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Tech Etiquette: Cell Phone Dos and Don'ts


The cell phone has been draining the world's sperm supply for more than 35 years already. And yet, as ubiquitous as mobiles are today, so too are the dolts who still haven't grasped how to use one responsibly. For anyone who's ever gabbed at dinner, texted on the toilet, ruined a movie, or grossed out an elevator (just to name a few mobile no-nos), Switched presents the following guide of cell phone Dos and Don'ts. By all means, do us (and yourself) a favor and forward it on to your fondest offenders.

Advice, Editor's Picks, Web, Social Networking

10 Tips for Dealing With Family on Facebook

It's probably the scariest friend request you'll ever get: Your mom (or dad... or, God forbid, grandparent) has joined Facebook – and they want to connect. Sure, you love them – and you're happy they're embracing the digital age – but do you really want to keep them that informed about what you're up to?

Denying the request is usually out of the question, so how do you avoid those awkward moments, when your family invades your public privacy? Switched.com did some research and talked to a few people about their own experiences with parental units, and how they dealt with them. We're keeping to just their first names, to protect them -- you know, just in case their parents are reading this article. Without further ado, here are some tips on dealing with family on Facebook.

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Web

New Zealand Woman Fired for Using Bolded ALL CAPS in E-Mail

A New Zealand office worker recently learned a tough lesson: When sending an e-mail, be careful with fonts and colors. Someone could interpret that bold sentence the wrong way.

According to The New Zealand Herald, Vicki Walker was fired from her position as financial controller at ProCare Health for sending "confrontational" e-mails that included words in red, bold, and worst of all, capital letters. This happened in December 2007, after Walker had already worked her white-collar job for nearly two years. ProCare says that Walker's e-mails had sown seeds of discord in the office, because they included things like specified times and dates in red. Oh, my! And how dare Walker highlight and bold this statement in blue: "To ensure your staff claim is processed and paid, please do follow the below checklist." What an outrage!

However, Walker may have the last laugh, here. After being fired, she did what any sane person would do and took her former employer to court. Not only did Walker receive the equivalent of $12,000 for unfair dismissal, but she also plans on pressing further charges. Get it while you can, lady. At least she has a legitimate complaint, unlike this fool who badmouthed his job on Facebook. After all, office workers' rights to bold, highlight and capitalize should be protected at any cost. How else do you get a point across in this day and age? Speak it, or something? [From: The New Zealand Herald]

Celebrities, Web

Brad Pitt Wears Bluetooth, Still Manages to Look Cool

Besides siring a ridiculous amount of children, Brad Pitt and Jon Gosselin now have something else in common: Bluetooth headsets. However, unlike Gosselin, who can pretty much never look cool, Pitt dons his on the cover of Wired Magazine's August issue, promoting his gory war-flick 'Inglourious Basterds.'

Inside the magazine, People.com reports that Pitt gives advice on tech-etiquette and work conduct, in his hard, 'Fight Club'-era, devil-may-care attitude under an advice column labeled 'Ask a Basterd.' The tips he gives, along with the hilarious photo shoot featuring him wailing on 'Guitar Hero,' range from advice on bathroom cell-talking ("Do you want the guy next to you to hear your entire conversation?") to answering calls in theaters ("Never...What if someone sitting near you is trying to make a decent bootleg? Did you ever think of that?").

Which proves, once again, that Brad Pitt is still on target, and his new movie is probably worth seeing... even if he does broadcast himself wearing a Bluetooth. [From: Wired.com, via People.com]

Web

AirTran Offers Mile-High Netiquette Advice


You may soon find a new booklet in the pocket of your coach airline seat explaining proper airplane netiquette. On all AirTran Airways flights, alongside your SkyMall catalog and that pamphlet that illustrates how to survive the least traumatic plane crash possible, you'll now find useful tidbits like: "14B is not your office. It's an airline seat. Treat it as such," and "The lavatory is not your personal conference room." (Those are for real, by the way.)

AirTran is the first airline to offer Internet access on all of its flights, but Virgin America, Delta, American, and United are expected to be close behind. In the era of mile-high Internet, it's increasingly important to teach people the basic do's and don't's of using the Web in confined spaces.

