit here the reality has slowly sunk in, my desktop is GONE. Every folder that I have kept here for easy access is gone, no big deal, right? Oh how I wish that were true! Basically everything that I use everyday was on the desktop, I’m sure someone is thinking, “oh, you should never put important things on your desktop!” Well I did! So this is what I am lamenting;

1.   My entire Shop Wise Bags folder, which is every sold invoice, every template I have created, all of my branding, logos, buttons, forms, customers, contacts, contracts and on and on…
2.    Every story my kids have written, including all Homeschool stuff.
3.   Every article I have written in the last five years.
4.   Every assignment from my 4 year writing course.
5.   All my scanned artwork, patterns, garden info, garden catalogs and lists.
6.   All the baby book templates that my mom has developed for her custom children’s keepsake books.
7.   The new Taekwondo curriculum that I wrote for our studio, all our tools, and posters that took four months to develop and write.
8.   Two How-To books that I just completed.
9.   Every button and correspondence I have collected from 7 months of blogging.
10.   Many ebooks and courses that I have bought over the years.

As depressing as this list is, it goes on! I need perspective. I am feeling very upset, but so thankful for what has been saved. I’m trying so hard to be grateful and not dwell on this tragic event. My most prevailing thought is: Why?

Aside from this question, I have finally learned the very real lesson to back everything up, even at the expense of quality CD’s, a larger more expensive hard drive and any other precautions necessary. The advice from the computer store, “get two hard drives, alternate them every other month and then at the end of each year, put one in the safe and get another one. Wow, that would seem like over-kill, but now after loosing thousands of hours worth of work, keepsakes and memories, it seems perfectly acceptable and necessary. Another tidbit to not overlook, CD’s need to be re-burned every 5 or so years, so if you have photos and files on disk, keep a log of when you need to make copies, otherwise your diligence could be lost from aged disks.

Happy Backing Up!!

It’s 3pm Do You Know What Your Teen Is Doing?

Editor — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:01:00 +0000

Understanding the Vulnerabilities of Social Networking: Teens

I do. I’m one of their friends on Facebook.

I am also a mother of a teen and owner of a safety education company, Executive Defense Technology. Last week, my teenaged daughter and I were discussing, once again, the downfalls of technology. My attempts to protect my teen from herself are failing as she secretly joins one more anime chat group. I know as a parent, it is impossible for me to monitor what she is doing on the PC 100% of the time.

As a business person, I have enjoyed my journey into MySpace and Facebook and have had the pleasure of networking with so many incredible people that I would never have been able to communicate with in the past but what about our teens? My 15 year old would like a Facebook of her own. My answer — no. Definitely, NO! This is a weekly, okay, daily argument of ours. My daughter has been drilled day in and out with a long list of important safety and privacy lessons: look both ways before crossing the street; buckle up; hide your diary where your nosy brother can’t find it; don’t talk to strangers and don’t post any information on the internet that you don’t want the whole world to see & know.

I am assured over and over that Facebook is “safe” because you only let people become your friend if you know them. Is that true? I made her a bet. I bet her that I could become popular at her school through Facebook. I bet her that in 5 days I could have at least 300 friends and would know what everyone at school was talking about.

She just doesn’t realize that in addition to being a wonderful tool as a homework aid, the internet is the world’s biggest personal information exchange. By providing information about herself and using blogs, chat rooms, email, or instant messaging, she can communicate, either within a limited community, or with the world at large. But while the sites can increase her circle of friends, they also can increase her exposure to people who have less-than-friendly intentions. We’ve both heard the stories about people who were stalked by someone they met online, had their identity stolen, or had their computer hacked. The reality these days, for her, is that she is far more likely to become a victim of a cyber crime than a physical crime. For any stalker, physical or cyber, information is dominance and power. If a stranger approached your teen on the street, demanded their phone number and asked to be their friend, would they do it? Of course not, because that’s insane and it violates the basic tenets of human interaction. so why are they giving away information so readily on the internet? I’m sorry, I can’t answer that question for you but from one parent to another, I can warn you about the ease of access to your child and their information.

My daughter now owes me a week of vacuuming and clean dishes with no complaining – I won the bet. Unfortunately, I won the bet faster than I had expected. How? I built a 16 year old sophomore. I used a Fotosearch.com stock photo, I made up a female personality and within less than 24 hours, I had over 300 friends. It was easy. Too easy!

First, I targeted boys who had a lot of friends on their “friend list “. They allowed me into their world immediately. Then as my list began to grow, I targeted girls with a long list of friends. After that, I targeted some of my daughter’s friends. It was easy at that point. I was now friends of friends – we had so much in common. I was approved by all of her friends. My list continued to grow. After that, people began to invite me to be their friend. Not one of them knew me for who I was or even knew the 16 year old at their high school. The thing that shocked me the most? Only 3 kids, 2 boys and one girl, asked me who I was. I told them I was transferring to town with my dad’s job and was trying to meet new friends. That was the end of that. I instant messaged with several people and had a wonderful time – for a few moments I was reliving those high school days.

