Tag: News

Job Hunters: Clean Up Your Online Profiles!

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I had an opportunity to speak to Fox 8 News in Cleveland awhile back about how job hunters can clean up their online profiles via social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook or Twitter. Here’s the video …

My advice:

  • Privatize Your Profile – Set your Facebook profile to private and enable “Protect my updates” in Twitter. This requires potential recruiters to get your approval before they can access your updates.
  • Check Your Content – Take a look at the photos, text and comments on your page through the eyes of a potential employer. Remove any negative references to past employers and/or frustrations with work. Don’t forget that poor grammar and high amounts of slang can also work against you.
  • Google Yourself – Once you’ve cleaned up your online presence, run searches on your name on Google, Yahoo and Bing in order to check for any remaining negative content that may still be seen by potential employers.

Back to School: Netbooks and Notebooks

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With the summer winding down and school on everyone’s minds, we’re getting more and more questions on whether those tiny (and cheap) netbooks make for a good back-to-school purchase.

I had an opportunity to speak with Fox 8 News about the pros and cons of both netbooks and notebooks for students.

Early Morning DTV Madness

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The DTV transition was mandated in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, but 13 years later, 2.8 million Americans were still not ready for the switch that happened today.

I had the opportunity to help answer phone calls with DTV questions on the Fox 8 News Call for Action phone bank yesterday and today, so I had firsthand experience with a few Cleveland area viewers who were not all set for the analog TV signals to go dark at 10:00 am today.

Although most Americans are ready for the transition, according to the FCC, there was an estimated 55,000 or more Cleveland area residents who weren’t. Most of their questions involved where to turn to as they had expired converter box coupons, having not bought their equipment yet. The answer, of course, was to call the 1-888-CALL-FCC hotline.

The other question that came up often was whether they really needed the converter box. I had a number of callers who believed that because the word “digital” appeared somewhere on the front of their TV, they were ready to go. In many cases, I found out that it was a “Dolby Digital” sticker on the set that was causing some of the confusion.

The cutoff came and went hours ago, and the world hasn’t ended. However, I really sympathize with anyone manning a DTV support phone bank in the US, as now the compatibility issues with faulty equipment, or VCRs that won’t automatically change the channels on converter boxes start to come up. Good luck, brave DTV soldiers!

Fox 8 Unplugged – DTV Questions Answered

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The DTV transition is finally (no, really!) going to happen on Friday, June 12th, at 10:00am. I had an opportunity to answer DTV questions on Fox 8 News Unplugged this morning, and will likely be helping out on their Call for Help hotline on Thursday to get viewers through their remaining DTV issues.

You can find out more about the DTV transition at geeksquad.com/dtv.