Category: Rants & Raves

Regardless of their politics. I respect people that know the art of oratory. People that can deliver a punchy, cutting, effective verbal slice ‘n dice impress me. Dennis Miller is one of the best in the world at this – I should upload some of the rants of his I’ve captured over the years. In this example, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann delivers a deadly barrage of words against Condi Rice. Regardless of how much of this you agree with, you have to respect Olbermann’s ability to express himself and make his points.

Thanks to Mitch – who’s pretty good at the art of the rant himself – for the heads up on this.

I broke new ground last week: for the first time I was served with an official takedown notice that evoked the DMCA. Aren’t I special? Being a Canadian, I’m of course not subject to the draconian DMCA law, but YouTube, being in the United States, certainly is. I posted about the CTV spot before, so I won’t repeat my thoughts on it here, but I can’t fathom why CTV wouldn’t want someone to share branding material like that TV spot. It only helps make their TV station more well known, even if it’s with people who aren’t within broadcast range. Here’s the YouTube “you got busted” email:

I wonder how many of those YouTube sends out a day? 100? 1000? 10,000? YouTube is still chock-full of copyright materials, but I suspect some companies are smart enough to understand how beneficial it is for them to turn a blind eye (the Daily Show and Colbert Report come to mind).

I just had a thought though: what if Holland & Hart LLP isn’t CTV’s legal firm, but instead represents Natasha Bedingfield, the artist who’s song was used in the CTV spot? I somehow think that’s unlikely though, because the ad spot was taken down within 48 hours of me posting it, and the only way a law firm could have found it that quickly would be if they were doing daily searches for “CTV”.

Anyway, Holland & Hard LLP, along with CTV: I hope you are one day made irrelevant by the changes in online digital media distribution that you can’t hope to stop or control.

RSS is great and all that, but sometimes email is more direct and simply more convinient. I added some code to my blog a couple of weeks ago that allows you to subscribe to RSS updates via email. That means that once a day (if there’s new content on the blog) you’ll get an email message from Feedburner (the nice folks who are kicking ass in the RSS space) with the update from my site. Here’s what the email looks like:

It will contain pictures and the full content of my posts – exactly what you’ll get via RSS. The one exception is that if I use the “Read More” option on WordPress, you’ll only get everything before that. But all in all, not bad. It’s easy to manage, easy to unsubscribe to, and I’d encourage you to use it if you’re like me and check email every day but not always your RSS reader. And if you have a blog yourself, I’d really encourage you to check out this Feedburner service – it’s a great way to reach readers on a regular basis regardless of whether or not they use RSS.

You know, if there’s one thing that consistently irritates me about living in Canada, it’s the cross-border scam that is brokerage and customs. The other day I received a package from the USA, a couple of products that I had ordered and paid for (rather than the review product I usually get for instance). The real value of the products was $46.97 USD. Shipping to Canada was $16.55 USD, and they only offered FedEx shipping as an option – no postal service. Courier shipping means brokerage fees, but I really wanted this stuff so I went ahead. The package arrived on Tuesday, and it had a declared value of $20 USD – the company was nice enough to reduce the value for customs. Problem is, $20 CAD is where the brokerage fees kick in with FedEx and most other courier companies. $20 USD = $23.68 CAD. Guess how much brokerage and GST tax there is on a $23.68 shipment? $19.95. I kid you not – 84% of the stated value of the product.

So I ended up paying $38.65 CAD on getting the product here (shipping + brokerage fees), and the total value of the product was only worth $53 CAD to begin with. That’s just wrong. It amounts to a tax on Canadians that want to order products from the United States. If I could find a Canadian reseller for the product I want, of course I’d order from the Canadian side of the border! I did that with the Gorillapod, buying it from Eureca and it worked out great. Brokerage fees should be a percentage of the item value, not a value that starts off at $20. I don’t know if it’s a courier company scam where they know they can charge whatever they want for incoming products, or if the Canadian government really does make the paperwork and process to difficult that the courier companies need to charge this much to break even. Either way, the USA is Canada’s biggest trading partner, and if it wasn’t so expensive to order products from the USA I think more Canadians would do so.

I guess I shouldn’t complain too loud though – I could live in Europe or Australia and have it be even more expensive/impossible to get the products that I want. What was the product you might ask? It shall be revealed soon…

I’ve been trying to rely on the built-in applications inside Windows Vista as must as possible, to get a feel for how much (or how little) they’ve evolved. I think it’s all too easy for experienced geeks to get a new operating system and immediately load it up with all of their own favourite applications – overlooking the built-in applications. That does a disservice to the OS itself, and robs you of finding out how good or bad the included applications really are – let’s face it, the less applications an OS has installed (any OS), the more stable it’s going to be. Out of the box, Vista is a surprisingly well-rounded tool, offering almost everything you need built-in.

