We have all had them, bots or even live people who we do not know that decide to contact us while we are online on an IM. IM is a wonderful thing, too bad these bots are about to ruin it.
Lately I have begun fighting back. But merely reporting a username based on a "hi are u there?" message is not enough to go on for an abuse report. So, since i trust my firewalls and AV's I have begun answering them, logging them, and reporting. I advise everyone to do the same. Why you ask it won't stop them..
No it will not. But it may make the IM makers plug the issues that allow people to run these bots. If you are a bot maker reading this TFB. Bots do have their uses but it has hit the point where people who can barely turn on a machine can download a bot to annoy people trying to get work done.
Here is the anatomy of bot IM
Without fail they all have screennames like marvinvalenciagndhs. They begin with any1 there?. If they get a response even an auto one they respond with something Like Hi how u doing. Next response is "It's Ashley" or Alissa Or some female name usually starting with A and having 2 syllables. Now why Ashley is writing from Marvin's account is suspicious enough.
Now the variations start some will tell you they know you and try to get you to connect to a website to view their pics or hot webcam action with their roommate or whatever.
Some will say "you don't know me I got your name from Ashley" then proceed to tell you some sob story about how their boyfriend dumped them or their husband is always out of town and they want to meet up and party with you but they need to know you are ok first.
Either way, an attempt will be made to get you to connect to a website. I HOPE everyone knows better. It is most likely a phishing site or an infected page. Even if it IS a webcam of 2 hot chicks, why would they contact you if they did not want money in some way shape or form and you can rent a porn dvd for the price they will charge. So I will assume that you have not connected to www.hotchicksonawebcam.com and continue
Some will send a link to get off their list. Guess what.. Yep don't buy it. But at this point you have enough to report. So now it is time to hit the ignore button and go to Yahoo, GMail, MSN, ICQ or whoever to report.
FIRST make sure you save a copy of the log file. attach it or copy and past it into your complaint. Next include your real (or business's) name and the IM screenname you were using at the time of the spam. Tell them up front you are tired of this time waster and will reporting EVERY SINGLE ONE in the future. Follow through with that threat. I am betting that it will take only about 5% of the users reporting every single one to effect a change.
Now how do i know these are bots? well most people when someone replies to an "are u there" with "fuck off bitch" will either be insulted or go into a lot of explanation of who they are and how they know you. And they will find either it is a case of mistaken identity (I have done that myself) and apologize for bugging you or they will be someone you know and you will apologize. Real people do not go on to post websites to an IM until they are certain they know the person they are to whom they are typing.
Of course if you are a decent bot writer yourself, you can always set a bot to catch a bot, the only risky thing in that is that some of these bots are actually set to try and hijack your account when you are not online to send their URL all over through your contacts list. So I would advise against unattended bot baiting.
Let's get rid of these so we can go back to using IM for work and fun with our friends.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
The I in IT
Once upon a time the IT department was kept in the basement and thrown bones every so often. The rest of the company never understood them and that was fine with everyone. We were let out of our cages to go fix stuff. We were faceless, nameless (as one manager said were were the Shadow Ninjas we fixed stuff and you rarely saw us do it.)
Somewhere along the line all that changed. It was sometime in the 90's. Probably about the time Windoze 95 was released. Suddenly we were adored, worshipped and fawned over. Salaries went skyrocketing and people began to flock to the field.
Then it started happening - branding, image, marketing yourself as an IT professional. It was no longer enough to do your job and do it well, you had to be known; in some cases being known counted for more than knowing your job. Then the bottom fell out of the market for IT professionals. Why is that do you think? Well some maintain we did it to ourselves to some extent and that the nails were driven in by those who are impressed by the look not the knowledge. Egos have ballooned and more and more we see sites, blogs and information that are written by people who bow down to the almighty *I*.
First, let's look at the boom in IT. In the late 90's IT was the place to be. Consulting companies like the now defunct EDS (bought out by HP in July) had strict requirements to be a programmer with the title Software Engineer or Systems Analyst. But almost none to be a Business Analyst, even though in many client locations they performed the same or very similar tasks. Usually a BA cost less than an SA though the client.
Now like most companies, each job title had a level and each level a salary cap. Let us say an employee was a BA level 1. That would mean they had a salary cap of say 30K. So, for a raise you had to be promoted by a manager to a BA level 2 and then you could code pound merrily until your salary broke say 45K. Only thing was a BA level 3 was a manager type. Many code pounders do not want to be a manager and deal with HR things, so as an employee under them approached the next cap; good managers would sound them out and mentor them as to their next step in the company, bad ones forced techies into management. Most of them left the company because they hated being a people person.
The hybrids went to SA boot camp. Most of us never wanted to be more than a Project Manager or Team Lead. A full class at the beginning was around 30. Usually that whittled down to about 20 by the end. The thing was over half the class was frequently comprised of people from the marketing side of the company. When asked why they wanted to become coders, most answered, "Because I can make a lot of money."
That *I* should have been the first red flag to the industry, the answer was not because technology was cool, or users needed friendlier apps, or companies need better systems that are secure or that tools could be more efficient. It was about the person. Unfortunately, that has carried over into the present day. More next time.
Somewhere along the line all that changed. It was sometime in the 90's. Probably about the time Windoze 95 was released. Suddenly we were adored, worshipped and fawned over. Salaries went skyrocketing and people began to flock to the field.
Then it started happening - branding, image, marketing yourself as an IT professional. It was no longer enough to do your job and do it well, you had to be known; in some cases being known counted for more than knowing your job. Then the bottom fell out of the market for IT professionals. Why is that do you think? Well some maintain we did it to ourselves to some extent and that the nails were driven in by those who are impressed by the look not the knowledge. Egos have ballooned and more and more we see sites, blogs and information that are written by people who bow down to the almighty *I*.
