You mean you actually go back and re-browse to negate your IE'ness? Sheesh what a waste of bandwith! That's like saying you will go on your bicycle to the supermarket to make up for the polution your car left behind after you did your shopping!
Perhaps OP means they use FireFox at home and maintain similar surfing habits?
They switched to Moz/FF because their old PCs were encrusted with spyware and IE became unusable. The "fix" for this problem by many is to buy a new PC (can't argue if consultant-paid OS install plus apps equals the cost of a new box).
Did you explain to them that IE was the gateway for most of that spyware and that if they continue to use it, through no fault of their own, it will happen again? Or that the ads and popups are only the surface problems; that the spyware apps will harvest their information and browsing habits and forward them to the highest bidder of the month?
Did they specifically state that they wanted to use IE, or that they didn't want to go through the trouble of installing FireFox? (Hint: an extra 2 minutes per PC can add up to an extra 1-2 billable hours for a small-medium company!)
Moreover, if you are supplying the hardware to your users - why not pre-load FireFox and make it the default? Many people will use it for a long period of time without even recognizing that it's not IE. "It goes to web pages when I tell it to" is enough for most people.
First, this "planned" status may take unnecessary long. After all, when they are serving the majority of potential visitors with the IE version, there's much less pressure to go and implement the alternate browsers.
Absolutely. Since some 90%(ish) of web requests are still IE, it stands to reason they they'll notice a maintained, continual set of requests sucessfully entering the site. If other browsers can't get in the door how do they know we need to be served?
Let me get this straight: he can't afford to buy furniture, but can afford to register a domain name and host a website? What kind of screwed up priority is that?
I bet he has the gall to eat real food and watch television, too!
(Everyone knows you can live off of Kraft Dinner and Bovril)
Here, we do whatever we can in the name of corporate profit. This includes screwing the students, which we have been doing since the advent of education.
Here in Ontario Canada I find myself stuck with over $1000 worth of books from one years' worth of college education. Nothing like paying prime + 1% interest for something that's gathering dust. Even though I ensured I had the latest editions of all texts (even some for which I had to wait 1-2 weeks to hit shelves) they're all still out of date and therefore useless to most new students.
Thankfully a couple of them are actually interesting and may be worthy of a revisit sometime down the road, but most of them are going to find themselves dumpward-bound.
Sure. But if you use forwarders who run BIND4/BIND8 you've still got the same problem. If you're connecting directly to the root servers you're contributing to their unneccesary overload and bypassing the heirarchal nature of the DNS system.
While your standards may be that NO 14-year-old is mature enough for M-rated games, her standards may be different, and she is within her rights to apply them to her ward.
They're not my standards, they're well precedented standards established in law. Does she deem her grandchild mature enough to handle cigarettes? Alcohol? Firearms? There are laws in place to ensure mature content does not get into the hands of minors who are deemed, in general, to be too immature to handle same and this lady circumvented these laws by purchasing something her grandchild would not have been able to purchase on his own (for very good reason).
Also see above for all arguments relating to the fact that the game is titled after a felony offence and, I believe, depicts assault-class firearms and gruesome violence on the cover.
While she may have a case if her grandchild were 17 years of age, she is way out of her depth because the basis of her suit demonstrates negligence.
This lady is not pursuing legal action because she purchased mature content -- she is pursuing legal action because she was not given full disclosure of the content of the game as originally labeled, and has content significantly more "mature" than was disclosed on the label.
So you're telling me that this grandmother is fully aware of the semantics of the ESRB ratings - apparently moreso than you or I - and determined that the level of sexual content in the game was within the adviseable limits for consumption by a 14 year old? It sounds to me as if a lawyer filled her in to the details of the rating system after the fact, and moreover she ignored the existing ratings on the box in the first place.
If the game is listed as being suitable for a 17 year old, what difference does it make if it's instead listed as being suitable for an 18 year old? Neither one of them equals a 14 year old. Period. If she believes her grandchild is mature enough to handle 17 year old content she is taking a considered risk in the first place. As it turns out, her grandchild is mischevous and apparently unlocked 'hidden' content in order to make the game even more graphic.
