Viacom: What a "Class" Act!

Marketing/Communications, Media, The Industry No Responses »
Dec 162011

Viacom is one of the companies that would like the Congress to approve legislation that would have severely detrimental effects on the Internet.

But Viacom seems to think that it’s reasonable for them to send spam to addresses that I would never share with them to promote their products and services.

I have permanently blocked several Viacom-related addresses but just about every day I receive a message from a new Viacom address.

Here’s a message to Viacom: If you expect me to have any respect for your organization, you will stop sending your spam to me when I ask you to. So far I have followed the opt-out links 3 times and I’m still receiving spam from the company. Each time I identify a new address used for spamming I set my anti-spam filters to reject all messages from the domain.

Look, Viacom, if you want to be thought of as a reasonable, honest company, you would stop spamming people who have told you that they don’t want your shit. Sorry if that offends you, but “shit” is what Viacom is sending and they’re sending it to an address that they could have obtained only by using unethical methods.

Viacom, please drop dead.

Posted by Bill Blinn at 19:26

Help! I Can't Find My File!

Software No Responses »
Dec 012011

I was working today on a presentation that I’ll be making in January and I knew that I had created a handout several months ago. The file was somewhere on the 2+ terabytes of local storage and I didn’t remember where I had put it. (sigh)

As I found later, I had created a well-named directory for the files and had placed the directory on drive D, but I didn’t remember that and I spent most of my time looking in directories on my Desktop (where I keep many work-in-progress files), in a “Speaking” directory (where I usually place presentations), and in a “Documentation” directory (where I keep files that are intended to document processes).

That file had taken several hours to create and I didn’t want to do it again. The Windows search function that’s a part of Windows 7 is OK but it didn’t find what I was looking for. Time for Agent Ransack! (This is the free version of Mythicsoft’s File Locator Pro.) If you ever need to find a file on your computer, you need Agent Ransack and you’ll find it here.

I told Agent Ransack to find any files that contained “RemoteSigned” (because I knew that term was in the file) and I set the time range to look at any file created after 1 Jan 2011. After searching for a while, Agent Ransack directed me to a location that was disgustingly easy to find — but I didn’t find it. Agent Ransack did.

Posted by Bill Blinn at 20:40

A Grunge Too Far

Design, Marketing/Communications, Uncategorized No Responses »
Nov 132011

I have nothing against the grunge look, the use of typefaces that are stretched, warped, textured, or otherwise damaged but today I found a website that is suffering from a missing or incorrectly written style sheet or a serious over-application of grunge.

The green text at the right appears to be an attempt to show the relative popularity of search terms (more popular terms are larger) but the lack of variable linespacing means that words are piled up on top of each other. Still, they’re more or less readable. (Mostly “less”.)

Now take a look at the description of the clip-art package in black on the left. Can you read it? (Click the image if you’d like to try it full size.)

I thought that the problem was with my browser or that I had disabled something the site needed but the result was the same when I tested the site in Firefox 9, Chrome, and Internet Explorer 9. So now I hope that the website designer did something that effectively destroyed the cascading style sheet and that when I check back in a few days I’ll find a site with readable text.

Posted by Bill Blinn at 12:01

Goodbye Qwikster!

The Industry No Responses »
Oct 102011

Netflix has thrown in the towel or at least a piece of the towel. The 30% (or more) price hikes remain but Qwikster is dead before it even launched.

I wonder: Was the whole name change issue just a sideshow? A distraction? A red herring? So many people, including me, jumped on the silly name that Netflix can say (“respectfully”, of course) that the name was an error.

So we walk away thinking that we’ve won something. But what?

Maybe the marketing person who came up with “Qwikster” was an idiot. Or maybe that person was a genius.

Posted by Bill Blinn at 11:43

Fraudster Adds Air of Legitimacy with a Website

Security & Threats No Responses »
Oct 012011

It’s not a good website but it’s good enough to fool some people. The “barrister” who wrote the e-mail and wants to share $9.7 million that an “industrial magnate” who lived in Malaysia for 13 years left (without heir, of course) when he died a 2004 tsunami didn’t suggest that I send him my banking information. He didn’t suggest that I send an e-mail. He didn’t want me to call.