One app in particular I’ve been relying on heavily is Windows Mail, the replacement for Outlook Express. I have it configured on every Vista computer in my home to check my personal email, and my business email accounts are only checked with Outlook 2007. On the whole, Windows Mail is a pretty good app: strong spam filtering (though I thankfully don’t get THAT much spam), easy to use, nice user interface, spell checking, and fairly snappy. I’d have no trouble recommending it to people who want to use it as their primary email application. There are some things that I really don’t like though. Yeah, that’s right, it’s bullet time.

• IMAP sluggishness: I don’t know how or why, but Outlook 2007 is about 500% faster over IMAP than Windows Mail is. When I delete a message in Windows Mail it takes 1-2 seconds before it vanishes. It might be because it’s doing a real delete and moving it to the Deleted Items folder, whereas Outlook 2007 just flags it for deletion and hides it. Regardless, Mail should do that stuff in the background and bring the SNAP back to the Delete button over IMAP.
• Strange Lock-Ups: Today Windows Mail went all freaky on me, and is what inspired this blog post. Basically, it locked up: but not in a traditional Windows “Not Responding” kind of way. Task Manager said it was working normally, yet when I’d click on any part of the window I’d get the “No, you can’t do that ding”. The kind you get when there’s a dialogue box open somewhere that you have to deal with before you can get at the application itself. After a few minutes I got a warning about my mail server responding slowly, and it prompted me to WAIT or STOP. I clicked STOP. And it still wouldn’t respond – more dinging. I left it for a few minutes and went back to reading my hometown hero Rahul Sood’s blog. I came back and there was the WAIT/STOP prompt again. I clicked STOP again. It wouldn’t respond again. My frustration level was definitely rising…then all of a sudden it started working again. I don’t see any of those problems with Outlook 2007 accessing the same email account, so I have a hard time believing it’s all my mail server’s fault.
• User Data Storage Location Still Obscure: One of the best things about Outlook is the PST file. It’s a single file that contains all of the user’s data: every contact, every calendar event, every email, every note. That makes it really easy to back up, make copies of, etc. And if you move it from the obscure 12-level deep folder to your Documents folder (or My Documents for you XP types), it’s easy to re-link Outlook to the new file location and then it’s easy to back up. Windows Mail continues the horrid tradition of not only hiding all the email deep, deep inside hidden folders, but also scattering all the user data across multiple files and folders. Where is Windows Mail data located? C:\Users\Jason Dunn\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail. Oh, and you can only see that folder if you go into the options to make hidden files and folders visible. Why didn’t they just add an Email folder in the root user level, alongside easy to understand things like Music, Pictures, and Saved Games. How exactly is Joe User going to back-up his Windows Mail data? He’s not – he’s going to lose his email when his hard drive crashes.
• Window Fuglyness: Windows Mail was created for both email and newsgroups, and I happen to use it for both. The problem is that I have a specific arrangement of the window sections for email. I want the window to be only as big as it needs to be for me to see what I need to see of my email, so I remove columns, resize them, and create the perfect UI for me. When I switch over to the newsgroups view, and it’s all shot to hell. It needs to have remembered window states for each account. That’s probably not technically possible, but I can dream can’t it? This issue is so frustrating for me that I removed my personal email account from Windows Mail on my main workstation and I only check newsgroups with it now.

All in all, Windows Mail is a decent application that most people can rely on for day to day email. But I can’t help think it could be much more impressive if Microsoft wasn’t worried about encroaching on the Outlook fiefdom…

I spent a lazy Saturday working in my office, doing a bit of email and news postings here and there, but also listening to Much Music in the background. A TV show came on that I had heard of but never seen before: So You Think You Can Dance. I tend to avoid most reality TV shows, although a few have caught my interest over the years (namely Beauty & The Geek, and The Ultimate Fighter). I’m not sure why I got sucked into the dancing show – it’s not like I’m particularly a fan of dance – but it was an early episode where they were auditioning random people, and like driving past a car wreck, you just have to look. Several people who auditioned really could dance – they were amazing. But that’s not the subject of this blog post. What interested me more were the people who came onto the stage full of confidence, very sure of themselves, gave 100% of their effort…and still sucked. They were uncoordinated, unbalanced, sloppy, out of shape, couldn’t remember their routines, and shouldn’t have been up on that stage.

Just like the people on American Idol who think they can sing, there’s a certain “reality bar” that they all run smack into. Sure, with any form of artistic expression, there’s a certain amount of taste and interpretation – but music is math. If the melody line of the song goes to a “B” and you don’t vocally hit it, you’ve failed as a vocalist. Dance is much the same way – there’s a beat to the song, a cadence, and if you’re not executing your dance moves in time with the song, you’re not a successful dancer. Sure, there might be some exceptions (atonal jazz comes to mind), but those are the exceptions not the rules. If you’re going to get up in front of a panel of expert judges and deliver a mainstream dance number or song, you’d better actually have talent.

