ICE

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In case of emergency.

The other day, I received one of those “forward to all your friends” e-mail messages from a friend. Although I usually wind up deleting most of them, this one was worth sharing. It contained information about the “ICE: In Case of Emergency” program.

Here’s the message:

We all carry our mobile phones with hundreds of names/ numbers stored in its memory but who, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our near and dear ones?

If we are involved in an accident or have a heart attack and the people attending us get hold of our mobile phone, they won’t know which number to call to inform our family members.  Yes, there are many numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency?

For this reason, we must have one or more telephone numbers stored under the name ICE (In case of Emergency) in our mobile phones.

Recently, the concept of “ICE” is catching up quickly.  It is simple, an important method of contact during emergency situations.

As cell phones are carried by majority of the population, just store the number of a contact person or person who should be contacted at during emergency as ICE (meaning In Case of Emergency).

The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn’t know which number to call.

He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose.

Following a disaster in London , the East Anglican Ambulance Service has launched a national “In case of Emergency (ICE)” campaign.

In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital staff would then be able to quickly contact your next of kin, by simply dialing the number stored as “ICE”.

Please forward this.  It won’t take too many “forwards” before every body will know about this.

It really could save your life, or put a loved one’s mind at rest.

For more than one contact name simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. A great idea that will make a difference!

Let’s spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our mobile phones today!  Please forward to your all nearest and dearest.

The ICE program does indeed exist and it seems like a pretty good idea. If you want to learn more, check out the ICE entry on Wikipedia.

How Stupid Can Some People Be?

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Pretty stupid, it appears.

So far, three people have posted comments on my article, “How to Contact Amazon.com Customer Support by Telephone,” that appear to indicate that they think the article is part of Amazon.com. They want help and they seem to expect to get it from posting their plea on the article’s comments.

Jeez Louise!

Can’t these people see that they’re on a Web site other than Amazon’s? Don’t they realize that the article provides instructions for calling Amazon? Why the hell don’t they just follow the instructions and call Amazon for the help they need?

At first, I was stupid enough to believe that their comments were just reports they were sharing about their frustrations with Amazon.com. But now that I’ve realized what these people expect, I’m going to just delete their comments. No need to encourage more.

But it makes me wonder about the level of intelligence of some of the people out there. It’s apparently a lot lower than I thought.

Excel Book Done

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That’s book number 68.

ImageI put the finishing touches on Microsoft Office Excel 2007: Visual QuickStart Guide. It’s my 68th book (I just counted) and right now, I feel as if I wrote them all yesterday.

Okay, so not that tired.

I had some trouble with this book. First, there was the beta software situation. Not only did I have to work with the Office 2007 beta, but I had to run it on the Vista beta. Double Microsoft Windows betas for a person who usually works on a Mac! You can imagine my concern.

But everything went pretty smoothly with that and I’ve been using release versions since January, so I know everything in the book is based on the final software.

Motivation slowed me down a bit in the middle of the project. I think I really need an editor cracking a whip over my head to get me to work at my old pace. These days, I’d rather fly than write about Excel. (Can you imagine?) The thing that snapped me out of it was money. If I don’t make milestones, my publisher does not send checks. Although Flying M Air is now paying all of its own bills — thank heaven; you should see some of those bills! — it’s not paying my bills. If I don’t write, I don’t eat. And since I like to eat, I became motivated.

Of course, the killer was my February hard disk crash and the two weeks it took me to get everything back to normal here. What a productivity killer! But it taught me a new valuable lesson about backups — you think I would have learned the last two times — and my old dual G5 is still running, now with a new hard disk to go with last year’s new motherboard. Sheesh. (Now you know why I bought AppleCare for my MacBook Pro.)

I churned through the last few chapters relatively quickly, anxious to meet deadlines tied to promotional opportunities. (I’m not sure of those promos really exist or if my editor has learned to tell me about fantasy promos to get me to work faster. I wouldn’t blame her if she made it up.) I had first pass files done last week and spent the past few days finalizing files based on edits. Today, after fooling around a bit — I’m the queen of procrastination — I laid out the index, created an ad for the book’s companion Web site, and turned it all in. The e-mail message I sent to my editor said:

I think I’m done. Can you ask them to send that final check? (Still waiting for the last one, too.)

