Check out this fancy iPhone Halloween costume.
http://holykaw.alltop.com/coolest-iphone-halloween-costume-ever
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Adam Samberg - I Threw it on the Ground
I love this video! Instant Classic! "Happy Birthday to the Ground!"
Andy Samberg - I Threw it On The Ground - watch more funny videos
Friday, October 16, 2009
JetBlue spammed me
Dear JetBlue,
On May 21, 2008, I searched for flights to Florida on Kayak.com which referred me to JetBlue's website. I signed up using jetblue@(mydomain.com) as a trick I learned during my online marketing career.
July 4, 2008 I received a registration confirmation for my upcoming flight (July 26, 2008).
July 15, 2008 I received the following spam from "doyouhaveasecret.com" sent to jetblue@(mydomain.com).
A Google search for "jetblue doyouhaveasecret" brings up the following cached result. Someone else on Twitter experienced this same spam and knew it was from JetBlue. Very few people track and identify how spammers got their email address.
If you want further proof, here is the raw text format of the email.
I presented this evidence to JetBlue but I haven't gotten any admittance of guilt -- That's all I'm looking for at this point. I'm not saying that I believe a publicly traded corporation would intentionally spam customers this junk. This was probably done by some IT employee with access to the entire JetBlue customer database and either sold the list or used it to promote his or her own crappy business.
Telling me to contact my internet provider is a pretty weak response. Here's another response:
Pointing the finger at Kayak.com is quite ridiculous. If you understand how Kayak works it simply redirects you to the airline company's website after selecting your flight. No registration information is given to Kayak.com. JetBlue's complete denial despite being caught red-handed is appalling.
This is a vulnerability any company, small or large, faces when handling customer data. Businesses have a legal responsibility such that each employee who is exposed to confidential data must sign a confidentiality agreement. At best it acts as a deterrent and most employees won't risk losing their job over it. Basically stealing company emails is theft and for those employees who have this level of access, it's as easy as stealing office supplies.
The curious thing in this specific incident is that after I notified JetBlue about this problem, I haven't received any further emails from doyouhaveasecret.com even though I didn't "unsubscribe". Spammers don't stop emailing you or selling to other spammers once they have your email. Perhaps my issue caused a stir internally leading to the employee quietly removing my email from the spam list? It seems likely.
Please, JetBlue, do the right thing and apologize and admit that there was a possible breach of privacy.
Thanks,
Nick
On May 21, 2008, I searched for flights to Florida on Kayak.com which referred me to JetBlue's website. I signed up using jetblue@(mydomain.com) as a trick I learned during my online marketing career.
July 4, 2008 I received a registration confirmation for my upcoming flight (July 26, 2008).
July 15, 2008 I received the following spam from "doyouhaveasecret.com" sent to jetblue@(mydomain.com).
A Google search for "jetblue doyouhaveasecret" brings up the following cached result. Someone else on Twitter experienced this same spam and knew it was from JetBlue. Very few people track and identify how spammers got their email address.
If you want further proof, here is the raw text format of the email.
I presented this evidence to JetBlue but I haven't gotten any admittance of guilt -- That's all I'm looking for at this point. I'm not saying that I believe a publicly traded corporation would intentionally spam customers this junk. This was probably done by some IT employee with access to the entire JetBlue customer database and either sold the list or used it to promote his or her own crappy business.
Dear Nicholas,
Thank you for contacting JetBlue Airways regarding your TrueBlue account email. We are grateful for the opportunity to address your concern.
In viewing your TrueBlue account you are set to receive promotions and emails regarding current sales. We are unable to explain the possibility of spam being sent to this address as only JetBlue emails are routed to it. We can only suggest you contact your internet provider with any further questions. If you would no longer like to receive promotions please contact us at 1-800-JETBLUE (5388-2583) and we can further assist you.
We are grateful to have you as a member of our TrueBlue family and look forward to welcoming you onboard JetBlue for future jetting!
Sincerely,
April
TrueBlue Customer Service Crew
JetBlue Airways
Crewmember 25211
Telling me to contact my internet provider is a pretty weak response. Here's another response:
Dear Mr. Lee,
Thank you for your patience as we looked into your claim. We regret any thing may have given you the impression that your unique email has been shared inappropriately or sold by JetBlue. We realize your privacy is of great concern to you.
We have researched your claim and found that we have only passed this to our internal automatic contact system for sending an itineraries and your TrueBlue statements to you. We show that you completed your TrueBlue registration on July 4, 2008 and at that time indicated you wanted to receive promotional offers.
We have also noted that you booked a reservation on May 8, 2008 with KAYAK services and at that time, this same unique email address was submitted as a contact by you. We cannot track what KAYAK has done with this information.
Although we understand and sympathize with your situation, we feel we have kept our word in maintaining the privacy of your contact information and respectfully deny any request or compensation.
We welcome you to our TrueBlue membership and look forward to welcoming you onboard many flights in the future.
Sincerely,
Shauna Seymour
Specialist, Customer Feedback
JetBlue Airways
Pointing the finger at Kayak.com is quite ridiculous. If you understand how Kayak works it simply redirects you to the airline company's website after selecting your flight. No registration information is given to Kayak.com. JetBlue's complete denial despite being caught red-handed is appalling.
This is a vulnerability any company, small or large, faces when handling customer data. Businesses have a legal responsibility such that each employee who is exposed to confidential data must sign a confidentiality agreement. At best it acts as a deterrent and most employees won't risk losing their job over it. Basically stealing company emails is theft and for those employees who have this level of access, it's as easy as stealing office supplies.
