While usually well-intentioned, geeks are often awkward in social situations. (No, Facebook doesn't count.) We're talking about face-to-face conversation. Short of a permanent power outage, it might be the geek's worst nightmare.

We understand nerves can get the best of a person sometimes. Nonetheless, there are times when direct communication is simply unavoidable. For example, a job interview. Now, if you're not a master orator (no, speaking through a wireless headset while playing 'Halo 3' doesn't count, either), the prospect of sitting across a desk from a potential employer sends shivers up your spine. Don't fret! Just commit this list of 11 ways geeks ruin job interviews to memory.

Nolan Bushnell has always been a man slightly ahead of his time. After co-founding Atari in 1972 -- and some might say the video game industry as a whole -- he was forced from the company just before it became a multi-billion dollar business. He followed that up by launching the Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant chain, but again left the company in the mid-'80s over a disagreement with management. (There are more than 500 locations now.) Bushnell's latest venture takes him into uncharted territory on a smaller scale but is nonetheless bold: He's going to the future.

What is a gadget you can't live without?

My iPhone, for sure.

What are your favorite iPhone apps?

My favorite application right now is Monopoly. I play that every day. It's like a bathroom game... sorry, TMI! I'm heavy into it; it's one of those games I got addicted to. Actually, I love all of the applications I have on my phone. I'm kind of a gadget-whore, but that's my favorite device.

Amanda Palmer -- half of the virulently successful Dresden Dolls, equal parts blogger, YouTube-fanatic, and Twitter-community-organizer, and altogether musician extraordinaire -- allowed Switched to pick her brain on technology, music, and Tweeting on Friday nights.

Palmer, who is most famous for playing the piano (punk-cabaret style), has a rabid Twitter fan base, pens an exhaustive blog, and uses her Internet savvy to auction her sixth-grade breakup letters online. Aside from using interconnectivity to the fullest, she recently returned to her old high school, Lexington High in Boston, to collaborate with a former teacher and direct a student-filled play. The performance was based on Neutral Milk Hotel's baroque indie-rock album 'In the Aeroplane Over the Sea' -- an album she feels so strongly about, she jokingly asked a student unfamiliar with the record, "You must have it on that vast iPod of yours."

She doesn't like iPods, but she does read a lot. In fact, she just completed a work of her own, a photo diary entitled 'Who Killed Amanda Palmer,' in conjunction with comic book author Neil Gaiman and photographer Kyle Cassidy & Co. We've transcribed some of the interview's highlights, but are also hosting the 45-minute interview in its entirety. Palmer addresses her love for Avril Lavigne, the curse of the working musician, and why she can't listen to music anymore.

This Twitter phenomenon is getting out of control. Yesterday afternoon, Senator John McCain conducted an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News via our favorite microblogging service. The results were less than impressive, with McCain's glib answers never actually advancing any sort of constructive dialog, altogether unsurprising for those who follow the Senator on Twitter.



The interview was little more than a publicity stunt, and clearly so. While we applaud the effort, and Stephanopoulos's crowd sourcing of questions via Twitter, the discussion was a little one dimensional. This is certainly not the first interview we've seen held via Twitter, but this it is certainly the least informative and interesting.

Still, if you're feeling compelled, you can read the entire interview in reverse chronological order here at All Things Digital. [From: All Things Digital]

We know Robert Englund mostly as the scary guy that traumatized us throughout early childhood in the legendary Freddy Krueger movies. Dude usually gets typecast in creepy horror flicks (keep an eye out for 'Zombie Strippers', coming soon to your mall cineplex!) but he's about to expand his repertoire in 'Red,' a serious small-town drama about a misanthropic war vet whose dog is killed by local delinquents. [Spoiler: Englund does NOT play the war vet, or the delinquents]. Directed by Trygve Allister Diessen and Lucky McKee, 'Red' opens August 8th at artsy theaters in New York and DC.

Switched caught up with Freddy Robert between zombies and dogs and strippers to ask him how he feels about iPods and gadgets and stuff. And like our favorite 80's horror films, he's endearingly old-school and lo-fi. Read more below!


What gadgets do you always bring with you to the set for down-time?

A highlighter pen and Bayer aspirin


What cell phone do you have right now and what do you love/hate about it?

A black colored LG that my wife got me. I am too old and too blind to do more than make calls. I can't read the screen with the sun behind me.


Who's the last person you sent a text message to and what was it about?

I emailed my producer in Italy about the movie I will be directing there this fall.


Where do you go pretty much every time you get online?

RobertEnglund.com, naturally. And IMDB.


