The site addresses the growing problem of employers monitoring and sometimes even dictating what is acceptable and unacceptable for their employees to say on the employee’s personal Twitter feed.

Naturally, this is also extended to Facebook, G+, etc – but the MTAMO abbreviation seemed most important to the Twitter crowd, since the bio space there is only 160 characters. Including MTAMO in your bio is a heck of a lot shorter than “My tweets are my own”, which is sort of why this site was created.

By changing the sub-domain of the site to your twitter handle, you can personalize the site with your own Twitter follow widget, Twitter picture, and share widget – and link to your personalized version to help other people understand that it’s simply not acceptable for employers to have that level of control over their employees personal lives.

OBVIOUSLY this excludes things like discussing projects for which the employee is under NDA or legally binding agreements. It’s meant more to address employers who wish to censor personal opinions, tone, etc.

Anyway – that’s all I have time for right now. Ramping up to launch phase two of a really cool project for Intel, so things are a little hectic. That said, I’d love to hear your thoughts on MTAMO in the comments after you’ve had a chance to check it out.

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Every time Facebook does something else awful with their privacy settings, I get all fired up and want to write a blog post (or six) about it, but the sheer magnitude of problems is so overwhelming, it makes me physically exhausted just thinking about breaking them down one by one.

That’s not what I’m trying to do in this post.

There is an option in your Facebook privacy settings that I don’t remember seeing before. I don’t know when it was added, or if it’s been there forever and I just somehow didn’t notice it, but if you want more of your privacy but like the ability to stay in touch with friends on Facebook, you can turn off API access altogether.

That means that games, quizzes and other applications will no longer have access to your profile. That does not mean that any data you may have already shared with applications previously will be deleted from the original application developer’s databases, but its a start.

If you turn off platform, you’ll be disconnected from all applications and websites. That means friends won’t be able to use applications to interact with you, and information and settings you’ve saved may be permanently deleted.

To turn off the API, go to your privacy settings, and then click on Applications and Websites:

Turning off API access will disconnect you from ALL previously allowed applications and websites, and may actually delete settings, so you should review all of the applications listed to make sure there really are none you don’t want to keep. If there are, a better bet will be to take the time to go through all of the apps you’ve authorized and remove or block one by one.

Also keep in mind that if you’re a Facebook developer, meaning you create apps or pages for yourself or for clients, you DO NOT WANT to turn this off. You run the risk of biffing all of your hard work. I haven’t tried it on a developer account, but there’s a good chance you would lose the ability to access your pages and apps, and those pages and apps might stop working altogether. You’ve been warned.

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UPDATE: The winner is Kyle Mitchell for his haiku:
Callouses on thumbs
triangles pressed into palms
8 bits of heaven

I’m a big fan of Infectious, a company that produces custom and artist-contributed skins for all manner of devices such as the iPad, iPhone, laptops, iPods, car decals and more. A little while ago, I stumbeld across two iPhone designs that were too cool to pass up.

The skins I picked were the NES controller and the Supertape old-school mixed tape.

These skins are even cooler in person than they appear in the pictures. While out at Nerdapalooza last weekend, I had the mixed tape skin on my iPhone, and got plenty of comments about it. These are real conversation-starters, especially for geeks.

So here’s the deal. I ordered these skins prior to U-boating my iPhone 3G (dropped in the toilet – don’t ask). The phone that died was buried in the mixtape skin, but after the U-Boating event, I was left with an unopened NES skin that I couldn’t use, since I upgraded to the iPhone 4 and the skin wouldn’t fit.

Rather than just holding a raffle-style contest on Twitter (which would be fun but really hard to keep track of entries with and not as much fun as haikus), I decided to post it here. I’m not in cahoots with Infectious in any way on this – I just love their stuff, and wanted to have some fun getting rid of a great skin I can’t use.

How to Enter

Just reply in the comments withyour NES-themed haiku and your email address, so I can get in touch with you if you win. (Of course, you’re welcome to share your comments and not enter, but any comments in 5-7-5 format will be considered an entry, unless you tell me otherwise.) You’re welcome to obfuscate your email address (as in “snipe [at] snipe [dot] net”) to avoid it being crawled by spambots.

Please have your submissions in before Tuesday, July 27 at midnight. I leave for Defcon this week, so I’d like to get the winner’s skin mailed out before I go. I will announce the winner in the comments by midnight Wednesday, July 28 in the comments.

The winner will receive one unopened, brand new NES skin, compatible with the iPhone 3G/3Gs. This skin is NOT compatible with the iPhone 4. If it was, I wouldn’t be giving it away, I’d have used it, instead of buying the iPhone 4 version.

Once a winner has been decided, I will contact them by email to get the mailing address and details.

You may enter as many times as you want, but remember that quality beats quantity any day.

Entries I deem worthy may be posted on GeekHaiku.Com and/or posted to Twitter, with attribuition but no compensation. Deal, or don’t enter. There is no cash equivalent for winning. It’s a fucking $15 iPhone skin. Don’t bust bust my balls over legal bullshit when I’m trying to do something nice.)

Comments on this blog are held for moderation to prevent spamming my legitimate users, but don’t worry – all entries will nget reviewed and approved.

I won’t do anything nefarious with your email. You won’t be added to any lists or other nonsense. I’m not a dick. I just want to find this skin a new home with someone I know will really appreciate it. Now show me that person is you.

If you don’t have a 3G /3GS, stop by Infectious and check out some of their cool skins for other gadgets. The skins look fantastic on the iPhone 4 with a bumper

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The BookBook is a hand-crafted leather laptop case that when closed, looks like an antique leatherbound book. I doubt very much it would contribute to the security of carrying your Macbook, since I’d be just as likely to steal a sexy awesome leatherbound book as I would a sexy laptop, but it’s sure pretty to look at, and one of the most unique laptop cases I’ve seen. Others include the Newspaper laptop sleeve from MiteMite, and the Shuky sleeve that looks like a manilla envelope.

First things first, the quality of design and craftsmanship is outstanding. Everything from the distressed leather to the stitching is perfect, and it feels incredibly sturdy – more so than I would have imagined. The zipper doesn’t seem at all flimsy, and the leather that attaches it to the main body of the case is thick, and reinforced with suede on the inside. (The BookBook comes in classic black and red. I ordered the red, although both are beautiful.)