The reason was people will come get a coffee (any maybe free refill) and will stay there for hours thus discouraging "normal" customers to come to the crowded cafe.
There's a counter-point to this; offer them free wi-fi, but not free electricity.
That's right! Parents should just trust the ESRB rating, with no thought of their child's individuality or maturity level, because all kids are exactly the same.
It's diffuclt to see the sarcasm in your post considering the context. This lady chose, as in your beliefs, to ignore the ESRB rating, possibly (presumably) because she believed her grandchild to be "different". In the end, she found herself acknowledging and, in fact, trusting the ESRB rating and removing the game from the child.
Please see notes above, prolonged nudity is not covered by "Strong Sexual Content."
A "little old lady" raised in a time of chastity boards, chaperones, 7PM curfiews, little girls who "went away" for 9-10 months and came back with a little brother or sister would (should) read "SEX" and immediately understand there to be content in the game related to, if not including intercourse. The semantics of what ESRB rating covers 5 versus 37.2 seconds of nudity are outside the scope of rationale. The fact remains that this lady purchased mature content for an imature grandchild and is now pursuing legal action as a result.
As to the argument that she believed her 14 year old grandchild is/was as mature as a 17 year old, that's absurd and her lawyers would be best to prevent that from ever airing in a court of law. By extension her 16 year old grandchild is mature enough to purchase alcohol and tobacco products. I'm sorry, but "He's mature for 14" isn't a legally valid argument for indulging in otherwise adult restricted activities. The argument became further irrelevant when she filed suit alleging that said grandchild was not, in fact, mature enough to handle "17+" content.
Furthermore, it could be argued that 17+ content is intended for 17 year olds who are as mature as 20 year olds.
I thought one of the "reasons" people downloaded music was because the music industry forced them to buy an entire album of "junk" when all they wanted was a song or two.
My wireless router has 2 MAC addresses, one to its own LAN, another to the network. Wouldn't this be the case here also?
Except that in response to many cable Internet companies' restrictions on MAC addresses, most SOHO wireless routers come with an option to manually set the WAN MAC address, and/or a button to clone the MAC of the machine connected to port #1. It's possible that the WAP may be hidden amongst your own corporate machines.
Seeing how most consumers don't own televisions that support hi-def content, the only people who will care about Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD are the geeks, folks who are likely to understand the difference and who will extract benefit from one format over the other. Joe Sixpack is perfectly happy watching his full frame flicks that he rents from Blockbuster on his 27" set.
I'd be careful there; with no payments until 200x, no interest equal payments for 24/36 months, etc. you'd be surprised what kind of home theatre Joe Sixpack has in his house. 52" Hi-Def screen, 7.1 digital receiver with pre-amp, 1000w tower mains, 100w sub-woofer, 5-disc DVD player connected with Monster Component video and digital optical audio cables, XBox and PS2 with A/V upgrade pack, RFI filtering power centre,...
In short Joe Sixpack has a better theatre setup than I do.
Anyone hearing a run down comparison is going to go with blu ray. Personally, I'm still a bit scared about potentially loosing data because the layer of protection is so small.
Based on personal and professional experience (friends and clients) this may be a misnomer. They could make the protection layer 2mm thick and customers would still use their discs as coasters (or skating rinks for mice).
Does anyone think it could be seen as an attractive nuicense if you don't secure it? I mean, unsecured wireless is more like one of those 50USD walkie talkies they sell, you're broadcasting stuff all over the place on a public channel - if someone taps in to listen, no foul for them, and if your equipment follows their directions... well you're kind of stupid I would think.
In this example it's not so much a case of the gentleman's equipment attaching to the wireless network; he likely 'wardrove' to find it and attached himself intentionally. Were it the neighbor using the connection from their living room I'd say you'd be bang-on.
I do agree however that the inability/ignorance of the connection owner should be taken into account in the proceedings. If you leave an unsecured connection broadcasting to half your street you can't expect that nobody will utilize it.