What annoys you most about your iPod, cell phone, or laptop?

Hard to read outside when there is glare.


Name one thing you wish your iPod/cellphone/laptop could do that it doesn't do now?

Voice recognition. I am all thumbs.


What upcoming gadget can you not wait to get your hands on?

LG Scarlet flatscreen


You're stranded on a desert island: What gadget do you bring?

Swiss Army knife and Bear Grylls



What's the most-played song or artist on your iPod?

Don't have or want an iPod


BlackBerry, Sidekick, or Treo?

Blueberries are excellent on salads, and full of antioxidants.


Are you getting an iPhone? If so, why?

[Yes, since it has] GPS and is useful internationally. [It's] much smaller than our laptop.


What's the longest time you've ever spent playing a video game in one sitting and what game was it?

I played Galaxian for two hours in the late 1980s.


Mac or PC?

Mac. They are cooler and easier to use for us techno-weenies.

If you have ever sent a thank you note to an interviewer that read anything like the above headline, you probably didn't get the job. Increasingly, candidates are sending off casual thank you e-mails and even text messages -- unfortunately, we're not joking -- that incorporate IM shorthand and emoticons. The problem is that many younger job-hunters don't realize this may be costing them that dream job they interviewed for.

Shorthand and casual communication such as text messaging and notes sent via social networking services like Facebook and MySpace are still considered extremely unprofessional (and rightly so). While this method of communication has become the norm for many personal interactions, hiring managers frown upon the practice.

Avoiding thank you note pitfalls is easy, just follow these simple suggestions:

• Don't use IM and SMS shorthand (this includes emoticons). Remember, this is a job interview.
• Don't ask to be friends with the hiring manager on MySpace or Facebook. They're not your buddy.
• Sit at the computer and write out a proper thank you note, and don't just fire off a quick message from your BlackBerry. It'll show you really care about getting the job.
• Do address the hiring manager by name. Being personable is good, but remain professional.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]

Google is hot right now. Its stock price may have taken a bit of a hit lately, but new offerings like GrandCentral continue to revolutionize the Internet, and with its Android phone operating system poised to conquer the mobile world, things are looking good for the company.

Naturally, then, the brightest tech employees want to get in the door, and Google's interview process is notorious for being lengthy and arduous. It's no surprise, of course, that not all applicants are welcomed with open arms. Some of those who got the cold shoulder treatment are posting their experiences online for the benefit of those who might interview with the Big G in the future.

The stories range from the mundane, like an interviewer with a thick, "Chewbacca-like" accent that was hard for the job candidate to understand ("I'm obviously partially retarded," says "Rod"), to tales of wonderment, such as one applicant who was too dazed by the lunch offerings to put together a comprehensive interview. Then there are the truly disturbing stories, such as that of one applicant whose military background wasn't taken too kindly:

"The interview was going swimmingly until I met up with one interviewer who was apparently anti-military. Using the Google "Do No Evil" mantra as a pretense, he asked me how many people I'd killed when I served. When I explained to him that I was MI, he then asked if I could estimate how many people were killed because of the intelligence I'd gathered. The implication was I was either an evil, efficient killer or an incompetent one - a real no-win situation."

Good luck, job seekers of the future!


From Silicon Alley Insider

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Slash is a busy guy. In fact, we're not sure he's had any down time since recording what may be the greatest debut album in the history of Rock 'n' Roll, the Guns n' Roses classic 'Appetite for Destruction.' After the disintegration of the band and the hijacking of the name by a corn-rowed Axl Rose and a band of impostors ( whose next album 'Chinese Democracy' should be out some time before Armageddon), Slash went on to form Slash's Snake Pit and play guitar on tracks for dozens of artists from Michael Jackson to Insane Clown Posse. And he just keeps adding to his repertoire. In addition to being the lead guitarist for Velvet Revolver, the top-hat-wearing axe slinger just co-authored a book (with Anthony Bozza) entitled 'Slash' and appeared as a boss character in 'Guitar Hero III.' The rock legend was kind enough to sit and talk with us a bit about the book, Guitar Hero, and of course whether he prefers PC or Mac.

Switched: So what made you decide to write a book now?

Slash: I put the book out to sort of set the record straight on a lot of the story having to do with why I quit Guns 'n' Roses, and the band reuniting, and a lot of other subjects having to do with that band. Basically that's what influenced my decision to write a book. Prior to that I had no interest in writing a book, even though people keep asking me. But after seeing all the attention that Guns 'n' Roses has garnered of late, all the misinformation that's available to people, and all of the other, you know, falsehoods that are going on about a lot of different things, I just figured probably the only way I'd be able to do myself and the story any justice is to write it myself.


