Online column

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

Technology is supposed to make life easier but sometimes it feels like it’s just making it more complicated.

We’re all so connected now that it’s hard to shut off: our cellphones mean we get calls anywhere and any time, and social media means our every movement can become public knowledge.

I’m still no big fan of cellphones but can appreciate the usefulness of the wee beasties. However, one of the things I have appreciated most about our little whitebaiting hut on the Mataura River was the dodgy cellphone reception (and associated peace and tranquillity) so I’m a bit unimpressed that it appears to have improved considerably this past season.

And while our swanky new phones can do everything from take calls to clean the oven (I wish), I don’t really think we buy them for their usefulness.

No, we all tend to be most excited by their slightly more frivolous features: a built-in spirit level so I can check my picnic table is appropriately straight (don’t want my wine sliding off now, do I?), song identifier apps, and let’s not forget the ringtones. Oh, how we love our ringtones.

I have them set for two specific people: the Darth Vader theme music from Star Wars for my boss (sorry Fred) and something suitably inappropriate for my hubby but, aside from those, my phone now simply rings. Like a phone.

There’s no backing-up-vehicle beeping noises, no latest hit songs, no oh-so- funny little ditty. It just rings. Like a phone.

I have friends with a different ringtone for nearly everyone on their contacts list and can’t help wondering if they need to carry a list with them to cross-reference who it is. They still look at the screen before they answer the phone anyway so I’m not sure I see the point in all the customisation.

Besides, when my phone rings, I know straight away it’s mine: I seem to be the only one with a phone that sounds like a phone! Did I mention that it just rings? Like a phone

Since it’s the season of goodwill to all men, I will flex my festive tolerance levels and include businesses in that warm, fuzzy equation, too. For now.

Like many people these days, if I need to contact a business my first port of call is the company’s official website. However, I’m not so keen on filling out contact forms on sites because more often than not, you never hear from them again.

Sure, it’s usually a simple enough matter to stalk them on their Facebook pages and nudge them into responding to your question/concern/complaint by asking again, in public, on there – but should you really have to shame them into answering you?

I’ve had this happen so often lately that I was beginning to think it was a conspiracy against me: online businesses were adding me to some global blacklist along with the Nigerian scammers and those dudes selling the herbal viagra.

I contacted one local supermarket a couple of months ago after a wee mishap that resulted in me going arse over tit. I didn’t hear anything for a week or two so popped a message on their Facebook page saying what had happened and that I had filled in their contact form but received no reply. The response was immediate: could I please contact them again, they’d be in touch. And they were, via email, once. I haven’t heard from them again.

A few weeks later I contacted another local supermarket, this time to complain about mouldy produce.

I hit submit on their lovely wee contact form and have never received a response.

Then there is the television shopping channel website where I tried to review a product I had bought. My review wasn’t particularly positive and after submitting it twice in as many weeks it never showed up on the site.

My next move was to ask on the channel’s Facebook page if they edit reviews. And once again, the response was immediate: no, of course not. They would look into it for me.

Have I heard back? Of course not.

As you might imagine, I was feeling a tad disheartened by the whole “contact us” concept, so when I had a problem with my favourite breakfast cereal recently I wasn’t feeling particularly hopeful as I filled in the dreaded online contact form.

I was wrong. So well done Kellogg’s, you’ve put the rest of them to shame. A lovely bloke was in touch immediately and things were put right straight away.

My faith has been restored. Except perhaps in Twitter.

According to Symantec, a whole bunch of Twitter users (there needs to be a collective noun for those who Tweet, a flock of Twitter users maybe?) got suckered in to following fake Twitter accounts known as @VerifiedReport and @MagicReports.

The accounts claimed to be part of a Twitter experiment between users, news organisations and journalists, and followed several Twitter users while tweeting: “This is a Twitter experiment. We are changing the way users interact with journalists and news organisations.”

Many users discovered these accounts through a legitimate Twitter account known as @MagicRecs, developed by Twitter to send “personalised recommendations as direct messages (DMs) when something interesting happens in your network.”

It seems even some Twitter employees followed the fake accounts.

Twitter has since suspended both accounts but there are some other suspect accounts still active (@MagicFavs, @MagicSmacks, and @MagicSext).

It’s not clear what these accounts were created to do, but Symantec says even when using a legitimate service like @MagicRecs, exercise caution when choosing which accounts to follow.

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

Gather ’round children, as today we learn all about something from the olden days, that long ago time before Facebook and texting: how to behave like a real human being in public.

I went to the ballet a couple of weekends ago and it was awesome: fit Russian blokes in tights flitting around the stage with a bunch of pretty wee sheilas, rousing music and a spot of Cossack dancing chucked in for good measure made for a spectacular afternoon of entertainment.

However, the cellphones nearly ruined it. Turn the damn things off, or at least turn down the volume. And don’t text during the performance: it’s rude to the performers and distracting to those of us in the audience who are there to see the ballet. You know, the enthusiastic leaping stuff with the fit blokes that was happening on stage.

And if you arrive late, don’t take that as an opportunity to have a not-so-quiet chat with you friends who arrived earlier.