But he did want me to visit his firm’s website.

The site proudly proclaims that this law firm (founded in 1988*) also offers notary public services. To the right of a logo that just about any fifth grader could do better is a series of cheesy clip art images, including one that shows a large, modern, all-glass, multistory office building.

What was clear from the instant I opened the e-mail is this: It’s a standard, typical, unremarkable “I want to share $9.7 million with you” fraud. But how many otherwise intelligent people will be sucked in by that website!

*The domain was registered just last year and the e-mail came from an MSN account.

Posted by Bill Blinn at 09:49

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Apologizes But Keeps the Money

General, Marketing/Communications, The Industry No Responses »
Sep 192011

Raise prices 30% or more for most of your customers and then apologize for failing to communicate that you’re bifurcating the company. Huh?

By way of apology, the Netflix CEO says that the greatest fear at Netflix has been that the company wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. “Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores–do not become great at new things people want,” Hastings wrote. “So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.”

He might have chosen better examples. Many people consider that AOL was never good at anything except making money for a while and that as soon as people figured out that they could obtain better service from a standard Internet service provider, they left AOL en masse. And then there’s Borders, the book store chain that’s in the process of going out of business.

As for the outrageous price hikes … they stay.

Posted by Bill Blinn at 17:55

Windows 8: It's a Definite Maybe

Operating Systems, The Industry No Responses »
Sep 162011

I’ve decided to move the Windows 8 first-look report up from next week’s program to the 18 Sep program. It’s a preliminary look, not a “review”, because Windows 8 won’t ship until late 2012, (if then). I have pre-beta applications on a pre-beta operating system so keep salt handy.

Several aspects of Windows 8 are impressive (not the least of which is that the OS scales well enough to fit on anything from a phone to a server). But the wrenching user interface change, although it can be turned off, will take some getting used to.

Now it’s back to Windows 8 and writing ….

Posted by Bill Blinn at 09:19

Windows 7's "Advanced" Diagnostic Messages

General, Operating Systems, Software No Responses »
Sep 112011

I’m trying to use the Windows “disk image” backup process to backup the C drive and get all the files that a standard backup can’t acquire.

Gee, thanks. Could you give me any LESS information? In the old days, we expected error messages such as “Bad” but this is ridiculous. ONE of the backup files could not be created. WHICH ONE?

“The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error (0x8007045D)”

It doesn’t get much better than that!

Microsoft tells me to run CHKDSK /R X: (where /R indicates “repair” and X: is the drive letter.) Because the drive in question is the boot drive, it can’t be dismounted and tested while Windows is running. There’s an option to run CHKDSK at the next boot time. I selected that.

Then I rebooted the computer.

CHKDSK took an hour to run (it’s a large drive) and found exactly 0 (zero, none, nul, nil, null, nada) errors.

The backup still fails with the same error.

Microsoft offers a workaround, but it’s only for situations in which this error occurs at about 99% completion, indicating that the last sector or sectors of the disk are bad. I get the error message before anything is written to the backup drive.

In the event of a catastrophic disk failure, I would probably reinstall Windows and all of the applications. Still, it would be helpful to have a disk image just in case.

Posted by Bill Blinn at 15:17

An Open Message to the Federal Trade Commission

Marketing/Communications No Responses »
Sep 012011

Today I received a call from “Rachel” at “Card Member Services”.

Rachel calls every day. She calls my home phone. She calls my cell phone.

According to a news release (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/06/asiapacific.shtm) the US Federal Trade Commission shut these creeps down more than a year ago, so why are they still calling me?

They call in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening even though I have asked them to stop. Even though I have demanded that they stop. Even though I have occasionally stayed on the line long long enough to verbally abuse the fraudster who shows up at the end of the robo-call.

Why is the federal government so helpless when it comes to stopping these creeps?

Posted by Bill Blinn at 12:48

The Surprise That Wasn't

General, Marketing/Communications, The Industry No Responses »
Aug 242011

Steve Jobs resigned today. It’s a surprise but given his health concerns over the past few years, it’s not so much of a surprise. In his own words:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Posted by Bill Blinn at 19:40
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