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10 Most Bizarre Crimes Linked to Facebook

Posted by Harshad

10 Most Bizarre Crimes Linked to Facebook


10 Most Bizarre Crimes Linked to Facebook

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 08:01 AM PDT

Facebook has been such an integral part of our lives that even recent crimes are cropping up; crimes with a specific M.O. that involves Facebook as an accessory. And it’s not limited to cyberstalking, identity theft, distribution of child pornography materials, etc. These crimes are pervasive on the internet but they only represent the tip of the iceberg.

The type I’m referring to involves some creative, bizarre and unthinkable crimes that are linked to Facebook, for example that recent story about a mother who tried to sell her two kids (a 10-month old and a 4 year old on Facebook for $4000), ironically to bail her boyfriend out of jail.

While the law caught up with that case, in some cases listed below, the justice system is fumbling over them, trying to figure out which is unlawful and which is not. These ten types of bizarre Facebook crimes serve as a reminder to all of us of the impact that Facebook has over our privacy, and how much it can possibly override the sanity of people, turning them into criminals.

1. Jailed over Facebook Friend Request

In 2007, Dylan Osborn was ordered by magistrates not to contact his wife after he was found to be harassing her with phone calls and text messages. When he sent a ‘friend request’ via Facebook to her despite the restraining order, Dylan’s wife reported him to the police. He was consequently arrested and sentenced to ten days of imprisonment.

Technical Get-Out-of-Jail Card

However, in his defense, Osborn claimed that the ‘friend request’ was sent automatically to everyone on his email list (which includes his wife) after he signed up for Facebook for the first time. He was unaware that his wife was already on Facebook.

So while he is told to have no form of communication with his wife, online or offline, in this case, it was Facebook who had automatically conducted the friend request, landing him in jail. Whether this is a smart defense tactic that had brought the order out into uncharted territory, or a ticket out of his failed attempt to contact his wife, we’d probably never know.

2. Suicide By Social Bullying

The infamous suicide of Ms Phoebe Prince in 2010 is a classic case of cyberbullying gone terribly wrong. Having just moved from Ireland, Ms. Prince was subjected to taunts and bullying for months before taking her own life.

A freshman at South Hadley High School, Massachusetts, she had been receiving abusive text messages, harassment on her Facebook wall and on school grounds over girl-boy relationship disputes.

The Horrible Truth

But this had not been considered a cause to her suicide until one of her bullies wrote ‘accomplished’ on the poor girl’s Facebook wall on the day she hanged herself. Further digging revealed that a group of schoolmates had been carrying out of bullying campaign against Prince which continued even after her death.


(Image source: today24news.com)

The public pointed fingers at the school authority for not doing enough to prevent the tragedy from happening, but at least in this story, justice was served.

The Final Verdict

Six teenagers were charged for a variety of criminal offences, including statutory rape (that was eventually dropped by Prince’s family), "civil rights violation", stalking, and even assault and battery (also dropped from pleading guilty to criminal harassment).

While many view their community service sentences and probation as "a slap on the wrist", the case brought the issues of cyberbullying to light, culminating in a new law meted out to fight bullying in schools in Massachusetts.

3. Fatal Attraction: ‘It’s Complicated’

As I read the several murder cases that are linked to Facebook posts, it struck me that all of them were triggered by relationship conflicts.

I see it in the case of Brian Lewis who killed his wife, Hayley Jones after she changed her Facebook profile from ‘married’ to ‘single’ back in 2009, as well as in the case of Camille Mathurasingh who was murdered by her boyfriend, Paul Bristol in 2010 after seeing her with another man on her Facebook page.


(Image source: dailymail.co.uk)

No Love Lost

In a separate incident, Adam Mann had brutally hammered his ex-wife, Lisa Beverley before slitting her throat and leaving her bloodied body to be found by their five-year-old son – all because she had taunted him on Facebook.

Beverly had reported Mann’s attempts to evade paying child support to the Child Support Agency (CSA) then posted a smug remark on Facebook, and called him ‘a joke’. He retaliated with such violence that she had no chance of survival.

Public Embarrassment

Although murders that happened because of jealousy in a relationship are relatively common, using Facebook intensified the actions involved as it is a very public platform.

When one posts evidence about a failing relationship, the other party may experience a punctured ego (especially men) particularly when he is implied to be the cause of the failure. Things will get ugly when you wash your dirty linen in public.

4. Facebook Impersonation

Online identity thefts are rampant across the world. We see it in the thousands of fake profiles of celebrities on Facebook and Twitter, with some successfully misleading others into thinking they’re genuine profiles. Nevertheless, identity theft can turn into a serious offence depending on what is done with the fake profile.

Most people are not aware that there are laws out there to protect against online identity thefts.

Defaming Exercise

Take the case of a New Jersey woman, Dana Thornton who could potentially face up to 18 months in prison for creating a fake Facebook profile for her ex-boyfriend to post pictures that intentionally defame his reputation.

Another interesting case of identity theft made a big hoo-ha in Morocco back in 2008, when one Fouad Mourtada was detained for "villainous practices linked to the alleged theft of the identity", of the king’s younger brother, Prince Moulay Rachid on Facebook. The Moroccan government weren’t amused with the antics Mourtada pulled, and sentenced him to three years in prison.

Fortunately for Mourtada, he was released 43 days later after a royal pardon.

5. Can Facebook Find You A HitMan?

19-year-old Pennsylvanian, Corey Christian Adams was arrested in 2010 following a rape accusation after a party. Shortly after, he posted the following on his Facebook:

"I got 500 on a girls head who wants that bread?" and "Hit me up anyway possible".