That’s where I see things have changed in our society – there will always be a certain percentage of the population who thinks more of themselves than they should, but I have a strong hunch that if a TV show like American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance were on during the 1970s or 1980s, we wouldn’t see the things we’re seeing today. In fact, I have vague memories of watching shows like Star Search in the ’80s where people would only get on TV if they were talented. One might argue that the only reason we’re seeing the no-talent delusional types on camera is for the cruel entertainment value, and I certainly don’t disagree with that, but what strikes me is how these people really do think they’re good.

I went through elementary school in the ’80s, where, at least in Calgary, grades mattered, students failed and were held back a year, and if you made it through to the next grade you had to be good enough. Over the past decade or so, I’ve seen story after story about North American education (mostly education in the United States) where the emphasis is placed on self-confidence rather than aptitude. Grades don’t matter as much as how the child feels about himself. Rather than hold Little Johnny back a grade because he can’t read or write properly, they push him forward because anything else would make him feel bad about himself. Does self-esteem matter? Certainly. Some of the most angry people I’ve met in my life – the types that lash out at everyone around them – suffer from a lack of self-esteem. They hate themselves, and they try to inflict that hatred upon others around them. Bullies are a classic example of this type of behavior.

As I watch reality TV shows with contestants who suffer from the deadly combination of belief in the superiority of their own talent, whilst suffering from a complete lack of said talent, I can’t help but wonder if these are the same people who were told all their life that they were really good at spelling when they truly weren’t. They were told they had wonderful voices, when they really didn’t. They graduated from high school with kind words from teachers about how hard they tried, when they actually lacked the basic skills required of a high-school graduate. Has North American society (and I do mean society as a whole, I do not solely blame educators for this) created a generation of children, who are now young adults, that believe they can do things they really can’t? Is there a generation of people who, full of ultimately empty self-confidence, will step forth onto the highway of life only to get hit by the 18-wheeler of reality? I don’t think we’ve done them any favours.

I should point out that I think this issue effects Western society as a whole, where many people can’t be honest with each other, again pointing to the issue of self-esteem. That’s a topic for another rant however…

This morning, after having checked the HP driver page for the 10th time in two months looking for a Vista driver for my 2600n colour LaserJet printer and finding nothing, I decided to try contacting someone at HP to see if I could get any answers about where their Vista drivers were for this printer. Vista has been available at retail for almost a month now, two months for many beta testers, and many new computers being sold come with Vista. Vista is here, people are using it, and they want it to work with their hardware. At first I tried their online chat tool, but despite entering in the proper product name and full serial number, it wouldn’t allow me into a chat with a tech, stating that my product was “not supported”. And this wasn’t a Vista-specific chat either, it was a general-purpose “talk to our techs”. I filled out the form with this comment:

“I’ve been waiting over two months for Vista drivers for my 2600n printer – where the heck are they? I’m an MSDN subscriber and have been running Vista Ultimate RTM for over two months, patientingly waiting for HP to release drivers for the 2600n printer I purchased. What’s going on? Where are the drivers? I keep checking the Vista driver page, hoping for an update, but one never happens… The fact that your online form doesn’t even have Vista as an option tells me a lot about how behind the times HP is. Also, your online chat tool is broken – it rejects “LaserJet 2600b” and “CBYC60G0LM” as the serial number – it says that the product isn’t supported and won’t let me start an online chat.”

I clicked SUBMIT, and saw this in my browser:

http://atwnt947.external.hp.com/snip
Error Occurred While Processing Request
Element EMAIL_ADDRESS is undefined in SESSION.

That’s not very helpful is it? I clicked back and submit again. This time I saw some additional information:

Please try the following:
Enable Robust Exception Information to provide greater detail about the source of errors. In the Administrator, click Debugging & Logging > Debugging Settings, and select the Robust Exception Information option.
Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.

Browser Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506)
Remote Address *.*.*.*
Referrer http://atwnt947.external.hp.com/snip
Date/Time 21-Feb-07 11:34 AM

At this point my blood was starting to boil a bit. I looked over the form and changed a couple of things – I had selected “Other” for OS since they didn’t have Vista listed, so I changed it to XP and tried again – this time, the form submitted successfully. Don’t they test their online forms to ensure that they work with all user-selected choices?

Here was the response I recieved less than an hour later. Props to HP for getting back their customers quickly, but check out the quality of the reply:

“On reviewing your mail, we understand that, you want to install the Vista driver for Color Laser Jet 2600 printer. Jason, I understand your concern. However, I would like to inform you that, this printer is compatible only with the operating systems listed below:

Mac OSX
Microsoft Windows 98 SE
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows XP

Vista is still not included in the supported and compatible operating system’s list. Our research team is working on it. Driver for this operating system would be released by July. However, you can try XP driver for it and check for the issue. Jason, please do check our website for updates. If you have any other query, then do contact us. We would be glad to assist you.”