And, damn it, don’t kick the back of the seat of the person in front of you. Or take your shoes off and put your gnarly foot on the armrest next to the person in front of you.

I was back at the Civic a few nights later to see ventriloquist David Strassman and his merry wee band of puppets and, once again, it was cellphone city: two of them rang during the first half of the show and the bloke two rows in front of me who spent most of the first half texting could at least have turned down the brightness of his screen so it didn’t shine like a beacon.

The minute the lights came up for the half-time break, every second person had their phone out, texting, surfing or just being generally isolated. Why do we go out with other people if we are simply going to limit our human interaction to whatever we can manage via cellphone? It’s like we’re losing our ability to actually interact with other human beings face-to-face.

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

All the hoo-hah that has erupted over the trolls invading the Southland Trader Co Facebook page is a good example of why we all should be careful about our online privacy.

If you upload photos to a social network site such as Facebook, you need to be aware of who will see those photos. And even more importantly, who can steal those photos.

I’m not singling out Facebook for criticism: all content you upload to the web is vulnerable. It’s quite simply that Facebook is one of the biggest players so is therefore one of the biggest targets.

If we, as adults, choose to post photos of ourselves on social networking sites, then that is our choice. However, if we load photos of others we should show a little consideration: don’t load images of your friends without letting them know you plan to because it’s their privacy you are compromising. And if you want to load photos of your children, perhaps it’s a good time to check your privacy options and limit access to those photos to a more select group of your closest friends and family rather than all 1000 of your internet friends, and their friends, and friends of friends, and . . . well, you get the picture.

It’s a bit like that old TV ad about the dangers of sexually-transmitted diseases: you might sleep with just one person but you are sleeping with their previous partners, and their partners’ partners, and so on. And let’s be honest, crossing paths with these online trolls is about as desirable as getting a blister on your nether regions so the analogy is quite apt.

It pays to pop into your account settings in Facebook from time to time and check if anything needs changing because it seems that every time there is a tweak or change in Facebook’s setup, it rattles your privacy settings. Click on the cog icon at the top right of your Facebook page, scroll down to “privacy settings” and have a bit of a play around until you get things just the way you want them. The ability to limit who can view every post, photo and gallery you post is something that is often overlooked, so don’t forget that you can click the dropdown at the bottom right on all content you are posting to change it from “public” (the default setting) to friends only.

It’s a shame that a small bunch of low-life bottom-dwellers can ruin what was shaping up to be a popular Facebook page but remember: don’t feed the trolls because your indignant reactions are what they thrive on.

Besides, take heart in the knowledge that anonymously bugging people online is the best thing in their lives and that much like high school bullies, this is them at their peak. They are to be pitied more than anything else.

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

Do we really need an app to encourage people to take more selfies?

Well, the obvious answer is no, we don’t. Unfortunately, we’ve got one anyway.

Frontback combines pictures of what a person is seeing and their reaction, using both the front and rear cameras in some devices to take both shots at the same time, before combining them into one tidy little image that can be shared on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

OK, so it is quite a clever idea but good lord, do we really to give the selfie-addicted more opportunities to overshare?

There are already far too many people out there who just can’t help but take one of those “hold-the-camera-at-arm’s- length” images to share on Facebook every time they go out with friends, go shopping, or even simply successfully leave the house with matching shoes and their underwear on the right way.

Or after spending a bomb on buying the phone with the best camera, they chuck the pictures on Instagram with trendy filters to make them look like some craptacular photo taken with a 20-year-old point-and-shoot camera.

Then they go on holiday with their fancy-schmancy mobile devices and take lots of snaps of interesting things but because they are taking a selfie instead of getting their travelling companion to take the photo like us old people do, and their arms aren’t 2m long, you can’t see the interesting things in their photos.

All you can see is the aforementioned selfie-taker, either smiling like an idiot in their perfected selfie pose or trying to look all moody and interesting (but usually looking more constipated than anything else).

According to the Mail Online, Frontback is “taking San Francisco by storm, and experts say it is set to ‘explode’ in popularity”.

I can see the usefulness of it, perhaps for getting a shot of a grandparent meeting their new grandchild for the first time, or the reaction of a groom as his bride walks up the aisle. Unfortunately, I suspect we’ll be seeing shots of a more hipster nature: brooding dudes and dude-ettes with their fashion- statement dark-rimmed glasses staring moodily at their hipster dinner plate. With a moody Instagram filter, of course.

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

I reckon the Government could have saved a lot of kerfuffle with that whole spy bill drama by just setting up a Facebook account and friending all of us.

While we’re all up in arms – and rightly so – over the possibility of our government spying on us, we’re also keen to overshare our lives with anyone and everyone via social networking: from photos of our kids to details of family rows, from endless pet photos (I’ll raise my hand to admit guilt on that one, but it’s not my fault Seymour the Wonder Cat and Norman the Naughty Cat are so incredibly photogenic) to equally endless selfies, it’s all there online, cluttering up the interwebs.

Even the Pope has been at it, posing for a selfie just last week (is.gd/rJWYC3). Although I’m pleased to say he didn’t do the duckface.