First, let's look at the boom in IT. In the late 90's IT was the place to be. Consulting companies like the now defunct EDS (bought out by HP in July) had strict requirements to be a programmer with the title Software Engineer or Systems Analyst. But almost none to be a Business Analyst, even though in many client locations they performed the same or very similar tasks. Usually a BA cost less than an SA though the client.
Now like most companies, each job title had a level and each level a salary cap. Let us say an employee was a BA level 1. That would mean they had a salary cap of say 30K. So, for a raise you had to be promoted by a manager to a BA level 2 and then you could code pound merrily until your salary broke say 45K. Only thing was a BA level 3 was a manager type. Many code pounders do not want to be a manager and deal with HR things, so as an employee under them approached the next cap; good managers would sound them out and mentor them as to their next step in the company, bad ones forced techies into management. Most of them left the company because they hated being a people person.
The hybrids went to SA boot camp. Most of us never wanted to be more than a Project Manager or Team Lead. A full class at the beginning was around 30. Usually that whittled down to about 20 by the end. The thing was over half the class was frequently comprised of people from the marketing side of the company. When asked why they wanted to become coders, most answered, "Because I can make a lot of money."
That *I* should have been the first red flag to the industry, the answer was not because technology was cool, or users needed friendlier apps, or companies need better systems that are secure or that tools could be more efficient. It was about the person. Unfortunately, that has carried over into the present day. More next time.
Friday, August 29, 2008
The difference between Doze and Nix Users
Company is gone, kid is back in school and I am faced with a dilemma: Ubunti, Solaris or Fedora? you see I am sitting here surrounded by machines. If you have read previous blogs you know at least one is parts only now, however. There is this little Pentium - one of the first coprocessors. It is a machine that was proprietary, it is an AST. Yep they are gone, but the machine is still running.
It was great box in the heyday of machines, now about all one can say is it still runs. And it does. So I decided to give it a new lease on life by reformatting it with a *nix, except which one? So I went asking people who use *Nix variations. I heard good things about them all. Then it hit me.
When a new feature comes out in a *nix product all the users get excited even if it is not on a product they use presently. I heard about Fedora from people who run Suze, Ubunti from Fedora users, Suze from a Ubunti user, and Solaris - well I have a soft spot for Sun.
When a new feature or even a new operating system comes out for windows users and administrators alike seem to approach with caution and trepidation.
Microsoft are you listening? People look forward to new products from those others because they work. Because they help them do their job better. Their job is to run IT so the users can do their job better. Not so they can spend days even months working out how to get an app to run.
It was great box in the heyday of machines, now about all one can say is it still runs. And it does. So I decided to give it a new lease on life by reformatting it with a *nix, except which one? So I went asking people who use *Nix variations. I heard good things about them all. Then it hit me.
When a new feature comes out in a *nix product all the users get excited even if it is not on a product they use presently. I heard about Fedora from people who run Suze, Ubunti from Fedora users, Suze from a Ubunti user, and Solaris - well I have a soft spot for Sun.
When a new feature or even a new operating system comes out for windows users and administrators alike seem to approach with caution and trepidation.
Microsoft are you listening? People look forward to new products from those others because they work. Because they help them do their job better. Their job is to run IT so the users can do their job better. Not so they can spend days even months working out how to get an app to run.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Talk about Timing..
I just finished filling out an application online for an editor's position, when I started going through my mailbox and looking at the news letters. that is when I ran across this little gem.
Who Lies More On Resumes?
That started me thinking back to when I had a say in the hiring process and worked as a headhunter. I hit many who claimed to have skill sets they did not. Some had no knowledge of the software packages and languages they claimed to, others and far more common, claimed to have levels of expertise they did not.
Perhaps that is where I have gone wrong all this time. Maybe it is not that I am over the magical number of 40, maybe it is not that I made too much for one end of my industry and not enough for the other, maybe it is because I refuse to lie on my resume and to headhunters about what I can and cannot do. And here I was a member of two of the industries that lie the most about it. Hospitality/Travel and IT.
I have spoken to people who have claimed to support packages that never existed. To people who claim to be SQL experts and cannot even tell me how to delete a group of records based on one criterion. I have worked with people who have no clue about emulation and connectivity packages that are considered the industry standard. Yet all of them on their resumes claimed to be experts.
But the other side of this equation, the ones that make the applicants feel secure in lying is the companies themselves. You see back in the stone age, when I was a headhunter for IT and Telecommunications, we talked to the head of the IT dept for our job specs. We spoke to the decision maker. He (rarely in those days were women in the head IT positions) understood that we perhaps did not know everything there was to know about the technology, especially if it was an emerging one.
One of my most memorable contacts with a headhunter was one who was convinced I knew C++. Now I have done some work in ANSI C way back and I continue to code some for a game in an ANSI C based language. Some things are common still, pointers, includes, objects, containers. BUT the OO aspect of the language makes programming much different. (I have done some OOP with application languages such as PAL, DBA, etc, but mainframes tend to like structured.) Well this headhunter was desperate (he must have been) My first statement was - I am not looking to move - and my second was - C++? nope. Yes, my resume has C on it - ANSI C.
He would not take no for an answer. He wanted to know how many objects I had created. How many containers, About pointers I had used. Obviously he was reading off a list of questions. Finally I got through to him that I was not what he was looking for. That to me a container a pointer and a string are all objects. His complete confusion at the terminology told me he did not know programming.
