Month: November 2017

Sexual Harassment in Tech (and in General)

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Sarah LaneI usually don’t post on topics like this, but sexual harassment is not a political topic and it’s not up for interpretation. It’s always wrong.

So many of my fellow males excuse their behavior with “Hey, I was just joking” or “She shouldn’t be so touchy about it.” That’s not the right way to look at it. It’s not whether the guy thinks the behavior is one way or the other, it’s how the person on the receiving end perceives it.

Just because you didn’t mean for it to be damaging doesn’t mean it wasn’t damaging.

Be sensitive. Be considerate. Have empathy.

Tech podcaster Sarah Lane recently published a thoughtful and very candid article on Medium (her article contains mature themes). It’s worth your time to better understand how some behaviors and remarks are received. And how our culture intimidates women who speak out about it.

Sarah Lane currently co-hosts Daily Tech News Show with Tom Merritt. They are a remarkable team, and the podcast is one of the best tech news sources available.

Allow Certain Contacts to Reach You During Do Not Disturb

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Do Not Disturb icon above a starry night sky with the Phone app icon in a thought bubble

You probably want a some people to reach you even when your iPhone’s Do Not Disturb is on. You can easily set your Phone app’s Favorites to have this privilege, but it might not be the most efficient method. Each entry in your Favorites can hold only one phone number. So if one person has two numbers (for example, a mobile and land line), then you need two entries in your Favorites. This can quickly clutter your Favorites list.

There is a better way: Create a Contact Group and then allow calls from the group.

Doing this allows any phone number from that contact to call through. No more separate entries from cell and land line numbers. And adding a new contact to the group at any time means that contact can reach you even when Do Not Disturb is on.

The only catch here is that you cannot create Contact Groups on your iPhone. Sigh!

The setup process is not too difficult. You can use the Contacts app on your Mac or you can use the web-based iCloud.

Using Your Mac

  1. Open the Contacts app.
  2. Click the File pull-down menu from the Task Bar.
  3. Click New Group.
  4. Type the name of your new group. I chose to use “DND Allow”.
  5. Drag and drop individual contacts from All Contacts to your new group.

Contacts on Mac

Using iCloud

  1. Log into your iCloud.com account using your web browser.
  2. Click or tap into the Contacts app.
  3. Click the plus (+) symbol at the bottom of the left pane.
  4. Click New Group.
  5. Type the name of your new Contact Group. I chose to use “DND Allow”.
  6. Drag and drop individual contacts from All Contacts to your new group.

Contacts on iCloud

Remember: You will need to maintain the Contacts in this group using iCloud.com or your Mac.

Configure Do Not Disturb on Your iPhone

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Swipe down and tap on Do Not Disturb.
  3. Swipe down to Phone and tap Allow Calls From.
  4. Under Groups find your new Contact Group and tap it. A checkmark should appear to the right.

Do Not Disturb on iPhone

That should do it. Best of luck!