The book weighs in at 360 pages, which is about the same as the last edition. It’s got the new VQS cover design. It lists for $21.99, but you can buy it from Amazon.com for $14.95 right now, which is 32% off. (Not a bad deal.) It should be in stores by April 20 or thereabouts.

Meanwhile, life goes on.

Tomorrow, I have to take my helicopter in to the avionics shop in Mesa to see if they can figure out why my radio isn’t working right. I have a meeting with a marketing guy down there at 10 AM. Then a tour of Phoenix for a man and his daughter at 2. Somewhere in between, I’ll have lunch with Mike, who has been away for the past few days. Then a flight home.

Friday I get started on my next book. Those of you who know me should know what that is.

links for 2007-04-03

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Site Comment Policy

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I need to make a few things clear(er).

June 30, 2014 Update
I’ve finally gotten around to writing up the site comment policy on a regular page (rather than post) on this site. You can find it here: Comment Policy.

Although I discuss my comment policy briefly on the Contact Me page of this site, allow me to expand on what’s there in this post.

Comments Overview

This site allows comments on blog posts (often referred to as “articles” here). To enter a comment, fill in the comment form at the bottom of the post. If the form doesn’t appear, click the Comment link at the bottom of the post to display it. Registration is not required.

The name, e-mail, and comment fields of the form are required. If any are left blank or if the e-mail field is an obvious fake, the comment will be deleted.

First names only or handles are fine for the Name field, as long as they don’t use words that are in poor taste.

If you enter a company name or Web site name in the Name field, there’s a pretty good chance your comment will be deleted as spam.

Speaking of spam, if your comment was posted solely to advertise a product, service, or Web site, it’s likely to be deleted as spam. I have zero tolerance for spam or spam-like postings.

All Comments are Moderated

Because of the problem with comment spam on frequently-visited blogs, this site uses two types of comment moderation:

  • Automatic moderation through the use of spam prevention software. I use two different spam prevention software packages. One can automatically determine whether a site “visitor” is really a spambot and prevent it from posting a comment. It’s about 75% effective and generally catches 5,000 to 10,000 individual spambot accesses each week. The other spam prevention package uses established algorithms to identify messages that are likely to be spam. It holds these messages in a special moderation queue for me to review. But since there are usually 50 to 200 of these messages a day, I normally just delete them without an in-depth review. The best way to stay out of this spam bucket is to minimize links within your comment.
  • Manual moderation through the review of comments that have not automatically been identified as spam. If a comment makes it through the first two lines of defense, it’s put in a moderation queue. I read the comment and determine whether it’s appropriate for this site. If it’s not, I delete it. If it is, I approve it. If it’s spam, I mark it as such to help “train” my spam detection software. If you post a spam message on this site just once, I’m not likely to see any of your future comments, since they’ll automatically go in the spam bucket.

Please don’t expect your comment, no matter how appropriate, to appear immediately or even within a day or two. I’m a busy person and try to moderate comments daily, but that doesn’t always happen. Don’t post the same comment repeatedly; I’ll just have to delete the extras.

I’m always interested in reading the opinions of others, as long as they’re presented in a reasonable and friendly way. Rudely bashing me or other commenters is a good way to get your comment deleted — or, worse yet, marked as spam so I never see one of your comments again. I’ll allow comments with differences of opinion if those differences are presented in the spirit of friendly debate.

I also reserve the right to edit comments. I don’t modify content, but I might delete something I think is offensive or overly commercial if the rest of the comment is something other readers might benefit from.

I do want to remind all visitors that I am responsible for this site’s content — including comments. I simply won’t let the site be used for anything other than a place to share information and ideas. The site maintains a PG-13 rating in both content and language.

If you believe I’ve deleted your comment because I didn’t think it was appropriate, you will be wasting your time if you attempt to repost it or e-mail me about it. Your comment will not appear and I will ignore your e-mail. It takes only seconds to delete either one, so you’re not wasting my time at all. There are a lot of small minded, nasty people out there and I’m not about to waste my time dealing with any of them.

And That’s How It Is

While I realize that this policy might be harsher than the policies in place on other sites, this isn’t one of those sites. It’s my site. You’re my guest, and I don’t expect my guests to abuse my hospitality. If you have a problem with this policy, then you have a problem with me and my site and I don’t expect you to waste your time here.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Your comments are appreciated — really! You know where to put them.