Category: Internet & Technology

Dell’s Twitter Feeds on Overload…

DELL-TWITTER-EXCESS

It’s amusing watching companies figure out how to use Twitter…the above screen is from my Twitter feed. I follow both Dell Canada’s consumer Twitter feed, and their Business user feed. They each have different offers and discounts…until they start copying each other and repeating everything twice, creating what amounts to Twitter spam in my feed. And then there’s their contest, which so far as resulted in 37 tweets in three days. Twitter is a great tool for businesses to reach out to their customers, but if you do it too often, you risk alienating those customers. After I post this I’m going to un-follow the Dell Canada Business feed, and possibly un-follow the Dell Consumer feed until this contest is over. If you’re a business, value the attention of your customers – don’t abuse it by being too “noisy”.

You’re Never Too Young to Love Star Trek

logan-star-trek-klingon-hat

Surfacescapes puts Dungeons & Dragons on Surface

Wow..this is just so incredibly geeky and cool. As an old-time D&D player, this strikes a chord with me. If only we had technology like this back in the day…actually, it might not have been quite as much fun now that I think about it. 😉

Kudos to the Microsoft MVP Program People

MVP-award

I was awarded the MVP recognition this year again for my work in the Windows Mobile world – 12th year running – and the award is really cool. It’s really cool not because it’s a shiny thing I can put on my shelf to make myself feel important (I buy big monitors for that ;-)), but because they’ve implemented a “token” system whereby each year re-awarded MVPs will get a new year slice they can put on top of the previous one. This prevents the tremendous waste of sending out the same award year after year with a new date stamped on it. I think it’s great that the people working on the MVP program came up with such a smart way to reduce waste.

The Funniest Geeky Music Video Ever!

If you’ve never played an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), you won’t find this video as funny as I do, but if you have any background in online gaming, you’ll appreciate the clever lyrics. And if you’ve never checked out The Guild, you should – it’s absolutely hilarious!

Wired’s Artifacts From The Future: DNAMatch.com

Wired-Artifacts-From-The-Future-Online-Dating-DNA-Match

This is just sheer brilliance. Check out the above image broken down into smaller pieces at Wired – every bit of text adds to the concept. So clever and well-executed!

.mx Domains = Highway Robbery

tex-mx-expensive

I was on Go Daddy today and saw that they were accepting registrations for .mx (Mexico) domains. A cool domain name popped into my head: tex.mx (Tex-Mex), a style of food that I think is absolutely fantastic. I thought I’d register it for fun, in case somewhere down the road a Tex-Mex restaurant chain wanted it and I could retire with my family to a small island somewhere. A regular .com domain is $11.99 CAD for me to register. A .mx domain? “Just” $661.80 per year. What a bargain! I don’t get this – I thought everything was supposed to be cheaper in Mexico. 😉

I Was Trying to Reason With Software (or “How JustHost Does Bait and Switch”)

The past month, I’ve been on the hunt for a new Web host for a few personal domains. I have an account with 1&1, but they have a limitation on how long CNAME entries can be, so I need to look elsewhere. I signed up with BlueHost, only to discover their horribly limited control panel software didn’t do what I needed, so after three days I cancelled my account. Next I tried WestHost, quizzing their pre-sales people on exactly what I needed before signing up. They said they could do what I needed, so I signed up. Again, they had horrible control panel software that didn’t do what I needed it to do – the pre-sales people either didn’t understand my questions, or they weren’t being honest with me. So I cancelled my account with WestHost. It’s frustrating to waste time with this, but I’m thankful that both BlueHost and WestHost have simple cancellation policies and I got a full refund.

So I went on the hunt for other Web hosts, this time for ones that had better control panels. I’m not looking for “cheap” – I’d happily pay $10 to $15 a month for the account – but what I need is something powerful and flexible and based around the concept of multiple domains. I was looking at JustHost.com, and decided to sign up with them because they use Cpanel, which I’ve used on my own server before. I was going through the sign-up process, and on the second phase it asked me about adding upgrades to the account. One of them for for SPAM Assassin. I was a bit confused, because SPAM Assassin is free software that virtually every Web host out there uses. And JustHost wanted to charge me $19.95 for it:

spam-assassin2

In another browser tab I looked at the list of features, and sure enough, SPAM Assassin was listed:

spam-assassin

So which was it? When I was clicking around the JustHost site a chat window popped up, so I thought I might as well ask them about this. Here’s the transcript of that chat:

* * * * * * * *

Connecting to Agent…

You have been connected to Amber

Amber Says:Hey Wait! We would hate to see you go without seeing what’s made us Award Winning Web Hosts. So just this once I can give you a 20% discount on our unlimited hosting. That’s a $24 saving! To take advantage of this one-time offer just CLICK HERE

Amber Says:When you are ready just say “Hi” and we can get started….