So it was less a thing of nostalgia and more, almost cathartic?

Well, you know, cathartic in a way. I don't know how cathartic it was really, for myself, personally, but I think it'll put some people's minds at rest, especially people who are huge Guns 'n' Roses fans or who are fascinated by the phenomena that is Guns 'n' Roses.

It's coming out just on the heels of the release of 'Guitar Hero III,' which you star in. Is the timing accidental?

(Laughs) It's all accidental. I was working on the Velvet Revolver 'Libertad' record, when both these things... well, I started writing the book during the making of the record, and actually did the Guitar Hero thing a little bit prior to that. But they were all sort of done at the same time and they're all coming out at the same time.

So how did you get involved with 'Guitar Hero III?'

Activision [the game's publisher] came up with the idea to have somebody in the rock world represent the game and they chose me to be their rock legend guy, which I thought was really flattering. And I was really overwhelmed and excited about the prospect of doing it because I'm a huge fan of the game. So I met with them and we shot some ideas back and forth and we rolled with it and it came out great. I got to write some music for it, I put some guitar solos on it, and I got a caricature of myself in the game. It's way left-field for what I normally do, but at the same time it's very relevant, and I'm really honored to be on the box, so to speak.

That sort of answers our next question, which is how much involvement was there really in making the game? It sounds as though it was more than just "walk in to the studio, get some pictures taken for the model, and go home."

No, there were plenty t of hours spent outside my comfort zone to get this done properly. But, you know, it was an experience and it was fun as well.

Obviously, you've played the game, you said you enjoyed it. Did you find it tough to transition from playing the real guitar to playing Guitar Hero?

I'm not very good at it. I played it a little while ago this afternoon. And I played 'Guitar Hero 2' and I had a lot of time to sit with it and learn how to do it and I got pretty good at it until I beat the game. But I didn't beat it on expert -- I beat it on hard. And that took a lot of work. I think there's something innately awkward about being a guitar player trying to playing 'Guitar Hero.' I think you play it by ear more than you do so by sight, which is the way that normal people play it. There really is that correlation between your fingers and what you're looking at on screen, and I think for guitar players the way that you relate to it is really by ear and feel, which somehow doesn't make your fingers land at the right place at the right time.

So what are you planning on getting the wife and kids for the holidays, gadget- or tech-wise this year?

I've been so busy, and everybody on my side of the fence has been so busy, what with touring and all the other stuff that's going on right now. We haven't really gotten into Christmas. We just escaped Halloween with me traveling all over the place and what not. So we haven't really focused on Christmas yet.

Don't even bring that up, you're scaring the shit out of me.

(Laughs)

Is there any gadget that's got you excited that you really want to get your hands on?

I'm not a huge gadget guy. I just got a new BlackBerry, you know, and I'm happy with that. And I just got a new Xbox 360 not too long ago and we were looking at some new games the other day just to see what's out there. I got my new 'Guitar Hero' finally... I can't think of anything off the top of my head, outside of some recording gear that I'm really looking out for getting.

Does the aversion to technology and gadgets extend to the music? Are you a Pro Tools guy?

NO, no, I'm really simple, and I don't... I'm one of those people that if it's something you don't need, I can pretty much stay away from it. But as far as just toying around with technology for toying around's sake, I'm not like that. I'm basically all about the simplest approach possible. The fewer manuals I have to read, the better and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So I use a lot of pretty much old gear and what not. The only thing I do need for recording is something simple that's efficient, sounds good, can be taken on the road -- that's what I'm starting to shop for at this point. And something small that I can carry.

Is there anything that you carry with you, on tour or every day, like a BlackBerry or an iPod, that's just attached to you 24/7?

Well the BlackBerry, as much as I hate to admit it, is an appendage for sure. And as far as the iPod goes... you know...I have an iPod and its got 1000 some-odd, if not more, songs on it. But I find that I like to just have, like, a handful of good CDs and use those. I haven't really graduated to the iPod school of thinking (laughs). I think it's too much of a song selection for me to figure out what I want to listen to.


We often find that's true. You spend 15 minutes trying to decide what to listen to, and only five actually listening to anything.

Exactly... that's my take on that.


One last simple question. Mac or PC?

Um.. I have both.

I feel comfortable with both, I carry my Mac around and have a PC at home.

OK, so Mac Book? Mac Pro?

Mac Pro.... Oh wait, wait, wait. No, you know what, I take that back. It's a Mac Book. I almost got a Mac Pro, but I knew I wasn't gonna use it to its full potential. so...

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