It’s a little larger than I expected, sticking out about an 3/4 from the top of the screen, and 3/4 of an inch beyond the bottom of the laptop, but I suppose that’s to be expected so that it will fit properly when the case is closed. I’m more used to the Case-Mate hard leather case that I have had since I bought my laptop, which solves this issue by way of a flexible gusset at the hinge.

Side note: I love the Case-Mate hard leather cases. I was only lured away from them by the sheer coolness of the BookBook, but I’d still strongly recommend them any day. I am pretty rough on my laptop, commuting with it through New York City for 4.5 hours a day when i go to the office, and I’ve had the same Case-Mate case for years, with almost no sign of wear and tear. Those things are tough!

The issue I have with the BookBook is actually with the straps. Here’s a short (< 2 minute) video of how the straps work. Sorry for the shakiness, I was rushing to get this done in between conference calls. Also, don’t mind teh kitteh. Or the mess.

As you can see in this video, I suck at taking video and I desperately need to re-paint my nails. Oh, also, you can see what I mean about the straps.

I sent an email to TwelveSouth, the manufacturer, asking about the straps:

Hi there – I received my 17″ BookBook case, and it’s just as beautiful as I thought it would be. I have a few questions/concerns though….

Is there no strap for the bottom to hold the case onto the bottom part of the computer? I admit I’m a little surprised that the straps that hold the case onto the top piece are black and actually cover the top left and right of the screen. This is such a beautiful cover, it seems impossible to me that the attachment mechanism would be so ugly and intrusive. Even my hard leather case that I have used for years includes clear straps that do not obstruct any part of the screen.

This is disappointing to the point where I may actually return it, which saddens me, as I have been waiting for a 17″ BookBook since I first saw the 15″ model months ago.

Andrew from TwelveSouth immediately replied to me, (really, 45 minutes later, and it probably took him at least 20 to write the email) with an explanation that makes perfect sense, but still bums me out:

Hey Snipe,

Thanks for the email and comments. My name is Andrew and I designed the BookBook. Just wanted to explain our thinking on the case and it’s features. If it doesn’t meet your needs – by all means return it. 99 dollars is way to much to pay for something and not absolutely ‘love’ it. That said, here’s what we had in mind for those straps.

The primary reason for the straps at the top only is to allow the BookBook case to close – and also open the MacBook lid itself (unibody only – the silver key version requires that release button on the front). Using it like this, the BookBook can stay basically ‘attached’ to the MB. When opened past 90 degrees for use, the corner straps should just clear the screen corners too. If it’s close, you could push back the screen angle a little bit – or slide the MB more towards you. Either one of these adjustments should clear the corner straps from the corners of the screen.

That said – the overall design of the case was to use it more like a notebook sleeve – slipping it in and out for use – and also possibly carrying it in an additional bag or backpack – was what we had in mind. We never really intended to ‘strap it in’ – we wanted it to slip in-and-out – just like a neoprene sleeve – only better, cooler and more protective once inside. The two straps just added the easy option to use it while still partially contained. (Actually – my favorite way to use it is to use the BookBook as a riser of sorts. I take My MB out and set it directly on top of my BookBook. It adds a little height and angle to the keyboard).

Sorry for the rambling email. I hope our intentions for the BookBook are at least a little clearer now. And again – if it doesn’t completely meet your expectations, please don’t hesitate to contact us again to request a refund. We really do want you to not just like your BookBook – we want you to love it.

Thanks again for your feedback and email,

Andrew

So as you can see, they did have a reason for the decisions they made regarding the straps. Major, major props to TwelveSouth for being so quick to reply to me, and to explain their decision in such detail. It didn’t come across to me as rambling – it came across as a passionate explanation from someone who loves the product they sell – and that’s awesome.

Less awesome is the fact that I thought I was buying a case, not a sleeve. My work environment may not be typical, but it suits me well. Two days a week, I work from home, the other 3 days, I commute to the city. On the days I work from home, my “office” is usually the couch, using the armrest of the couch as my laptop desk. Because there is a fair amount of jostling (and the constant threat of me or one of my spastic pets) knocking it over, something that actually attaches to my laptop is arguably critical.

At this point, my only suggestions to TwelveSouth would be to either re-label the item on their website that so that it’s more clear that this is meant to be a sleeve, not a case – or make a second model that is meant to be be a true case.

If you’re looking for an extremely sexy (if a little spendy) laptop sleeve that will definitely turn heads, BookBook is an excellent choice. If you’re looking for a case for your laptop to basically live in 24/7, this might not be the best choice. I haven’t decided if I’m going to try to jerry rig some straps, or if I’ll return it, but it’s undeniably a work of art regardless.

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Because I am not aging gracefully, and because what I would consider my life’s work lives almost entirely online in the ether, I think about this a lot. Probably more than is healthy, but that’s what booze is for.

This question is more complex than it seems, and becomes increasingly complicated if you have your own independent websites, as I’ll discuss later in this post.

Social Networking Sites

In the case of social networking sites, in most cases, your account will simply linger online with no new posts unless you have given a friend or family member your login information through which they could post a death notice and/or delete your account. In the case of MySpace, there are websites such as MyDeathSpace that allows you to memorialize a recently deceased friend or family member’s MySpace account.

The exception to this (so far) is Facebook. When you join the choir invisible, friends or family can fill out a form to report a profile as deceased, which requires knowledge of the person’s date of birth, email address used for the account, network, and full name. Once a profile has been set to ‘deceased’, friends may continue to post memorial notes on your wall, but you will not (or should not, anyway – I have found this to be buggy) show up in Facebook application invites, etc.

If you have a paid account of any kind, for example with Flickr or LiveJournal, your account will obviously revert to unpaid when the yearly renewal fee is not paid. Even so, unless you have provided instructions and your login information to someone still alive, the accounts will remain available and untouched unless a family member petitions to have them deleted.

Emails from Beyond the Grave

If you’re the kind of control freak that wants to have a say in who gets notified about your death and what that message says (no shame in it – I *am* that freak), services such as GreatGoodbye.Com or MyLastEmail will let you prepare a message (including photos and video) and recipients in advance. A code is generated that you give to a trusted friend or family member, and when you finally lay down for your eternal dirtnap, that person activates the code and the emails get sent.