Hooking up with a Murderer

Answering this request for a hitman, a detective took the opportunity to go undercover and gather evidence to charge him with attempted murder. He eventually set up a meeting with Adams, which Adams missed.

However, he posted another status a little later,"needed this girl knocked off right now."

Investigations revealed that those public posts were indeed directed at the victim. His stupidity aside, justice was served as he was sentenced to 11 to 22 years in state prison on charges of rape, criminal solicitation of murder, unlawful restraint and possession of an instrument of crime.

6. Blackmailing On Facebook

Divorces turn people crazy, well at least that’s what happened with 23-year-old Nigerian Afolakemi Mojisola Adeniyi. She posted a picture of his ex-husband on Facebook and tagged him as a member of the Boko Haram, a violent jihadist terrorist group in Nigeria.


(Image source: zimbio.com)

His ex-husband, Alfa Umar Gobir reported her to the police after getting calls from friends over the weekend, mistaking him as a genuine member.

For Self Defense – or Malicious Intent

In addition to the post, a caption was found below the picture, which reads:

"This is one of the Boko Haram any time you have contact with him, bomb him."

Adeniyi was duly arrested and when asked of her reasons, she replied said it was because Gobir threatened her and her child.

Heeding the advice of the police, Adeniyi’s parents approached Gobir to beg him to forgive her but Adeniyi subsequently posted:

"Am nt regrtn of d pic upload by me 2 any 1."

Police told Adeniyi and her parents that the evidence against her is sufficient to warrant a jail sentence if Gobir chose to go to the court over the matter.

7. Sharing Animal Torture On Facebook

Ever seen any animal abuse videos or photo postings on Facebook? Think those animals deserve some justice? Fortunately, in a few cases, they did get some.

Endangered meal

An American couple, Vanessa Starr Palm & Alexander Daniel Rust was arrested and jailed in 2009 for violating an animal protection act after revealing photos of them feasting on an endangered iguana (no kidding!) on Facebook.

They have even unknowingly uploaded photos of them catching and grilling the lizard which caught the attention of many of their friends who then reported it to the police.

Losing your Head over Facebook

A mouse was decapitated with a steak knife by Naomi Anderson from Queensland, Australia. Worse still, the repugnant video was posted on Facebook (under the alias Shabella King).

The horrendous act took the poor mouse 40 seconds to die. She was subsequently ordered to serve 180 hours of community service and 18 months probation after being charged with animal cruelty in 2011.

Thankfully, she was also forbidden from purchasing, borrowing or take possession of an animal for two years.

8. The Compulsive Facebook Burglar

Here’s a funny one. Facebook addiction spares no one, not even criminals.

In 2009, a burglar by the name of Jonathan G. Parker was caught soon after the break-in because he logged in to his Facebook account on the victim’s computer and forgot to log out. After that mistake, it’s not hard for the police to trace the whereabouts of Parker during the investigation, especially since he resides in the same area as the victim.

Now, this is what I meant when I say Facebook has the potential to dominate our logical thinking.

9. Snap. Post. (Think). Share.

It is your Facebook account but sometimes there are just some things that are too inappropriate to post.

I mean no disrespect but…

A New York medical technician by the name of Mark Musarella was found guilty of disorderly conduct when he took the photograph of a strangled victim at a crime scene while on duty and posted a grisly picture of the corpse on Facebook.

Apart from being dismissed by the hospital where he worked, Musarella was sentenced with 200 hours of community service and banned from becoming an emergency medical technician ever again.

The parents of the victim subsequently filed legal suits against various entities, including of course, Facebook.

Your Photos Can Make Strangers Rich

The next time you want to post suggestive photos of yourself, do take a moment to think it through. A syndicate in Malaysia made full use of such photos, particularly of Asian girls for their call girl service on Facebook.

They featured photos of beautiful girls that were lifted from their Facebook pages without their knowledge, and asked them to pay a sum of money to reserve their services. Two men who used the service discovered the scam when the girls did not show up after they had made their payments.

10. Facebook Fugitives

Well at least Facebook can help you catch fugitives with a Facebook addiction. Some even use it to taunt their victims, and for the lack of better judgement, the authorities themselves.

Break Out and Brag

28-year-old burglar, Craig "Lazie" Lynch became an internet sensation for a brief period in 2009 when he escaped from Hollesey Bay Prison, then started taunting police on Facebook.

He escaped from a seven-year prison term for aggravated burglary and rather than hide away to relish in his freedom, he made a Facebook page for himself (which gathered 40,000 fans if you can believe that), and even called in for a phone interview with Channel 5 News in the UK. He also continuously bragged about the good life he was leading outside the prison walls.

"If any of you was doubtin my freedom. Here’s proof. How the f*** could i get my hands on a bird like this in jail. ha ha", he posts.

His stint was abruptly stopped when he was caught in January 2010.

No Laughing Matter

What about this one: a burglar broke into the house of Victoria Richardson then logged into her Facebook account (since it was still logged on) and taunted her with the successful break-in. Leaving posts like:

"i have the laptop , phones ok but a bit scratched itll do tv was rubbish so i left it ,ds was a bonuss now to the porn shop i gooo , thankyou toshiba is my favourate make

and signs it with:

"regards your nighttime burglar"

to top it off. Not only was Richardson robbed, her intangible privacy space had also been invaded.

What Does This Mean?

After going through this list of Facebook crimes, some disturbing, others absurd, I’m sure you would’ve realized the recurring trend. Both the criminals and victims commit the same mistake: oversharing without due consideration of the consequences.