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Web

Has E-mail Made the Thank You Note Obsolete?

In the age of texting, Twittering, e-mailing, and Simul-Tubing, the art of the hand-written message has suffered. Jen Burke Anderson of the San Francisco Chronicle finds herself wondering, is sending handwritten thank you notes passe in the digital age?

It's been common practice for a long, long time to send handwritten thank you notes to your wedding guests, to friends who let you crash on their couches, and to potential employers after job interviews. But in a time when most communication is done via electronic means, can you skate by with a quick e-mail? Lisa Mirza Grotts, founder of the etiquette consultancy AML Group, told Anderson that while an e-mail or even a quick phone call could suffice, a handwritten thank-you still reigns supreme. Thanks to our increasingly digital, and impersonal, communications, handwritten notes are potentially more important than ever, she says.

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Cell Phones

Study on Cell Phone Etiquette Reveals Rampant Hypocrisy

Rude cell phone behavior is a familiar nuisance to everyone. We've all been annoyed at some point by a person talking loudly in public, or swerving across the highway as they hammer out a text message. Polling firm Harris Interactive recently conducted an Intel-commissioned tech-etiquette survey of 2,160 U.S. adults. The resulting statistics are interesting, predictable, and frustrating.

As revealed by the poll, detailed over at BetaNews, the most significant concern over public mobile habits involved texting while driving; 72-percent of those surveyed ranked it as their "biggest annoyance." 63-percent of the respondents admitted to being perturbed by loud public conversations, and 55-percent said they couldn't stand overhearing discussions of a personal nature. The study also asked people where they most often witnessed these breaches of etiquette -- restaurants, movies, and bathrooms were the most common responses.

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Cell Phones, BlackBerry, iPhone

Texting and Other Gadget Use Is Bad Form at Dinner (Duh!)

Texting and Other Gadget Use is Bad Form at DinnerEver check a text message or take a phone call at the dinner table? Maybe sneak a glance at that e-mail which just set your BlackBerry abuzz? Shame on you, says Dr. Cindy Post Senning in a recent New York Times article. Author of the new "Emily Post's Table Manners for Kids," Dr. Post Senning admonishes any sort of gadget use at the dinner table.

She reminds us: "The family meal is a social event, a food ingestion event." In other words, you're there to discuss the day, plan family happenings, and in general form some sort of bond that might just make you a happier family overall. That can all be ruined when one or more people are looking downward at cellies they think they're being sly with. The effects are sometimes even seen by marriage counselors, according to the article, as disputes over appropriate levels of tech-connectedness drive some couples apart.

There are, of course, some families who actively use their phones during dinner in order to look up answers to questions that kids might ask, or to settle familial debates. In general, though, a strict policy seems to be the safest: no gadgets at dinner. [From: The New York Times]

Web, Social Networking

EMT Posts Murder Victim Photo on Facebook, Gets Fired


On the list of stupid things to post to Facebook, photos from a murder scene have to be right up there at the top. Apparently, this never occurred to Mark Musarella, a now-former emergency medical technician (EMT) at Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island, New York.

While on EMT duty on March 30, the 46-year-old retired police officer was called to a murder in the West Brighton area of New York's forgotten borough. According to Fire Chief, while he was on the scene, he snapped a few pics of the 26-year-old victim, Caroline Wimmer, lying dead on the floor of her apartment with the cord of a hairdryer wrapped around her throat. For some inexplicable reason, Musarella turned right around and posted the images on his Facebook page -- as expected, he was swiftly fired by the hospital and the NYPD was notified.

What's worse, one source told the Staten Island Advance that Musarella may not have even learned his lesson: Although the murder scene picture has been taken down, someone with access to his profile told the newspaper that Musarella's Facebook page still had a photo from a car crash he may have responded to.

If you have to be told that posting photos of a murder scene is inappropriate, then something is clearly wrong. [From: SI Live, via: Fire Chief]

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Cell Phones

How to Prevent 'Drunk Dialing'

Some of the world's greatest and most respected writers celebrated the inspiration they received from the bottle. But let's face it, alcohol doesn't turn us all into Hunter S. Thompsons or Ernest Hemingways, despite what we may think at the time.

