3 reasons you have been defriended on Facebook

 Social Networking  1 Response »
May 302012
 

It’s happened to us all.  One day you have 230 friends, the next day you inexplicably have 229.  You frantically search through your friends list to see who is missing.  Sometimes you figure it out right away, and other times it’s weeks later when you realize your second cousin Barry in Milwaukee is no longer appearing in your feed.

“Why, Barry?  Why?” you ask, as you pour over your status updates wondering what could have possibly offended him.

Well, the answer why your friend is no longer your friend is usually very simple, and one of three things:

1.  They hate you.

Either they find you annoying, obnoxious, or otherwise unpalatable.  Maybe you spend too much time talking about your breakfast, or posting pictures of your dog in unusual positions.  Not everybody digs that sort of thing, you know.  Or maybe you have offended them so deeply that they cannot bear to look at your name anymore.  I’ve been there.  Loads of people hate me.  Even worse for the ego than being unfriended is being outright blocked. That is the passive aggressive version of kicking you in the groin and running away screaming.

You might wonder why, if they hate you, were they friends with you to begin with?  Interestingly enough, sometimes people don’t realize they hate someone until they have to spend a lot of time looking at their thoughts.  After six months of enduring upside down dogs, they probably just said to themselves, “Whoa, this person is lame.  See ya.”

2.  They left Facebook.

This happens too.  It may look like they ditched you but they actually just deactivated their account.  There is a way to tell, though, which may ease your mind if you can’t think of any reason Barry would hate you.  Go to your Timeline and click on the Friends block at the top.  This will show you all your friends.  Scroll down to the very bottom, which could take some time if other people actually like you, and you’ll see all the deactivated people at the bottom.  Then breathe a sigh of relief that Barry has just deactivated his account for some reason.  Don’t dwell on what that reason is, however, because that will take you further into your ego-squelching spiral if you think that it’s because something you said stressed him out to the point where he can’t look at Facebook again.  More likely the deactivation is something more mundane, like he’s going away on a business trip or it’s been court-mandated as part of his restraining order.

3. You are just way too awesome for them to associate with.

This doesn’t actually happen.  See numbers 1 and 2 instead.

4G, 4G LTE, 3G, What? FAQ

 General, Phones  No Responses »
May 262012
 

The other day when I got excited about finally getting a 4G LTE signal at my house, no one else in my life seemed to share my enthusiasm.

My 7-year-old said, “Awesome!  I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

My 9-year-old said, “It’s your other kid that cares about that stuff, remember?”

My parents said, “Oh.”

My husband said, “And why would you need it to be faster, exactly?”

So I dedicate this post to all the people who are confused, disinterested, or otherwise not particularly concerned about my phone service, yet are polite enough to ask about it anyway.

Question:  What the heck is 4G anyway?

Answer:  4G is the non-specific term for 4th generation wireless technology.  Some carriers, a couple of years back, promoted themselves as having 4G technology, but it wasn’t really all that better than the third generation, or 3G.  WiMAX, for instance, was Sprint’s excuse for 4G, and it was sort of crappy and is being phased out in North America.  Now, most carriers will specify their 4G is 4G LTE, which stands for Long Term Evolution, which is currently the fastest technology for this sort of thing.  AT&T, Sprint and Verizon are rolling out upgrading their towers to support 4G LTE, but as you can imagine, this will take a while.

 

Question:  Why is 4G LTE so much better than 3G?

Answer:  Remember this?

Now, 12 or 15 years ago, this is how you got onto the Internet from home.  You’d walk away, and five minutes later AOL would show up on your monitor, and you felt super cool and connected to the world.  You would go to Napster to download the latest Hootie and the Blowfish song and four hours later it was all ready to be burned to CD.  It didn’t bother you that it took forever because that was all you knew.  Then in the early 2000s you got cable or DSL Internet and voila! the difference in speed was extraordinarily noticeable.

That is the difference between 3G and 4G LTE.  4G LTE download speeds are ten times as fast as 3G download speeds.

 

Question: I have a iPhone 4(s).  So I have 4G, right?

Answer:  False.  If you have an iPhone, you do not have a 4G phone.  Every current model of iPhone is still 3G.  However, the iPhone 5, which is rumored to be coming out this year, will be 4G LTE.  Almost all current 4G LTE phones are Android, aside from a couple of Windows Phone offerings.

The confusion often comes from the strange and seemingly haphazard way Apple names their products.  The iPhone 3G was named so because it was a 3G phone, although numerically it was only the second generation iPhone.  So when the iPhone 4 came out, many people confusingly thought it must be a 4G phone because it was also called the 4th generation iPhone.

Confused?  Just take my word for it.  Your iPhone is NOT 4G.

 

Question: So my Motorola Razr from 2007…?  That’s still cool, right?

Answer:  No.

 

Question:  Which phones are 4G LTE?