I’ve mentioned in my previous entry about how we willingly share and publicize ourselves to feel connected with our social networks. Yet, as the above cases have shown, there’s a need to know where when to draw the line before things become too serious.

We’re less likely to get carried by our emotions after we set the boundary between what should and shouldn’t be shared on Facebook. As a note of precaution, always exercise discretion in how much you are willing to share about yourself on Facebook.

    

5 Dilemmas You’d Face As A First-time Employee

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 06:01 AM PDT

If you have just been newly recruited, congratulations! You probably have burning questions about interviews or while you are on the job, questions that you can’t seem to find the answers to, either because you’re not asking the right person or because they aren’t telling you the whole truth.

I’m not a professional recruiter although I’m not sure if they will be able to help you with your questions either. They are after all obligated to their clients, the companies. But bear with me, as we take a look at common dilemmas faced by individuals new to the working environment.

To be honest, you may not find answers here, because every one of us has our own set of problems. However, you may be able to take away something from this post, the leverage you need to make the right decision or at least the kind you are less likely to regret later on.

Here are 5 dilemmas you’d probably face as a first-time employee.

1. Negotiating Your Salary

Let’s start with before you get your first job: at the interview table. One of the harder things to talk about during the interview for your first job is the salary range. Despite what you believe about what you are worth, the company has another set of beliefs as to how much they are willing to pay you. This usually coincides with the budget they have at hand.

Find The Range

Some companies offer more than others, and some prefer to take advantage of the new kid in the block. With a bit of digging, you will be able to find out that ideal range.

Next, find a sum that you are willing to rough things out for. Then, ask for that sum (or higher) while still keeping within the range. How? By asking, politely. To clear the air, you should also look at the benefits they have to offer as well. While the pay may be meagre, you might be reimbursed with a good overtime rate, good health package and other forms of monetary incentives. The keyword here is ‘might’.

If you have done your research well, you would know when they are shortchanging you, usually by offering you whatever they can get away with. But if you can’t bring yourself to take the final figure, reject the offer and move on. Don’t beat yourself up about it.

The Deal-breaker

In any case, if you won’t starve from the ‘paltry sum’ they are offering you, take into account the value of the experience you will get from taking the job. In the right circumstances, what you will learn will probably be more valuable than what you will earn.

2. Settling for a secondhand Offer

Some of you may have come across a job offer that isn’t what you are looking for, or offered a role that you had not applied for, and worst of all, the offer comes right at the interview table. Should you take the job or not? For this one, it depends.

The two-bird Killer

There are two reasons a company would offer a candidate a job adjacent to what he or she is asking for: they need someone urgently, and you are qualified (sometimes, over-qualified) for the job.

Any recruitment done to bring you or any other candidate to that table costs money, usually a high sum for a lousy return (think sifting through hundreds of candidates to find two who will finally get the job). HR managers are reluctant to go through the process again if they can find one who fits the bill – even if it is the wrong bill.

The Deal-breaker

On your end, the offer may not be what you want in for, but as you are starting from zero (as in experience), it boils down to whether or not you are desperate enough to settle with second best. And settling with second best actually happens far more often than having a career where you get to do what you love. Ask anyone.

3. Nobody Is Perfect

So you’re at your first job and you want to make a good impression and do everything right, prim and proper. Screwing up is probably the last time you’d expect yourself to be doing. But trust me, you will. Everyone screws up, but the good thing is, people screw up from trying something new. Only people who don’t try anything new never screw up.

The Lesser of Two Evils

Being new on the job, your task is to do everything and anything, and you should, because you can get away with messing up. Yup, being new on the job is the only time you are allowed to screw up (and still escape unscathed).

And it’s all alright. Organizations know that if they want to have experienced employees, they have to train them, and to do that, they aren’t as hard on new screw-ups. In short, they let them mess up. And nothing teaches you how to do things right faster than when you do it absolutely wrong the first time.

Plus, you want to screw up when you have a supervisor watching over your every move, not when you are making decisions on behalf of your company two decades into your career.

The Deal-breaker

Plus, it’s easier for you to recover from your failures and mistakes when you are in the lower hierarchy, and what you learn from those mistakes is what is going to help you keep your job, and advance your career.

4. In the Battling Arena

Office politics is an ugly thing (very much like the non-office type), but it is probably due to human nature: the need to be the alpha dog, the leader of the pack, or just to survive in a dog-eat-dog world out there. There is a reason why I’m using all these doggy preferences.

Pick A Pack

So what happens is, there are a few packs in the same office and these packs are made up of individuals with the same likes and dislikes. These individuals help their own kind, and gang up on weaker prey. Every group has a leader, the one who dictates who does what, and promotes them accordingly, when the opportunity arises.

You will be thrust into this arena and be expected to take sides, and for the love of bacon, pick a side(!)… if only to get them out of your hair. Keep the gossip at a minimal level and try to focus on getting the job done and advancing your career.

The Deal-breaker

If you ever find that the politics is taking center stage more than the real work itself, maybe it’s time to pack up and leave – or be a freelancer.

5. Pack Up And Leave

There may come a time when you think that you should move on. You might think that you don’t belong in this line, or it’s torturous to do something you don’t like, repeatedly, day in, day out with no progress in sight. Then, it happens.

Say Your Goodbyes

You get approached by a rival company or a headhunter who sings praises of you and offers you a higher wage – the answer to all your debts. Or maybe your manager pushed you one time too far, making you sit out yet another weekend, staying at the office, because he has kids and you don’t.

Regardless of what encourages you to leave – and it will come eventually – only consider leaving if you know for sure that you are better off.

