Technology may have introduced us to a brave new world where anything is possible. Unfortunately, it's also increased our capacity to make utter fools of ourselves.
We asked you for your worst tech mishaps – and boy, did you deliver. From forgetting the all-important step of clearing your browser history to the classic dropping your phone down the loo, our readers certainly weren't short of red-faced technological mishaps.
Using your submissions, here are the 10 tech commandments you should follow if you want to avoid eternal shame online. All we need to do now is carve them into some stones.
1. Thou shalt clear thy browser history
It's a simple step to take, but all-important. Especially as you never know when someone will want to borrow your laptop. One Guardian reader, who contacted us under the pseudonym LarsvonT on the condition we wouldn't reveal their identity, found out the hard way:
Why it's important to remember to clear your browser history
In an effort to help a tutor out with some computer/projector issues, I offered to lend him my laptop – which had the required software on it. 5 minutes later, and a quick trip to the tech cupboard to fetch the right lead, and the contents of my laptop's screen were being projected six foot wide onto the whiteboard.
As I had a number of tabs open in Google Chrome that I wanted to read later, I quit Chrome and opened up Firefox instead, which went straight to Google – my homepage.
What I (crucially) forgot, however, was that the keyboard shortcut to open up a new Firefox tab didn't take my tutor to my Google homepage, but rather to a 3x3 grid of website thumbnails that I had been looking at last – all of which were porn videos.
For a couple of seconds I couldn't work out why my tutor had collapsed against the wall and my classmates had fallen off their chairs fighting for breath, but then the penny dropped...
And the one video title I caught a glimpse of before my tutor honourably closed my laptop's lid?
"Big busty teacher makes sure detention is worth the risk."
2. Thou shalt not mix up thy contacts
Plenty of our readers have been burned by this one, especially now plenty of phone have pesky touchscreens where the slip of your thumb is basically the difference between texting something funny to your mate and eternal shame.
Oh Dear!
Sent an "amorous" text message to a girlfriend, but as they were adjacent in my phone contacts, and in a somewhat innebriated state, it was sent it in error to a work collegue with whom and between us was mutual loathing.
Why are plumbing bits never cheap and on the van?
I sent the plumber a text saying that the (apparently very ordinary) tap was leaking. He replied saying that 'special parts needed/have to order from Germany/very expensive' and so on. I replied 'Whatever - needs doing' and then proceeded to text my wife with what I was really thinking, only I actually sent it to the plumber. Oh dear….
3. Thou shalt double-check that Google search
Think about Google search terms
A few years back I helped my daughter and her friend find pictures of their favourite band on Google. I sat these 10 yr olds down, typed "boyzone" into Google and left them to look.
Too late the first 2 pages of pic results were for "Boy Zone". Quite different content!
This is an especially important rule if you're about to show the results of said search to a class full of pre-teens.
What NOT to Display on a Whiteboard to a Year 7 Class!
I was teaching a novel set in Glastonbury to a Year 7 English class. I asked if any of them had seen Glastonbury Tor and when no-one had, I did a Google Image search and clicked on the first image in the row without looking at it too closely and thus displaying it on the Whiteboard for all the class to see. I heard gasps, and a student cried...."Miss - look at the board!" I turned and there was a shot of Glastonbury Tor, but a drawing of a fertility goddess giving birth had been superimposed over the photograph; the view being pretty much the one a midwife would see during a delivery! The horror!
4. Thou shalt remember: thy phone doesn't belong in the toilet
This happens to our readers a lot. What is it with phones and loos?
Easy - mobile down loo
I heard a splat but didn't realise what had hit the water as there are lots of bottles and stuff in the bathroom which could have dislodged. When I looked I found my phone had slipped put of the back pocket of my jeans and was submerged. I rinsed it, whipped out the battery, SD card and SIM and put the lot in a bowl of rice to hopefully dry it out. This was just a week ago and, although it has recovered somewhat, it has a few issues still!
5. Thou shalt not open that dodgy email
"I love you"
I received an email from a female colleague who I really liked, and as far as I knew liked me. The subject was "I love you". You'll agree this is the sort of subject that grabs your attention, so without thinking I opened the email, and realised almost immediately it was a virus. The virus then sent out hundreds of emails from my account, all saying "I love you." Some of the responses I received were interesting, particularly those from male colleagues.
6. Thou shalt take care on Facebook
When it comes to social embarrassment, Facebook seems to be the social network of choice.
Got ex- invited to "Ex-boyfriends" event
My best friend saw that I had categories for my friends on Facebook, and that I posted my updates to specific categories (blocking others from seeing them), so she wanted to do the same.
But for some reason, she ended up creating Events with the name of the categories she wanted to create and inviting the people! I only noticed this when I received an invitation for "Close friends" and "Friends from College" events. But by the time she understood what was happening, she had already sent out invitations to events like "Weird people from work", "People who don't know who I am" and - what's worse! - "Ex-boyfriends".
She was so embarrassed after it happened, it was a long while until she logged in to Facebook again.
7. Thou shalt reply all at thy peril
Oh it seems handy at the time, but reply all can be the devil in disguise. One slip and suddenly you've sent your entire office including your boss that embarrassing anecdote from your weekend's antics. Or, like randomangles, you've accidentally invited your entire office to a small get together:
Friendly invitation
I accidentally invited everyone at work - about 2000 people - to my parents house for Easter Sunday lunch when I posted to a work forum instead of sending an email to my girlfriend. I added a couple of kisses at the end of the invite for good measure.
Worse still, you could have ruined someone's chances of promotion. We're looking at you, John Gibbons.
How ruin promotion prospect by email
My wife was involved in a discussion at work with several colleagues via email. Her boss had a view that she disagreed with and she forwarded the messages to me. I made a very good character assassination of her boss, and then clicked 'reply to all' - her boss got a copy.
Still cringing about this ten years later.
8. Thou shalt turn off autocorrect
Autocorrect is meant to be a godsend, yet somehow it causes more hassle than it's worth.
autocorrect, obvs...
in response to my lovely, retired mum's query as to what I was up to that weekend, my phone translated "just some gentle cycling with the kids" into "gentile fucking with the kids". Not my finest moment.
9. Thou shalt not throw hardware across the room
Because you never know, you might just need to turn it off and back on again.
The simplest of problems...
As an IT guy and Church/Theatre technician, this is a horrifically embarrassing and simple and I haven't actually told anyone yet. Whilst trying to work out why there was no sound going through the PA system, mid service, I frantically picked up the headphones to hear what was going on. Not a sound. In a small fit of semi-controlled rage, I unplugged them and through them across the floor, thinking they were broken. I'd forgotten to turn the headphone volume up. I worked that out two weeks after replacing them with a new pair...
10. Thou shalt not print weird things on thy work printer
There's a reason Christian Grey used his own printer...
Kinky office print out....
My partner and I used to be quite into the whole BDSM thing, before "50 Shades of Grey" made it seem as unsexy as gardening (well, you're on your knees and get wet... ).
I had created a multi-page 'Slave Contract' for my lover to sign, as is common in such a dynamic to make sure the subs limits are respected... and printed it at work.
This was back in the days of print servers, and to cut a long story short, it didn't print out and remained an undeletable job in the print queue for literally weeks... and during this period I never knew when I would get a tap on the shoulder from HR (or round of applause from the IT department).
You can read the rest of our readers' submissions on GuardianWitness. Want to share your own tech fails? Feel free to add them in the comments below.
