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May 11, 2010

Thoughts on WebForms

Thought: I don’t miss them.

Line-breaks added for scale:

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Posted on May 11, 2010 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

May 06, 2009

Huh ???

Not sure why, but I've never joined flixster.com. Yeah, I've had a number of friends and associates invite me… just couldn't ever seem to get past the whole notion of giving a site tons of information about me just to watch videos that should probably be on YouTube anyhow…

But that hasn't stopped them from spamming me with updates, announcements, and the likes. Today I decided enough was enough and went out to unsubscribe. Only, what I saw kind of set me back a bit.

flixster

 

You see, the schmoe in the photo up there is me.

Pretty good for an ad. And… pretty irksome too. In fact, after seeing that ad … I started rethinking my thoughts on third party cookies.

And it looks like this ad is being driven by a company called SocialReach.com. They, apparently, are in cahoots with lots of the social media sites. So my guess is that since I've been to facebook in the past few weeks, they dropped a cookie on my machine there… then when I hit flixster they used that cookie to do some sort of reverse-lookup and plaster my mug in an advert.

Pretty damned sly. And quite invasive.

Posted on May 06, 2009 | | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

March 06, 2009

Why Live Writer Sucks

Video is worth a thousand words.

And yes. This is the last post I’ll do with Windows Live Writer. (Sorry guys, I’d be fine with it if it were second… it’s a distant last at this point.)

Going to try out BlogJet. Wonder why MS thought it was a good idea to get rid of NORMAL view. That thing was perfect. I could write up an entire post with it, preview it… and everything would be spiffy.

Oh well...instead Live Writer now just throws <p> tags EVERYWHERE (and sometimes arbitrarily double-nests them around your paragraphs such that hitting enter causes a new paragraph to be started ABOVE where you were working). Quite sad really.

UPDATE: Scott Lovegrove posted a solution (in the comments) to the evil I encountered by pointing out how to turn off the ‘Edit usingTheme’ functionality. That effectively turns ‘Normal View’ editing back on – which is exactly what I want.

Posted on March 06, 2009 | | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

October 07, 2008

FireFox 3 Sucks

Worst Browser Ever.

And I've been in love with FireFox for a very long time. (Ironically, I still like it more than IE, but I think I'm going to switch to Chrome.)

But frankly, other than the fact that I love how FF3 renders, I think it's one of the worst browsers ever built. It's so insanely buggy, crashes all the time, and feels like a damned tug-boat.

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad...
I simply remember a few of my favorite things, like:
a) The fact that FF3 crashes 4-5 times per day
b) That whole: Firefox is still running so you can't launch it. But feel free to either use task-manager to kill it or restart your machine.
c) The fact that it 100% broke the WMP plugin.  (And that FF knows about it as a posted/confirmed bug yet refuses to do anything about it.)
d) The way it frequently looses its friggin mind when accessing content on a local network. (I do my dev locally, and when I hit F5 to refresh changes from my dev server, FF3 frequently just completely forgets where to grab that content and won't load the requested page for minutes. Yet I can fire up IE and Chrome and the page loads instantly.)
e) The fact that it goes completely limp 15-20 times per day - and becomes completely un-responsive for 2-3 seconds while it's apparently either choking on a bone, or waiting to see whether or not it will crash again.

Yeah, it definitely feels like it was rushed into production.

It's the plugins, stupid
And before some-one pipes-up and blames my plugins:
a) I’ve only got 4 installed (a password import/export plugin, delicious, and firebug + yslow)
b) If plugins can make the entire browser so unstable and buggy/crash-prone, then that’s not an issue with the plugins, it’s an issue with the browser’s ability to sand-box correctly.

Guess I'll be curious to see what IE8 is like too. (Though I'm just getting too old to bother installing the beta.)

Posted on October 07, 2008 | | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

January 28, 2008

Another Outlook Stupidity

Some day I'd love an explanation for what the hell the folks at MS were thinking when they did this one...

Scenario
- I've installed Outlook on a machine and had it running fine.
- Then I've either f-disked my box and re-installed windows, or installed another version of windows (Vista), or moved to another machine, etc.
- The point, though, is that I'm using my .PST on another 'machine' or OS from where a rule was created.