But I wonder how many people gave him answers and he presented them. And I wonder how many of them wasted the hiring professional, the IT manager and who knows who else's time before a person in the enterprise who knows C++ pointed out the skill set was not what they wanted. I learn pretty fast. I do have background in a lot of languages, life cycles, case tools, environments and applications. There are only a handful that I would claim to know well though, even though I have collected many pieces of paper over the years that says I can follow along in a training course.
I know database design, ETL, BI tools, reporting tools. I can make your data turn flips through hoops. I will not lie on a report, but I can usually make it show what you want. BUT I have to know the data and the industry. I will never claim to know understand or know the insurance industry. I worked in human resources, travel, publishing, music and in retail - with a smattering of wholesale. I know marketing, SLCs. testing and measurement standards. I know Unit and system testing and many other aspects of both IT and the industries in which I have worked. Some of those skills are cross industry and platform, some are not. But the two skills it seems I lack is bragging about knowing my job as if it is something extraordinary and lying on my resume. Anyone know where I can get certification in those skills?
Who Lies More On Resumes?
That started me thinking back to when I had a say in the hiring process and worked as a headhunter. I hit many who claimed to have skill sets they did not. Some had no knowledge of the software packages and languages they claimed to, others and far more common, claimed to have levels of expertise they did not.
Perhaps that is where I have gone wrong all this time. Maybe it is not that I am over the magical number of 40, maybe it is not that I made too much for one end of my industry and not enough for the other, maybe it is because I refuse to lie on my resume and to headhunters about what I can and cannot do. And here I was a member of two of the industries that lie the most about it. Hospitality/Travel and IT.
I have spoken to people who have claimed to support packages that never existed. To people who claim to be SQL experts and cannot even tell me how to delete a group of records based on one criterion. I have worked with people who have no clue about emulation and connectivity packages that are considered the industry standard. Yet all of them on their resumes claimed to be experts.
But the other side of this equation, the ones that make the applicants feel secure in lying is the companies themselves. You see back in the stone age, when I was a headhunter for IT and Telecommunications, we talked to the head of the IT dept for our job specs. We spoke to the decision maker. He (rarely in those days were women in the head IT positions) understood that we perhaps did not know everything there was to know about the technology, especially if it was an emerging one.
One of my most memorable contacts with a headhunter was one who was convinced I knew C++. Now I have done some work in ANSI C way back and I continue to code some for a game in an ANSI C based language. Some things are common still, pointers, includes, objects, containers. BUT the OO aspect of the language makes programming much different. (I have done some OOP with application languages such as PAL, DBA, etc, but mainframes tend to like structured.) Well this headhunter was desperate (he must have been) My first statement was - I am not looking to move - and my second was - C++? nope. Yes, my resume has C on it - ANSI C.
He would not take no for an answer. He wanted to know how many objects I had created. How many containers, About pointers I had used. Obviously he was reading off a list of questions. Finally I got through to him that I was not what he was looking for. That to me a container a pointer and a string are all objects. His complete confusion at the terminology told me he did not know programming.
But I wonder how many people gave him answers and he presented them. And I wonder how many of them wasted the hiring professional, the IT manager and who knows who else's time before a person in the enterprise who knows C++ pointed out the skill set was not what they wanted. I learn pretty fast. I do have background in a lot of languages, life cycles, case tools, environments and applications. There are only a handful that I would claim to know well though, even though I have collected many pieces of paper over the years that says I can follow along in a training course.
I know database design, ETL, BI tools, reporting tools. I can make your data turn flips through hoops. I will not lie on a report, but I can usually make it show what you want. BUT I have to know the data and the industry. I will never claim to know understand or know the insurance industry. I worked in human resources, travel, publishing, music and in retail - with a smattering of wholesale. I know marketing, SLCs. testing and measurement standards. I know Unit and system testing and many other aspects of both IT and the industries in which I have worked. Some of those skills are cross industry and platform, some are not. But the two skills it seems I lack is bragging about knowing my job as if it is something extraordinary and lying on my resume. Anyone know where I can get certification in those skills?
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
It has been a while
I still live, I have many things to go off on. (Like WHY does disk defragger keep wanting internet access? Sorry am NOT gonna let my machine function as the defragger for the world wide web.) ANd much else. However am actually geeking out and working on zones for Valhalla Mud (yes a shameless plug - GO there NOW!) After i get these up and debugged and don't crash the game (I hope) Will be back in cranky mode.
In the meantime, got here and enjoy this man's webcomic. Pancakes is my spiritual guide.
The Secret of Mana Theater
In the meantime, got here and enjoy this man's webcomic. Pancakes is my spiritual guide.
The Secret of Mana Theater
Friday, February 22, 2008
The Vista Rebellion
"Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista is an important update for Windows Vista. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) contains many security, reliability, and feature updates for Windows Vista. A program may experience a loss of functionality after you install Windows Vista SP1. However, most programs will continue to work as expected after you ..."
read more | digg story
It seems that Microsoft hasn't "gotten" it yet. There is a rebellion taking place and they are missing it. You see many users and developers hate Vista. Ok, maybe it is not so much Vista as the way in which Microsoft Corp seems to be railroading us into using it. Except they seem to have backed off that a bit.
I use a lot of utilities, freeware and shareware. I believe in supporting those who make a good tool or a neat gizmo. Vista has been out for over a year. Yet, a lot of both commercial and shareware apps do not support it. Why? Because we have finally had enough of being told what we MUST do.
I hit my first instance of that way back when helped develop proprietary software. We had hired a consulting firm to help us with a 'quick start' on an app we had to port over to Windows 95, The were a Microsoft Solutions provider so guess what they suggested we use? Yep a Microsoft product. It was a database app so they suggested Access. Except... When we attempted to recreate a lot of the queries we had built in Paradox for DOS we got a "query is too complex" Message.