I’m a little torn on this. While I want to make sure that I get a chance (even if posthumously) to tell the people I love how much I loved them, not all of my loved ones have email, and frankly, it still comes off a little creepy to me.

Of course, if you’re a passive-aggressive dick, you could use a service like this to get the final digs in on someone you weren’t very fond of. You will absolutely have the last word, although honestly, if that kind of thing is worth the cash to you, the world is probably better off without you.

Dead Man’s Switch

A digital dead man’s switch works exactly like the dead man’s switches in movies, only instead of blowing yourself and the hostages up if your finger comes off the button, your carefully crafted post-death plan is triggered.

As Tony Geis explains in an interesting article from NPR entitled Dead Man’s Switch: CC Me From The Other Side:

“I concocted the idea one day when I was almost hit by a car. A program running on a couple of my servers supervises my online presence in various ways. It notices if I post on Facebook, Twitter, my blog, etc., log into any of my servers, send an e-mail, etc. Things like that. If it becomes apparent that I haven’t been around in quite some time, it ‘unlocks’ and a trusted individual can activate it. When it is activated, various trusted individuals will be sent e-mails explaining the situation and be granted access to my accounts.”

Geis rigged his own system as an alternative to using a service like GreatGoodbye, but not everyone will have that level of technical skill, so perhaps a service like GreatGoodbye (or others) would be a good idea if only to email your selected, trusted contacts your login information and instructions in the event of your passing.

According to Forbes magazine, if you’re serious about keeping your online presence going you should appoint an executor, somebody who’ll handle your affairs when you’re gone. Leave him or her your logins and other key information, and if there’s stuff you’d rather the family didn’t see you can arrange for the executor to delete specific content from your computer or online accounts.

Speaking of deleting your social media profiles, website SuicideMachine helps you do just that. It was recently featured on Lifehacker.Com, so if it’s not responding quickly – or at all – that’s why. Just give it a little time and check back when the crushing force of the Lifehacker effect has subsided.

Incidentally, although we’re discussing the topic of actual IRL death it should be noted that SuicideMachine’s name refers to killing off on your social networking profiles. It’s not advocating suicide (that I know of) and isn’t positioned to be a tool to delete your profiles after you’ve passed on, but the combination of SuicideMachine and the Dead Man’s Switch might work in a will to make it easier for your family to delete your online presence if that is your final wish. It works with most of the popular social networks, and can really cut down the time it takes to nuke them all. Sadly, Facebook is being douchey and blocking their IP, so the Facebook integration aspect isn’t functioning right now.

Challenges

As I mentioned, I’ve thought about this a lot. While some of the solutions mentioned above are better than nothing, I think they overlook some less-obvious issues – or at least issues that come up when your online presence is a little more complicated.

Multiple-Personalities

In my case, I have a robust online “persona” on Twitter and other social networks (even this blog) that are very true to my personality. I’m snarky, occasionally funny and mean, and I see my interaction online as a bit of a performance art. I also, however, run a very serious non-profit organization that I founded 8 years ago. Clearly, the messaging I might wish to send to my Twitter friends would likely be different than the messaging I would send to my colleagues through my non-profit work. (Probably slightly less swearing. Probably.) In short, I maintain a professional appearance for the benefit of my organization, as one would expect of the President of any serious company. Trying to sort out the nuances of which group gets what messaging would be complicated and challenging, and the very last thing I would want would be to screw that up and send a message intended for my personal friends to my organization’s list. I can see it now: “See you in hell, bitches! I’ve brought the beer, you bring the hookers and blow!”

Real-Life Friends? Online Friends?

Another interesting challenge is that with social networks evolving to the point where they are used to connect with people you didn’t know before, the lines between “real life friends” and “online friends” becomes more and more blurred. Twitter is a great example of this. The followers on Twitter that I interact with frequently have become as much a part of my life (if not more so) as the “real life” friends I have known for decades but to whom I rarely manage to talk. I don’t even have most of their email addresses, and who knows if we’ll still be in touch by the time I actually kick the bucket. I certainly hope we will, but lives change, priorities change – the same things that make people spend less time with each other in real life get in the way of people spending time with their online friends.

Honestly, I wonder if the terms “online friends” and “real life friends” are even valid anymore. They’re friends. However, because we know each other through a venue that doesn’t provide email addresses, a simple email solution just won’t work if I want to include those friends in my final messages.

But because I know people from all of these different online communities and networks, many of whom are not in my address book, the solution here isn’t necessarily a technical one. Sure, I could create a Facebook/Twitter/MySpace application that allows a trusted family member to trigger your last wishes messaging to your friends in those communities, but what about the Godsmack forums, of which I have been a moderator for 8 years. Or the stone carving listserv I’m on, or the forums for my martial arts school? You get the picture. I would certainly want to include an announcement to them, but those systems don’t have an API that can be tapped into.

Parts of this process would still have to be very manual, which means putting that responsibility on someone I care about, just hours or days after I’ve died.

Passwords and Friends Change

The biggest challenge I see in the automated services solutions is that I change my password often, and use distinct passwords for just about every website I join. I also add new contacts to my address book, friends groups (and friends lists) weekly. Using the automated email workflow concept, I would have to manually update these contact lists every week for the rest of my life. Even as morbid as I am, I don’t want to be reminded of my own mortality that precisely every week for the rest of my life. Even setting website logins aside, the FTP account information for the dozens of websites I run or manage are frequently changed. Which brings me to the most difficult challenge for me, personally.

Non-Technical Friends and Family

As I mentioned, I’m a prolific (one might say habitual) website developer and writer. I can think of at least 10 websites I run that have content that requires constant curating, and probably 15 more that are static that I don’t want to disappear after I’m gone.

FTP login information could be granted to a trusted person by firing off an email with the login to my computer, and then instructions on how to login to my KeePass application that contains the usernames and passwords to my FTP and MySQL sites. But then what? I do not have any close friends or family that even know what FTP is, let alone how to handle creating a new post/page/whatever on each of the proprietary apps I’ve built. It certainly could be done, but that’s a metric assload of work to generate that much documentation, especially when you consider that I may well end up completely changing the software that powers these sites several times before I die. I don’t know about you, but I just don’t have that kind of time.

Moar Monies!

