Random Thoughts

Wow! I found a cool web site with a ton of useful info. Can’t believe I hadn’t found this place yet…

The article that led me to this mecca: (from tech republic)
Steer clear of these 10 illegal job interview questions

* Date: September 17th, 2007
* Author: Suzanne Thornberry
Although HR departments should be aware of questions that are illegal to ask prospective employees, some hiring managers aren’t so savvy. Many illegal questions are easy for just about anyone with elementary social graces to avoid, but others might surprise you. In general, you should not ask interviewees about their age, race, national origin, marital or parental status, or disabilities.

Note that this list offers only some very broad guidelines and is not exhaustive. Check with your company’s HR department to see if your state or locality, or even your company, has additional restrictions on what you may ask.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.
#1: Where were you born?

This question might seem like small talk as you get to know a person, but it could also be used to gather information illegally about the candidate’s national origin. Although it may seem more relevant, you should also avoid asking, “Are you a U.S. citizen?” You can ask whether a candidate is authorized to work in the United States, but avoid asking about citizenship.
#2: What is your native language?

Again, the problem is that this question could be used to determine national origin. You can ask whether the person knows a language if it is required for the job. For example, if job responsibilities include supporting Spanish-speaking customers, it’s fair to ask whether the candidate speaks Spanish.
#3: Are you married?

Here’s another question that would seem innocent in most settings, but definitely not in a job interview. Because you can’t discriminate on the basis of marital status, this question is off limits.
#4: Do you have children?

This might sound like small talk, too - an innocent question in most settings - but not in a job interview. It’s covered by a general prohibition about discrimination over parental status.
#5: Do you plan to get pregnant?

In the past, employers sometimes asked this question to weed out women who might take a maternity leave. It has always been rude coming from a casual acquaintance, and now it’s illegal as well.
#6: How old are you?

Some companies used to avoid hiring older workers for a variety of reasons, ranging from a fear of higher healthcare costs and absences to a social bias in favor of youth. But age discrimination is clearly illegal, and you should avoid this question. Don’t try to get the information by asking when the person graduated from college, either.
#7: Do you observe Yom Kippur?

You can’t discriminate on the basis of religion, so this question is illegal, as would be asking about Good Friday, Ramadan, or the Solstice. If you’re concerned about the candidate’s availability, you could ask whether he or she can work on holidays and weekends, but not about the observance of particular religious holidays.
#8: Do you have a disability or chronic illness?

This information is not supposed to be used as a factor in hiring, so the questions are illegal. If the job will require some specific physical tasks, such as installing cables in walls and ceilings, you may ask whether the person could perform those tasks with reasonable accommodation.
#9: Are you in the National Guard?

Although some managers may find it disruptive when employees leave for duty, it’s illegal to discriminate against someone because he or she belongs to the National Guard or a reserve unit.
#10: Do you smoke or use alcohol?

In general, you can’t discriminate on the basis of the use of a legal product when the employee is not on the premises and not on the job.

Tip: To avoid asking the wrong questions, develop an interview form and use a copy of it for each candidate. It will document that you asked each interviewee the same questions. Failing to do so may establish a pattern that could seem discriminatory. For example, if you ask only women about their willingness to travel, thinking that the responsibilities of childcare would make them balk at business trips, you could establish a pattern of discrimination.

Are you a bad boss? I found an article today via yahoo finance from Inc.com that has 7 things to look for. There is another article there explaining more details about things that could hint to people working under you hating you. Enjoy. I know a few people who could use this article forwarded to them from an anonymous email. LOL!

If you go through these hoops hating your boss, perhaps it’s time to check out the growing field of home based businesses. Here’s a look at some legit businesses you can do from home, a couple require specialized degrees or training, but there aren’t any multi-level marketing scams presented here.

If your spouse spies on your web surfing…?
Found Via Now Public - Original story posted on yahoo tech (with over 400 comments there)
Anonymous writes: I am soon to be a single mother. My soon to be ex-husband and I owned a computer store. I only have a working knowledge of computers; he was very good at it. When he left the house, he still was able to enter the PC, and I think he installed a keylogger program on the family computer. I can’t do anything on my computer at home for this reason, and was wondering if you would know how I can check this, or delete it from my computer.

Keyloggers are a common form of software and hardware that are used to keep track of everything a user does on a PC: Essentially, every button you press is recorded to a file, which the spy can then access at a later time. All your passwords, and everything else you type, is accessible by the perpetrator. Some keylogger programs can even record occasional pictures or video of the screen. Other variants can take a snapshot of you with your webcam. And yes, they can relay those logs over the internet (though this makes them easier to find).