If you can’t be sure, however, but still yearn to leave, leave in the best of terms. Make your apologies and get things off your chest before you go. And if the damage isn’t too bad, stay in contact with the company and the people within, because no matter how many jobs you will move on to, you will never forget your first.

The Deal-breaker

The people in your first job watched you grow so there will always be that bond there and you never know if you may want to reconnect with them later on in your career. Leaving in good terms leaves that door open for future opportunities, even if it means going back.

Conclusion

I may not be able to give you an inside scoop of how organizations work when it comes to picking or retaining their candidates but one thing is for sure, any company that is bent on expanding is always looking for good people who are willing to learn, who are patient and who are not shy to ask questions to things they do not know.

You aren’t expected to know anything about your first job, and to be honest, not every company out there is willing to teach you the ropes. But take that as a challenge to better yourself on your own terms and who knows one day you might be able to head your own company, based on the rules that you make.

What dilemmas did you face in your first job? Share them with us and let us know how you dealt with it.

    

How To Reinvent the World In 3 Simple Steps

Posted: 12 Apr 2013 08:01 AM PDT

Changing the world is easy. Take Steve Jobs for example. The poster-entrepreneur of our era who reinvented the world! He did it, while taking credit for every idea from his VP of Industrial Design Johnatan Ive, bashing the competition and being a control freak. Nobody’s perfect.


(Image source: Fotolia)

So how did such a guy actually manage to reinvent anything? That’s because the challenge is easier than it first seems.

Here is the 3-step process:

  • Choose a rising industry
  • Find a decent idea
  • Transform that idea into a genius one

Jobs just chose the right industry (IT), had a decent idea for a new phone (most people knew it was coming) and reinvented it as he went along, incorporating different technologies to create the iPhone. The genius is the last part. And it all comes after you start.

Let’s dig deeper into this.

Choose a rising industry

What you need to do is look around and harvest ideas from people – ideas for a rising industry to get into. See what people are interested in and envision their needs for the future. "Steal" every idea you can.


(Image source: Fotolia)

For instance, we all know that green energy or sustainable harmless nuclear energy is the future. But what are you going to do about it? The industry only needs great implementation. And you need to look no further than your smartphone’s clock widget to understand that “mobile” is the new revolution, inching its way into manifestation each day.

Ideas Are Everywhere

Industry ideas are all around you. It’s also easy to find something good nowadays, because everything is shared. A quick search and you’ll see the Top 10 fastest growing industries. The list may contain less glamour and hype than expected. But maybe, just maybe, there’s more to "nut and bolt manufacturing" than meets the eye?

Find A Decent Idea and Stick to it

Once you’ve chosen a decent industry, stick with it. Stop looking. Don’t switch industries too soon. There’s room for world-changing events in any industry. Sure, a new, revolutionary type of bolt won’t get that much press. But you still can change the world, while making a lot of money. This isn’t a method for glory. We are interested in actually reinventing the world. And to do that, you need a "brilliant idea".

Brilliant ideas already exist in everybody’s mind, in their primal state. There are basically no genius ideas in existence just different re-interpretations / combinations of normal, primal ones which everybody has. Genius ideas are created only after you start implementing normal ones.

Bring A New Idea To An Existing Industry

For example, the pinch-and-zoom gesture from an iPhone was actually a much older idea. In 1983 a guy called Myron Krueger invented it. Jobs just gave it a different application, and a much larger marketing platform. The Nintendo Wii seems groundbreaking! That’s until you realize that motion sensor for alarms existed for years. They just integrated it in a new industry.

So don’t spend too much time looking for a great idea.

Just Do It. Better.

Once you have an idea you feel is decent enough, it’s hammer time. You should incorporate new concepts into your product, much like how Steve Jobs did with the iPhone pinch-and-zoom gesture. This is the core of your business. This is where you actually reinvent the world.

You take a known idea and view it differently, adding things to it which other people haven’t thought of adding.

Synergy helps. Lateral thinking helps. Having a team with different skills is great. Just try to reinterpret other products and technologies, and integrate them into your product. Not knowing much about your industry helps. Often times experts find it hard to view stuff other than in the way they were taught. If you’re an absolute novice in your field, it’s easier to reinvent and innovate.

A few more things to remember:

1. Innovation is meant for dummies. Don’t get so caught up in innovations for your product that you forsake usability. If you want to move around, you don’t use a camel-bicycle hybrid do you? Your innovations should be easy to use and easy to understand.

2. Keep the Product simple. Likewise, you don’t want your product to be overcomplicated. You’ll end up a mad genius, with no real impact on the world.

3. Keep the Name simple. I get it. You like your product to be multi-featured. You want to squeeze as much information and value into your product’s name as possible. Add an X or Z to make it sound cooler. But it’s the iPhone 5 for a reason. It’s not the iPhone 5000Y UltraTouchSensitive + French Fries, is it?

4. They like it Dummy-proof and super-easy to use. Nobody likes a stupid product. A stupid product isn’t dummy-proof.

5. Reinterpretation is not stealing. Use retweaked bit of designs from various sources. Straight up innovation is only reserved to the elite or the absolute novice. If you’re anywhere in between, keep on “stealing”.

Conclusion

So again, the 3 steps to reinvent the world are as follows:

  • Take the beaten path (rising industry)
  • Make sure you choose a decent car (idea)
  • Transform that car into a super-car (reinvent) and make sure it still has 4 wheels

There are no genius ideas, only genius reinterpretations. Don’t spend time looking for a genius idea, get down-n-dirty with a decent one in a rising industry (pretty easy to find) and make sure you spend all your effort towards trying to innovate inside the limits of that particular idea.

Then, change the world.