Naturally, hosting costs money. In order for my vast, craptacular works to live on beyond me, someone would have to be paying for it. I currently have it stated in my will that I wish for x amount of money to be allocated towards hosting fees to keep them alive for a specified amount of time.

Relevance and After Life Lifetime

This is less of a challenge than just something to consider while you’re making these types of plans. As much blood, sweat and tears as I’ve devoted to Snipe.Net over the past decade, will it really be relevant enough to keep alive 10 years from now? My tech tips, programing snippets and observations on social media will most likely not be relevant anymore. Keeping that in mind, if I died tomorrow, how long would be appropriate to keep this site alive? A few years maybe? Technology changes so quickly, it’s likely that anything I’ve written here will become obsolete within 6 months, let alone 10 years.

Privacy

In the example I gave above, I would be giving my laptop password to a trusted friend or family member (either informally, or formally by way of an executor), with instructions to access my KeePass file to unlock my other accounts. This also inherently means that the person I entrust with this information has access to all of my files, all of my past emails, all of my social networking private messages, and all of my pr0n. Uhm.. did I say pr0n? I meant banking information. Right.

So short of encrypting large sections of your drive, handing someone the keys to your hard drive is effectively handing them the keys to your entire life, including the bits you may not want to be made available to people you love. Speaking as someone whose step-father once asked her to help him cancel his porn account and remove the malware he got from a porn site, I can tell you there are parts of your private life that really, really, really should follow you to your grave.

Hmmm

As upcoming generations rely more and more on online services and communities and become closer to friends they only know from online who may have no connection to their “real life” friends, I think we’ll see more of this kind of thinking.

Perhaps more importantly, the generation of people whose entire life’s work is purely digital is starting to get older (like me), we will need a more organized, integrated way to handle our online legacies. The most significant, important things I have accomplished in my life so far will disappear if I don’t have a system in place – and right now, that system is kludgey at best, impossible to execute by the technically challenged people I love most at worst.

I do not have children (thank God), and do not want children. My digital creations, self-indulgent and rambling though they may be, are my legacy. They are the only thing I have that has a chance of living on beyond me.

As I’m writing this, I realize that there is currently no solution that does exactly what I need and want. Anyone with some VC capital want to start a company? I’ve already got a plan. Drop me an email if you’ve got some cash to blow.

Your Responsibility?

Is it weird to think about this? I don’t think so. I personally feel that just as it is responsible to have a will, it is responsible to leave your last wishes and instructions for your social networking profiles. Having had a few friends pass away in this digital age, I wish they had considered their social networking profiles in their last wishes. To your friends and family, it can be heartbreaking (and more than a little creepy) to see haunted by your profile on their friends list after you’ve passed. I lost a friend to suicide this time last year, and it took 4 months for Facebook to finally get the memorial status of his profile set up correctly. It was a painful daily reminder to say the very least. Not to mention that neglecting to make formal plans for your eventual death puts the burden of deciding what to do with your social networking accounts on the very people who are already grieving.

Happy New Year to you all. Stay safe, and consider adding a posthumous persona management plan to your resolutions list. What are your thoughts on this? Is it going too far? Not far enough? Do you already have a plan in place, or a pre-recorded “screw you, world!” video set to be published when you kick it? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Disclaimer: I did not create these tutorials, and can claim no credit other than for that of being a devout reader of the Instructables RSS feed.

LED Wine Charms

Posted by billr, these LED light-up wine glass charms are adorable and unique, and will make for an excellent conversation piece at your next nerdy shindig.

The materials may not be something you can find at your local 7-11, but most aren’t too hard to come by:

• Basic 1.7V to 3V red, orange, green, white/clear LED.
• 100 & 200 ohm resistors (Radio Shack)
• 25mm Beading Hoops (any local craft/bead store, around $4 for 10)
• Batteries, which need to have leads pre-soldered to them at the factory – Mouser Electronics part #658- BR2032-1GU,mfr part #BR2032-1GU @ $2.32 ea)

Once you’ve got the materials, all you need is a pair of needle-nose pliers and some basic soldering skills. Check out the full tutorial here.

Of course, if you’re not a wine drinker, these charms can be used on any stemmed glassware, such as martini glasses – which brings us to the second bit of awesome:

Cotton Bawls Cocktail

Most geeks know of the delicious energy drink known as Bawls. Sold at Thinkgeek by the case, Bawls is packed with sweet-tasting Guarana caffeine (80mgs in each 10 ounce bottle), and goes down so smoooooth.

Now imagine if you could have your delicious Bawls (yeah yeah yeah – get it all out now), but you could also add candy and alcohol. Enter the Cotton Bawls Cocktail, designed by thybell.

All you need is:

• A bottle of Bawls
• A shot of vodka
• A fistful of cotton candy

The end result is pure, liquid FREAKING awesome. Check out the full Cotton Bawls Cocktail instructions here.

Voila – the perfect geek cocktail. I mean, really – the only way it could be more awesome would be if you could add bacon to it. Hey…. wait a minute…

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Twitter “Contributors”

Yesterday, Twitter announced the very limited beta release of a new feature they’re calling “Contributors”. From their company blog post:

The feature we are beta testing is called ‘Contributors’ – it enables users to engage in more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account. The feature appends the contributor’s username to the tweet byline, making the business to consumer communication more personal; e.g. if @Twitter invites @Biz to tweet on its behalf, then a tweet from @Twitter would include @Biz in the byline so that users know more about the real people behind organizations.

Before this feature was introduced, enterprise-level Twitter apps that focused on facilitating a team of people servicing a single account – services like CoTweet and HootSuite – encouraged team members to “sign” their tweets with an initial, such such as “^S” to indicate which team member posted.

This new API feature, in addition to the launch of Twitter’s Business site, shows that supporting and cultivating business interaction on the platform is clearly something on Twitter’s long-term agenda.

I, for one, am pleased to see Twitter going in this direction. Whether or not you agree that businesses should be on Twitter, the fact is they’re here to stay- and by adding this functionality to the API, they are encouraging something I have felt was important for as long as social media has been in the mainstream: personalizing your public face.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the companies that seem to be doing things right with regard to Twitter seem to be the ones that grok the concept of the ‘conversation’, and allow the personalities of their Twitter representatives shine through.

