Tag Archives: online

Do NOT Call!

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Put your phones on the National Do Not Call list.

Got this from my friend, Tom, a while back and forgot to share it. Give it a try — it can’t make things any worse.

Apparently, once protected cell phone numbers have been released to telemarketing companies. Their calls are not only annoying, but depending on your call plan, you can be charged for their intrusion.

To help prevent this, call the National Do Not Call list, from your cell phone, at:

888-382-1222

It’s very easy, and blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked.

Pass this on to others you know too… Tom

Basic Instructions

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When you need a good laugh.

Basic InstructionsI stumbled upon the Basic Instructions comic by Scott Meyer when I followed the Dilbert Blog by Scott Adams.

At the time, Adams had apparently taken Meyer “under his wing” and was trying to advise him on how to make his comic more marketable. (Read “Basic Instructions, Part 1” for more information.) Meyer was following his advice, which required a complete reformatting of the comic. The results were not impressive, although not bad. Obviously, Adams should know how to market a comic, since Dilbert is very popular. But Meyer’s comic was fine in its regular format.

In fact, Basic Instructions is one of the funniest comics I’ve ever read.

I’m not sure why it appeals to me so much. I think it’s because it’s just so incredibly cynical. The characters are all funny and share the punch lines. They say things I often wish I could say aloud to people. There’s usually a good laugh in every frame.

Oddly enough, I think it’s a lot funnier than Dilbert, which is delivered to my e-mail inbox every weekday.

I subscribe to the RSS feed for Basic Instructions, so it’s delivered to my RSS reader’s in box whenever I get around to launching it. This morning, I read through the last few comics and it really cheered me up considerably.

Has anyone out there read Basic Instructions? If so, what do you think?

eBay: The Buyer from Hell

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When pickiness goes too far.

Macworld Expo ProgramI recently put a bunch of Macworld Expo programs and guides up for auction on eBay. These items, which have been sitting in various boxes and drawers for over 10 years were in very good — or even mint — condition, perfect for a collector.

I got immediate interest from a Twitter user who wanted to buy the lot of them at a fixed price. I’d already listed a few of them on eBay and I thought I might do better at auction.

Apparently, he wasn’t interested in bidding on them. No one was. Except the buyer from hell.

The buyer from hell bought one program for 99¢ and another for $1.99. Although I’d listed each with Priority Mail Flat Rate Envelope shipping at $6.95 (to cover shipping, handling, eBay listing, and PayPal costs), I figured I’d cut him a deal and send the two programs together in the same envelope. So I invoiced him a total of $8.95 for shipping — a savings of $4.95. I figured he’d be happy that I’d just saved him some money without him even asking.

What I got, however, was a long-winded request to package the two programs in a large box with a lot of padding around them. I was to ship this box by parcel post to save him even more money.

So here’s a guy who spent less than $3 on two items that he wants me to treat as if they’re worth thousands.

I tweeted about this on Twitter. I got a few responses that confirmed I wasn’t crazy to be thinking that this guy was asking too much.

I was not prepared to find an appropriately sized box and lightweight padding to ship $3 worth of paper. I reminded him that the auction specified Flat Rate Envelope as the shipping method. (I personally think this is the best way to ship a document like this as it holds it flat and it can’t shift around in the envelope.)

He wrote back with another long-winded, whining message to say that I could use a flat rate box. The post office provides them for free. I can then use newspaper to pad around the programs.

So now he was suggesting an extra trip to the post office — unless he supposed that I’d go to the post office with all my packing material and prepare the package there.

For $3 worth of paper.

Like I didn’t have better things to do with my time.

I ignored his message until after the holiday. He wrote again and copied the message to me. I wrote back to say that I wasn’t going to do any special packaging. That it would be either flat rate envelope as specified in the auction description or we’d cancel the sale. I also reminded him that he had not contacted me before the auction close to ask if I’d do special handling for these items. I told him we could have prevented this misunderstanding if he’d communicated with me in advance.

He wrote back, now indignantly, to say that he didn’t understand why I wouldn’t do this for him, that many other people have, and that he didn’t want the programs damaged in shipping. I didn’t say what I was thinking: that putting two programs in a box with a bunch of dirty newspaper was far more likely to destroy them than shipping them in a nice, tight cardboard envelope. Instead, I wrote what I was beginning to think:

Is this some kind of joke? Did someone put you up to this? I’ve spoken to several experienced eBay sellers and they all think you’re over the top with your shipping concerns. I’ve sold quite a few things on eBay — ALL of them more valuable than this — and NO ONE has ever bothered me about shipping like you have.

I am not completing this sale. I don’t want to deal with you any longer. You are wasting my time.

My advice is to forget this auction and get on with your life. That’s what I plan to do.

He wrote back with some more of the same whining crap, finishing up to say that he’d never bid on any of my auctions again. Well, that’s a relief.

I went online at eBay and reported the auction as unpaid because of a disagreement over terms.