This just reinforces my belief that wireless is more trouble that it's worth. Though I'm not like most people, I don't mind wires running on the floor - i just step over them.
On the floor? We make lots of money off of people who leave wires on the floor! That's what baseboards, attics, and walls are for my friend!
The best analogy is there's a TV on in the building and it's facing an window. The window of course has no blinds or curtains so passersby can see what's playing on TV. He stood in front of the open window, watched the TV and got caught. Legally he hasn't done anything wrong.
This is like arguing by analogy on Slashdot. Oh, wait...
Firstly, he used bandwidth and made it unavailable for those in the house at that time. Secondly, he may have infringed upon their monthly download quota. Thirdly, he may have been involved in nefarious or otherwise illegal activities.
No, I don't have much sympathy for people who leave an unsecured Internet connection floating around their house, but just because someone leaves something lying around is no justification for taking advantage.
it includes sanity checking to make sure data are within reasonable ranges, and requiring additional confirmation (ranging from "Whoa, dude! That much?" to supervisor approval) when input is outside that.
Awaiting supervisor input for something that occurs regularly is a bad idea from a business perspective. If I want a quarter billion dollars' worth of stock, I want it now, not when your supervisor gets back from lunch.
With respect to security, NAT offers nothing that a simple stateful firewall does not.
Plug ADSL/Cable modem in one end, plug mom, dad, sis, and your computers in the other end. Instant security. Asking users to configure their own subnet and then create their own stateful firewall ("What's 'stateful'? What's a 'firewall'?") isn't realistic.
NAT != Firewall. Most NAT systems include some sort of firewall so it's an easy mistake to make.
NAT, as implemented by 95% of SOHO routing equipment is an inherrant protection system in that it prevents direct access to the machines connected behind them. In and of itself, NAT is a deny all, allow some mechanism which therefore offers a degree of protection that a simple 'this IP address belongs to this computer' routing setup can't offer. In that case the user must then also create a firewall ruleset based on their network topology. In most cases, I'd wager that ruleset would be a simple case of deny all, allow some anyways.
Indeed, if tech support people have to face such horrors, then it is no doubt that the quality of their services will drop! They have no incentive to be courteous and knowledgable.
Crank calls pre-date the tech sector by about as long as the telephone has been in existance. They are not a valid excuse for sub-par support response.
While working in a pizza shop, I've had my share of crank calls. In a one-location, moderately busy shop (~60 delivery orders, about 100+ calls in a typical night spread between an average compliment of 6 employees) I got perhaps five pranks/year. Call centres are huge people-warehouses with call distribution spread across several locations in multiple timezones. The percentage of cranks to legitimate support claims is probably around 0.05%. I know several people who work / have worked in call centres logging thousands of phone hours apiece who've never received a prank.
Think through your logic, though; imagine if every business reacted to all customers as they would to their worst. That's a one-way ticket to bankruptcy.
There are a multitude of reasons why call support staff tend towards discourteous mannarisms;
Unrealistically short call service times. Support staff are given a number that they must overall meet and acheive as an average talk time with all customers. Rebooting, (re)installing software/drivers, etc. and explaining thoroughly how to perform such actions to varying levels of intellect and experience takes time.
Obtuse goals, sales; techs are often expected to 'up sell' on the phone - often times being expected to sell products that they themselves are instructed to remove at the first sign of trouble - as the cause of the trouble. Not meeting sales targets can disqualify them from raises, bonuses, overtime, or cost them their job.
Obnoxious callers; these are expected. People are angry and believe the minimum wage drone employed by a sub-contracted entity is entirely at fault. Why? Human nature - the one in throttling distance is the one who loses air.
Low pay. A call centre job is entry-level, barely above minimum wage. Consider too that most out-sourced call centres exist because the company doesn't even want to pay Canadian/American minimum wages. What must these Indians be making?
Restrictive scripts. Techs who circumvent the scripts because they can quickly diagnose the problem are shunned and penalized, often at the expense of their own employment. Toe the line or get out.
