Help Desk
Fast shipping, resolution keeping, and holiday sensitive emoji in this week's tech etiquette column
By Michael Agresta, Fri., Dec. 26, 2014
:( Help!
I run a large-scale parcel delivery service. I do essentially 100% of my business one night of the year. I'm known for highly personal, door-to-door (even chimney-to-chimney) service, but my operating costs are getting out of hand. Do you have high-tech tips to help things run more merrily?
– S.C., somewhere north of Pflugerville
Have you looked into drones? Amazon, with its incipient Amazon Prime Air program, claims it'll soon be ready to assure "30 minutes or less" delivery of packages for many U.S. customers. With FAA approval, these drones may start appearing in the skies as early as next year.
Hard to believe? Some might say the same about you. We recommend asking your little helpers to put together a test fleet. If nothing else, consider the cost-benefit. You may have to lay out some extra cash to replace your current transportation solution, but think how much you'll save on carrots.
Help! My New Year's resolutions never seem to stick. Do you have any tech-driven advice for changing my ways in 2015?
– In Quest to Utilize Intelligent Tech
We're aware of many apps that might help you, IQUIT, including MyQuitCoach (smoking), MyFitnessPal (exercise), and hometown favorite Whole Foods Market Recipes (healthy/sustainable cooking and eating). We're particularly intrigued by an app called Pact that actually pays you for keeping to your resolutions – and charges you for breaking them.
A big caveat: According to one poll, last year's most popular resolution was to read more books. In other words, these apps might be causing more discipline problems than they can possibly cure. With that in mind, we encourage you to put down the phone and get your offline support system involved in helping you stick to your goals in the new year.
Help! I prefer to communicate only in emoji, but I find it difficult to wish people happy holidays without succumbing to Christian bias (e.g., Santa Face). Can you recommend a culturally sensitive greeting?
– [Concerned Face] [Christmas Tree]
Great question, [Concerned Face] [Christmas Tree]. Unfortunately, as you may have already guessed from our clunky, word-based syntax, we are a print advice column and therefore incapable of responding to you in your native tongue. We normally avoid taking questions in emoji for precisely this reason.
For secular emoji holiday well-wishing, we recommend "Season's Greetings": [Snowflake] [Girl Waving]. For something more uplifting, try "Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men": [Peace Sign] [Earth] [Boys Holding Hands] [Girls Holding Hands].
Those looking to communicate Chanukah-specific sentiments should download Emojew, an add-on app with gefilte fish, menorah, and Moses-in-a-basket icons. If your friends don't also have Emojew, however, your messages won't read. Kwanzaa is even trickier. One solution is to skip the modern religious symbols altogether and go straight to the real source of many American holiday customs, the ancient European tree religion: [Evergreen Tree] [Praying Hands] [Goat] [Knife].
:) HD
Send questions about tech etiquette to [email protected].