To put a finer point on it, several studies have been done that show that doctors who have poor beside-manner or come across as uninterested in their patients have a higher risk of being sued for malpractice, regardless of their technical skill as a physician. [more] In short, patients don’t sue the doctor’s they like.

Customers have a harder time getting angry or frustrated with companies when they get to know the employees as human beings. I felt the full impact of this myself just a week and a half ago at the Microsoft Web Developer’s Summit, and have often referenced Rackspace’s presence on Twitter as being a good example of this.

Conversely, if you have a bunch of assholes handling your Twitter account, expect to feel the backlash of “social media malpractice”.

Is it risky to let customers or potential customers get to know your company employees on a more personal level? Absolutely. But if you’re not prepared to handle that risk, you should probably rule out social media as a service, support. or pre-sales tool. Stick with your static Facebook fan page with your carefully crafted and copy-edited status updates.

Like everything else in this world, you need to evaluate the risk-to-reward ratio, and determine whether or not you’re willing to give up a little bit of the structure and control of traditional media for a chance to really connect with your customers and establish brand loyalty on a deeper level. If you’re not, that’s totally fine. But if you’re going to do it, you damn sure better do it right, because if you don’t, the spotlight will be on you, and it gets hot as Hell. I’m talking to you, Dell, HabitatUK and countless others.

Obviously, if you’re going to take advantage of this new feature, you will want to set up some corporate guidelines for what is – and is not – appropriate for a personal Twitter account that is effectively endorsed by your brand, but remember not to hold the reigns too tightly. Just as you would hire the outgoing, friendly, charming associate with the dynamite personality to be your public sales face, choose your brightest, wittiest and most interesting employees to be your Twitter face.

If your company is just starting to (or starting to consider) venturing into the Twitter depths, be sure to take a cruise through Twitter’s Business site, which features a breakdown of how Twitter works, business best practices, Twitter lingo, case studies and a slideshow for download that is tailored just for you.

Additional Links

• DigitalBeat – Twitter has made Dell $1Million in Revenue
• Social Media: The Best and Worst of 2009

Blog photo credit: Tom Hoffarth, InsideSocal.

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While there are different kinds of geeks, we assure you that buying any of this stuff as gifts for your favorite geek will definitely give you a charisma point bonus and earn you some nerd love.

Note: This was originally published on TehAwesome.net in Nov 2008. It’s being resurrected and reposted here, since I’ll be shutting down TehAwesome.Net soon, and it was too good to throw away.

If you’re a geek yourself and are just looking for some new toys or gifts for your D&D buddies, hopefully you’ll find something new here.

This list is long – it’s meant to be very comprehensive and offer up lots of choices for multiple kinds of geeks, including computer geeks, science geeks, physics geeks, design geeks and, yes, the more traditional basement-dwelling comic book geek.

Geek or Nerd?

There is a fine balance between something that is geeky, and something that is nerdy.

Geek: From the Jargon File entry for “geek“:

“A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance. Geeks usually have a strong case of neophilia. Most geeks are adept with computers and treat hacker as a term of respect, but not all are hackers themselves – and some who are in fact hackers normally call themselves geeks anyway, because they (quite properly) regard `hacker’ as a label that should be bestowed by others rather than self-assumed.”

Nerd: From the Jargon File entry for “nerd“:

“Pejorative applied to anyone with an above-average IQ and few gifts at small talk and ordinary social rituals.”

Examples:

Chicks Dig Linux t-shirt: geeky (which is good.)

“Engineers are Hot” notepad – nerdy (not so good)

The difference is hard to explain, but this article at wikiHow does a fine job at trying to help clarify. (The Warnings are particularly funny and accurate.) Fortunately, there is usually some crossover, so whether you’ve got a geek or a nerd on your hands, this guide should help. (I, personally, am probably a mix of both, although more geek than nerd.)

Caveat

This list does NOT cover items that would be considered “more useful than entertaining.” The items and stores listed here are, in general, not overly useful. It wouldn’t be possible to list everything useful that a geek might want, especially given the variety in the types of geeks you might have in your life. What a design geek might find useful is sometimes not at all the same thing a hardcore purist linux geek might find useful. So this particular list explores the fun and sometimes silly cultural toys that come with geekdom. If you’re looking for something useful for your geek and you’re not savvy in their field, you may be better off with a gift certificate to NewEgg so they can pick what they want. Without intimate knowledge of their gear and their setup, there’d be no way to guess what they will find more useful. Normally, gift certificates might seem a little impersonal, but your geek will appreciate the ability to select exactly what they want.

T-Shirts & Other Wearables

Maybe it makes me lame, but I love me some geeky t-shirts. I work in a casual office, so I can wear t-shirts every day, and my collection of geek/gamer/snark t-shirts is a thing to behold. Seriously, I have an entire dresser drawer devoted to geeky t-shirts.

While that may be a little sad, if you’re looking to beef up your geek/gamer wardrobe, there’s some great stuff out there these days. And, if you’re unable to find what you’re looking for, you can always give PleaseDressMe.Com a whirl and see if you come up with anything good.

And let’s face it, what geek has ever said “No no, I have enough t-shirts, thank you!”

Oh, and ladies, if you’re shopping for yourselves, most of these places carry babydoll styles as well, so you can wear your geek proudly without hiding your curves.

ThinkGeek – if you haven’t heard of them and you’re shopping for yourself, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to buy anything from them, but any geekwear list would be lacking without them. There’s something here for the code slinger, the sysadmin, the gamer, and the ‘net culture geek. And they sell all kinds of nifty cube toys and gadgets as well. And because someone had to do it, the perfect combination of technology and t-shirts, they even have a section devoted to illuminated tees: t-shirts that actually do stuff, like play sounds, detect wifi signals and display lighted life bars.

Jinx - Huge catalog = gamer heaven! The cake may be a lie, but these shirts are the real deal. (I’m so, so sorry for that horrible joke.) Lots of gamer gear, with a whole section devoted to Warcraft goodies, and oodles of old school D&D and RPG love. Jinx was the genius behind the Children of the Cron shirt that I covet so much (and they no longer make. Wah!) At least 40% of my geek shirts came from Jinx.

xkcd store – xkcd is a webcomic that appeals to geeks of many flavors, including computer geeks, physics geeks, math geeks and language geeks. (Truly, one of the funniest and most brilliant comics online, in my opinion.) Their store is very small, but not to be missed.