Answer:  There are currently about a dozen Android phones from Verizon that are 4G LTE.  Pretty much any new Android coming out from now on will be 4G LTE, as they are phasing out the Droids of yesteryear.  Here is a partial list:

  • Motorola Droid 4
  • Droid Bionic
  • Droid Razr
  • Droid Razr Maxx
  • LG Lucid
  • LG Spectrum
  • Samsung Galaxy Nexus
  • HTC Rezound
  • HTC Thunderbolt (Verizon’s first LTE phone has already reached “end of life” but can be found on eBay)
  • LG Spectrum
  • Samsung Stratosphere
  • Samsung Droid Charge
  • Pantech Breakout

AT&T, who is considerably further behind in implementing 4G LTE, has fewer 4G phones:

  • HTC Vivid
  • Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket
  • LG Nitro
  • HTC One X

Sprint has not yet started their 4G LTE service (it’s coming this year) but it has a handful of phones:

  • Samsung Galaxy Nexus
  • LG Viper
  • HTC EVO 4G LTE (which is pretty much the same as AT&T’s HTC One X)

T-Mobile will not have 4G LTE service until next year.

Verizon, AT&T and Sprint will be getting some nice phones this summer, including the Samsung Galaxy S III which is the best-selling phone ever in terms of pre-orders in Europe.  And of course the rumored iPhone 5 should be 4G LTE too.

That about sums it up.  If you don’t have a 4G LTE phone, don’t sweat it because chances are that you don’t actually care.  If you do already have a 4G LTE phone, you can pop open Pandora and stream your Hootie channel now.

Field Trip Escalation

 General  No Responses »
May 232012
 

This is one of those things I can laugh about now but would have freaked out had I been present at the time.  First and foremost, my kid is okay and was uninjured.  The other day, he was on a field trip in Philadelphia with the rest of the third grade.  I assumed all was going well, until I got The Call about 15 minutes before school was due to get out for the day.  The teacher told me what happened, but it is better told in my son’s words.  I went to the school to pick him up, and watched him hobble down the hallway, amidst a crowd of children, in only one shoe.  He greeted me with, “So, you heard?”

“Yep.”

“Well, that was embarrassing.”

A stretch of silence followed as he put on the spare shoes I had brought with me.  ”You want to tell me what happened?”

“Okay.  So we were on the escalator.  At the end, it looked really hairy, so I sort of touched it with my foot.  And then my shoe came off and all the escalators stopped and they tried to get my shoe but it was stuck there.”

“Wait, back up.  What do you mean by hairy?”

“You know, like there was a bunch of hair there.”

“What?”

“Anyway, everyone said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s okay, it’s okay’ and I was like, yeah, I know.  And then they asked me for my address and I told them and I guess when Dad made me practice my address this morning he had no idea that it would come in handy, right?”

“Were you going up or down the escalator?”

“Up.  I think.  No, down.  Yeah, it was down.”

“The escalator took your shoe and you don’t know which was you were going?”

“It was down I said!  Down!  I’m just not certain.”

“Okay.”

“And then we walked to the bus.  Oh but first we had to go to the bathroom, and the floor was all wet, so Mr. B [another third grade teacher] gave me his shoe to wear so my sock wouldn’t get wet.  Then I had to be on the bus with just one shoe.  And that’s about it.”

“I see…”

“Oh and they said at least what happened to me wasn’t as bad as the last guy it happened to.”

“Who said that?”

“The security guy.”

“What happened to the last guy?”

“I think he must’ve died.  Or his foot came off.  Yeah, I think his foot came off.”

“And that security guy thought that was an appropriate thing to tell you?”

“It was after it happened, so it was okay.”

A pause, then, ”I also learned about Ben Franklin.  It wasn’t all about my shoe, you know.”

Job searching is hard

 General  No Responses »
May 212012
 
lloyd2012

I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that. – Lloyd Dobler

Truer words have never been spoken, although it does narrow the options a bit.  So I made a “non-traditional resume” a.k.a. a webpage wherein I talk about myself a lot.  We’ll see where that goes.  It could backfire in an unfathomable heap of putrescence, or it could land me a cushy job taste testing ice cream.  Could go either way, really.

Forsaking Facebook for Google+: Update

 General, Internet, Social Networking  No Responses »
May 212012
 
hangout

I would say it is going well.  Something cool happened which has not happened on Facebook, and that is that some random strangers put me in their circles.  I had a eureka! moment that revealed that the appeal of Google+ is just that, meeting people that you don’t know already.  Sometimes that can come in handy, though not always.

I have not been able to cut Facebook out completely, however, because I knew a little dude that needed a happy birthday, I had to get rid of a booster seat and my dog made a new video.  But I have resisted liking anything or commenting or posting inane status updates.

Here is where I found my problem.  No one cares about inane status updates on Google+.  So there is no feeling of validation there, whereas on Facebook people pretend to care about what funny thing your kid said or what you had for lunch, at least enough that they push the like button.