The curious thing in this specific incident is that after I notified JetBlue about this problem, I haven't received any further emails from doyouhaveasecret.com even though I didn't "unsubscribe". Spammers don't stop emailing you or selling to other spammers once they have your email. Perhaps my issue caused a stir internally leading to the employee quietly removing my email from the spam list? It seems likely.
Please, JetBlue, do the right thing and apologize and admit that there was a possible breach of privacy.
Thanks,
Nick
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Photoshop Hand Tool stuck
When working in Photoshop I would frequently get stuck on the hand tool and it would not change no matter which tool I selected. Some searching on Google gave the advice to restart Photoshop but that did not work. Sometimes it would go away on it's own if I did something else. I have now discovered that all you have to do is press the space bar. I'm using CS3 and it's been mentioned that it occurs in CS2 as well. Let me know if this happens to any CS4 users. By the way, I'm looking forward to CS5! Maybe I will get a copy :)
Friday, August 14, 2009
Dammit, I should have moved to Cityplace.
http://www.mytelus.com/cityplace/index.vm
With a fibre optic network going directly into the building, at every third floor, more or less and then being distributed by ethernet, this is the fastest residential Internet access at 100mbps (50 times faster than cable and 2,000 times faster than a 56k modem).
It's the most technologically advanced Digital Neighbourhood in Canada with $30 million spent on a high-capacity fibre-optic network.
If I had just known this two weeks ago, I would have moved to Cityplace!
Here is another great blog about it along with great comments.
http://www.blogto.com/tech/2009/03/bringing_fibre_to_toronto/
Here's why you need to hate Bell. They are ruining the internet. Thanks to CRTC for increasing the stranglehold that the monopoly has on Canadian internet.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/12/bell-crtc-internet-usage.html
With a fibre optic network going directly into the building, at every third floor, more or less and then being distributed by ethernet, this is the fastest residential Internet access at 100mbps (50 times faster than cable and 2,000 times faster than a 56k modem).
It's the most technologically advanced Digital Neighbourhood in Canada with $30 million spent on a high-capacity fibre-optic network.
If I had just known this two weeks ago, I would have moved to Cityplace!
Here is another great blog about it along with great comments.
http://www.blogto.com/tech/2009/03/bringing_fibre_to_toronto/
Here's why you need to hate Bell. They are ruining the internet. Thanks to CRTC for increasing the stranglehold that the monopoly has on Canadian internet.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/12/bell-crtc-internet-usage.html
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Does Citizen's Arrest Exist in Canada?
I ask the Government of Ontario if there is such thing here as citizen's arrest? Does Section 494 of the Criminal Code of Canada not exist? Do you have to wear a fancy security uniform, carry a baton, a GUN or some other weapon in order to perform citizen's arrest? Please tell me how can one avoid a kidnapping charge while restraining a suspected thief until the police arrive? Maybe I should become a shoplifter because I have learned that you can get away with it. When accused of shoplifting in Canada, you can just walk away.
TheStar.ca: Grocer wouldn't chase thieves again
Visit here to sign the petition and support David Chen
http://www.vracommittee.com/
TheStar.ca: Grocer wouldn't chase thieves again
Visit here to sign the petition and support David Chen
http://www.vracommittee.com/
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Microsoft releases May 2009 AJAX Control Tookit -- and wastes everyone's time
So I googled for an HTML editor to see what's out there and I found out that Microsoft released an updated AJAX Control Toolkit that includes an HTMLEditor. Sounds like just what I needed! I could go for FCKEditor which I've used before but an HTML Editor supported by Microsoft sounds pretty good, right? Wrong!
As I was on my way to downloading the new release, the first few comments I saw were
dated just today, Sunday June 14th.
Here's some more complaints:
Following the entire slew of complaints was this post:
Needless to say, it sounds like I should hold off on the ASP.NET Ajax update until Microsoft gets their act together on this package. Who the hell wants to spend hours debugging Microsoft's code and have nothing to show for it? I sure don't!
Here's the Codeplex link for more details:
AJAX Control Toolkit May 2009 Release Reviews
As I was on my way to downloading the new release, the first few comments I saw were
Poor because have bugs :( Please fix this bug for next release
dated just today, Sunday June 14th.
Here's some more complaints:
Don't you people test this stuff. I am so sick of debugging your code. My managers look at the little samples expecting it to do that and doesn't realize it don't quite work like the sample in a real world application. Again, I am soooooo sick of spending hours in the forum and google to find some OFF THE WALL FIX to make it work in a real world situation. Test your code...I do.
Release build will crash VS 2008...
How about an installer? How about some instructions on upgrading from prior versions? There are a lot of nuts and bolts to this stuff and a readme that says, "just copy and go" just AIN'T ENOUGH! My system is almost completely screwed to the wall, following installation "instructions" like that.
Following the entire slew of complaints was this post:
We posted a minor update to the AJAX Control Toolkit to address several of the issues described below including the issue concerning performing a build in Release mode.
Needless to say, it sounds like I should hold off on the ASP.NET Ajax update until Microsoft gets their act together on this package. Who the hell wants to spend hours debugging Microsoft's code and have nothing to show for it? I sure don't!
Here's the Codeplex link for more details:
AJAX Control Toolkit May 2009 Release Reviews
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