Fine for use we knew how to work around it but for users who needed to create different reports, we needed an easy solution. We mentioned this to the Consultants who said, "They will have to deal with it." My answer was "no, they do not they can buy another company's product and services." For years, it seemed the companies, end users and even developers did not believe this. Finally the last straw seems to have been reached. The high-handed way in which Microsoft decided everything must be Vista started the rebellion. People refused to buy it. Developers refuse to develop for it. Microsoft seems to have relented a little.
Now the service pack. Guess what every one of those companies listed have put forth the effort to build a product that works on Vista or did in some way prior to the service pack. They spent money on developers' salaries, testing, hardware and software. Now they will not work. Zone Labs already has their fix out as does Trend Micro, but at what cost? And what happens when SP2 is realeased?
The companies who are listed above at least put forth the effort to create a package that works with Vista. Now Microsoft in their usual high-handed manner lists them as not working on the fixed O/S and says contact them for more information. It doesn't care if your preferred firewall doesn't work, if your emergency virus removal doesn't work. Why? Because they are Microsoft. Never mind that the consumer of THEIR product probably put out money for the packages.
Like it or not, there is a recession on. That means people do not have that extra money to spend. That means the next O/S upgrade that costs consumers up front and has hidden costs such as this will refuse to buy. Get the message Microsoft - We do not HAVE to there is always *nix and OS 10.
read more | digg story
It seems that Microsoft hasn't "gotten" it yet. There is a rebellion taking place and they are missing it. You see many users and developers hate Vista. Ok, maybe it is not so much Vista as the way in which Microsoft Corp seems to be railroading us into using it. Except they seem to have backed off that a bit.
I use a lot of utilities, freeware and shareware. I believe in supporting those who make a good tool or a neat gizmo. Vista has been out for over a year. Yet, a lot of both commercial and shareware apps do not support it. Why? Because we have finally had enough of being told what we MUST do.
I hit my first instance of that way back when helped develop proprietary software. We had hired a consulting firm to help us with a 'quick start' on an app we had to port over to Windows 95, The were a Microsoft Solutions provider so guess what they suggested we use? Yep a Microsoft product. It was a database app so they suggested Access. Except... When we attempted to recreate a lot of the queries we had built in Paradox for DOS we got a "query is too complex" Message.
Fine for use we knew how to work around it but for users who needed to create different reports, we needed an easy solution. We mentioned this to the Consultants who said, "They will have to deal with it." My answer was "no, they do not they can buy another company's product and services." For years, it seemed the companies, end users and even developers did not believe this. Finally the last straw seems to have been reached. The high-handed way in which Microsoft decided everything must be Vista started the rebellion. People refused to buy it. Developers refuse to develop for it. Microsoft seems to have relented a little.
Now the service pack. Guess what every one of those companies listed have put forth the effort to build a product that works on Vista or did in some way prior to the service pack. They spent money on developers' salaries, testing, hardware and software. Now they will not work. Zone Labs already has their fix out as does Trend Micro, but at what cost? And what happens when SP2 is realeased?
The companies who are listed above at least put forth the effort to create a package that works with Vista. Now Microsoft in their usual high-handed manner lists them as not working on the fixed O/S and says contact them for more information. It doesn't care if your preferred firewall doesn't work, if your emergency virus removal doesn't work. Why? Because they are Microsoft. Never mind that the consumer of THEIR product probably put out money for the packages.
Like it or not, there is a recession on. That means people do not have that extra money to spend. That means the next O/S upgrade that costs consumers up front and has hidden costs such as this will refuse to buy. Get the message Microsoft - We do not HAVE to there is always *nix and OS 10.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
February Blahs
February is a dreary month. So I like to forget it exists and drown myself in geek like activities. This year - so far it has been nothing but one disappointment after another.
Zone Alarm - I used to love this firewall. It was great. Now I question it. I have had no intrusion attempts since installing it. At least according to it. I used to have pages on my 98 machine. I have not chaged internet providers, I have not changed my browsing habits, much. So suddenly going to Vista and the new version made all those SQL Server worms leave my ISP alone? I MIGHT believe it IFF every time it asks for permission for a file to access the internet it did not come back with no info in the knowledgebase about these files. Many have been in the system since XP. I fear Zone Labs may be losing their edge, I hate to see that.
Firefox - Yes it is one of the most popular browsers. Yes I have it and use it. But since it is becoming more and more popular, it is losing it's edge imho. It now takes longer than Opera (with multiple tabs) to load. Its interface looks a lot like Opera. (althought I may have Opera to blame for that, too) But now sites that look best in Firefox no longer look good in Opera. Opera hasn't changed. Sigh. So Firefox has bought into the heavy overheads to make it more user friendly. Also, it seems it is very forgiving of HTML errors to the coder. The reason I have Firefox is a convention I wish to attend this year could only do online registration if we had Firefox. The forms did not even work in the virus breeder known as I.E. Bad show on the part of the developer, but still one wonders why they would not work in ANY other browser? Trying to become Microsoft, guys?
Opera - Yes, it is still my main browser. The reasons? First it is not very popular, that means the hackers have not found security holes in it or do not bother to exploit them. But the developers seem to have a severe case of Firefox envy. Go back to making a fast loading, efficient browser that is W3 compliant. That is all I ask guys.
Gaming companies - EVERYTHING is online, yet nothing seems to be compatable with anything else. And why can't someone make or include a basic translator built into the gaming interface online. I would love to have more friends in Europe, but my French is borderline, My Italian is awful and forget my German. It would be nice to coordinate. More on that here.
ISPs - All seem to assume that we have access to high speed lines. I do not. Well I may, but it seems AT&T themselves are not certain. At&T decided to charge more for dial up than for DSL. You can read about it here. Good thing I use Earthlink.