You:Hi there, I have a question

Amber Says:Hi my name is Amber thanks for visiting Just Host today!

Amber Says:Is there anything I can help you with? Or if you would like to check out our last minute 20% discount, please CLICK HERE!

You:I’m in the midst of signing up now, and I’m confused about something….

Amber Says:Signing up for hosting with Justhost couldn’t be easier! If you want to sign up now just CLICK HERE and complete our simple 1 page order form!

You:on the Features page, it lists Spam Assassin and there’s a check mark next to it, seeming to indicate that it’s included in the package

Amber Says:Unfortunately we cannot accept checks or money orders. We only accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Paypal

You:Yet as part of my sign up package I’m being offered Spam Assassin for $19.95/year….

Amber Says:You get a free domain for life, free instant setup and you can host unlimited domains, plus, much much more.

Amber Says:Today only I can offer you this special 20% discount so you can sign up for just $3.95 month. Just CLICK HERE to get this today only offer!

You:are you reading what I’m writing? I’m asking you a question

Amber Says:Please repeat your question

You:You don’t have a scroll bar?

Amber Says:Would you like to sign up for our most popular hosting plan for just $3.95 / month?

You:No, I’m asking a question. Let me repeat it…

Amber Says:Ok Great!! To sign up for the $3.95 a month offer CLICK HERE

You:http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/subclass.asp?logon=&langid=EN&catid=24930

You:sorry, ignore that

You:on the Features page, it lists Spam Assasin and there’s a check mark next to it, seeming to indicate that it’s included in the package

Amber Says:Unfortunately we cannot accept checks or money orders. We only accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Paypal

You:Yet as part of my sign up package I’m being offered Spam Assassin for $19.95/year….

Amber Says:You may not have noticed but I am actually just a virtual agent, so I dont fully understand your question.

Amber Says:You can try asking me again and re-phrase your question, or why not contact our freindly phone support team toll-free at: 1-(888)-755-7585 they should be able to assist you further

You:A virtual agent. I’m talking to software. I assumed I was talking to someone who might as well have been software.

Amber Says:A virtual agent, basically means i’m not real,,, BUT that doesnt have to be a bad thing

You:Trust me, it’s a bad thing.

Amber Says:Sorry I can’t understand your question. Please can you repeat it for me?

[chat disconnected]

* * * * * * * *

And that’s how I started off my day today: trying to have a discussion with software. 🙂

Asus P6T Deluxe V2 4 GB RAM Mystery

Just a quick note for anyone that might run into the same problem as I did today: if you have an Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard with the latest BIOS, and you’ve installed 6 GB (or more) of RAM in the system, and you’re only seeing 4 GB at the BIOS level, here’s what you need to do. First, take out half the sticks of RAM, leaving three sticks of RAM in, one in each of the orange RAM slots. Then power up the computer and go int the BIOS – it should see 3096 MB of RAM in the System Information section of the BIOS (it’s at the bottom of the first BIOS screen).

Now, power down the computer, unplug the power cable, and install the next three sticks of RAM, this time in the three black slots. Power up the computer, and go into the System Information section to verify that you have 6136 MB of RAM. That’s it, you’re done! I don’t know what idiot at Asus thought this was acceptable to ship a product where you can’t install all the RAM at once, but there you have it.

Remember too that you’ll see to be running 64-bit Vista or Windows 7 in order to access more than 3.5 GB of RAM.

The Greatest Baby Shirt Ever Made: Level 1 Human

The Family Meeting Logan - 006

I used think that the “I’m a Boob Man” baby shirts were the height of baby-apparel humour, but the coolest “onesie” I’ve ever seen is pictured above, made by my brother Aaron. It’s perhaps the ultimate shirt for the son of an old-school pencil and paper RPG guy like myself. That’s the Neverwinter Nights font to boot, so extra geek cred for that. So cool! You’ll have to wait a year to level up Logan! My brother made some other great shirts that I’ll take pictures of soon.