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10:37 PM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
May 2, 2013
I do a daily column on Facebook on something called ‘My page’ which my daughters taught me how to do and lots of folks do read it which is gratifying; otherwise I have no clue about FB protocol.
My friend Mitu wants me to befriend him but I have no idea how. He is offended. Last time I made friends or okayed some arbitrary list that came up in the right corner of the page the Facebook headquarters banned me for a week.
The second time I did that they told me ‘everyone’ cannot be my friend and if I make friends with strangers I will be blacklisted. I thought the whole idea was to make the world a global village. Funnily enough people I have said okay to still pop up wanting to be friends. How many times can you request to be a buddy…my wife’s name crops up regularly.
Three days ago I thought I was sending a private message to a friend ref some cash I had to give and it was one on one top secret stuff and it went on the public wall or something and thousands of people became privy to it. They were not supposed to know.
My colleague in the UK is offended because I sent a message in all capital letters and that is supposed to the equivalent of declaring war in Internet terms. He wants an apology. And I believed I was only stressing a point.
I still cannot grasp the fact that emails that are forwarded can go with the whole thread attached. Like I received an invitation from a UN agency to speak at a function and I wrote to my friend that they were such stingy blighters they sent me a Y class ticket and who was going to travel economy yadda, yadda, yadda and I sent it to the agency itself because they wrote back to say they imagined it was not meant for them.
Do you know how easy it is when you are being sneaky to send a cc instead of a bcc and why is it there no ‘grace period’ once you press ‘send’ that can stop you shooting yourself in the foot by bringing back the email. Someone should work on a stopometer…it will be worth a fortune. There are so many times I have pressed ‘send’ and regretted it immediately.
Yesterday I received a message on something called a Timeline and it sounds like it has a short fuse and no one tells me if these messages can be replied to without telling the whole world and their cousin the whole song and dance of the ongoing correspondence.
Give me a little hope, tell me that you have similar experiences and you do not have that smug know- it-all-expression on your face when you cross paths with the likes of me who are singularly untrained and intimidated. They have to be out there. I cannot be the only one.
And is there any handbook which, in 200 words, tells you how to avoid making a complete ass of yourself.
As for pictures, don’t even get me started.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
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