    

Weird Questions Asked During A Job Interview

Posted: 12 Apr 2013 06:01 AM PDT

Ever heard of horror stories where the candidate is asked a totally unrelated question out of the blue at the interview table? "Why is a manhole cover round?" "Which part of the sandwich is the most important?" "Name three things you would like to have with you if you were stranded on a deserted island."


(Image Source: Fotolia)

We doubt any job is going to leave you stranded on a deserted island anytime soon but yes, Mr. Interviewer, why do you torture candidates with questions like these? The truth is, they are asked for a variety of reasons, but it’s not because they want the answer.

In fact, some of these questions don’t have a correct answer. What the recruiters are interested in is what your answers can tell them about you.

Types Of Oddball Questions

But first, let’s take a look at how odd (aka nerve-wracking) these questions can be. Glassdoor is the best place to take a look at the weirdest interview questions ever put forth by corporations, questions like:

  1. "How many cows are there in Canada?" – Google
  2. "How many quarters would you need to reach the height of the Empire State building?" – Jet Blue
  3. "How would people communicate in a perfect world?" – Novell
  4. "Estimate how many windows are in New York." – Bain & Company
  5. "Calculate the angle of two clock pointers when time is 11:50" – Bank of America

(Source: Glassdoor, 2012)

Looks like we’re screwed, aren’t we?

What’s the point?

Believe it or not, the answer is not the most important thing. What interviewers are looking for (if they know what they are doing – more on that later) revolves around three things:

  1. to see your confidence level and how you react to something unexpected
  2. to see if you can think out of the box, put more than just your degree on the table
  3. to see if you can solve new, upcoming problems which may not have a textbook answer.

Be Ready for anything

Note that these are the questions that are asked by people bent on catching you off guard, so it’s highly unlikely that you would be able to get the question ‘right’. However, you’d still have to think of something that beats "I don’t know, what’s the answer?".

If your response runs along the lines of asking someone else what the answer is, or a mere I don’t know (or I don’t really care), good luck getting a phone call back.

Your Grasp of concepts

If you are the trying sort, remember that for some of these questions, your approach to the question is more important than the answer itself. While in school or university, we’re taught to give the right answer, it is the concepts that are in the limelight when it comes to solving real-life problems.

Think Out Of The Box

How do you put an elephant in a fridge in three steps. Take a minute to think about it if this is new to you. Done? Just open the door to the fridge, put the elephant in then close the door. It’s a perfectly legitimate answer to a perfectly legitimate question, and it satisfies the three-step requirement too!

The only dead weight holding back this answer was probably the common knowledge that an elephant is usually a lot bigger than even your largest fridge. Toss that out and the answer is so elegantly simple, Einstein would have been proud.

Here’s a variation of that question involving a nickel-sized you and a blender, and what one author thinks is a possible answer.

Hints and Tips

These questions burn up the Internet because of their ambiguous nature. And by the time you get to the interview table, chances are the interviewers have changed the questions. So basically you can’t prepare for these questions, or can you?

Here are three things that may help.

  1. The questions relate to the job role you are applying for, or what the company does, so try to keep that at the back of your head at all times.
  2. Secondly, the recruiters are probably using this question to settle a tie. Leave an impression.
  3. Lastly, don’t take it too seriously, because sometimes even the interviewers have no idea what they are doing.

Clueless Interviewers

Yes, not all interviewers know what they are doing. In smaller companies, instead of an HR executive, well-trained in recruitment techniques, the boss or the managers are doing the interviewing. Some companies use weird questions like these simply because everyone else is using it.

And research is revealing that questions that are ‘designed to scare‘ should be removed from the interview table. A company could lose a real good candidate who has passed everything else with flying colors apart from the one oddball interview question that had no reason to be there in the first place.

The Best tactic

So after all that, what should you do when asked weird questions like these? Have fun with it, but try to make the interviewers remember you. As an example, remember the question about using penguins to measure the North Pole?

If asked that, I’d probably say I wouldn’t know what the answer would be but penguins do not live at the North Pole and more importantly, the North Pole doesn’t really physically exist. There isn’t really a pole there, or an area with a border. It’s just ice, everywhere. Then, I’d pray that they won’t ask me to use unicorns to measure rainbows.

    

UI Design: An Intro to Flexible Box

Posted: 12 Apr 2013 03:01 AM PDT

In a previous post, we have discussed that HTML elements are essentially a “box”. Traditionally, when we position those boxes, whether to the right or to the left, we use the float property.

 .main { float: left; } .sidebar { float: right; }

There is one certain downside when we apply this technique, the direct parent element of .main and .sidebar will collapse as illustrated below.

Thus, we mostly need to apply CSS clearfix to the parent to counter the effect.

Flexible Box Module

Since this is now becoming a common practice in web design, W3C announced a new module called Flexible Box or simply Flexbox. But, this module is still in the drafts stage and there has been several changes over the years.

At the time of the writing, this module is only fully supported in Chrome 22 (with prefix) and Opera 12.1, according to CanIUse.com. All right, let’s see how this module works.

To demonstrate this new CSS3 feature, we will prepare the HTML structure. We have a div that is containing two other div, like so.

 <div class="cf"> <div class="col left"> <p>Pastry icing sweet roll fruitcake croissant. Tart wypas tiramisu marshmallow marshmallow sweet roll. Cheesecake bear claw pudding bonbon sweet roll powder carrot cake. Cake sweet donut tart.</p> </div> <div class="col right"> <p>Dessert gummies sweet roll. Dessert gummi bears soufflé cotton candy icing. Lollipop wafer lemon drops toffee chocolate.</p> </div> </div> 

Let’s just assume that the left column is the main content section and the right column is the sidebar. So that, as you can see, we add more (random) content to the left column rather than to the right column.