There are more possibilities than I could likely fit in this box, but in short it's a low-paying thankless job. Give someone no reason to excell and they won't excell.
Yeah but its a pain doing the reach-around and blindly searching for the USB on most of the computers at my school.
Whenever your school gets around to purchasing new(er) computers, dollars to donuts says they'll have anywhere between 1 and 6 USB ports on the front (alongside Firewire, speaker/headphone and microphone jacks I'd wager). There's also a nifty invention known as a USB extension cable which can be locked at the back and secured to the side of the PC to allow easy access. There are also USB expansion brackets that connect to either 3.5 or 5.25" drive bays. Deluxe models include temperature readouts and fan speed controls.
At least the ZipDisk is on the front.
ZipDisk was a... an idea. More storage, but the media is slow and bulky and it suffers from the chicken-and-egg problem; not enough people use them so not enough people will use them. In the end, you wind up bringing a USB Zip drive around with you which gives you the same problem as above. At that point you may as well opt for the 1GB USB flash drives.
Also; wait until your Zip Drives suffer from the infamous Click Of Death. It happened to a friend of mine and I found myself transferring googols of bytes of data to CD-Rs for him. (He now uses DVD-R(w))
However, there are other ways of improving sociability, to complement "putting oneself out there", like books on the topic, and discussions. Could you elaborate on any other tips you have on the issue and/or mention any good books you have read on the topic?
I'm not keen on self help books (I plan to write a book entitled "How To Stop Buying Self Help Books" one day...) but I am a big fan of the school of hard knocks.
The first and best thing you can do is rely on your "normal job" income to survive. If it's a bar-money type job, you just won't have the ambition. The next step is to realize that you're not better than everyone else. Too many geeks have that impression of themselves and it's the single most damaging quality to take with you to the world. Third, you have to pay attention to people and realize that they dissect situations differently than we do. Our nature is to take a highly analytical approach to every situation and consider emotional reasoning to be flawed and ineffective. This, however, is how most people approach situations and it's imperative that you atleast understand this and possibly learn to use and develop your own emotions. You also have to understand how people perceive you; completely different from an online personna. Online, people can only judge you by your thoughts, ideas, words, and sentence structure. In real life people judge you by your posture, body language, grooming, clothing, speech patterns, skin colour, weight, height and after all these characteristics are processed - your choice of words used to express your thoughts and ideas.
Communication styles developed by geeks tends to be very curt; largely by the nature of our discourse. IRC quips and one-liners, short and to-the-point commentary and input into discussions are fine online but in real life can be viewed as arrogant and callous. Conversations amongst peers has to be given due consideration. You can't use a pile-on dialogue style. Let others have their turn to speak and most importantly listen to and consider what people have to say. Dismissing with a word, a gesture, a sigh, grunt, or eye-roll is very hostile and won't win any friends.
People in general are competitive but not in every aspect. If somebody talks about their PlayStation; don't interject that you have a PS2 and an XBox. It doesn't matter that your TV is bigger, you run better Monster cabling, your sound system pumps out more peak watts, etc. Your computer(s) will probably be better than theirs. Nobody cares. When someone talks about their long, hard week at work - don't contest it - empathize. "Oh yeah? I worked 96 hours last week in a hot server room!" won't win you any respect, especially to a group that possibly performed 96 hours of manual labour in the hot sun, pouring rain, or freezing cold (or any combination thereof). Everybody has to work long gruelling hours now and again. It's a neccesity of life, not a one-up.
As for socializing in general; you do have to "get out there" and be with many people. A hilight of the geek life is the tendency to be introverted. Most that I know would rather go home and chat online than spend time in a combined setting. Going out for coffee, beer + wings, to carnivals, parties or other events that are full of people is good. Movies and other individual group activities; not so good. (Why bother "going out" if you're going to sit still and quiet for 2+ hours?) If your co-workers invite you out, don't neccesarily jump at it unless it's something that might interest you, but open your horizons. Paint ball, mini golf, go karts, dirt bikes, pool, sports, etc. can be fun and interesting (like video games, but you don't use your thumbs so much).