Not much has really changed since my time in high school. Still the same worries, still the same concerns. Except now they are easily accessible – by EVERYONE. No more fighting over the call waiting at home. It’s all about instant messaging, texting, cell phone numbers. By being a friend of theirs online, I have access to all of that information. Easy as anything, I can now find your child. I know their school and sports schedules. I know who is dating whom. I know who broke up with whom and I know all of their personal contact information. I don’t have to look up mom and dad’s information to find them. I know that when they are bored in school they are secretly sitting in the back of the classroom, ignoring the teachers and communicating on Facebook. I have their homecoming pictures and videos with friends goofing off. I can share this with any and everyone. I am not a stalker. I am just a mother trying to make a point to my child but it truly shocked me how very easy it was to access so many of your teens in such a short period of time. If I can do this when I don’t know much about computers, their lingo or short cuts, imagine what a perpetrator with a little knowledge could do. Imagine what someone who wants to do your child, you or your residence harm can do. How easy it would be to access all you are trying to protect.

Our house rule: If you can’t pick up the phone and talk in person, you have no business communicating with that person via computer either. As I mentioned earlier, I can’t watch her 100% of the time and statistics show that teens have at least 3 email accounts that their parents don’t know about. On the anime sites, my daughter has a variety of code names she uses. I try to keep up with all of it but it’s a full time job (thank goodness her little brother is a snitch). We keep the computer in the kitchen so I can peek over her shoulder at any given time and she knows it (she’s gotten good at switching screens quickly). As parents we can just hope we have done our job sufficiently as educators. I would love to see more programs in schools on the subject – showing kids what an easy target they truly are (without them rolling their eyes as if to say – “It won’t happen to me”. Denial is a dangerous thing) Right now my one saving grace? She is afraid of whom she is now sharing information with. No, she isn’t really thinking it might be a stalker or anyone out to do her harm – I am realistic. She is more afraid that it might be ME on the other end of the conversation. Whatever keeps her safe!

Your Safety’s at Stake
The FTC suggests these tips for socializing safely online:

* Think about how different sites work before deciding to join a site. Some sites will allow only a defined community of users to access posted content; others allow anyone and everyone to view postings.

* Think about keeping some control over the information you post. Consider restricting access to your page to a select group of people, for example, your friends from school, your club, your team, your community groups, or your family.

* Keep your information to yourself. Don’t post your full name, Social Security number, address, pho
ne number, or bank and credit card account numbers and don’t post other peoples information, either.

Be cautious about posting information that could be used to identify you or locate you offline. This could include the name of your school, sports team, clubs, and where you work or hang out.

* Make sure your screen name doesn’t say too much about you. Don’t use your name, your age, or your hometown. Even if you think your screen name makes you anonymous, it doesn’t take a genius to combine clues to figure out who you are and where you can be found.

* Post only information that you are comfortable with others seeing and knowing about you. Many people can see your page, including your parents, your teachers, the police, the college you might want to apply to next year, or the job you might want to apply for in five years.

* Remember that once you post information online, you can’t take it back. Even if you delete the information from a site, older versions exist on other peoples computers.

* Consider not posting your photo. It can be altered and broadcast in ways you may not be happy about. If you do post one, ask yourself whether its one your mom would display in the living room.

* Flirting with strangers online could have serious consequences. Because some people lie about who they really are, you never really know who your dealing with.

* Be wary if a new online friend wants to meet you in person. Before you decide to meet someone, do your research: Ask whether any of your friends know the person, and see what background you can dig up through online search engines. If you decide to meet them, be smart about it: Meet in a public place, during the day, with friends you trust. Tell an adult or a responsible sibling where your going, and when you expect to be back.

* Trust your gut if you have suspicions. If you feel threatened by someone or uncomfortable because of something online, tell an adult you trust and report it to the police and the social networking site. You could end up preventing someone else from becoming a victim.

For More Information
To learn more about staying safe online, visit the following organizations:

Federal Trade Commission
The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint or to get free information on consumer issues, visit ftc.gov or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

Author: Kimberly Cheryl is a master public speaker, successful salesperson, business owner and author. She is the founder of Executive Defense Technology, an anti-victimization education firm. She actively speaks out for better healthcare in the U.S. and advocates for education on rape/molestation prevention. She is also a Nationally Certified Rape/Aggression/Defense Trainer (RAD) who provides the basics of hands-on defense training to clients ranging from elderly church group members and housewives to employees of law firms and Fortune 500 Corporations. She can be reached through her web site: www.execdeftech.com.