Panda Security - Another company I loved. Great scanner, online capability. BUT their site still links to a scanner that does not support Vista. Guys, the OS has been out for over a year. Get with it! Trend has been supporting it since May of last year at least. Oh yeah and NONE of em support Opera, but at least most now support Firefox.
And last but certainly not least:
MICROSOFT - First I want to know what is in each update, so I can decide if I need it. The user friendly update check just lists updates, one has to go difgging to find out, How ard would it be to put a little sentence or two. Like, fixes a home networking issue. Security issues in OS fixed. I mean they'll all be in the cume anyway. But at least let me save a little time? Then there is the latest udate to I.E. Ok sometimes I still need it to check a site. So I admit I keep it updated. Well I did until recently. Update failed. It happens. So I check details. I get the usual helpful Microsoft Information - Error details: Code 800719E4. So I hit the site and go looking. DO you know running a search for that error code returned the result that the code was not found ANYWHERE on the site? The get help, link next to the code listed a few obvious options but nothing with information about that code.
What's new. Did I really expect Microsoft to make it easy for me to find how to fix my own machine? I am certain they would rather have me throw it away and buy all new from them again. It Ain't happening. Not even if I have to get an AS400 or an HP 9000 and load their proprietary O/S At least they give users of their operating systems a manul with a list of the error codes.
Maybe next month will be better. I doubt it, but I can hope.
Zone Alarm - I used to love this firewall. It was great. Now I question it. I have had no intrusion attempts since installing it. At least according to it. I used to have pages on my 98 machine. I have not chaged internet providers, I have not changed my browsing habits, much. So suddenly going to Vista and the new version made all those SQL Server worms leave my ISP alone? I MIGHT believe it IFF every time it asks for permission for a file to access the internet it did not come back with no info in the knowledgebase about these files. Many have been in the system since XP. I fear Zone Labs may be losing their edge, I hate to see that.
Firefox - Yes it is one of the most popular browsers. Yes I have it and use it. But since it is becoming more and more popular, it is losing it's edge imho. It now takes longer than Opera (with multiple tabs) to load. Its interface looks a lot like Opera. (althought I may have Opera to blame for that, too) But now sites that look best in Firefox no longer look good in Opera. Opera hasn't changed. Sigh. So Firefox has bought into the heavy overheads to make it more user friendly. Also, it seems it is very forgiving of HTML errors to the coder. The reason I have Firefox is a convention I wish to attend this year could only do online registration if we had Firefox. The forms did not even work in the virus breeder known as I.E. Bad show on the part of the developer, but still one wonders why they would not work in ANY other browser? Trying to become Microsoft, guys?
Opera - Yes, it is still my main browser. The reasons? First it is not very popular, that means the hackers have not found security holes in it or do not bother to exploit them. But the developers seem to have a severe case of Firefox envy. Go back to making a fast loading, efficient browser that is W3 compliant. That is all I ask guys.
Gaming companies - EVERYTHING is online, yet nothing seems to be compatable with anything else. And why can't someone make or include a basic translator built into the gaming interface online. I would love to have more friends in Europe, but my French is borderline, My Italian is awful and forget my German. It would be nice to coordinate. More on that here.
ISPs - All seem to assume that we have access to high speed lines. I do not. Well I may, but it seems AT&T themselves are not certain. At&T decided to charge more for dial up than for DSL. You can read about it here. Good thing I use Earthlink.
Panda Security - Another company I loved. Great scanner, online capability. BUT their site still links to a scanner that does not support Vista. Guys, the OS has been out for over a year. Get with it! Trend has been supporting it since May of last year at least. Oh yeah and NONE of em support Opera, but at least most now support Firefox.
And last but certainly not least:
MICROSOFT - First I want to know what is in each update, so I can decide if I need it. The user friendly update check just lists updates, one has to go difgging to find out, How ard would it be to put a little sentence or two. Like, fixes a home networking issue. Security issues in OS fixed. I mean they'll all be in the cume anyway. But at least let me save a little time? Then there is the latest udate to I.E. Ok sometimes I still need it to check a site. So I admit I keep it updated. Well I did until recently. Update failed. It happens. So I check details. I get the usual helpful Microsoft Information - Error details: Code 800719E4. So I hit the site and go looking. DO you know running a search for that error code returned the result that the code was not found ANYWHERE on the site? The get help, link next to the code listed a few obvious options but nothing with information about that code.
What's new. Did I really expect Microsoft to make it easy for me to find how to fix my own machine? I am certain they would rather have me throw it away and buy all new from them again. It Ain't happening. Not even if I have to get an AS400 or an HP 9000 and load their proprietary O/S At least they give users of their operating systems a manul with a list of the error codes.
Maybe next month will be better. I doubt it, but I can hope.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Utilities, Tools and Widgets
Let me start this out by saying I am an advocate for doing things the easy way. As I have said in the past I am lazy. Now that doe not mean I avoid doing work, it does mean I will spend hours even days setting something up so that I can perform a repetitious action in minimal time.
Actions like updating links, calculating and checking statistics, and most of all updating. So the idea of widgets, (called by some toolkits or utilities) has always appealed to me. Yes, those little apps or programs that make life easier. Here is a list of some I have tripped across, used and my opinions of them - so far.
Headline Animators - Like the one to the left for the OTHER blog. I like these little widgets. It is a slick fast way to promote a feed. They can be customized to fit in any website's theme.
RSS feeds - Kind of nice, but once you subscribe you get everything. If I post 20 things in one day about how the aliens are beaming messages to my crowns, and you are subscribed to me, you get them. But then, perhaps you read Andromedian and are interested in those intergalactic missives?