If he gives me negative feedback, I’ll hit him with some of the same, marring his perfect record.

Maybe there are people out there who have nothing better to do than cater to the requests of cheap collectors. I have much better things to do with my time.

As for the programs — they all go back on ice for another 5 to 10 years.

Google Feedback

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A black hole.

Today, while trying to find a solution to a problem I’m having with iCal 3, I did a Google search. Among the search results was a page that looked like it might have information that could help me. I clicked the link and wound up on a site called Experts Exchange. It had a question from a user, followed by a number of “Expert” and “Author” Comments. In each case, the comment text said:

All comments and solutions are available to Premium Service Members only. Sign-up to view the solution to this question.

So basically, Google had steered me to a site that requires paid membership to view information.

While I don’t have any problem with Google doing this — if some sites feel they must charge a fee to display content to visitors, that’s their problem — I would like to be able to exclude this site from future search results I get while logged into Google. I thought that would be a good suggestion for the folks in Mountain View. So good, in fact, that I wanted to go on record.

So I followed the links on Google.com. Follow along with me:

  1. About Google displayed a page full of links about Google organized by topic. This seemed to be the right path so far.
  2. Contact Us (with a subtext of “FAQs, Feedback, Newsletter…”) seemed like the right link. After all, I did want to provide feedback. But all it resulted in was a list of Specific Inquiries, none of which included Feedback.

I poked around a few of the links. None of them were right. So although the Contact Us page leads one to think that Feedback is an option, apparently it is not. Google apparently isn’t interested in what its users have to say.

Of course, the Contact Us page does provide a telephone number and fax number. I’m toying with the idea of submitting my suggestion by fax. But will it be read?

With all the bad press Google has been getting lately, I’m left to wonder — as many other people have been wondering — does anyone at Google really care?

eZineArticles.com

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Could be hazardous to your good name.

A few months ago, I read a blog post by some A-list pro blogger that briefly discussed eZineArticles.com as a place to publish articles and generate hits for your site. The idea was that the articles contained a byline with links and people who read them would come back to your site to read more. The result: more hits.

I dug deeply into my well of content and found a handful of articles I didn’t mind republishing. I formatted them as required and submitted them to eZineArticles.com, after setting up an account as an author. A bunch of the articles were bounced back because they read like blog posts. But I successfully argued that they did provide useful information in my somewhat conversational and bloggish writing style. All five articles were published on the eZine Articles site.

First Surprise: Anyone Can Republish!

What I didn’t realize at first was that anyone who sets up a publisher relationship with eZineArticles.com could republish my work, as long as it was republished exactly as written and included my byline, bio, and links. I discovered this when an article I wrote about flying at sunrise was picked up by a Web site with content about cruising.

After a few e-mails went back and forth between me and the site owner and eZineArticles support staff, I realized what I’d missed by not reading the fine print — I was basically granting a very broad set of rights to eZineArticles.com. But the site that had used the piece was a high quality site and I didn’t mind my recycled work appearing there. And the eZineArticles folks assured me that publishers had to meet certain requirements to use the work.

Second Surprise: Hot Sex?

But I wasn’t very happy when I traced a link to one of my Antelope Canyon photos article to a Blogger blog with the words “hot-sex” in its domain name. Although the site didn’t appear to contain any porn, I didn’t want my content — or name! — associated with it. So I wrote to eZineArticles support to complain.

Today, I found the same article used on a site with “nurse-fetish” in the domain name. Now I was pissed. I wrote again to the eZineArticles staff.

eZineArticles.com Responds

My new message crossed their response to the first one in the ether. In their response, they told me that if I didn’t want my work on a specific site, it was my responsibility to contact the owner of that site and ask him to remove it.

Ever try to contact the owner of a Blogger blog? It’s not possible if they don’t want to make it possible.

I replied that their response was completely unsatisfactory and that I would be deleting all of my articles from their site.

And then I did.

Lessons Learned

I am certainly not desperate enough to be published or to get hits by releasing my work on a site that allows distribution without prior approval by the author. Frankly, I don’t think any author should be that desperate.

eZineArticles.com obviously doesn’t give a damn about its authors if it won’t work to prevent this kind of activity with an author’s work. Any author who publishes with them deserves whatever shit he gets — including his name spread around on sites of questionable quality and purpose.

From now on, I will publish my work electronically in only three places:

  • Here, on this site, where my work is covered by a copyright notice that helps protect my work from misuse.
  • On the sites of publishers who pay me for my efforts and protect our copyrights.
  • On the sites of other bloggers who have asked me to guest author for them and will protect our copyrights.

I’m angry about this, but I know it’s my own fault. I was conned, first by the pro blogger who pushed eZineArticles.com and then by eZineArticles.com itself. I don’t understand why anyone would allow their work to be reproduced in a way that they cannot control. Could they all be as stupid as I was when I signed up?

As for the “hot-sex” and “nurse-fetish” sites, I wonder how the other female eZineArticles authors feel about their work — and their names — appearing there.