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How To Keep In Touch With Geeks

You've got an elusive geek friend or family member that just isn't the best at returning your calls, or sending you emails even though you sent them(and ten of your friends) that really cute story about the puppy, or the student who challenged his professor and won. You know that they keep in touch with others regularly, but if the phone or email don't work for you, what other options are there in the electronic world?

Instant Messengers: These have been around for a while now and are a pretty tried and true method of keeping in touch online. There are a lot of different services out there, so if there's one geek in particular you're trying to keep in touch with, you'll need to be on the same services as them, and you'll need their username as well. Chances are pretty good that they use multiple services(to help them keep in touch with all their friends on different services), but there are a number of instant messengers out their that will handle multiple services at the same time with a little legwork. Different services include Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, GoogleTalk, and others. Each will have their own messenger to access their own service, but if you are feeling daring you can try one of the applications that works with multiple services such as Pidgin or Trillian.

Social Networks: There are plenty out there to choose from, but the trick is being on the same one as the person you care about. There is a bit of a caveat here for parents: if your kids aren't out of college yet, it's probably best for both you and them if you do not have access to their Facebook or MySpace page. Either you will find something that will cause you a great amount of concern for no real reason, or they will make sure that you don't see everything. It really depends on what site they are on, and how they use it. There's also a fair chance that your kids with either reject your friend request(doesn't mean they don't like you, they just don't want you reading anything on their page), or they will all but abandon that account and not tell you about it. If that happens, don't try and fight it on electronic battlegrounds, your kids will win. Talk it out, especially if they are still under your own roof. Now, for all those people to whom the caveat does not apply: each of the different social networks have their own quirks and charm. Twitter is a popular one, and basically just a list of blurbs(or tweets) about what's going on. You won't find a whole lot of depth there, but it can be nice to know what's new. Facebook is another popular choice, but for someone starting off, it can be rather intimidating. There is a lot that Facebook can do, and with their layout changing frequently, it's easy to get lost if you don't know what you're looking for. The good news is that it does do a lot for you. Any updates that your friends and family on Facebook make are brought right to you. If you don't want to read their results on the latest internet quiz, you can easily tell Facebook to stop showing you those kinds of updates. Their are plenty others out there but for the sake of brevity(ha!) we'll move on at this point.

Blogs: In comparison to the social networks, these are very simple to navigate. These are basically public journals. Services vary greatly in how they can restrict viewing, but they all serve the purpose of logging thoughts quite well. These can be considered to be social networks as well, but the focus here is heavily on writing. Parents, listen up: depending on the service your child uses, they might be more willing to share their blog with you than their Facebook page. Many allow you to keep some thoughts private or limited to certain people, and leave the rest available for the public. Even if you don't plan on writing your own blog, their are advantages to signing up for an account. For example, if someone has made their blog viewable to only their friends, you will have to have an account so that they can identify you as a friend, otherwise the site will just assume that you are a part of the "public" and not show you anything. Popular blog sites include Livejournal, Blogger, and Vox.

Something else to be aware about when exploring these different avenues of communication is the difference between public and private messages. The social networks allow both, so be careful on how you reach out the someone. Sending a private message that's meant to be public will be a slightly embarrassing mistake, but a public message that's meant to be private can be much more embarrassing. If it says "send a message to:" odds are good that it's a private message, but if it says "comment" or "post to" there's a good chance it's public.

Tech Glossary: Video Games

The Consoles:
First off, what is a console? Originally, the definition for this was a lot easier: a device designed to play video games. As the technology has improved over the last few years, video game consoles can do a lot more, and to further complicate matters, other devices can play video games as well. The question now is what the device's primary purpose is. A cell phone is a cell phone is a cell phone, but even if it can play games, it's still a cell phone and not a console. The three main consoles people will discuss nowadays are the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3 and the Wii. These are all primarily designed to play video games. There are other portable gaming systems, such as the Playstation Portable or the Nintendo DS, which are intended for handheld use, but these are not consistently called consoles. There's no rhyme or reason to when they are considered consoles or not. It may depend on your zodiac sign, or Jupiter's moon cycles. The point is, if you call one a console, you may get a raised eyebrow, or you may not, and that will be the extent of it. Don't worry about it.

Genres:
RPG: This stands for Role Playing Game. These are games where the player creates a character and tries to develop them in various ways of their choosing. Players can often become invested in their characters and for this reason RPG's are notorious for being some of the most addicting games out there. There are a number of acronyms out there describing basically that they can be played online with other players. MMO, MMPORG, etc. Don't worry about remembering what they all mean, just recognize them as being online games with lots of other people. Stories are frequently Fantasy or Science Fiction in nature.

FPS: First Person Shooter. There's a gun on the screen, and a hand holding it. That's your character. You've got a first-person view of the action, and a lot of targets. Storyline is often seen as optional, especially if the game itself is really fun, but sometimes it can really help you to get into your character's head. These are typically very action-oriented and predominantly based on actual wars, or futuristic settings.

Platform. These games involve a lot of jumping. Some are more precise than others, but the one thing that's fairly consistent is that you don't want to miss your jump by falling short.

Side-scroller. You won't see as many of these games on non-portable systems anymore. Side scrolling basically means the the levels are predominantly laid out in a long, left-to-right manner where you are always looking at your character from the side. As the player advances, the screen scrolls with them, moving the "camera" to view more of the level, while the character stays pretty much in the center of the screen.

Sandbox/Open-ended. These games are growing in popularity. Whereas most games have a guided progression of gameplay, sandbox games let you decided what you want to do, and where you want to go. "The story can wait, I really want to explore this one area..." The most famous(infamous?) games in this genre include the Grand Theft Auto series.

That should be enough to get you started, be sure to check back later for more Tech Glossary terms.