As you can see from a previous post, I’m a big fan of Facebook.  However, there are some cautions which folks really need to think about when posting anything on the internet.  Here are a few with which I have had first hand encounters:

1.  Social Networking is no longer just for my generation.  My mom is on Facebook and MySpace.  So are a large number of my co-workers.  As a result, things that might be acceptable in my social spheres are no longer acceptable on Facebook.  For example, for awhile I had listed that I was married to my college roommate.  She and I were attached at the hip at school and it was a running joke among our friends that we were an old married couple.  This was fine until I started being friends with individuals who are not members of my generation.  For them, they did not understand the joke and began to make assumptions about me.  That is the last assumption I want people to make

2.  Prospective employers are on Facebook, too.  There have been several times that I have been the point person for hiring a new employee for my company.  For every person whose resume makes it to my potential interview category, I always do two things – I google them and I look them up on Facebook.  I can’t even count the number of people who have been eliminated from my pool of candidates because of something I found from one of those two sources.  They think they are only sharing the information with their friends, but they also shared the information with me, and, as a result, lost the opportunity to interview for the job.

When you post something on the internet, be very careful about it.  It doesn’t just go away when you remove it.  It is saved on a server somewhere waiting to come back and haunt you someday – so just do yourself a favor.  If you wouldn’t want your mother or pastor or kindergarten teacher to see something, don’t post it online.

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

Be Careful Little Fingers What You Post

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I was not an early adopter of social networks.  My school, being a smaller school, did not get Facebook as early as many others, and when our school was accepted as one of the schools in the network, I saw no reason to join.  It wasn’t until my roommate insisted that she would not go to dinner with me again unless I joined when I finally gave in.

I have always been a social person, but keeping up with people through, e-mail, letters and phone calls makes it so that, if someone is far away, you have to put forth a large amount of effort to know what is going on in that friend’s life.  When it comes down to it, you have to choose to not know what’s going on with certain people – and when you happen to see them in the grocery store 5 years later, don’t be surprised when they are married with three children.

Facebook has changed all that.  Now, I can have a bird’s eye view into the lives of so many people with whom I could never keep in touch – or now how to find – without Facebook.  For example, I had a great friend in second grade.  She and I were very close, but when I left the school to be homeschooled and she moved to North Carolina we lost touch.  Through Facebook we are now back in touch, and I know that today she is thinking, “where the weekend went…oh that’s right, work ate it.”

Not only is Facebook helpful in keeping up with folks you wouldn’t otherwise have contact with, it is also helpful in relationships with people you see or talk to all the time.  By uploading my wedding pictures to Facebook, I was able to share those pictures with all my close friends – otherwise I would have had to send them copies of the pictures, and there’s no way they would see most of them.  And my mom no longer bugs me to send her pictures of random events – she can just see them on Facebook.  I just looked through pictures of my cousin Charlie, who I’ve never met, and he is a fantastic looking little boy.

From this post you can probably tell that I only use Facebook.  I have a MySpace account, but I check that once a month at best.  I’m not ready to join the Twitter cult, but I think I may have just convinced myself through this post that it might be a good idea.  We’ll see.

What I’m saying is, if you’re holding back from the Social Networking world because you’re afraid of getting sucked in, ask yourself, would getting sucked in really be that bad?

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

The Cool Kids are all on Facebook!

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This post is short but sweet. And I mean very sweet. This is an app I wish I had in college.

Ever see a book or CD you wanted, and wondered how much it cost? The iPhone app SnapTell has you covered.

Let’s take a look at the magic, shall we?. After you download this free app – open it. Find a book, CD, DVD or even a video game cartridge and take a picture of it:

Then click the “Use” button. Wait a moment until you see this screen:

It recognizes the cover of the book and tells you which retailers you can purchase it from, and for what price. VERY COOL!

You can also run search results for the book to bring up product reviews, information and bios about the authors, creators, developers, etc.

This is a must have for people who like to shop around. Don’t you wish you had this while comparing textbook prices?

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

SnapTell – iPhone App Review

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The iPhone app, Buster, is a must have for anyone living in or visiting the Windy City. It costs only $0.99 and is the most effective way to ensure you don’t miss the bus.

Anyone who lives in Chicago has undoubtedly heard of or used the CTA Bus Tracker. But what happens after you leave your apartment? The CTA site is next to impossible to load on your mobile phone, and if you are lucky enough to get it to work, good luck navigating around the site. By the time you find what bus you are supposed to be on, it has passed you 3 times already.

With Buster, you will not have this problem anymore.

Buster has an extremely user-friendly interface. The magic happens the moment you open the app and you land on a list of all of the bus routes. If you know your route number then simply scroll down to the route number, press it, and it will give you a list of stops:

Once you find your stop, press it to reveal how long you will be awaiting its arrival.

Phew! 2 minutes. Not bad at all. I can vouch for this wait time. I have tested it twice, and both times the wait time was exactly as it said. (That will come in handy next winter!)

Ok, but what if you just spent some time at Navy Pier and don’t want to pay for a cab ride home? Just hit the “Nearby Stops” button and you’ll see everyone’s favorite GPS tracker pop-up window:

Just click OK and you’ll see all of the available/nearby bus routes. If you don’t know where the stop is physically located, just hit the “maps” button and your Google Maps app will guide you there, just don’t forget to see how much time you have to get there!

Obviously this app isn’t for everyone. Some people use their vehicles while others might as well ski to work. But if you are ever in Chicago and need to get from A to B, Buster has you covered.

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

iPhone App Review – Buster

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