As we have mentioned above; in a traditional way, we will do something like this in the stylesheet for positioning the column. We float the column, specify the proper width as well as include the CSS clearfix, like so.

 .cf:before, .cf:after { content: ""; display: table; } .cf:after { clear: both; } .cf { *zoom: 1; } .old .col { float: left; } .old .left { width: 310px; } .old .right { width: 210px; } 

As expected, here is how the result looks like.

With Flexbox module it becomes much simpler. Technically, we simply need to set the parent’s display to flex.

 .flex { display: -webkit-flex; display: flex; } 

Interestingly, this will also determine the proper width for the div inside without us specifying it explicitly in the stylesheet and this is how it turns out.

Furthermore, we can also set flexbox to the child element. In the following example, we apply it to the left column.

Now, since we have two paragraphes inside it, they will also be divided, as shown below.

The Syntax

There are actually more syntax included in Flexible box module, but as we mentioned earlier in this post, they have been changing over the years. For example, in 2009 the specification said display: box, then in 2011 it changed to display: flexbox. So, I think we better wait until this module is settled, before we implement it wildly on our websites.

    

The Fall of Apple [Infographic]

Posted: 11 Apr 2013 10:09 PM PDT

Alright, alright pipe down. So many prophets have been ‘predicting’ the fall of Apple for ages ever since the company lost their beloved CEO. But how possible is the demise of one of the most valuable (in recent times) companies in the world? Perhaps this inforgraphic will reveal clues.

Check out in this infographic by MoneyChoice.org how Apple stocks fared in the past 12 months, its growth (and how it is slowing down) as well as how it fares against the other competitors, including archnemesis, Android. Plus, follow its timeline of Apple products beginning with the first Macintosh computer in 1984 until its coming-soon releases: the Apple TV, Smart Watch and having Siri integrated into vehicles.

    

How Augmented Reality Is The Next Big Social Experience

Posted: 11 Apr 2013 08:01 AM PDT

First coined in 1990 by Tom Caudell, a researcher at aircraft manufacturer Boeing, ‘augmented reality’ used to refer to a head-mounted digital display worn by aircraft technician to guide them in the assembly of electrical wires in aircrafts.

Today, the fundamental idea remains in the definition of AR, which according to Digital Trend is "the interaction of superimposed graphics, audio and other sense enhancements over a real-world environment that’s displayed in real-time".


(Image source: Fotolia)

By this definition, AR can refer to some technologies which have already existed for years. Take for instance sports telecasting where you see colored lines drawn against real-time gameplay of say, a soccer match. These lines may be used to indicate the offside boundaries in which the players must not cross or to show the movements of the ball or players. AR is not to be (commonly) confused with Virtual Reality (VR), where the primary goal is to replace the real world with a simulated one.

We often take such existing technology for granted because they are so prevalent and commonplace that we don’t associate them with what we normally assume as ‘high-tech’ AR.

The Beginning of Futuristic AR

If you ever need proof that AR will be the next big thing, just take a look at the upcoming Google’s Project Glass, a highly-anticipated head-mounted display that aims to bring AR to the next level. The key draw of having AR integrated with eyewear is that users will be able to view information and interact with the computer and the internet much like how we do for smartphones today, except this is hands-free.

google glass

Get info, notifications, emails, weather, directions and reminders or send voice commands, take snapshots, dictate text, ask for directions and more, all from a pair of eyewear.

By making the technology that recognizes any real-world objects and images rather than just codes (QR anyone?), AR is making a seamless transition that is universally accessible.

Seamless AR – The Ultimate User Experience

The AR we see today mostly on our smartphone apps are pretty interesting but not yet seamlessly integrated. We still need to hold up the smartphone or tablet and switch on the camera view to see results. It just doesn’t gel well with the concept of augmented ‘reality’. It’s a display of the reality rather than the reality itself – still not immersive enough.

With Project Glass, comfortable eyewear is coupled with intuitive interactions e.g. voice commands, and direct presentation of information in front of our very eyes. Add in powerful and stable connectivity and user-friendly usage and AR will not just be about what we see; it will be the ultimate social media tool for interacting and sharing our experience with netizens.

Paving The Way for the Future – Existing AR Apps

AR technology is taking mobile devices by storm because of their mobility and increasing technical capabilities. They have the necessary hardware components such as the GPS receiver, camera, screen display, magnetometer (compass) and accelerometer (the thing that auto-rotates your screen) for developers to create AR-based apps.


(Image source: realityaugmentedblog)

The fierce competition between mobile giants like Apple, Samsung, Google and the rest are advancing the specs of the devices and paving the way for more advanced AR apps.

As a matter of fact, there are already some exciting AR developments for various purposes:

Retail Shopping

An alternative would be an AR app on your smartphone that offers you personalized shopping experience. IBM research is already developing a mobile AR app for your shopping needs. What you’ll need to do is to specify your criteria for your product.

augmented shopping

Depending on the developer of the app, the criteria can range from best-selling and best-rated products to healthy, low-fat and low-sugar products. Then, as with most other AR apps, you simply pan your camera across a select category of products, say cereals, and voila! The screen display reveals the special cereals that you’d want to get.

Education

Fancy recognizing constellations in real-time when you look upon the night skies? Well, look no further with Google Sky Map, an AR app that allows you to identify stars and constellations wherever you are. All you need to do is to point your smartphone towards the sky and the display will map out the various constellations.

ar in education
(Image source: blogs.city.ac.uk)

If the heavenly bodies are of no interest to you, consider another educational AR that seeks to ground students’ knowledge on earthly, geographic skills. GeoGoogle overlays geographical measurements like latitude and longitude on the surroundings in real-time to better appreciate their real-world applications.