Penny Arcade – one of the staple web comics of any gamer (and plenty of non-gaming empathizers,) this store is small but has a few absolute gems.

Glarkware – A small, but brilliant collection of not-so-geeky-but-very-snarky shirts and stickers. My favorites here are their I ♥ Irony t-shirt, the stop-sign stickers (which I have used in my own neighborhood and can say they are the very definition of awesome) and the Urban Asshole Notification cards.

Update: Sadly, Glarkware has stopped carrying the fabulous stop-sign stickers and Urban Asshole Notification cards. That makes me a sad panda.

I will not use Comic Sans t-shirt – ‘Nuf said, really.

SplitReason – A fun collection of geek/gamer/pop culture shirts that are always cute, sometimes really funny, and other times a little cheeky.

NerdyShirts.Com – just what it sounds like! Lots of fun retro-gaming shirts here (Zelda was FTW before FTW existed!) And now, thanks to them, I have the Reading Rainbow theme song stuck in my head. Lucky for me, I have it in my iPod.

Honorable Mentions

Design By Humans has some eye-popping designs. I don’t personally shop there, as I’m not as fond of shirts with patterns that cover the entire tee, but that’s just me. Some simply stunning stuff there if that’s what you’re into, though.

Shirt.Woot is based on the same model as Woot.Com (a domain name I not-so-secretly covet and wish I had thought to buy years ago, like unobtainium dot com.) A new, exclusive shirt a day, and when its sold out, you’re shit outta luck – but many of my favorite geeks buy their threads at shirt.woot.

Jewelry

Made with Molecules -VERY cool sciencegeek jewelry shaped like molecules, made out of sterling silver. These are not only incredibly geeky, but also gorgeous! These are not cheap, but the quality makes these pieces worth every penny.

FractalSpin Geekcessories – Fun earrings, bracelets an other jewelery perfect for your favorite math, science or computer geek. Some of these pieces are actually made from actual capacitors and varistors! Perfect for the glamgeek!

Adorable sterling silver compass earrings and other engineering related jewelry can be found at GiftsForEngineers.Com. This site also has some really fun cufflink designs, such as cufflinks made from recycled circuitboards, or my favorite, the green level cufflinks that are made from real itty bitty levels.

ThinkGeek, of course, has some very cool necklaces, including two that light up – The Fuze Necklace (I own one – its delightful!) and the Crystal Cube Firejewel Necklace (which I just came across while researching this article and am buying NOW – so pretty with the glowwy and the sparkly and the oooooh…)

If your geek is a she-geek with a love for D&D, you MUST buy her the d20 Spiral Necklace. You simply must. Its beautiful and functional, and what geek doesn’t like that?

Not so sparkly, but still very cute, the broken image necklace is a lightweight pendant that looks like, well, a broken image. See for yourself! This would be a cute gift for your favorite web designer or graphic design geek.

Also at ThinkGeek, the Ring Thing (bottle opening ring) is a great gift for he-and-she-geeks alike. I’ve had mine for years now, and it’s come in handy at the most unexpected times. And yes, it really does work – you really can open bottles with it, although I wouldn’t recommend opening cases of them in a row. (Company BBQ, lots of beer, no bottle opener. My finger was a little tender by the time it was over, but BOY was I the hero.)

Mugs and Gadgets

W2 Pantone Series – These are unmatched for the design geek in your life. (Unmatched… get it? GET IT??) Super fun mugs, espresso cups and messenger bags in your print design geek’s favorite Pantone color.

My Cuppa Tea/Coffee from Suck UK – Color matching coffee mugs with shades of coffee and tea. Very cute! Frankly, a lot of their suff is really fun, and sorta geeky, like their alphabet ice cube trays, the alarm clock that runs away while beeping, to make you get out of bed to turn it off, or the Who Tall are You mirror, for your younger geeks-in-training.

If your geek is a coffee-lover, but more of a command line linux geek than a design geek, be sure to check out ThinkGeek’s Mug of Vi. Its okay if you don’t know what Vi is – they will. (Vi > emacs 4evah!)

Cthulhu-Themed

H.P. Lovecraft is an old favorite of many die-hard sci-fi geeks, and Cthulhu stands tall as the most well-known and revered of his mythos. Fortunately, thanks to teh intarwebs, there are oodles and scads of places to find the most awesome Cthulhu goodies:

H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society – If you buy nothing else for your favorite geeks this holiday season, you MUST buy the Cthulhu Christmas albums, aptly titled “A Very Scary Solstice” and “An Even Scarier Solstice.” The production quality on these albums is a thing to behold, and they are sure to brighten the face of any geek (albeit while darkening the rest of the room.) The set is sold together during the holidays as “An Unbearably Scary Solstice“, and comes with songbooks. Buy it now. It is the embodiment of awesome.

The HPLHS has piles of delightfully horrific gifts in addition to the albums mentioned above, but another personal recommendation is the What part of ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn don’t you understand? t-shirt. The reactions when a guy tries to get permission to stare at your boobs by asking “can I read your t-shirt” is always priceless. “Sure, if you can…”

My Little Cthulhu – an adorable action figure that even has a set of adorable victims (sold separately.)

Plush Cthulhu – there is so much fun stuff here, including Cthulhu plus toys, a Cthulhu hand puppet (the same kind used in the very funny internet show, Calls for Cthulhu), a plush Cthulhu holiday wreath, board games and more. Note: The Toy Vault doesn’t have an online store from which to purchase these goodies, but The Troll and Toad storefront seems to carry all these and more, including themed Cthulhu toys (Cthulhu as Elvis, Cthulhu as a superhero, Cthulhu as a rock star, etc) and additional Lovecraft monsters such as a Hound of Tindalos plush and a Nyarlathotep plush.

Movie, Game and TV Memorabilia

Forbidden Planet – This should go without saying, but Forbidden Planet has the most amazing collection of action figures and other chachke from just about every movie or TV show that would be meaningful to a geek, including (and OMG do I love this one) a Dark Crystal 7″ Chamberlain figure.

Archie McPhee Toys – One of my favorite toy sources, McPhee has some of the funniest and most unique toys for grown-ups, including a personal favorite, the Avenging Unicorn Playset.