My determination:  Google+ will not fill that need to document every aspect of my life, because the people that care about my life don’t actually use Google+.  However, it does fill another need, to connect with people you normally wouldn’t connect with, people with whom you may have interests in common.

Meanwhile, I had rice pudding for breakfast and I took a picture of my kid with ice cream running down his arm.

 

Why I am switching to Google+ for one week

 Internet, Social Networking  6 Responses »
May 162012
 
Google + Ghost = Awesome

Given the recent study that showed that Google+ is a ghost town and no one other than geeks, nerds, and the Dalai Lama use it, I have decided to take the plunge and remove myself from Facebook for the duration of one whole week.  It will be a great sacrifice but one that I am willing to make as long as it’s not too inconvenient.

What this will mean is that every time my kid says something funny, or my dog eats something of value, I will post it on my Google+ page instead.  Then I will watch the tumbleweeds flutter by while yearning for that little number to appear in parentheses at the top of my browser window.  It will be a study in solitary confinement, much like this blog is.  Hopefully I will not have to cut my own arm off to survive.

Farewell, my friends.  Hello, my circles.  See you next Wednesday, unless I get bored, in which case, see you tomorrow… or in a couple of hours.

 

The art and science of robotic talking customer service reps

 Complaining, Gadgets, General, Phones  No Responses »
May 042012
 
motorival

So my husband, who hates technological advancements, has a really crappy cell phone.  He refuses to get a smart phone because he thinks it will watch him all the time like the XBox Kinect does.  However, his old junkie flip phone has seen better days, so I thought I would be nice and get him a slightly better but still crappy flip phone off of eBay.

eBay, in case you weren’t aware, is not just a place to buy taxidermied shrimp.  You can also buy other junk there, including a Motorola Rival for like 30 bucks.  I was all excited when it came in the mail yesterday, despite its craptitude, because it was new and shiny.

But I went to activate it and this happened:

Verizon Wireless Website told me,  ”Your account has been LOCKED!  You are obviously up to no good and deserve eternal punishment, so please call Verizon Customer Service at blah blah blah.”

What the…  grrr.  Okay, so I tell my husband (whom I will call Rob because that’s his name) that he needs to call to get his account unlocked.

He immediately broke into hives but he did as he was told.

Verizon Wireless Customer Service Bot:  “If you want Technical Support, press or say One.  If you want to talk about your bill, press or say Two.  If you want something else, just tell me and I will figure it out because I am cool like that.”

Rob:  ”Need to unlock account.”

Verizon Wireless Customer Service Robot:  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you just said.  Perhaps you should try enunciating better.  Or if you need Spanish, press or say Thirty-Six.”

Rob: “I need to unlock my account.”

Verizon Wireless Customer Service Robot: “Do you need to unlock your phone?  If so, press the unlock button.  Thank you and have a good day.”

Rob:  ”NO!  I need to unlock my account!”

Verizon Wireless Customer Service Robot:  “Just to be sure, please say your account password.”

Rob: “I don’t know my account password!”

Verizon Wireless Customer Service Robot: “Please say your account password!”

Rob:  ”If I knew my account password, I wouldn’t need to call you.”

Verizon Wireless Customer Service Robot: “I’m sorry, I have no idea what you just said.  Perhaps some elocution lessons will help you.”

Rob:  ”I NEED TO UNLOCK MY ACCOUNT!”

Verizon Wireless Customer Service Robot:  “Please stay on the line and someone will assist you in approximately 27 minutes. Hopefully you will hang up in frustration before that point.”

So then a human or more advanced android came on and talked Rob through resetting his account.  Sighing with relief, he handed the task over to me to activate the thing.

And of course, the activation failed.  (“What, did you buy that off the back of a truck?” -”No, I got it on eBay!” – “Same thing.”)

You know what this means – I had to call Verizon again.  I talked to a nice robot named Chad who lived in Utah and knew what the sun was.  Long story short, one hour and twelve minutes later I was told that I got a bad phone, I should return it, or did I want to use our upgrade to get something more snazzy?  No, I sighed, not today.  Defeated, I reactivated his old crappy flip phone, which he is perfectly fine with.

Then I went and ordered another one on eBay.

 

Dramatic Reenactments

 Complaining, Computer Stuff, General, Internet  No Responses »
May 032012
 
Exploding Computer

This is why I hardly ever blog these days.  Besides teaching my dog how to count, I am doing Important Things, like working on my dissertation.  This is tough stuff, as it requires me to focus on something, sometimes for hours or minutes at a time.  This is what it looks like.  Note that the me in the reenactment is way better looking than I am, but they always do that in dramatically reenacted TV shows.  In real life I am quite ugly.

This is me fixing a computer.  What happens is that someone will say, “Hey, my computer is broken.  Fix it?”  So I will say, “Sure, no problem!  I can totally do that.”  Then it explodes, and I get shards of technology embedded in my skin.  To absolve myself from shame, I will tell  them that whatever they did gave the computer a terrible virus that rendered it useless, and they should be more careful in the future.

This is what I do for the rest of the time.