Above all; try to listen more than you talk, but provide some input. Nobody likes a creepy quiet guy who's always there.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps OP means they use FireFox at home and maintain similar surfing habits?
Did you explain to them that IE was the gateway for most of that spyware and that if they continue to use it, through no fault of their own, it will happen again? Or that the ads and popups are only the surface problems; that the spyware apps will harvest their information and browsing habits and forward them to the highest bidder of the month?
Did they specifically state that they wanted to use IE, or that they didn't want to go through the trouble of installing FireFox? (Hint: an extra 2 minutes per PC can add up to an extra 1-2 billable hours for a small-medium company!)
Moreover, if you are supplying the hardware to your users - why not pre-load FireFox and make it the default? Many people will use it for a long period of time without even recognizing that it's not IE. "It goes to web pages when I tell it to" is enough for most people.
Absolutely. Since some 90%(ish) of web requests are still IE, it stands to reason they they'll notice a maintained, continual set of requests sucessfully entering the site. If other browsers can't get in the door how do they know we need to be served?
I bet he has the gall to eat real food and watch television, too!
(Everyone knows you can live off of Kraft Dinner and Bovril)
Here in Ontario Canada I find myself stuck with over $1000 worth of books from one years' worth of college education. Nothing like paying prime + 1% interest for something that's gathering dust. Even though I ensured I had the latest editions of all texts (even some for which I had to wait 1-2 weeks to hit shelves) they're all still out of date and therefore useless to most new students.
Thankfully a couple of them are actually interesting and may be worthy of a revisit sometime down the road, but most of them are going to find themselves dumpward-bound.
Sure. But if you use forwarders who run BIND4/BIND8 you've still got the same problem. If you're connecting directly to the root servers you're contributing to their unneccesary overload and bypassing the heirarchal nature of the DNS system.
They're not my standards, they're well precedented standards established in law. Does she deem her grandchild mature enough to handle cigarettes? Alcohol? Firearms? There are laws in place to ensure mature content does not get into the hands of minors who are deemed, in general, to be too immature to handle same and this lady circumvented these laws by purchasing something her grandchild would not have been able to purchase on his own (for very good reason).
Also see above for all arguments relating to the fact that the game is titled after a felony offence and, I believe, depicts assault-class firearms and gruesome violence on the cover.
While she may have a case if her grandchild were 17 years of age, she is way out of her depth because the basis of her suit demonstrates negligence.
So you're telling me that this grandmother is fully aware of the semantics of the ESRB ratings - apparently moreso than you or I - and determined that the level of sexual content in the game was within the adviseable limits for consumption by a 14 year old? It sounds to me as if a lawyer filled her in to the details of the rating system after the fact, and moreover she ignored the existing ratings on the box in the first place.
If the game is listed as being suitable for a 17 year old, what difference does it make if it's instead listed as being suitable for an 18 year old? Neither one of them equals a 14 year old. Period. If she believes her grandchild is mature enough to handle 17 year old content she is taking a considered risk in the first place. As it turns out, her grandchild is mischevous and apparently unlocked 'hidden' content in order to make the game even more graphic.
There's a counter-point to this; offer them free wi-fi, but not free electricity.
It's diffuclt to see the sarcasm in your post considering the context. This lady chose, as in your beliefs, to ignore the ESRB rating, possibly (presumably) because she believed her grandchild to be "different". In the end, she found herself acknowledging and, in fact, trusting the ESRB rating and removing the game from the child.
What point were you making again?!?
A "little old lady" raised in a time of chastity boards, chaperones, 7PM curfiews, little girls who "went away" for 9-10 months and came back with a little brother or sister would (should) read "SEX" and immediately understand there to be content in the game related to, if not including intercourse. The semantics of what ESRB rating covers 5 versus 37.2 seconds of nudity are outside the scope of rationale. The fact remains that this lady purchased mature content for an imature grandchild and is now pursuing legal action as a result.