WickedCoolStuff - another great site with tons of movie and TV-related toys, as well as some goofy novelty action figures.

World of Warcraft Action Figures – beautifully detailed action figures from the game World of Warcraft.

Adult Swim store – Cartoons are, of course, a staple of any geek’s media diet, and the best place for cartoons is Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. While most of the store is dedicated to selling DVDs and CDs from the network’s TV shows, there are some delightful apparel, print and action figure surprises in there too. (I personally think Assy McGee is one of the dumbest shows ever put on television, second perhaps only to anything Tim and Eric do – they are teh suck, but the rest of the action figures are teh awesome.)

Nerd Classics

I don’t care whether you’re a geek or a nerd, or whether your geek comes in the form of math, physics, science, computers or something else entirely – every geek used to read Mad Magazine – so what gift could be more fun than 50 Years of Mad Magazine, scanned into PDF in a two DVD set? Nothing, that’s what!

Music

Music is always a little tricky, since the variety in musical taste, even among geeks, is remarkably broad. There are a few genres of music, namely nerdcore and filk, that are particularly well-suited to geeks, however, and I strongly recommend any and all of the following artists. Even if your geek doesn’t absolutely love them, they’ll appreciate the tunes for the novelty alone. If they love the music, you’ll have introduced them to music that will welcome them with open arms.

Nerdcore (sometimes referred to as chip-hop) is hip-hop for geeks; rap for computer programmers, bloggers, gamers and ‘net junkies. Those of you who read Snipe.Net already know that I am one of nerdcore’s biggest cheerleaders, and these are my top picks based on lyrics, production value, and overall awesomeness.

MC Frontalot, MC Lars, YT Cracker, Optimus Rhyme (although they are not together anymore, you can still buy their music), Beefy and DevoSpice (formerly known as Sudden Death).

Not nerdcore, but still very geeky and fun: Pure Pwnage and Jonathan Coulton.

Prefer to Make Your Own?

Gotcha covered. These gift ideas from Instructables have some unique and sorta geeky ideas, with step by step instructions. Also be sure to check out the Make Magazine blog for a weekly lst of fun and nerdy do-it-yourself projects. Or, if your geek is a do-it-his-or-her-selfer and likes to make something out of nothing (or the shattered remains of something else), consider getting them a subscription to Make Magazine. And for the ecogeeks, there’s even a digitial-only subscription option that gives you access to the digital version.

And since we’ve moved to magazines, consider a monthly subscription to Geek Magazine, the most geek you can find in print, which covered movies, tech, music, games and more.

And finally, for the lego lovers, consider using the Lego Digital Designer and coming up with your own fabulous lego gift masterpiece. Freeware application Lego Digital Designer is a virtual Lego kit for your Windows or Mac desktop. Once installed, you can either use LDD to build your own masterpiece from scratch or—if you’re lacking patience—you can get a head start by using one of their starter models. With over 763 brick types to choose from, your LDD-design will have reached well beyond the limits of your normal lego kit. Once you’ve built the perfect prototype, you can upload the results to the Lego web site to order a custom kit with every brick you’ll need included! Lego Digital Designer is freeware, Windows and Mac only.

Box-Toppers & Stocking Stuffers

For smaller gifty-stuff, suitable for people you’re not willing to spend much money on, or for putting on the top of the “real” gift box as an extra something, these stickers and trinkets add that extra something:

Stickers are always a fun, relatively cheap (usually under $5) box-topper, and with all the hardware your geeks are likely toting, they won’t run out of places to put them. Thinkgeek has a great selection of stickers, and Jinx’s collection is perfectly tailored to the gamer geek. Note: the World of Warcraft Horde and Alliance cutout stickers are gorgeous, but larger than you might first imagine, 6″x8″, so just keep that in mind. I really wish they had smaller ones I could put on my laptop. Stickerton also has a small collection of geek stickers, and their anti-OS stickers (MSFT, LINUX, etc) are sure to piss off a few opposing factions.

Or check out the tutorial on Instructables.Com that teaches you how to make the cutest little computer bugs from old computer parts. These are seriously adorable, and pretty easy to make if you’re comfy with a soldering iron.

Or, if you’re not so much a DIYer, you can buy computer bugs here. And if you don’t like the geek in your life very much, you can buy them actual live bugs here.

And of course, the finishing touches are *everything* – so don’t forget to wrap your geeky goodies in the ThinkGeek wrapping paper, featuring gift wrapping paper with emoticons, binary code, mathematical equations and even Klingon.

So that’s our list – do you have your own sources for geek toys, shirts and other fun-but-useless madness? If so, leave it for us in the comments!

Also check out:

Notice that the beta message specifically asks that you don’t tweet about it, since invites are selective right now. Oops.

Unfortunately, I was so excited about seeing list functionality, I took a screenshot and twitpic’d it and tweeted about it before I even read the whole message. So that’s my bad. Ironically, as far as I know, Twitter has still not fixed the bug where deleted tweets still show up in search, so due to their own issues, I couldn’t even take it back after the cat was out of the bag.

So, to Twitter I say “Sorry dude. My bad.” I also find it hard to believe that they would expect people not to tweet about this, considering its probably the single-most significant change in Twitter since they broke @replies. That said, if they had notified me properly, I would have actually kept my yap shut.

If this was a test Twitter was putting me through to see if I was trustworthy enough to keep my mouth shut, I clearly failed. On the other hand, they should have made the “please don’t tweet this” text a little more prominent, or sent the beta invitees an email or DM explaining the conditions. Twitter is, by their own self-imposed definition, the epitome of the short-attention-span theater that represents people on the internet today, so part of me wonders if there was a little reverse psychology action going on, counting on the buzz that would be created by people not honoring their vow of silence.

I’m really excited about this new feature, and I’m hopeful that the software developers behind the more popular Twitter clients make haste at upgrading their apps to support this. (Ahem. I’m talking to you, Atebits. You’ve been bitching this whole time about how groups should be handled by Twitter and you wouldn’t add them to Tweetie until Twitter supported them. Well, they have. So, hop to it.)

Hopefully we’ll soon see a wave up updates to our favorite Twitter clients, including the ability to sync existing groups from apps like Tweetdeck into the new list functionality on Twitter, saving Tweetdeck users the hassle of having to re-categorize all of their followers all over again.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When you add someone to a public list on Twitter, that user – and everyone else – can see to what lists you’ve added them.