That’s either a reply from out-sourced overseas technical support, or from someone in North America that didn’t get past grade eight in school. Either way, it’s not a satisfactory response. If a customer emails you asking about Vista drivers, telling him Vista isn’t supported and listing off the operating systems that are supported is just plain insulting. And if it really does take until July (!!!) to see drivers for this printer, my respect for HP will take a huge nose-dive. I was expecting to have to wait a few weeks for Vista drivers for most of my hardware, not a few months.

Poorly-written software ticks me off. Big time. There’s nothing worse than using a piece of software that performs poorly, or worse, bring instability to your whole computer system. Barracuda Networks has a server-side spam-blocking solution that works quite well and has been implemented by my hosted Exchange provider – but only once it’s been trained with 200 good (ham) and bad (spam) email messages. That’s 400 messages in total. How do you train it the fastest? By installing an Outlook plugin that gives you a little green check-mark icon and a red “x” icon. You select the messages you want to train, click the button…and watch Outlook 2003 completely lock up for several minutes. When an email comes in, Outlook 2003 and my entire PC also lock up for 10-30 seconds. Every. Single. Time. It drives me nuts. The other day I decided to try and get in touch with someone from Barracuda Networks to find out if they had a new plug-in coming out, perhaps one that would work with Outlook 2007 and suck less. Here’s the transcript from the online chat tool they offer for communication with customers.

Jason Dunn: When will there be an updated Outlook plugin released?

You are now speaking with Ann of sales.

Ann: Hi, Is this for your Spam Firewall?

Jason Dunn: No, for the Outlook client that the customer (me) uses

Jason Dunn: To tag messages as spam/not spam

Jason Dunn: It’s really a horrible piece of software under Outlook 2003, and I’m afraid to even install it on Outlook 007

Ann: Let me transfer you to our Helpdesk and they will further assist you. Pls. hold

Please hold while being transferred to kamaal of Support.

Jason Dunn: Very well.

Your party has left this session.

Jason Dunn: Hello?

Jason Dunn: Wow. This is sure some impressive customer service.

<disconnect>

I kid you not, that was the “conversation”. A bump to another department, then the customer service agent dumps the chat. It might have been a technical glitch, but that doesn’t say much for the chat software they’re using. Maybe their Outlook plug-in team designed the chat software…

Social networking sites such as MySpace have been perverted from their original purpose of connecting people – some of that still happens of course, but now it’s more of popularity contest where strangers add each other as “friends” in some bizarre game of one-upmanship. Everyone wants to have 100’s or 1000’s of “friends” even though they don’t actually know them. MySpace is a social tool, and I know people use it to meet other people, but I think the basic concept of what a “friends” list was supposed to mean has been stretched. But hey, it’s all for fun, so who cares. If people want to brag they have 500 “friends” on their list that they don’t actually know, so be it.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is aimed at the professional business market – your network is supposed to be people that you actually know, people that you do business with in some fashion or know on a professional or personal basis. I don’t used LinkedIn all that much, but I’ve registered and have a group of people on my list that I actually know. I’ve seen something happening lately that I can only call the “MySpace Friends Phenominon” where people who simply know of me are asking to be added to my professional business network. Random people who read my Web sites think that’s an appropriate relationship for me to vouch for them by adding them to my LinkedIn network.

Who are these people? Why do they think they because they know my name I’d want to add them to my network? It’s not a matter of arrogance on my part – it’s a matter of professional ethics. If I’m going to have someone in my network of known professional associates, it’s going to be because I know who they are and what they do. I’m a big believer in personal integrity, and if I don’t know the person at least on some basic level (I’ve exchanged a few email messages with them for instance) I’m not going to say that I “know” them.

You know, there’s nothing worse than working on a blog post, doing a lot of formatting on it, then losing your wireless connection a few moments before you click on the Save button – and thus losing the formatting you just did. WordPress has an auto-save feature, but it doesn’t kick in often enough for my liking. I can’t find any reference to how often it auto-saves, nor is there any option I can find that would allow me to change the frequency. Word has an auto-save function as well, but even in the 2007 version it defaults to 10 minutes. I don’t know about you, but I think most people can do a lot of typing in 10 minutes and if you lose your work after nine minutes, you’re going to wonder why it wasn’t doing it every three minutes (I usually go in and change the default in Word to three minutes). Since WordPress is software running on my server, using my resources, why can’t I set it to auto-save my post every 60 seconds if I wanted to? I’m really impressed with WordPress overall as a CMS, but I’m often baffled by certain aspects of it (such as not being able to change the thumbnail size, or making the default image insertion full size and no link).