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Texting While…..What?

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TEXTING WHILE DRIVING SLIPPED TO #2 on the list of dangerous activities back on November 21.  That’s when a groom interrupted his wedding ceremony to log onto his Facebook page and change his status from “in a relationship” to “married.”  Then he sent the news out on Twitter.

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The high-tech event took place in Abingdon, Maryland, and just as soon as the minister pronounced the happy couple to be “man and wife,” the groom, Dale Hanna whipped out his cell phone and immediately updated his Facebook page, and then he Twittered the news to all of his friends who couldn’t make it to the ceremony.   As the guests in the audience started giggling, the minister who was in on the stunt, told everbody that the groom was updating his relationship status.  After the quick posting, he handed his bride Tracy’s phone to her and she did the same on her page.

Hanna later explained, “I have a lot of family scattered around the country and we all use Facebook a lot to keep in touch. So when Tracy and I were engaged, most of my family found out via Facebook because we updated our statuses.”

In case you’re wondering what Dale tweeted from the altar, here it is:  “Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride. #weddingday”

Was this Tacky, or Techie?  Tell us what you think in the Comments.

3 UK Teens Arrested for Fire Death

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THREE TEENAGERS IN CORNWALL, ENGLAND, WERE ARRESTED TODAY in connection with the fire death of a 59-yr.-old woman this past Thursday night.  The woman was trapped inside her home with her 17-yr.-old son after somebody dropped a lit firework through her letter slot in the door.  Mary Fox pushed her son out of a 3rd-story window, saving his life, and then attempted to find her cat when she was overcome and then died.

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Mary Fox

Police suspected arson immediately when they found the firework remnants just inside the door.  Responding to local scuttlebut, they began searching Facebook pages where they found incrimnatory statements from the suspects.  “Some of the information has come via Facebook – indeed it is unusual these days for Facebook not to feature in a case such as this,” said one of the investigators.

After Mary’s son Raum leapt from the window, he ran to neighbors to report the fire and the FF’s arrived within just a few minutes.  But it was too late to save her.  Mary had eight other children, all of them adults in their 20′s and 30′s.

The Telegraph filed this video report:

The Times has MORE.

Facebook Wins Large Judgement Against Spammer

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LATE LAST WEEK FACEBOOK WAS AWARDED a judgement of $711 million against a major “spam king” who never showed up for the trial.  CNET News is reporting:

Judge Jeremy Fogel of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California granted Facebook’s application for a default judgment against Sanford Wallace for violating the Can-Spam Act, which bans “false and misleading” marketing e-mails. Fogel also found that Wallace “willfully violated” a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction issued in the case and referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for prosecution of criminal contempt.

“The record demonstrates that Wallace willfully violated the statutes in question with blatant disregard for the rights of Facebook and the thousands of Facebook users whose accounts were compromised by his conduct,” Fogel wrote in his judgment order, which also permanently prohibits Wallace from accessing the Facebook Web site or creating a Facebook account, among other restrictions.

Wallace had operated a major “phishing” scam using Facebook members’ addresses to send out millions of spam mails.   He has also had several other multi-million-dollar judgements issued against him from other web operators.  His failure to pay his judgements and his continued practice of continuing to behave this way is probably why the “criminal contempt” charge has been referred.  In March, 2008, Firgeezer reported (HERE) on another unrepentent spammer who refused to stop and eventually received a 26-yr. prison sentence and had all his assets seized.

Read the CNET News article HERE for the full story on this current judgement.

Hat tip:  John S.

“Change Facebook Back To Normal !!”

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THAT’S THE TITLE OF A NEW FACEBOOK “Organization” page that was launched just a few hours ago. 

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Throughout the day and evening on Friday, Facebook friends were logging on and finding a mell of a hess on their Facebook page.  Instead of leading off with the listings of the most recent postings of their friends, they were getting random selections of posts that were inserted as many as 16 hours previously.

The only way you could get the expected listings was to click around on the index and found “Status Updates” which had to be clicked every time you log on.

So the inevitible happened…..a “friend”ly revolution was born and the Change Facebook Back to Normal !! group was spawned.  Apparently this bomb has really touched a lot of nerves because when I first found it at 11 am it already had 123,000 members.  Now here it is at 11:45 and the membership roster is up to 145,000 members.  Go Team, Go! 

I was glad to join and put in my 2¢ worth.  Will the “New Facebook” go the way of the “New Coke”?  Maybe we’ll find out in a few days.  The peasants have grabbed their pitchforks and are manning the barricades.

Morning Lineup – October 19

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The early shake-down of the new blog adventure, FireEMS Blogs, has passed pretty smoothly.  This wasn’t something that just came out of a box and was plugged into the internet.  It took many months of programming, designing and “imagineering” to get it up and running.  I’m very impressed with Go>Forward Media’s accomplishment.  As far as my little corner of the blogisphere goes, it went well.  I think there were one or two sudden-panic moments when it first turned on, but they were quickly straightened out.

And the new Comments program appears to have been easily adapted by our readers.  It’s functioning just fine, but at my end I’m still discovering some new features of it.  As an example, I made an entry on Twitter yesterday referencing one of the postings and it also showed up in the Comments of that story.  It’s my understanding that this will also be applied soon to Facebook entries.  If somebody posts a link to one of my stories on their Facebook wall, then you can comment on it directly from there.  I’m not sure how that works, but we’ll learn by doing, I suppose.  As I said the other day, this is the beginning of a new era in digital communications.

Speaking of Comments, one of our readers sent us an email yesterday saying that he wasn’t getting any “confirmation” back after “registering” as a Commenter.  In fact, this is something that has been confusing since we first started publishing back in April, 2007.  There is a  box somewhere that can lead you to believe that you have to register before you can leave a comment.  But this feature has always been turned off on our site.  I don’t know why the publishing program (WordPress) displays this when it’s been disabled, but it does and sometimes leads to people filling out the little box and sending it in.  So I will remind everybody, you don’t need to “register” before you leave a comment.  Just ignore that thing.

The value of Comments was quite evident last night and this morning.  Following our posting about the Grand Island FD putting bone drills on their ambulances (HERE) we have received many comments from medics who are already using this device in the field and they are very pleased with the way it operates.  Now Firegeezer hasn’t seen the inside of an ambulance since the crew of the Bounty mutineed, so this was the first I had heard of this handy tool.  But within a few hours, we’re getting lots of valuable feed back on the device.  That’s the internet on cruise control ….. doing what it’s meant to do.

And thanks again to everybody who took the time and effort to email us complimenting us on the new design.  It’s truly appreciated.

I am sorely in need of some coffee, so I’m going to go get a pot started while you take care of the equipment check.  It’s Monday, so the list is a little longer.   We’ll meet back in the day room in a little while.