Tag Archives: warning

Interactive Workshop Tip

Aside

If you are presenting a workshop/class in which you expect the participants to interact with you and each other, at the first meeting you may want (or need, depending on the material to be covered) everyone to go around the room to introduce themselves and say why they are there.

Unless you are specific in limiting them to only saying their name, be aware that this exercise will most likely take MUCH longer that you think. You may feel that it’s unwelcoming to set a time (ideally with a device that audibly indicates time has expired to everyone), but in my experience people so seldom get to talk with others who listen they do not know how much time they are taking.

My worst experience of this was at the beginning of a weekend retreat with a spiritual leader who arrived at the venue jet-lagged and sick, with a co-leader also not in great shape. We started going around the room of about 25 women at 7:30pm. By the time it was 12:30am we were still 5 people from the end, and had dealt with several people who claimed to be in need of exorcism, and others who would not take a hint to wrap up – the leaders just did not have the energy to stop the flood of TMI!

BCC is your contacts’ best friend

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So much of our modern communications technology gets dumped in our laps without instructions other than USE ME! Oh, there’s usually a “help” button on it somewhere – but honestly, how many of you click that, or if you did quickly gave up because it wanted you to  view a bunch of slides/verbiage and your eyes quickly glazed over?

Thus it’s no wonder that you may be accidentally annoying your friends, as well as exposing them and many strangers to spam address collectors and hackers if you don’t know about using BCC.

BCC = “Blind Carbon Copy” (forget that anyone under ~25 may never have seen carbon paper used!). BCC is one of the fields available in the header when you are composing an email (in some applications you may need to expand the header to find it). Any addresses you put into the BCC field will be delivered normally… BUT… unlke using the TO or CC fields,  the recipient will not see any other addresses you put into BCC – hence “blind.”

When sending email to many people, if they do not already know each other (e.g., people who subscribe to your newsletter or who want to be kept informed about your band’s gigs) you do NOT want to send your message in such a way that they all can see each others’ addresses, for several reasons:

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Is your password “password”?

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After arriving at my timeshare resort on Saturday afternoon, unloading, shopping, and making coffee jello >;-0 Joann and I sat down with our MacBooks to catch up with the world. The venue provides free wifi, though signal strength depends on how far one’s unit is from the router located in the clubhouse. So I was happy to find our unit was practically on top of it, and I was getting a strong signal on my iPhone…

Until I discovered that while I had an equally strong signal on my MacBook, I was NOT getting out to the internet :( Joann was fine with hers, so I suspected something about my somewhat newer OS (Snow Lion) was different. I found that unlike her I wasn’t getting a domain name server IP in my DHCP config from the router, though it was assigning me an IP (translation – my Mac wasn’t being told where to look in order to translate a web address like “Google.com” into the numeric IP address the guts of the web uses to shuttle data around).

I looked to see what Joann’s Mac was using for a name server IP – it was something I wasn’t expecting – 192.168.1.1, which is the usual address of the wireless router itself. Because I’m a geek, my next thought was to learn more about what was happening on the router. And because I figure it’s always worth a try, I pointed my browser at the router’s address.

This brought up a login window – which was good, because it at least confirmed that I was connected to the router. What was bad (for the resort) was I tried the most simple login combination one would expect for it: username = admin, password = password… and I got in!

Because I wasn’t trying to be evil, I just looked at the settings and logged out. Further tweaking on my Mac eventually resolved the issue. I will stop at the office and attempt to communicate to the staff why they should change the password, so that some less scrupulous person (e.g., a bored teen visitor) won’t mess it up for everyone else.

Moral for you: if any internet-connecting device you buy has a non-unique password that allows it to be configured (e.g., modem/router, smartphone, mifi, game console) change it to prevent losing control of it to a stranger…

 

Hearing Protection For Musicians

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Whether you play in a rock band or an orchestra  (e.g., viola section in front of the timpani, woodwinds in front of the brass, etc), you NEED to protect your hearing.

The cheap foam earplugs many bars will sell you for a buck are better than nothing, but you will rightly complain that you cannot really hear music properly through them – it’s all muffled with lots of frequency loss.

Which it why it’s best to plan ahead and obtain “musicians’ earplugs” which are designed to filter sound evenly over the entire spectrum, low to high – protecting your ears from damaging sound levels while still allowing you to enjoy all elements of the performance.

Depending on your budget, musicians’ earplugs are available from around $10 for a basic model to $150+ for a custom fitted set.

Alison Brill & Alison Murray, who I met at Ladies Rock Camp, recommend these custom plugs. They say:

Best investment I’ve ever made, seriously. They allow you to hear accurately while protecting you from damaging sounds. They’re $150 and you can get them at Brookline Hearing Services, or from most audiologists. Keep rockin’ (safely)!

And if you are not up for that cost at the moment, I recommend Alpine Musicsafe earplugs – not custom, but they do a good job, are comfortable, and have 2 different interchangeable filters depending on how loud your environment is. These go for about $22 ($28 if you want a choice of 3 filter levels).

There are more choices in the $8-$20 range here. Frankly, the best earplugs are the ones you have with you everywhere – if you suddenly find yourself in an uncomfortably loud movie theater or other event, are you really going to run back out to your car for them?! Most models come with a case that fits on your keychain. In addition to my “good” pair on my keys, I also have a $10 pair on EVERY instrument case, and a spare set in my car in case my partner forgets hers.

My father had 80% hearing loss by the time he was 80, due to firing anti-aircraft guns during WWII with only cotton stuffed into his ears – don’t be that cranky old guy/gal!