Issue
- My rules don't work.
Why? Because they're set to run, no kidding, on 'this machine only' - which, apparently, in MS-ese means anything BUT 'this machine only'. Here's a screencap:

ThisMachineOnly

(Not the rule above the one in question - that one's only set for 'other machine' - whatever that means.)

The Fix
Yeah, it's ridiculously stupid, but I have to go in and uncheck the box that forces the rule to work 'on this machine only':

stoopidStupids

Like I said, I'd love to see what they were thinking... (and it's been like this since Outlook 2003 - at least).

Posted on January 28, 2008 | | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

December 05, 2007

Sams Publishing can Bite Me

I'm working through what looks to be a decent book from Sams Publishing: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services.

Only there's a sample database that they use throughout the book and in order to download it, it appears that I have to sign up for Safari - that obnoxious 'digital bookshelf' service that goes for $439/year.

Dear Idiots at Sams Publishing,

If I had wanted a digital copy of your book, I would have purchased it for $6 at Amazon when I bought this book. But since I've purchased the book, I'd like access to the sample code since you were too cheap to include a bleepin' CD.

You suck.

And no, I don't give a crap about the free 45-day trial membership of Safari that I get which lets me download the sample code (I assume) since
a) the instructions in the book no longer match the site,
b) Safari tells me I only get 10 days before they start charging my frickin' credit card and
c) I just don't want to sign up to some stupid service - I just want the sample code for my book.

Again, you suck. A lot.

--Mike

UPDATE: I should point out that the book itself points to a link and tells you to enter a coupon code - which will give you 45 days of free access to your book. Before writing up this nasty post, I went to the url listed in the book - but it just kept redirecting me to the safari site - where I was on my own and ran into the experiences listed above. That's what made me cranky. I'm _not_ hip on having to sign up for anything to get code for my book - but I'll tolerate it if it's less painful than writing up a nasty blog post ;) In my case, however, I just couldn't get access to the book - without divulging my Credit Card # and doing a full 'trial' sign-up.

ALMOST THERE UPDATE: After sending an email to Safari Publishing and Sams I got a response. Rather than just going to SamsPublishing.com which redirects to informit.com, they sent me to the following link: https://ssl.safaribooksonline.com/safarienabled - where I'm able to enter the code/coupon from the front of my book and add a few pieces of info (my name, email addy, and a password). But that still ended up being a pain - and after scouring the 'bookshelf' I still couldn't see any obvious links for downloads. So I gave up for a few minutes.

SOLUTION UPDATE: Happily, however, since I had spammed a handful of people/accounts listed on the informit.com site (with a link to this post, of course), I got another response from a publicist who provided me with a link and offered to send my 'feedback' to the appropriate folks in order to ensure future customer satisfaction. Happily the link that the publicist sent was EXACTLY what I was looking for:
http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0672327821&rl=1
Note the Download Tab. Note too that there's no need to sign up, sign-in, or give-away one of my children. I guess I should have checked the 'store' functionality on the site early on - but I was too caught up in going to the URL that the book sent me to.
Oh well, problem solved - and I've got my sample code.

Posted on December 05, 2007 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

November 16, 2007

Dell Jumps the Shark

Hey Dell, here's an idea: empower your employees to actually give a crap about customers, start shipping your products ON TIME, and stop wasting money on recruiting celebrities:

Dell Enlists Celebrities to Beg for Customers

A few months ago I purchased a 20" 2007WFP monitor, a keyboard for an older laptop, and another keyboard for one of my other boxes. The laptop keyboard was from their refurb site, and so was the other keyboard (though it was brand new). The monitor shipped fine and on time. My keyboards just seemed to 'hang' in limbo. Then I got a cryptic email from (let's say) Laura at Dell. The email said that there had been a problem with my order, and I needed to call Dell's customer service.

100% sounded like a scam. Didn't even have dell logos or 'letter-head' in the email - just a 2 sentence email. But my stuff hadn't shipped, so even though this looked like a phishing email I decided to call. The people on the other end of the phone wanted to know my Social Security Number - without that they couldn't help me.