RSS Readers - Something about these remind me of the old echomail (now called usenet mainly) readers. I miss Blue Wave and kill files. I have just started playing with these. A kill file would be nice so I can filter out those blogs about the messages and pay attention to the ones about how to hack the starship that is approaching.
Trillian (and Miranda) - I love these types of apps. I hated having clients on different IM's and needing to load or unload one or another because the engines all fought with each other for supremacy. The only draw back to these is that they rarely get warning of changes in the messenger services. The last Yahoo change caused me to lose messages from people, the app would crash and I had a few system slowdowns. But you know these are worth sending the coders a donation or buying the commercial version. They are extremely useful.
Mihov image resizer - A perfect utility. It does just what the title says and little more. It resizes graphics. That means I do not have to load up Photoshop, load the graphic then play with it. I just load the resizer, enter the file name, it gives me the attributes and I tell it what I want and it resizes. It will also run some conversions like gif to jpg etc.
ID Serve - A quick DNS lookup tool from Gibson Research. I enter the URL or the IP and it goes out pings the machine and tells me what it can about the server. It defaults to port 80, but you can configure or request any port.
I continue to seek out new Widgets and will post here when I find them. I have yet to find a site builder that passes W3 compliance. (Yes that is my current quest) I like building websites, but it would be so much nicer if I could find a site builder that I like. One that gives me flexibility and lets me control what elements I wish and is W3 compliant.
Actions like updating links, calculating and checking statistics, and most of all updating. So the idea of widgets, (called by some toolkits or utilities) has always appealed to me. Yes, those little apps or programs that make life easier. Here is a list of some I have tripped across, used and my opinions of them - so far.
Headline Animators - Like the one to the left for the OTHER blog. I like these little widgets. It is a slick fast way to promote a feed. They can be customized to fit in any website's theme.
RSS feeds - Kind of nice, but once you subscribe you get everything. If I post 20 things in one day about how the aliens are beaming messages to my crowns, and you are subscribed to me, you get them. But then, perhaps you read Andromedian and are interested in those intergalactic missives?
RSS Readers - Something about these remind me of the old echomail (now called usenet mainly) readers. I miss Blue Wave and kill files. I have just started playing with these. A kill file would be nice so I can filter out those blogs about the messages and pay attention to the ones about how to hack the starship that is approaching.
Trillian (and Miranda) - I love these types of apps. I hated having clients on different IM's and needing to load or unload one or another because the engines all fought with each other for supremacy. The only draw back to these is that they rarely get warning of changes in the messenger services. The last Yahoo change caused me to lose messages from people, the app would crash and I had a few system slowdowns. But you know these are worth sending the coders a donation or buying the commercial version. They are extremely useful.
Mihov image resizer - A perfect utility. It does just what the title says and little more. It resizes graphics. That means I do not have to load up Photoshop, load the graphic then play with it. I just load the resizer, enter the file name, it gives me the attributes and I tell it what I want and it resizes. It will also run some conversions like gif to jpg etc.
ID Serve - A quick DNS lookup tool from Gibson Research. I enter the URL or the IP and it goes out pings the machine and tells me what it can about the server. It defaults to port 80, but you can configure or request any port.
I continue to seek out new Widgets and will post here when I find them. I have yet to find a site builder that passes W3 compliance. (Yes that is my current quest) I like building websites, but it would be so much nicer if I could find a site builder that I like. One that gives me flexibility and lets me control what elements I wish and is W3 compliant.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Contributing to the digital divide
Lately it seems to me that more and more companies are contributing to the digital divide with their practices. I may run a state of the art machine, but my connectivity is limited by what I can afford and is available in my area. In other words dial-up of the 56K variety. I have spoken to many online who are hampered by this same stumbling block due to their location. We have started compiling a list of sites that are starting to really annoy us. Here are some recent examples:
Gamespot - owned by Cnet
First every single page is graphics heavy, it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes for a basic forum page to load. Yes you read that correctly a page that should be nothing more than text. Why is this? I am not 100% sure but I THINK it has to do with those annoying adverts.
Zone Labs -
Yep, the makers of Zone Alarm. What is their problem? Ok, so when i try a file transfer with Opera it may or may not complete. BUT according to their site, one should download with I.E. Why? because it seems that other browsers including Firefox may corrupt the download. BAD show Zone Labs. If you want me to replace my MS preferred firewall with yours, then let me do so with my non MS browser. I will have more to say about Zone Labs in my next Blog - unfortunately. They used to be one of my favorite companies.
Yahoo.com -
Sigh, their new look and upgrade now take forever to load. Trillian had to be patched because of all the new "features" causing system crashes. I am starting to really hate all IMs.
Microsoft - well no surprise there. I have a slow connection and must use the classic mail on MSN. OK I have no problem with that, except that takes forever too. More of the issue is the upgrade etc process. It has nit yet become online only. But it was a pain trying to upgrade online with this old slow machine not running I.E. Add to that they expect everyone to have a credit card. Think about that. What would you do if you had no credit card? Ahh there is paypal right? Yep, except MS doesn't take them. What about an e-check? Nope, they don't take that either. Ok a money wire? Nope. Credit card or nothing. When Word coverts a doc to HTML it does not conform to W3 compliance. A lot of online text editors start getting weird if you try to paste from it or enter the HTML it generates. It is NOT that hard guys. Quit trying to be the owner of the internet and let everyone read stuff.
