Random thought exchange
Technology
After a long debate with myself, I figured it was time to take the plunge and move my email to “the cloud”. So far I’ve been running it for a few days now, and I like it. I tried it a year or so ago, but I ended up reverting back.
My thoughts (in no particular order)
- I tried to copy the emails from my computer over to GMail, but it was setting all the dates to the day that I I have all my previous email stored on my computer, so I can reference it whenever I want.
- GMail supports my own personal domains – so I can send and receive without people noticing.
- I find it offensive when Internet professionals and businesses use @hotmail.com or @gmail.com email addresses when they have their own domain.
- I can still send and receive how I want from my iPhone.
- I have IMAP configured, so I can still do anything I want with my folders, or as GMail likes to call them… “labels”.
- I can access my email any time from anywhere, Internet connection permitting.
- The spam filters are MUCH better than what Microsoft has done in Entourage. So far it hasn’t filtered any legitimate email to my spam box, which is always nice.
- I have many server rules setup to wipe out a ton of spam before anything has a chance to make it to my inbox.
- Google Docs! It’s awesome, and now I can save attachments to that.
- Viewing online of documents. No more needing to open the document in the application. I can view it in a webpage and save time. Yes dad, that means that all of those “amazing photograph” emails with 20MB powerpoints won’t be AS annoying – but please try to refrain from sending them anyways!
- I will not tell anyone my GMail address. I do not want to get email to it. If you want to know why, read point 2.1.
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As in the past, BestBuy Canada and FutureShop are starting their Boxing Day sales tonight at 8 p.m. EST.
Last year there was a serious flaw. Their websites, and I’m presuming their servers, were overloaded, slow, and crashed. It was an epic failure then, and I bet there are a lot of people who are hesitant to take part this year for fear that their abilities to just browse the site, let alone place items in their cart and place their orders.
Hopefully the BB and FS IT folks have learned from this, and are ramping up for tonight.
There’s a message on the BB and FS “view cart” pages that says all carts will be cleared to allow fair access for all customers. Take a look at the screen captures:
BestBuy view cart screen shot from 2009-12-24 at 2.45.49 PM
FutureShop view cart screen shot 2009-12-24 at 2.46.08 PM
What’s interesting is that there’s a partial failure. When you click on the image with the text explaining the cleared carts on the BestBuy site, it takes you to their homepage. When you click on the one on the FutureShop site, it takes you to http://localhost/ Clearly someone’s brain is already on vacation. Why does the image need to click through to anything anyways? What’s even stranger, is that the FS site is pulling it in with jQuery and iFrames. Why?
Code view from FutureShop website - screen shot 2009-12-24 at 2.56.09 PM
Also, according to the FS twitter account, the site is going to be closed at 3 to 6 p.m. EST and it will be open from 6 to 8 p.m. EST to browse before the sale starts. I wonder why they’re doing this? I don’t think it’s going to build up the anticipation. The flyers were leaked about 4 days ago. There isn’t anything that I’m hoping to score from FS. There are a couple of things I’m looking to get from BestBuy though.
Here’s my shopping list for this season:
- 2x 1.5TB drives – brand A
- 2x 1.5TB drives – brand B
- 2x NAS RAID array’s
- 2x 8GB SDHC class 6 cards
- 1x inexpensive laser printer – this isn’t for me
That’s it. Nothing all that special. HDD’s are on sale at NewEgg and TigerDirect, so I’m likely going to get them from there. Having said that, their prices are “Boxing week”, so I have plenty of time to get them.
I’ll let you all know how “well” I did once all the purchases are done.
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The amount of spam that I’ve started to receive is just incredible. I get about 600 a day!
So, in an effort to block the spam, I’ve setup a few spambot’s to bounce-back spam to the sender. If anyone gets a bounce-back, please give me a call and let me know so I can put your address in the white list.
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News
After waiting for so long, and following up with Wyeth, I finally received my free Chapsticks – cudos to them for stepping up to the plate.
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Well… I have yet to receive them… I just called Wyeth and told them… they apologized and said that they were going to send me out some more… ya… we’ll see about that! I’m hoping that they do….
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Ever since I can remember I’ve had problems with the mechanism within Chapsticks. It’s not something that I’m doing, and it’s not something that has affected each one I’ve bought. I’d rather suggest that maybe it’s one of every 4 that I buy.
What the problem? At some point the mechanism just stops working. When I twist it, the stick doesn’t move. It’s just… well… inside and there’s no method for getting at it. Other times – and this is my own doing – I would leave the stick up, and when I put the cap back on, it squishes the stick and it’s on the inside of the lid and around the rim part. Needless to say, a complete waste of a product that I love.
About 2 months ago I bought a new Chapstick – mmm… strawberry flavor. I’m usually pretty careful with them. I always make sure that the stick is inside the tube so that I don’t waste any on the cap. 
About 2 weeks ago, I went to use it, and nearly the entire cap was full of the stick, and the mechanism wasn’t working.
So, at this point, you’re probably wondering… “well… you’re messed up… who cares? They’re only a about $2… go buy a new one.”
I care! I care so much, that I called Wyeth (the makers of Chapstick) to let them know that there seems to be a pretty high rate of failure (about 20%) with the ones that I buy. They apologized, got my information, asked for the lot number (printed on the bottom of the tube) and said that they’re going to send me three or four replacements. I imagine that I’ll have them within a weeks time.
I wasn’t looking to get free replacements – although I’m pleased that they are. I just wanted them to know that there’s a problem with the technicals of the mechanism, and maybe they should look at modifying it. Perhaps a thicker thread might do the trick.
I’m certainly willing to buy a new one. I even let them know that. I like the product so I’ll continue to use it, despite the manufacturing flaw.
Anyways, thought you might want to know. If you have a problem with a product, it never hurts to let the company know.
Kudos Wyeth…
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Crazy snow storm
Well, we had our first major snow storm since moving into the house. The forecasters were calling for about 8-10cm on Friday, 15-20cm on Saturday, and another 5-10cm on Sunday.
It snowed Friday night, I shoveled on Saturday. It snowed nearly all day Saturday, and then Rosalee and I shoveled for about an hour on Sunday. We had about 20inches of snow to shovel on Sunday – yes… 20inches! That’s not including what I did on Saturday!
Here’s the evidence.
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