TeamCushman

I know this is a long post, but one I feel is the most important that I’ve put up. If you have any teenagers or even pre-teens in the house you know that staying ahead of the tech curve can be like a chess match. I have one teenager, but the younger one is the one that scares me when it comes to the internet. He is very curious when it comes to the internet. While I don’t think he would do anything inadvertently to harm himself, the fact that he even knows how to set up a username and password on sites like Club Penguin sends shivers up and down my spine. This is one of the reasons we all use the same email address. Some families set up separate emails for everyone in the family, I feel that we don’t have anything to hide, so we use the same. This is the way I found that my young hacker signed up for said Club Penguin. It’s not a bad site for kids, but I don’t want it to become training ground for My Space and Bebo (notice I am not linking to these sites!). I’m not being naive, if he can figure out how to set up a username, I’m sure he can figure out how to set up an online email account.

In a recent survey by Pew Internet & American Life Project, shows that on social networking sites, most teenagers are taking steps to protect themselves, which is good news. However, there are a lot of potential risks that parents need to know. Such as: 43% of teens that use social networking sites have been contacted by a stranger. 31% of users have “friends” on their site that they have never met in person. 55% have set up a profile online. Of those, 46% contain some sort of false information about themselves, which can be accessed by anyone online. Think about that for just a second … Get this, 91% of teens use social networking sites as a way to stay in touch with one another … they are not using email! This is how they know what the hot clothes to wear to school, which party to go to, etc … etc … Here are some more disturbing facts in this report:

• Eighty-two percent of teens who have created profiles have included their first names. Seventy-nine percent have included photos of themselves, and 66 percent have included photos of their friends. Sixty-one percent have included the name of their city or town, while 49 percent have included the name of their school.

• Forty percent have included their instant-message screen name. Forty percent have streamed audio to their profile, and 39 percent have linked to their blog.

• Twenty-nine percent have included their e-mail address, and 29 percent have included their last name.

• Twenty-nine percent have included videos, while 2 percent have included their cell phone numbers.

• Six percent of online teens and 11 percent of profiling teens have posted their first and last names on public profiles.

• Three percent of online teens and 5 percent of profiling teens have disclosed their full names, photos of themselves and the town where they live in public profiles.

That’s why, Parents, this is like a chess game. Your job is to stay a few steps ahead, figure out their moves before they think of them. As the title says … the end game is Checkmate! So, here are a few thoughts, suggestions and links to help you. The easiest thing to do is put your computer in a public area. If your kids, have a computer in their room, make sure it’s pointing outward so anyone can see the monitor. Also, make sure that the history files doesn’t erase after the browser is closed. That way, you can track movements by looking at the history file.

Start using Firefox. Why? well for one thing, it is the safest way to browse. Secondly, with all of the additions, you can customize your browsing experience and add a layer of protection for you and your family. In addition to Firefox, you can use family safe browsers for the kids, specifically those under 12. A few examples are Kidzui or Glubble.

Once you have Firefox set up, here are some extensions you can use for safe browsing:

• ProCon and Greasemonkey are two of my favorite profanity filters. These sites will block any profanity on the site with a “***”. ProCon will even direct the browser to another site of your choice. Very nice!!
• Another add on through Firefox is BlockSite. This add-on allows censorship ability to your browser. If you put a site on the blacklist, it will never come up. As with ProCon, you can also redirect to another site. So, what sites do you block? easy Google “social networking” sites to find out the most popular and add them to the list. That way, even if your teen or pre-teen doesn’t know about it, add it!! they soon will. Remember, you want to stay a few steps ahead of them!!
• Read. There are a few good parent forums that will help us band together. A few are: Blogsafety, Web Aware and Safekids.
• For instant messaging, I suggest IM Safer. Just make sure you download it on all the computers in the household, not just one.
• If you plan to continue to use IE, that’s fine, but use the Content Advisor in your internet options.

Lastly, and this one sounds so obvious, but its needed to be said and that is … talk to your kids about their online activities. This type of education starts at home, don’t leave it to the playground or classroom. If you pay the internet bill, then you set the ground rules for usage.