No way was I going to just dial a number I got in an email, and then fork over my SSN. (It's the perfect recipe for a phishing scam - just spam everyone with an email that there's a 'problem' with their order from Dell, and get anyone with a current Dell order to bite... )

What GALLS me is that this was REALLY, 100%, Dell. Not a phishing scam - just Dell's amazing customer service trying to 'help' me.

They had let the $300 monitor go through fine, but were forcing me through some sort of fraud protection on the $43 and $13 keyboards - to ensure that I was really me, and had really ordered the stuff in question. Gee guys, glad you've got my back on the $60 stuff...  

When I demanded to speak with a manager after being asked for my SSN (and refusing to give it) I was told that I could speak with a manager after giving them my SSN, and was actually hung up upon by 2 of their reps. I finally managed to squeeze another number I could call out of one of the reps - which was the actual Dell service #... and after 40 minutes of computerized menus and about 3 phone transfers I finally was able to get the story on how fraud prevention had intercepted the order....

But by this time the refurbed laptop keyboard was out of stock. Dell still wanted my $ at this point - did I want to apply that $$ to another purchase?

I told them to stuff their keyboards where the sun doesn't shine, and canceled the order.

But hey, Burt Reynolds, Ice-T, and other celebs think that Dell's a pretty cool gig. Maybe I should reconsider....

Posted on November 16, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 07, 2007

Question

What's slightly more annoying than one of those microscopic slivers that you get in your hand, and can feel when you brush against things, but can't see?

One of those same slivers in your gelly-filled wrist-pad for your keyboard.

That's right - one's been bugging me crazy for the last day or so.

I finally managed to find the little bugger, and extracted it with some tweezers.

Who said working from home was easy?

Posted on November 07, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Apparently I'm not the only 'Terrorist'

USAToday recently published a great article on the Fed's terror watch list. It's swelled to over 755,000 names. I've pointed out before that I'm on the list - and because of that I have to present ID every time I want to get a boarding pass. Meaning that I can't print-boarding passes online. 

I have no criminal background. I haven't even had a speeding ticket in 4+ years. But the Federal Gov't thinks I'm a terrorist. Or, at least a possible terrorist. Maybe they just have me confused with a real 'baddie'. My first name is Michael (The #1 male name in America for years standing), and my last name is Campbell (which, apparently is in the top 50 most common last names in America). The phone book for the area where I live has about 40,000 people in it. I'm one of a handful of Michael Campbells listed in the phone book. And if they could be so wrong with someone like me, what does that mean about the true 'baddie' lurking out there somewhere trying to avoid this system/flagging altogether?

But the Fed would have us believe that by checking my driver's license every time I fly, we're all safer.

With 755,000+ names, this is the list that cried wolf. And it's a total violation of American principles. That, and I'm sure it's the result of an astronomically high number of wasted tax dollars. And I'm sure that the management of this watch-list data-mining project has been pulled straight out of the Dilbert playbook.

The article I linked above points this out very well when they point out that a 6 year old is also on this list. So, these idiots mining 'terrorist' data don't even know how to cross-check possible 'baddies' against their birth date?

I want a refund for all the time wasted on this 'safety' project. And I want my rights back without having to jump through a bunch of idiotic, bureaucratic hoops imposed by a bunch of federal employees in Washington D.C. who don't know a thing about me - other than that I'm on their terror watch list.

Posted on November 07, 2007 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 16, 2007

What were they thinking?

Sometimes I think that I would like to know what product teams at MS were thinking when they 'came up' with some functionality that I run into on a regular basis.

Then, other times, I think that it's probably BEST if I didn't know.

Case in point: suppose you've got a multi-page email - and just want to print a part of it out. Every OTHER program on the planet lets you specify which pages you'd like to print. Outlook 2007 just HAD to be different. But did they honestly think that this could EVER meet someone's needs in the real world?

Here's a screen-cap that helps capture my frustration (given that I only want print the first page of a roughly 7 page email):

print_pages

That's right boys and girls: I can't specify which pages I'd like to print. Instead I can print them All. Just the even numbered pages. Or just the Odd numbered pages.

What floors me about it is that I'm sure a bunch of people signed off on this 'feature'. And subsequent service packs haven't fixed it?

Posted on October 16, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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