In today's world of instant communication and stored messages, a little too much liquid courage sometimes results in massive failure. Thankfully, although technology has given us drunk dialing, drunk texting, and drunk e-mailing, it has also given us methods of preventing potential disasters.

GeekSugar recently investigated some of the best methods for curbing your muddled, drunken musings. For your iPhone, there is Designated Dialer and iDrunk Dialer. Gmail gives you Mail Goggles and the Undo Send feature. There's even a cell phone from LG with a breathalyzer built-in, and urinal-mounted games from Piss Screen to test how impaired you are.

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Editor's Picks, Interviews, Switched Video

Is It Rude to Talk on Your Cell Phone in a Public Restroom?


We hit the streets of Miami Beach recently with our cameras to find the answer to a question we've been debating furiously around here at Switched headquarters -- is it rude to talk on your cellphone in a public restroom?

What about talking on your phone while waiting in line?

What do you think?

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Cell Phones

Man Texts Suicide Note to Wife Before Leaping Off Cliff

Man Texts Suicide Note To Wife
Human decency would demand that you not use text messaging for sensitive exchanges like breaking up with someone or terminating an employee. It should go without saying that suicide notes fall squarely in the realm of things too important to share via SMS.

Sadly, a British man didn't seem to care too much about texting etiquette when he used his handset to send a suicide note to his wife, according to today's report from Mirror.co.uk. Yesterday, a 46-year-old Lancashire man sent a photo of the cliffs above Gogarth Bay, along with a message declaring his intent to jump off of them, to his wife, who notified the authorities. Rescuers rushed to the scene in a helicopter in order to stop the man, but, tragically, were too late. They could only watch him leap to his death, landing on the rocks 500 feet below.

We know that, sometimes, a person can be hurting too much to bear speaking with anybody. But, we implore anybody who is thinking about suicide to reach for their phone and, instead of texting a loved one farewell, give these folks a call. [From: Mirror.co.uk]

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Advice, Editor's Picks

16 Biggest Tech No-Nos


Whether it's the colleague who CC's you on irrelevant e-mails or the stranger who makes loud, public phone calls, many people are downright rude in their gadget use and online behavior. You may not agree with all of them, but we've compiled 16 common tech no-nos, along with ways to avoid them in the future. Read on, because a little more respect and politeness never hurt anyone, right?

Cell Phones

Be Careful What You Tweet About Your Job

Be Careful What You Tweet About Your Job
Netizens, when will you learn to be more careful about what you post online? We've published enough stories about Facebook and other social networking sites costing people jobs and relationships -- why would you be so careless with Twitter?

A Twitter user known as 'theconnor' -- who's clearly about as sharp as a bowling ball -- posted a message that read, "Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work." That's fine to think to yourself, acceptable as a journal entry, and might even be okay if your Twitter account were private, but when 'theconnor' posted this missive publicly, it caught the attention of Cisco employee Tim Levad, who quickly responded,
"@theconnor Who is the hiring manager. I'm sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web."
Oops.

'Theconnor' quickly made his account private and deleted the tweet, but if he's already been identified, it might be a little late to save his "fatty paycheck." Remember, if you post it online, someone will likely see it. If it's not something you'd shout from a mountain top, then it's probably not something you should share with the Web. [From: I'm Not Actually a Geek]

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Computers

New Frontiers in Etiquette: High School Photos, Tagging and Facebook



In the past, we've discussed the evolution of tech etiquette, being sure to address the frontier of Facebook politesse. After reading a recent op-ed piece on Slate.com, though, we've had one particularly prickly Facebook phenomenon on our minds: tagging pictures.

Facebook user and Slate contributor Brian Braiker asserts that he is not what he calls a "digital native," one of those who have grown up in the Internet-age and whose ideas of privacy and identity demonstrate that fact. That explains why, after an old friend tagged him in a scanned image of an embarrassing high school photo, Braiker described the situation, thusly: "I felt violated."

Braiker goes on to characterize his reaction to this increasingly common occurrence as typical among folks of his generation, those who readily adopt sites like Facebook but have difficulties in reckoning with their social implications.

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Latest Reviews from CNET.com

CNET provides the latest tech news, unbiased reviews, videos, podcasts, software, and downloads, making tech products easy to find, understand and use.

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