As to the argument that she believed her 14 year old grandchild is/was as mature as a 17 year old, that's absurd and her lawyers would be best to prevent that from ever airing in a court of law. By extension her 16 year old grandchild is mature enough to purchase alcohol and tobacco products. I'm sorry, but "He's mature for 14" isn't a legally valid argument for indulging in otherwise adult restricted activities. The argument became further irrelevant when she filed suit alleging that said grandchild was not, in fact, mature enough to handle "17+" content.
Furthermore, it could be argued that 17+ content is intended for 17 year olds who are as mature as 20 year olds.
I want to choose the junk I purchase.
Go big or go home! :)
Except that in response to many cable Internet companies' restrictions on MAC addresses, most SOHO wireless routers come with an option to manually set the WAN MAC address, and/or a button to clone the MAC of the machine connected to port #1. It's possible that the WAP may be hidden amongst your own corporate machines.
I'd be careful there; with no payments until 200x, no interest equal payments for 24/36 months, etc. you'd be surprised what kind of home theatre Joe Sixpack has in his house. 52" Hi-Def screen, 7.1 digital receiver with pre-amp, 1000w tower mains, 100w sub-woofer, 5-disc DVD player connected with Monster Component video and digital optical audio cables, XBox and PS2 with A/V upgrade pack, RFI filtering power centre, ...
In short Joe Sixpack has a better theatre setup than I do.
Based on personal and professional experience (friends and clients) this may be a misnomer. They could make the protection layer 2mm thick and customers would still use their discs as coasters (or skating rinks for mice).
In this example it's not so much a case of the gentleman's equipment attaching to the wireless network; he likely 'wardrove' to find it and attached himself intentionally. Were it the neighbor using the connection from their living room I'd say you'd be bang-on.
I do agree however that the inability/ignorance of the connection owner should be taken into account in the proceedings. If you leave an unsecured connection broadcasting to half your street you can't expect that nobody will utilize it.
On the floor? We make lots of money off of people who leave wires on the floor! That's what baseboards, attics, and walls are for my friend!
This is like arguing by analogy on Slashdot. Oh, wait ...
Firstly, he used bandwidth and made it unavailable for those in the house at that time. Secondly, he may have infringed upon their monthly download quota. Thirdly, he may have been involved in nefarious or otherwise illegal activities.
No, I don't have much sympathy for people who leave an unsecured Internet connection floating around their house, but just because someone leaves something lying around is no justification for taking advantage.
Awaiting supervisor input for something that occurs regularly is a bad idea from a business perspective. If I want a quarter billion dollars' worth of stock, I want it now, not when your supervisor gets back from lunch.
Plug ADSL/Cable modem in one end, plug mom, dad, sis, and your computers in the other end. Instant security. Asking users to configure their own subnet and then create their own stateful firewall ("What's 'stateful'? What's a 'firewall'?") isn't realistic.
NAT, as implemented by 95% of SOHO routing equipment is an inherrant protection system in that it prevents direct access to the machines connected behind them. In and of itself, NAT is a deny all, allow some mechanism which therefore offers a degree of protection that a simple 'this IP address belongs to this computer' routing setup can't offer. In that case the user must then also create a firewall ruleset based on their network topology. In most cases, I'd wager that ruleset would be a simple case of deny all, allow some anyways.
Crank calls pre-date the tech sector by about as long as the telephone has been in existance. They are not a valid excuse for sub-par support response.
While working in a pizza shop, I've had my share of crank calls. In a one-location, moderately busy shop (~60 delivery orders, about 100+ calls in a typical night spread between an average compliment of 6 employees) I got perhaps five pranks/year. Call centres are huge people-warehouses with call distribution spread across several locations in multiple timezones. The percentage of cranks to legitimate support claims is probably around 0.05%. I know several people who work / have worked in call centres logging thousands of phone hours apiece who've never received a prank.
Think through your logic, though; imagine if every business reacted to all customers as they would to their worst. That's a one-way ticket to bankruptcy.