Students are also able to use it for understanding navigational fundamentals such as direction (via compass) of their location, speed of movement of objects and distance to a specific destination. All these can be done with the camera in your mobile device.

Navigation

Location-based apps is one of the most common AR technology we currently have. All you need to do is point your smartphone or tablet to your surroundings and you’ll see the magic unfold on your screen display.

Using the device’s GPS receiver, magnetometer and the accelerometer, you will be able to find nearby restaurants, ATMS, hotels and other common places, all in real-time with AR apps like Wikitude.

ar in navigation
(Image source: littlegreenrobot.co.uk)

Other similar navigational apps provide information on places or buildings when you point the camera at the location. You can also improve your general knowledge of the world with apps like NearestWiki.

Advertising

The advertising industry doesn’t spare AR technology as well. What most advertising companies do now is to utilize your mobile devices’ image recognition capabilities to produce the augmented experience. This leaves a positive and deep impression for viewers, and that’s what exactly advertising want to achieve.

Pointing your camera towards a specific object (e.g. a still poster) generates an animation or plays a video and turn what is otherwise a lifeless ad into an immersive one. Using the accelerometer, the animation or video follows the movement of your device no matter how you hold it. Check out the amazing ad campaigns for the Volkswagon Beetle and Starbucks.

Video Gaming

How about the gaming industry? There are loads of potential for AR to develop in this area. Google released a simple AR shooter for Android users known as DroidShooting. Holding your mobile device up and looking through its camera on your surroundings, you’ll see flying Androids targets in the actual environment of your location.

It probably looks pretty primitive to you for now, but take a minute to imagine where AR gaming can progress from here.

ar in navigation
(Image source: thesocialjoystick)

As AR becomes as seamless as looking through a pair of eyewear, the experience will inevitable becomes even more immersive. Coupled that with 3D technology and improved graphics, AR gameplay is expected to wow all of us. Better yet, here’s an awesome demo of what it might appear to be like in the near future.

Integrating Info, Experience and Reality

Speedy Internet connections and improved mobile technology are bombarding us with information. We are checking our social networks, emails, news and sites from the moment we get up from bed. The next phase of this information age is to cater selective portions of information to each individual and make them a part of our lives.

Information, experience and reality will merge to become one as AR develops to its pinnacle and become the next revolution in information technology. Switching from one app to the next to get something done may need to be discarded and replaced with a unifying system for that seamless information flow. When that can influence our decision-making and interaction with the world at large, is when AR will truly alter the way we experience reality.

    

10 Common Misconceptions About Job Interviews

Posted: 11 Apr 2013 06:01 AM PDT

Think you are free from the chains of academia and can now roam freely to do what you want in real life? Or maybe get a job? For those who don’t have any experience with job interviews, they might ask the people around them, their family and friends, or even the Internet for tips or advice on how to ace a job interview.



(Image Source: Fotolia)

But like all kinds of advice not all of them is good advice. As time goes on, some of the ‘experience’ that well-meaning friends share with you are not even applicable to the current job-seeking atmosphere anymore. Here are top 10 misconceptions about job interviews that you might want to keep an eye out for.

1. Your Resume Must Be One Page Long Only

Your resume must only have one page because it was believed that interviewers won’t read your resume if it’s more than that. This is not true. It is quite dificult to summarize your whole list of achievements, contact info, objectives or relevant qualifications in a single page.

Reducing the font size or cramping too much of everything in, just to fit this one-page rule not only sounds ridiculous, it may also ruin the good impression the recruiter may have of you. You can expand this to two pages but it is best to keep the maximum length at that.

More related posts:

2. No Call? No Job

So you have submitted your application and have waited days for the interviewer to call you but… no luck. Does that mean that you should move on since "someone else must have gotten the job"? Well, not quite.

Recruiters are a busy lot and usually only begin calling the selected candidates after the closing date of the job notice or a couple of weeks after your submission.

If you don’t get a call after applying, you can always send an enquiry email or give them a call to ask if they have hired someone for the spot, and you would probably find that they are still in the midst of processing the applications.

3. They Called, I’m Still In The Running

So you got the call, congratulations! Not trying to be a wet blanket here but sometimes you are called to interview for jobs that don’t even exist. Often enough companies invite applicants for interviews for the purpose of company studies or research to minimize expenses on recruitment research.

Instead of asking questions about you, they might ask questions how the working environment in your current or last work place, how much is your salary scale, what benefits you are enjoying etc. Even if you are caught in one of these ‘traps’, keep your chin up, you don’t know what it can lead too.

4. The Interviewer Is Well-Prepared

While being well-prepared is good for an interview, this rule will probably only apply to the candidates. Most interviewers have other more pressing matters to deal with and will only take a little of their time to prepare for your first meet up with them. Don’t expect them to have read your resume through and through. If they did, there wouldn’t have been a need for you to tell them "about yourself" at the start of the interview.

Take the opportunity to pitch yourself or your skills and make "you" stand out of the crowd. Highlight your strengths and other discerning factors and be prepared to be asked questions that clearly show that they have never even looked at your application.

5. Interviewers Will Ask All The Same Questions

Although you know what to say when they ask you about your strengths and weaknesses, the skills you can bring to the company and how you can help improve the company brand, sometimes they will throw you a curve ball and ask you a really strange question.

Trick questions like "How many balloons fit inside of San Francisco?" are popular with larger companies where the competition is really high. These questions can help them tell apart those who are creative from those who are book smart. How will you approach a seemingly overwhelming question like that? How will you react? That’s what they are looking for. Either that or they just like to see sweat through the rest of the interview.

