USPS

I ordered an item from someone's Amazon store, and they promptly shipped it via US Mail, providing me with a tracking number. It took two days to get halfway across the country into Ohio, and has been hung up for a week within the same state. So, I did what anyone would do, and used the email form on the USPS website to inquire why the package was shown as leaving Cincinnati last Friday evening, but hasn't been scanned anywhere since. Their response? They updated the status of the package. It now shows as having left Cincinnati last Friday, and a second time yesterday. What did they do, put it on a truck to the wrong location, which simply sent it back without scanning it? So I wrote again, this time specifically asking for a reply (because they did not reply to my first email other than the strange status update on their website) to explain how it has left the same place twice, and where in the world it is and when I can expect to receive it. I'd go to my local post office and inquire instead of using email, but it is staffed by a bunch of asses. Complaining to them would probably result in "accidental" damage to the package.

Go Go Gadget, Flashdrive.

I'm starting to feel a bit like Inspector Gadget. My wife recently picked up a flash wristband for me. It's gotta be one of the best flash drive ideas ever. I was constantly either forgetting or fidgeting with my swivel flash drive (which is also a great drive) when it was on its lanyard. I'm not sure which was worse: forgetting it defeated the purpose of having one, and fidgeting placed undue wear on it. This wrist one solves both problems. At 256MB, it's not huge. But it is extremely convenient, and big enough for a few portable apps along with some important data that I'd rather not be without, should I need it. It also solves the problem of where to keep my PGP keyrings because I use so many different computers throughout any given day. The only problem I can find with the drive is that I now try to answer my shoe whenever I hear a phone ring ;)

I will eat your dollars

As seen on Slashdot, there is an article over at the LA Times titled "I will eat your dollars" about the 419 scammers from their perspective. After reading the article, I'm sorry that my scambait fell flat. For those not aware, a scambait is where you receive one of these scam emails, and reply to it, usually from a different email address (they probably won't even notice. They send out thousands of these scams at a time) that isn't directly to yourself. The goal is to turn the tables on the scammers, and make them the victims. My goal was to try to get a picture of the scammer holding a sign with a name such as "Mike Oxmal" or "Ben Dover" or something just as silly. Unfortunately, the scammer's Yahoo! addresses were shut down before I was successful. Maybe it's time to reply to another scammer and see what happens...

You have been eaten by a grue

Over at ASCII, Jason Scott, of BBS Documentary and TextFiles.com fame, has made a post about his next documentary project about text adventure games tentatively titled Get Lamp. Personally, I would have titled it "You have been eaten by a grue," but that's just me ;)

Oh yeah. *That* is balanced reporting.

Over at the Hot Point blog, there's an entry titled "Why the internet can be a bad place to meet people. A murder in Virginia. The Taylor Behl story." It's a huge rant about not meeting people on the internet. Towards the end, there's a paragraph that reads:

All of the above said, there are many positive relationships that have been formed as a result of individuals meeting over the internet. Most internet dating services have a portfolio of success stories they are very happy to share. It's also true that it's the minority of meetings that result in someone being victimized. In fact most meetings will be just fine. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that it's much easier for someone up to no good to find you over the internet than it is in person. Regardless of how you meet someone, it pays to be careful with who you associate with — this holds particularly true when comes to meeting people on the net.

This is the only redeaming quality to the entire article. In general, you only hear about the bad things that happen, whether they're on the internet or in society. I'd be interested in a study showing whether meeting on the internet is statistically any more or less dangerous than meeting in any particular place IRL. Comments?

One by one, the penguins are stealing my sanity.

Hello all... Sorry for the missed day with no post. My goal is a post per day. Hopefully, today will rectify that. (And yes, I realize that I've recycled this entry's title from an earlier blog. Or is nobody paying attention?)

Over on Slashdot, there is a discussion about the sabatoge of Linux on the desktop. Now, I'm probably a bigger proponent of Linux than many, but as a computer geek, I know there's the issue of the right tool for the job. I think that in the task of a general user's desktop, Windows is probably where it's at. Anything else, and you'll get the "But why doesn't XXXX work on it? It works on my friend's PC." The only way around this is to make their first experiences, and their day-to-day experiences, be with something else. Unfortunately, Windows still rules the business desktop, so that's not likely to happen. And that's fine with me, because I'm a Linux advocate, not a Linux zealot.

Web design

I've had my own website, in one form or another, pretty much since I originally volunteered at Greenapple back in 95 or 96, before being hired as a full time bench tech at one of the franchise computer shops that were in town at the time. So, you could say I've done a bit of basic web design over the years. I've never really done anything too fancy, though, because I like simplicity. Also, I've never done any design work that was commissioned by someone else, until now. I just completed the campaign website for Carl Tatman as a "trade in kind" project. This means that he gets some website design, and I get to put his website into my portfolio. Sure, it's a pretty basic site. But to me, that's what a campaign site should be. If you try to go fancy with it, you risk losing the forest for the trees, and I did not want to lose his message because of too much style and not enough substance. If anyone would like to check out his site and provide a little feedback, feel free.