I am always amazed at the folks that order their drinks from Starbucks. It’s become an art. Maybe even become its own language. At any rate, I try to keep it simple. “Grande Latte.” Honestly, one of the reasons I stick with it is because of the pressure of ordering. While I’m standing in line, looking at the menu, I’m dreaming of all of the fascinating different types of exotic ways I can drink coffee. But, once I get there and the cashier, barrister and the dozens of people behind me are staring at me, I choke … “Grande Latte, please”. I resort back to the what I know mainly because it rhymes and is easy to remember, much like the old nursery rhymes we still remember from Kindergarten. Everyonce in a while I will splurge and get an Americano, “with room”. Basically about 5 shots of expresso with a little water mixed in. “The room” means I can put in some cream to take a little bit of the edge off. Basically a poor man’s latte. But at about $2.50 a pop its the best value on menu!! But for you experts that like to order your Grande Half Cafs, Quad shot Mocha Frappuccinos and take 10 minutes to give your order, move on, I can’t help you. The rest, here’s a dictionary to help you understand what the rest of world will be ordering for their morning coffee.

Have a band-aid that won’t come loose? try baby oil. If you are me, I kinda like to let it rip, hair and all. However, with the kids, this doesn’t work. trying rubbing baby oil all over the sticky parts. Haven’t tried it yet, but I’m sure we will get the chance this summer. Need some more uses for baby oil? Hey now, this is a family site, none of those are on the list. Unexpected uses of Baby Oil.

How about turning C batteries into D? All it takes is just a few quarters. Usually 3 or 4 can do the trick. This will extend the length of the batteries. Take a look at the photo at right to see how to do this. Just make sure spring is tight and the electricity will flow.

Ever drop your blackberry or other device in water? I gotta a friend that dropped his in the urinal. He’s on his third blackberry in about a year. So this tip is for him. Sometimes, a hairdryer just won’t do. So, what do you do? leave it in a bowl of uncooked rice overnight. Rice will suck out the excess moisture. Make sure there isn’t a lot of humidity in air as well. Have a wet cell phone, here’s how to save it …

So Sprint Nextel “fired” approximately 1000 customers last month. Why? because they called customer service too often. Nothing like getting a letter in the mail saying … buh bye! Nothing says service like “you call too much, so we only want customers who won’t complain.” Folks, the golden rule has been officially changed to the Customer is Always Wrong! Absolutely Ridiculous! What are they thinking?? Now, I have Sprint on one of my phones and I have called customer service, mainly to fix issues with their service. A few questions, if I may … 1) Anyone know what the magical Mendoza number is? ‘Cuz … I have no idea and need to know. 2) Does it count when I visit the Sprint store next to my office? Need to know that one as well. 3) what about the times I get disconnected from customer service and have to call back, is that double counting?

I guess I just don’t get it. I work in a service industry. We work very hard to capture and maintain our client base. It’s much too competitive to just drop clients like Dennis Miller drops F bombs. I’m sure they did some type of profitability analysis. However, how do you quantify the negative press or negative word of mouth such as what your reading now? You don’t. Because sooner or later the public will forget about it or perhaps most of the public will just never know.

Sprint is quoted saying that these folks called 40 - 50 times per month and were calling about the same problems over and over after Sprint officials felt they had resolved the issue. They went on to say … “If the average person is calling less than once per month, then that takes away from customer service from other customers.” I wonder if anyone from Sprint who did their due diligence actually picked up the phone and called one of these clients and asked them why do you feel the need to call customer service so often? If I were a betting man, I would bet that the client’s perspective is that the issue was not fixed in many of these instances. I wonder if they would be willing to give customers a bonus for not calling customer service! In the end, I guess the best thing is that these obviously unhappy customers can now switch to a better provider without paying an early termination fee. Can you hear me now!!!

Tip of the week …

No, I’m not going to start charging for access to the site, although a good friend thinks I should. Every once in a while, I see a restaurant or merchant who requires a minimum purchase, say $20, $10 or even $5, to use Visa or MasterCard. What I never realized is that this is a direct violation of their merchant agreement. Both Visa and MasterCard require merchants to accept their cards regardless of the size of payment. Some merchants may not have seen this addendum to their agreement. In fact, according to Visa, 55% of usage is now considered “Micropayments” or those under $25.

So, the next time a restaurant or other stores try to force you to use cash rather than your Visa or MasterCard, ask to speak to the manager and remind them about the policy. Yes, they will argue. Mainly because the percentage of the merchant fee is larger for smaller purchases. Just hold your ground and let them know that you will call Visa at 800-VISA-911. They want to know stores that do not follow this rule. Those that won’t could get hit with a penalty, so that merchant fee they are worried about, could get bigger.