6. Looks Don’t Matter, Heart Does

Fairy tales may end with the lesson that no matter how you look on the outside, it’s the inside that counts. But when it comes to reality, the human instinct is to stick to the winner, or anyone who looks like one.

Recruiters want candidates who look fresh, confident, energetic and enthusiastic. You don’t have to be Prince Charming but proper personal grooming and how you present yourself will definitely influence how much recruiters want you to join them. While we’re on the subject…

7. The Most Qualified Person Gets The Job

While being qualified gives the applicants a headstart, the job interview is more like a date. You might not be the most qualified but if there’s chemistry between you and the interviewer you most likely still stand a chance to be the winning candidate for the job.

Also, academic qualifications may have gotten you through the door, but that’s not the only thing interviewers are looking at. They need you to convince them that you are the man (or woman) for the job, that you can be a great addition to the company instead of just being dead weight.

8. Accept When Offered a Beverage

Interviewers may try to be accommodating and ask you if you would like tea, coffee or any other beverage. While the polite thing to do is to accept the offer, unless the mentioned drink is right in front of your eyes, decline it.

You may be making the interviewer go out of their way to get you a drink, when all they are there to do is decide just how good you are as a new addition to the family. And imagine if you’re in a lengthy interview, you sure won’t want your bladder to be full halfway through it. You’re already nervous enough as it is.

9. List Out All Your References

In some places, checking up with the references is only a practice used by human resources to confirm that you have previously worked where you said you did. Most of the time these references may never be contacted at all. However you can use this to your strategy. After the interview you would have gotten a sense of what the recruiters think of you or seek from you.

There is still time to pick the reference who can give you a leg up in the right sense, provided that you have contacted them beforehand and explained your situation to them.

10. Keep Your Answers Short

How would you feel if you ask someone a lengthy question, expecting a similarly lengthy answer only to get, "Yes, I think so" and "No, I don’t think that." as your answers? It’s okay to open up and talk about the company or to explain yourself when you are asked a question, particularly if you have done your homework.

If keeping your answers short will not help you get the job, why would you do it just because someone tells you to?

    

Improve Typing Productivity With PhraseExpress

Posted: 11 Apr 2013 03:01 AM PDT

With everything computerized these days, we spend a lot of time typing away on our keyboard. If your job requires you to work on the computer, there are chances where you will need to use the same phrase, snippets, particular brand name in your work, over and over, and over again.

Wouldn’t it be great if there’s a tool that could help to speed up the typing process?

PhraseExpress is text replacement tool where when you type a certain keyword, the tool will auto detect and complete your sentences. You can add and customize the snippets you want to expand into the full phrase. Here’s how.

Getting Started

Let’s begin by downloading and installing PhraseExpress into your system.

When you launch PhraseExpress it usually won’t open up in a window. The application will be at the system tray icon. Double click it to open it up.

phraseexpress icon at system tray

On the phrase and folder page, you’ll notice that there’s a lot of options to choose from.

phrase and folder page

To add a new phrase for PhraseExpress to recognize, click ‘New phrase’ or ‘New folder’ and enter in the needed details.

to add new phrase and folder

You can also set each of the folders in PhraseExpress to only execute on certain programs by ticking on ‘Execute only in specific program’.

exexute only in specific program

A window will pop up where you can then choose the programs you want to restrict the changes to.

what program to restrict usage of phraseexpress

And on the settings page, you can set hotkeys for specific task for example, to add a new phrase, to open settings windows and much more.

navigating hot keys

When PhraseExpress is running in your system, it will auto detect what your are typing and will correct your mistakes as you go.

gif to show how it works.

You can use abbreviations to make typing easier for example, instead of typing ‘Thank you for your feedback’ you just need to type in ‘tyfyf’ and it will prompt you to replace it with the full sentence with the press of a button.

We find PhraseExpress especially useful during coding. Instead of having to store snippets in Adobe Dreamweaver, all you need to do is to add the code on PhraseExpress. For example, when I type ‘hkdc’ and press the spacebar, it will automatically insert the coding.

This will be great for those who work a lot with html and have templates for their codes. Here we see an example of an image template code. This provides consistency and a more organized structure in the writing.

You can integrate PhraseExpress with software or applications that you use frequently for typing purposes as it could save your time.

    

ZenDock: Manage Your Macbook Cables With A Single Dock

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 10:01 PM PDT

Be it a desktop computer or a laptop, the majority of us has this problem – cable management. And usually, bad cable management leads to shorter lifespans of cables. But here is some good news for MacBook users.

ZenBoxx a company from San Francisco came out with ZenDock, a docking solution to free you from messy cables and a cluttered table.

The ZenDock connects to the MacBook’s Thunderbolt, Gigabit Ehternet, USB, FireWire ports and the power adapter, making it an all-in-one port. The body of ZenDock is made out of high quality aluminium and it has a look that matches your iDevice.

ZenDock

There are two versions of ZenDock. One of it is ZenDock Retina which is for MacBook Retina and another is ZenDock Pro for MacBook Pro.

ZenDock Retina is compatible with 13 and 15 inch MacBook Retina where else ZenDock Pro is compatible with 13, 15 and 17 inch MacBook Pro.

zendock

ZenDock won’t block your audio port, memory card reader and will always leave at least one USB port untouchable. The casing is made of non-slip material for an easy grip.

You can own a copy of either ZenDock Retina or ZenDock Pro by pledging for $139 on Kickstarter. If the project goes through, the estimated date on when you will receive it is around October 2013.

    

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