As you can likely tell, keyloggers represent one of the most serious forms of spyware on a PC, but they are hardly unbeatable. First, most spyware detection and antivirus software should be able to uncover their presence and remove them. If you suspect a keylogger is on your PC, update your antivirus software of choice and give it a full run. Also try a sampling of other spyware killers: My current favorites are Ad-Aware and Spyware Doctor. Both are free (the latter if you get it as part of the Google Pack).

Also, and this is critical, check out your computer for any hardware you didn’t connect yourself. Many hardware keyloggers look like thumbdrives and connect to either your USB or keyboard port, often between your computer and your keyboard cable. The device does all the recording and the spy simply collects the device at a later time to access your keystrokes. Spyware detection software may not uncover these devices. See the photo above for an example. They can be very small and hard to detect, so check thoroughly.

If you detect nothing in your spyware hunt but still suspect you have a keylogger (or if you find the keylogger software but are unable to remove it), your best bet is to reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows from scratch. It’s a pain, I know, but you’re better safe than sorry in a situation like this. Anti-spyware tools are not perfect and can miss infections. I’d rather advise you to spend a weekend reinstalling software on your computer than potentially give up all your secrets to someone who might use them against you.

California court bars unmasking of Web critic
from yahoo news / Reuters
Wed Feb 6, 5:39 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California appeals court on Wednesday said an anonymous Internet poster does not have to reveal his identity after being sued for making “scathing verbal attacks” against executives at a Florida company on a Yahoo! Inc message board.

The Sixth Appellate District in Santa Clara County reversed a trial court ruling that would have allowed a former executive at SFBC International Inc to subpoena Yahoo! for the names of her critics.

The appeal was filed by a poster whose screen name includes a Spanish expletive but who is known as “Doe 6″ in the lawsuit filed by former SFBC Chairman and COO Lisa Krinsky in 2006.

Krinsky accuses Doe 6 and nine other Yahoo! Finance posters of libel, fraud and other claims arising from posts they made about her while she was a company officer.

The appellate court concluded that while Doe 6’s messages were “unquestionably offensive and demeaning,” they could not be counted as defamation since they could not be considered assertions of fact.

Without a cause of action, Krinsky could not overcome Doe 6’s First Amendment right to speak anonymously on the Internet, the court said.

The decade-old controversy over pseudonymous posting in invest or chat rooms took a major twist last July when the U.S. regulators revealed that Whole Foods Market Inc CEO John Mackey had been posting in Yahoo! Finance under a fake name for several years.

His messages boosted his own company’s strategy and denigrated those of rival supermarket chain Wild Oats, which Whole Foods later sought to acquire.

(Reporting by Gina Keating; Editing by Gary Hill)

Metaplace: tiny personal virtual worlds like homepages
Posted by Cory Doctorow, January 20, 2008 10:32 PM | permalink to original post and comments at Boing Boing
The Technology Review has a great feature on Metaplace, a virtual world startup that aims to allow users to create tiny, individual multiplayer worlds that they can link together like homepages. I’m a huge fan of the founder, Raph Koster, who previously created Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, and I love the idea of letting players shape their worlds in simple, easy-to-understand ways.

With Metaplace, designers can build worlds using a markup language, style sheets, modules, and a scripting language. Every world acts like a Web server, Koster says, and every object in a world has a URL. What this means for users of these worlds is that they can move seamlessly from the rest of the Web into the virtual world and back again, he says. A user can browse to any object in a Metaplace world from outside, and every object can be linked to the rest of the Web and exchange information with Web services. With this architecture, Koster says, he plans for users to be able to build worlds with games as simple as a two-dimensional Tetris game, or as complex as the World of Warcraft, a massive, multiplayer, online role-playing game. Users might also build widgets, such as a virtual weatherman who could deliver the latest news from weather.com, or a Coke machine that gives them a real-world coupon whenever they drink a virtual Coke. Koster says that users should be able to stage up a basic world with chat functionality and a map within about five minutes.

Koster envisions users coming to a Metaplace world by clicking on a link in a Web page. That link launches a page where the user finds herself inside a world, perhaps using a default avatar, but no log-in or registration is immediately required. “They don’t make you log in to play a YouTube video,” Koster points out.

The Metaplace client is basically a Flash application, he says, and, consequently, is available to nearly everyone who uses the Internet. Currently, Metaplace does not allow users to build 3-D worlds, but Koster says that he expects Flash to add 3-D capabilities in the near future. The client will work anywhere on the Web, and Koster adds that he hopes to see user-generated clients built for mobile devices such as iPhones.

Link (via Wonderland)