Clicking on the ‘lists’ link will show you the names of the people who have added you to one of their lists, and which lists they’ve added you to. So, keep that in mind as you’re classifying and categorizing the people you follow. You’re obviously welcome to add people to lists like “douchebags”, “asshats”, and “morons I work with”, but don’t come crying to me when they call you on it. You were warned.

(My personal favorite is the “favoritards” group someone added me to.)

I have NO idea what their criteria was for picking people to include. Could be prolific tweeters, could be completely at random.

If you’re not one of the lucky ones to be on their beta list, don’t worry – you’re not alone. Most of the people who follow me don’t have this functionality yet. And if it makes you feel any better, I’m always the last one to get any new Facebook beta features. (I think it’s probably because I talk so much shit about Facebook.)

Also check out:

Scott Cummins – PumpkinGutter.Com

The gallery below is just a tiny fraction of the amazing pumpkins you’ll find in Scott’s PumpkinGutter.Com gallery. He shows you what most of them look like when lighted from the inside, and has lots of great photos showing pieces while they’re being worked on, so make sure you hit the link and check it out.

Ray Villafane – Sculptor for DC Comics

Ray Villafane, a sculptor for DC Comics, was the winner of the Food Network’s Pumpkin Carving Challenge in Oct 2008. The six and half hour event pitted four pumpkin carvers against each other in a three part competition. Part one involved a traditional Jack o Lantern. Part two: 3D sculpture.

The final part, which was worth half of the points was the freestyle competition. Ray won every section and blew away the competition. Not only did he get bragging rights and a neat little medal, but he also got a check for $10,000 dollars. His stuff is simply unbelievable. (Also check out his sculpture work for DC on his website. Too cool.)

Star Wars Pumpkin Series

Several years ago, Dayna Flores captured this carved Star Wars pumpkin collection while visiting Beloit, Wisconsin. The carver uses craft pumpkins and adds a new one to the series every year. You can see the full collection on Dayna’s Flickr set.

Pumpkin Carving for the Rest of Us

If you’re not a pumpkin Picasso like Scott or Ray, don’t hang up your trowels, knives and scoops just yet. If you don’t have the chops to freestyle it like those gourd gurus, you can still create some really impressive pumpkins with the help of pumpkin carving templates. Check out PumpkinStencils101.Com for help on how to get started using templates, and then keep reading for some gloriously geeky template and tutorial sources.

Fantasy Pumpkins

FantasyPumpkins.Com has a wide-array of freely available stencils available for download, organized by level of difficulty, in addition to an amazingly in-depth walk-through tutorial on carving the death star. These are just some of the patterns you can find there:

The Kastan Family

The Kastan Family website also has a nice collection of movie-related carvings and patterns. (Make sure to check the archives – they have several years cataloged, although not every pumpkin has a pattern.) Some of what you’ll find there:

Cylon Pumpkin

The website EvilMadScientist.Com shows you how to create a Cylon Jack-O-Lantern in this fantastically detailed tutorial, from the pumpkin-carving down to the circuitry.

If you decide to try this out, make sure you check out the open source Larson Scanner Kit (named after Glen A. Larson, the man responsible for producing both the original Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider TV shows) that details several improvements over the original in the tutorial.

Check out the video that shows how well the EvilMadScientist.Com tutorial works:

If you’re lazy, busy, or not particularly electrically adventurous, Maker Shed sells a kit for only $17, although by doing it yourself, you could have the satisfaction of having done it from scratch and sticking it to the man. Or toaster/skin-job.

Robotic Snap-O-Lantern

If the Cylon Jack-O-Lantern isn’t enough of a challenge, check out the Robotic Snap-O-Lantern tutorial, also by EvilMadScientist.Com.

See it at work here:

Extreme Pumpkins

If sick-and-twisted is more up your alley than geek pop culture, check out ExtremePumpkins.Com, where your carving skills are less important than your desire to shock and gross-out trick-or-treaters. Think you’ve got something grosser and sicker than the rest? Submit your photo for a shot at fabulous prizes in their annual contest. Or if you prefer just to gawk, take a stroll through their previous contest winner galleries. The site also offers free templates and stencils so you can re-create this mass veggiecide on your own porch.

ThinkGeek Pumpkin Carving Contest

Remember to submit your own orginal pumpkin carving stencil for a chance to win massive bragging rights and a free Tauntaun sleeping bag (complete with intestinal lining) or a handful of other only-slightly-less-awesome prizes.

Lots of people have already started posting their geeky pattern contest submissions so if nothing in this post worked your nerdbone (nerdbone? wtf?) just right, check out the comments in the contest link, where you’ll find awesome stuff like this gem from meizme:

Well i read in your blog timmy was upset that lumberjacks lost to the zombies for the new ninja so i thought i would make a lil something to cheer him up… http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/4396/lumberjackvszombies.jpg

Remove the black and peal the skin of for grey, leaving the white. My wife thinks when H1N1 comes in contact with the irradiated moon dust that will soon be entering our atmosphere Earth from the bombing we will experience a zombie pandemic. Lumberjacks will save the world. This is her vision of the future. PS: I R Still waiting for squeeze bacon!

Pumpkin carving with stencils or templates can be fun to do solo, or as a neat bonding activity with your wee nipperkins and geeks-in-training. If the patterns and ideas here aren’t quite the right fit, check out the links below for additional free template downloads.

More Patterns & Links

• The Pumpkin Wizard – Lots of movie-related and fantasy patterns
• Pumpkin lady Patterns – over 200 patterns, a bit more generic, but definitely easier
• Zombie Pumpkins – great selection of fun patterns, none too difficult. Have to join the site to download – not free
• 34 Geeky Pumpkin Faces on Walyou.Com
• Cool Pumpkin Carvings at WomansDay.Com – some very cool stuff here – not at all as lame as it sounds, I promise

And finally, if all this pumpkin carving stuff sounds fun, but too much messy work for you, carve a pumpkin from the comfort of your computer desk with the Virtual Jack-O-Lantern by Theoworlds.

Got your own source for inspiration or patterns, or a really kick-ass pumpkin you’ve lobotomized into pulpy glory? Leave it in the comments.

Also check out: