You have won a trip to the Bahamas!!!!!!!

You have won a trip to the Bahamas!!!!!!!!! Of course I am only kidding, but I am sure many of us have been victims of scams like these. If we believed everything we read we would have the recipe for Neiman Marcus's famous secret cookie recipe, we would have won airline tickets, we would be the winners of lottery tickets we never bought, we would own our own business and be making money "so fast" we wouldn't have time to spend it all! Of course almost all of these emails are so hard to believe that most of us don't fall for their scams. However, there are some that seem so real that some people do fall. It also depends on how desperate the person is to believe it. If they haven't had a job in a while, they have been looking left and right, and suddenly they get an email that says "Make Money Fast!!!!!!!" (beware of too many exclamation marks) then they might become victims. These people that organize these scams know that, and they are waiting for the right person to fall into their trap. Some people even forward these emails to friends thinking they are doing a good deed, but sometimes these emails have hidden viruses, trojan horses, or worms that are waiting to be sent to invade other computers. Here is a video with tips on how to avoid SPAM mail:

As they say with food, when in doubt...throw it out! Do not keep suspicious looking emails in your inbox, delete them as fast as you can! And never, ever forward a SPAM email to a friend, even if it says you will die if you don't send it to at least ten people. Trust me, I'd be dead at least 2,000 times by now!


Now repeat after me:

"Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited email message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community."

Roger Ebert, The Boulder Pledge

I AM NOT SCREAMING!!!! LOL!! :o)

I must say, I am really enjoying reading my textbook. Especially after waiting so long for it to finally arrive in the mail! One of the things I liked reading about was Netiquette. I am always worried about the things I write when I email people, when I write on my blog, when I text, when I post on Twitter or Facebook, etc. I reread everything before I hit that "send" button which sometimes cannot be undone. I remember once, a long time ago, I did not realize my phone had switched to ALL CAPS and I texted a friend and she said, "Why are you screaming?" That was the first time I learned that if you had ALL CAPS people thought you were screaming at them.

Mostly, I worry about emails I send to people at work or parents of my students. How can I be assertive, get my point across, yet still sound nice while I'm at it? Sometimes when I write something I am thinking of it in my head as I would say it verbally, but once I read it I think "Wow, this sounds mean!" So we have to be careful when we write something because people might interpret it in a different way. Especially if they read it in a different tone than you intended.

I have seen kids get into flame wars-exchanges of insulting messages-on Facebook and it is not pretty! Kids can be so offensive and mean to each other. This could even lead to cyber bullying. We have to be especially careful now that there are so many ways we could embarrass ourselves through all the available communication methods. We have to know that once we publish something it is out there for the whole word to see, including our bosses or future employers. Watch this cool video to see some pointers on social media etiquette:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNnLMkg9R3c 

Another thing we have to be careful about is Spam, not the eating kind...although it is kind of gross! I am talking about unsolicited emails that are just as irritating as telemarketers calling you during dinner. Some of these emails can harm your computer by downloading viruses into them. Some are just annoying because they try to guilt you into sending them to other people that will also be annoyed by them. 

So, remember, like the video said...if you wouldn't say something to someone's face it is probably a better idea not to post it. :o)