National carrier Air New Zealand has been involved in a bit of an online privacy bunfight of late, demanding a nosy at the Facebook pages of an ex- employee.

The flight attendant was sacked earlier this year over a sick leave dispute and she went to the Employment Relations Authority, claiming unfair dismissal.

Air New Zealand had demanded to see her Facebook and bank details (is.gd/ xuTBzp) because it was questioning the legitimacy of her sick leave.

While she had to hand over the information she did eventually win her case, but there’s a lesson in there for everyone who uses Facebook, Twitter or any other social media sites: don’t put anything online that you wouldn’t want your employer to see.

Even if you have your profile privacy set up so only your friends can sample the wondrous details of your day-to-day life, that information is no longer under your control once you put it out there.

I’m sure all those wee starlet chicky- babes who ended up starring in their own sex tapes never expected such private moments to go public, but many a disgruntled ex has cashed in on that naive belief.

The same is true for all of us: an angry friend, unscrupulous co-worker or evil ex can destroy any expectations of privacy with one click.

So next time you update your Facebook status, ask yourself if you’d be comfortable with your boss (or your Mum) reading it.

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next tin-foil hat-wearing crackpot, and the internet has certainly made the sharing and perfecting of those conspiracy theories so much easier.

When the news broke at the weekend that Scotland Yard was having another look at the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, it sped around the internet faster than a peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich at an Elvis Presley convention.

It’s been nearly 16 years since Diana died in Paris but the rumours about her death being a hit ordered by the Royal family, the British military or possibly even the government have never really gone away.

Given the fact that there have been other members of the family who have caused every bit as much embarrassment in the ensuing years, you’d think that if there was any truth to those rumours, there’d be a certain bent-nosed rugby player with a taste for canoodling with sheilas they aren’t married to who might have been in line for an, ahem, unfortunate accident.

Unless, of course, it was the Queen Mother who did the hit. Then that would explain the lack of retribution.

It is quite sad that after all this time there is still so much doubt about how she died but now more than ever, it seems there is a hardcore group of people looking for the conspiracies in every high-profile death.

When New Zealand ATM hacker Barnaby Jack (pictured) died suddenly last month, just a week before he was scheduled to speak at a Las Vegas hacking conference on how to hack into pacemakers and defibrillators, the web was awash with rumours: The death of a man who claimed to have discovered how to perform a hack hit was conspiracy theory nirvana.

While I was a bit concerned by his claims – particularly since I was told last year I’ll be needing one of those internal cardiac machines myself and had visions of being hacked by an angry Nigerian investment broker with a Hotmail address – I was also keen to hear what he had to say.

Sadly, he never made it to the conference and now the online rumour mill is busily spitting out theories on how and why he died.

He was just 35 years old and for his family, it’s a tragedy not a conspiracy.

***

On a brighter note, isn’t it great that we finally have marriage equality here in Godzone?

Congratulations to all those who have taken that leap into married life this week.

I reckon the whole debate was summed up beautifully by a quote I saw online a few months ago: Saying someone else’s marriage is against your religion is like getting angry at someone for eating a donut while you are on a diet.

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

There are some news stories that just take over the web and this week’s arrival of the newest royal was one of those stories.

As much as we try to pretend we are interested in serious, grown-up newsy stuff, there’s no denying most of us are suckers for a warm fuzzy story or a bit of juicy gossip. And I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather hear the warm fuzzy “the baby’s here” story than some bit of tawdry celebrity dross any day.

It’s hard to believe one tiny little baby could cause so much buzz but there you have it: the royal munchkin has arrived and prompted much excitement both online and in real life.

Online news websites were taken over by baby fever, with story after story on every possible aspect of the impending arrival and on the goggle box, TV reporters struggling to fill in time as they waited for the Duchess of Cambridge to evict her little tenant.

Twitter very nearly imploded under the weight of a gazillion #royalbaby tweets and Facebook was awash with speculation on when and what gender (before his arrival) and what his name would be (after his arrival). I still think Norman has a good ring to it, and if it’s good enough for both my brother-in-law and my cat, then it’s certainly good enough for a future king.

For the most part, the feedback was positive: we were happy for a young couple about to become first-time parents. There were also plenty of good-humoured jokes and puns popping up (on Her Majesty’s secret cervix) as the world celebrated.

However, there were some negative undertones, with some posters on Facebook and Twitter having a whinge about there being so many updates about the royal baby and a few even being downright nasty.

Interestingly, you see a lot of that online and often from people who I know personally and can vouch for the fact they aren’t like that in real life.

Don’t get me wrong, I respect everyone’s right to express their own opinion but it seems that often people are far more critical and/or nasty online than they ever would be in the flesh.

I don’t have strong feelings either way about the royal family but like so many others out there, I was feeling quite chirpy when news of the wee fella’s arrival broke: you don’t have to be a staunch royalist to feel happy for the new parents and to appreciate a good news story among all the murders, job layoffs, natural disasters, wars and daily dramas.

Welcome to the world future King Norman. Hasn’t that got a nice ring to it?