High schools - I hate to say this, but U.S. and Canadian High schools are adding to the issue. Many now require their students deliver their papers via a website and in .doc or is some cases .pdf format. What does that mean to a student with no machine at home? Hours at the library typing, writing and sending a paper. Same as any other student you say? Not really. One with a computer at home can do so at any time and with no time restrictions except those imposed by their parents. . One with access to the library only must write and send a paper within the hours the Library is open. Oh and most libraries limit time that one may have a computer. For those that do buy a machine they have to then put out the money for the applications that produce the required formats or do as my daughter did for a week or so, spend twice as much time on the paper for pure formatting reasons. I thought the purpose of paper writing was the content not the software format and the students' knowledge of commercial packages?
Neopets - Yes, the kid's site. One must now run the latest flash versions, have a fast connection and who knows what else in order to perform many actions. It is a shame that kids whose parents cannot afford the latest in technology cannot play all the games. What a great message to send to our kids. You need all the expensive stuff in order to compete.
This is a tip of the iceberg. Almost nothing here is crucial to existence, yet. The phone company seems to be moving more and more in the online direction. Which I should point out annoys me no end, how can I get online to check my status when my lines are down? Computer companies in general assume you have online access As I discovered in the almost 2 months I did not after the 98 machine's ports died. Lucky for me CDW, Circuit City and Best buy are all up the road and the library down the road. Companies need to rethink their strategies. If they want to take part in the global economy, they have to take into consideration that a person in a city in South Africa (yes that is where one of the brain-stormers of this was) may not have Vista, a high speed connection, a color printer or a credit card. They should consider not everyone in the world speaks English. (As my French and Danish gaming friends have pointed out.) Remember not everyone can see the pretty pictures that are slowing the load down as my blind friend says (he hates being called visually impaired btw) Not everyone can hear the music that takes forever to buffer as my father points out. I am tired of waiting for Pdfs to load for one small piece of information about my daughter's school arrival times. And last, but not least stop making all the tutorials as videos. Just make it so people who need information can get to it. It's not that difficult.
Gamespot - owned by Cnet
First every single page is graphics heavy, it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes for a basic forum page to load. Yes you read that correctly a page that should be nothing more than text. Why is this? I am not 100% sure but I THINK it has to do with those annoying adverts.
Zone Labs -
Yep, the makers of Zone Alarm. What is their problem? Ok, so when i try a file transfer with Opera it may or may not complete. BUT according to their site, one should download with I.E. Why? because it seems that other browsers including Firefox may corrupt the download. BAD show Zone Labs. If you want me to replace my MS preferred firewall with yours, then let me do so with my non MS browser. I will have more to say about Zone Labs in my next Blog - unfortunately. They used to be one of my favorite companies.
Yahoo.com -
Sigh, their new look and upgrade now take forever to load. Trillian had to be patched because of all the new "features" causing system crashes. I am starting to really hate all IMs.
Microsoft - well no surprise there. I have a slow connection and must use the classic mail on MSN. OK I have no problem with that, except that takes forever too. More of the issue is the upgrade etc process. It has nit yet become online only. But it was a pain trying to upgrade online with this old slow machine not running I.E. Add to that they expect everyone to have a credit card. Think about that. What would you do if you had no credit card? Ahh there is paypal right? Yep, except MS doesn't take them. What about an e-check? Nope, they don't take that either. Ok a money wire? Nope. Credit card or nothing. When Word coverts a doc to HTML it does not conform to W3 compliance. A lot of online text editors start getting weird if you try to paste from it or enter the HTML it generates. It is NOT that hard guys. Quit trying to be the owner of the internet and let everyone read stuff.
High schools - I hate to say this, but U.S. and Canadian High schools are adding to the issue. Many now require their students deliver their papers via a website and in .doc or is some cases .pdf format. What does that mean to a student with no machine at home? Hours at the library typing, writing and sending a paper. Same as any other student you say? Not really. One with a computer at home can do so at any time and with no time restrictions except those imposed by their parents. . One with access to the library only must write and send a paper within the hours the Library is open. Oh and most libraries limit time that one may have a computer. For those that do buy a machine they have to then put out the money for the applications that produce the required formats or do as my daughter did for a week or so, spend twice as much time on the paper for pure formatting reasons. I thought the purpose of paper writing was the content not the software format and the students' knowledge of commercial packages?
Neopets - Yes, the kid's site. One must now run the latest flash versions, have a fast connection and who knows what else in order to perform many actions. It is a shame that kids whose parents cannot afford the latest in technology cannot play all the games. What a great message to send to our kids. You need all the expensive stuff in order to compete.
This is a tip of the iceberg. Almost nothing here is crucial to existence, yet. The phone company seems to be moving more and more in the online direction. Which I should point out annoys me no end, how can I get online to check my status when my lines are down? Computer companies in general assume you have online access As I discovered in the almost 2 months I did not after the 98 machine's ports died. Lucky for me CDW, Circuit City and Best buy are all up the road and the library down the road. Companies need to rethink their strategies. If they want to take part in the global economy, they have to take into consideration that a person in a city in South Africa (yes that is where one of the brain-stormers of this was) may not have Vista, a high speed connection, a color printer or a credit card. They should consider not everyone in the world speaks English. (As my French and Danish gaming friends have pointed out.) Remember not everyone can see the pretty pictures that are slowing the load down as my blind friend says (he hates being called visually impaired btw) Not everyone can hear the music that takes forever to buffer as my father points out. I am tired of waiting for Pdfs to load for one small piece of information about my daughter's school arrival times. And last, but not least stop making all the tutorials as videos. Just make it so people who need information can get to it. It's not that difficult.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Criticism is needed
For those of you who do not know in a previous life I was a professional writer/editor. Ok, perhaps it was this life, but it was long time ago. I have to say that while I was not working in a top publishing house, nor was I writing the Great American Novel, we were professionals. As such we always looked to improve our writing. The same was true when I began coding, we looked to others to assist us in writing more efficient code. Perhaps the entire program design was beautiful, but we always looked for ways to improve speed.