There are a multitude of reasons why call support staff tend towards discourteous mannarisms;
There are more possibilities than I could likely fit in this box, but in short it's a low-paying thankless job. Give someone no reason to excell and they won't excell.
Whenever your school gets around to purchasing new(er) computers, dollars to donuts says they'll have anywhere between 1 and 6 USB ports on the front (alongside Firewire, speaker/headphone and microphone jacks I'd wager). There's also a nifty invention known as a USB extension cable which can be locked at the back and secured to the side of the PC to allow easy access. There are also USB expansion brackets that connect to either 3.5 or 5.25" drive bays. Deluxe models include temperature readouts and fan speed controls.
ZipDisk was a ... an idea. More storage, but the media is slow and bulky and it suffers from the chicken-and-egg problem; not enough people use them so not enough people will use them. In the end, you wind up bringing a USB Zip drive around with you which gives you the same problem as above. At that point you may as well opt for the 1GB USB flash drives.
Also; wait until your Zip Drives suffer from the infamous Click Of Death. It happened to a friend of mine and I found myself transferring googols of bytes of data to CD-Rs for him. (He now uses DVD-R(w))
While you found a nukable (workable) solution to the problem; there are special CD and media shredding devices out there.
I'm not keen on self help books (I plan to write a book entitled "How To Stop Buying Self Help Books" one day...) but I am a big fan of the school of hard knocks.
The first and best thing you can do is rely on your "normal job" income to survive. If it's a bar-money type job, you just won't have the ambition. The next step is to realize that you're not better than everyone else. Too many geeks have that impression of themselves and it's the single most damaging quality to take with you to the world. Third, you have to pay attention to people and realize that they dissect situations differently than we do. Our nature is to take a highly analytical approach to every situation and consider emotional reasoning to be flawed and ineffective. This, however, is how most people approach situations and it's imperative that you atleast understand this and possibly learn to use and develop your own emotions. You also have to understand how people perceive you; completely different from an online personna. Online, people can only judge you by your thoughts, ideas, words, and sentence structure. In real life people judge you by your posture, body language, grooming, clothing, speech patterns, skin colour, weight, height and after all these characteristics are processed - your choice of words used to express your thoughts and ideas.
Communication styles developed by geeks tends to be very curt; largely by the nature of our discourse. IRC quips and one-liners, short and to-the-point commentary and input into discussions are fine online but in real life can be viewed as arrogant and callous. Conversations amongst peers has to be given due consideration. You can't use a pile-on dialogue style. Let others have their turn to speak and most importantly listen to and consider what people have to say. Dismissing with a word, a gesture, a sigh, grunt, or eye-roll is very hostile and won't win any friends.
People in general are competitive but not in every aspect. If somebody talks about their PlayStation; don't interject that you have a PS2 and an XBox. It doesn't matter that your TV is bigger, you run better Monster cabling, your sound system pumps out more peak watts, etc. Your computer(s) will probably be better than theirs. Nobody cares. When someone talks about their long, hard week at work - don't contest it - empathize. "Oh yeah? I worked 96 hours last week in a hot server room!" won't win you any respect, especially to a group that possibly performed 96 hours of manual labour in the hot sun, pouring rain, or freezing cold (or any combination thereof). Everybody has to work long gruelling hours now and again. It's a neccesity of life, not a one-up.
As for socializing in general; you do have to "get out there" and be with many people. A hilight of the geek life is the tendency to be introverted. Most that I know would rather go home and chat online than spend time in a combined setting. Going out for coffee, beer + wings, to carnivals, parties or other events that are full of people is good. Movies and other individual group activities; not so good. (Why bother "going out" if you're going to sit still and quiet for 2+ hours?) If your co-workers invite you out, don't neccesarily jump at it unless it's something that might interest you, but open your horizons. Paint ball, mini golf, go karts, dirt bikes, pool, sports, etc. can be fun and interesting (like video games, but you don't use your thumbs so much).
Above all; try to listen more than you talk, but provide some input. Nobody likes a creepy quiet guy who's always there. ;)