About ten years ago I noticed a slight change among new coders. When a suggestion was made for efficiency’s sake, they argued. I do not mean they said, hmm I’ll think about it and keep the code as it was – we all did that if we thought someone was wrong. Or maybe we would test it off on the side quietly . If the suggestion was a significant improvement the app changed, if not no more would be said. But each coder took pride in their work and strove to produce the best they could. I mean the new coders would argue the point as if the person making the suggestion had not actually reviewed the code. (Code reviews were mandatory by the way) “But I HAVE to use a nested IF instead of a CASE here.” And twenty minutes later they would walk off either having decided the coder with 15 years experience was out to get them, had antiquated views or did not know anything about the new world of code, leaving the senior coder scratching his or her head and returning to their project. But as a boss once told me a great coder is like a racehorse and some have a bit of an ego. We would shrug and continue.
I now see this attitude permeate every aspect of work. It seems no one can take criticism or even suggestions for improvement. It was a sad day when this became apparent in the writing community. Yes,I still keep my hand in. I always have. I am a member of several writers’ groups. I edit for a few sites. I have written online doco for a few. I am sad to say that it has finally become the case that writers no longer seek constructive criticism. Rather they seek to be stroked told how great their piece is and perhaps have a couple of grammatical errors pointed out. I have been in groups where if someone suggests that a paragraph is unclear to them the writer argues rather than asks for further input or for suggestions f how to make it clearer.
It has become the norm to ridicule the critique and its writer rather than thank the person for taking the time to go through the piece and offer suggestions. Nothing says you HAVE take them. One site on which I am an editor offers an award for top sites. We have certain criteria we must check and once that is done it becomes a matter of personal opinion. A petitioner for the award failed some of the base criteria, which includes things like: onsite links must terminate to a page with relevent content, HTML must pass W3 compliance, music must be by request, etc. I informed him his site was not ready for an in depth critique and moved on. The idea is not to critique the contents of the site until the mechanics are completed. Being the best of the best means all code works, the site looks good, is accessable to everyone and contributes uniquely in some way to the RPG community. The site designer/owner argued that the minimum requirements for consideration were unfair. He wanted the prize with out the work. When it was pointed out to him some was merely HTML choices for basic formatting (non W3 compliance) He replied he was not a coder, just a designer. I curbed my tongue and did not state, "Then when you are good enough to try for the award do so otherwise do not waste my time." Sorry but the point of the award is that it is the best of the best overall. If you are not capable of making the site so, do not whine. Go learn how to do it and try.
Which brings me back to the old days in writing. I functioned as both an editor and writer. None of us felt we were writing a great novel. We wrote user manuals for commercial and proprietary software packages and accompanying training materials. Her is how it would work. The author would write a guide. A first level (copy) editor would go through the guide looking for obvious errors in grammar and ensure it complied with the house style.and A tech editor would run through the guide step by step, check the veracity of the information and perhaps catch some errors the copy editor missed. The manuscript would be marked up and sent back to the writer to make changes. The writer would make them or not.
The editors would go over the new manuscript when it arrived, test and make further suggestions and send it back. The writer would do what he or she wanted and send it back. IF an editor noticed a common error they might mention it to the writer: watch tense, avoid to be, use active voice. That was all part of the editor’s job. If a paragraph or more really needed a rewrite it would be noted. The manuscript was sent back again to the editors after changes were made. It was in the best interest of the writer to make the suggested changes. Why? Because the editors had the manuscript last. Many were the times I rewrote a manual that was wrong technically, too long (there are page limits set), or was just poorly written. We called that a heavy edit. Yes, the author’s name went on the work. And we usually never re-contracted with that writer again. Why? Because there are a lot of writers out there who are willing and able to comply with a house style.
What saddens me is the lack of desire by writers to improve their craft. I give some of my worst writing to those groups of which I am a member to critique. Why? Because I know the good stuff is good. I can work with that. It is the parts I need help with that I present. The portions I KNOW are not working. I have received 0 critiques. Why? I request specifically for people to pull them apart. Grammar, I do not worry about too much that is what grammar checkers are for. But tense, tone, action, am I clear? Have I missed stating something does the dialog seem contrived? Does the action seem contrived? Is too much time spent on something? Not enough? Does the piece convey the feeling I want it to through the language used? If I am lucky I will be told “I got confused here who had what.” Most of the time I get, “it’s good, you have a typo here and that’s it now onto the next piece.”
I know I am not that good. Is it that I am such bad writer that they cannot say anything about it to improve it other than throw it out? Is it that they are afraid they will hurt my feelings? I suspect it is more that they are afraid I will argue and take up too much time or that they want to get to their pieces as soon as possible to hear exactly the same “It’s good, maybe change the tense here, now on to the next piece.” It is sad people have lost interest in improvement and rather hear praise than suggestions. But then that would be why so many computer applications are released with bugs. It takes less time money and energy to write a patch than to argue with a Prima Dona.
About ten years ago I noticed a slight change among new coders. When a suggestion was made for efficiency’s sake, they argued. I do not mean they said, hmm I’ll think about it and keep the code as it was – we all did that if we thought someone was wrong. Or maybe we would test it off on the side quietly . If the suggestion was a significant improvement the app changed, if not no more would be said. But each coder took pride in their work and strove to produce the best they could. I mean the new coders would argue the point as if the person making the suggestion had not actually reviewed the code. (Code reviews were mandatory by the way) “But I HAVE to use a nested IF instead of a CASE here.” And twenty minutes later they would walk off either having decided the coder with 15 years experience was out to get them, had antiquated views or did not know anything about the new world of code, leaving the senior coder scratching his or her head and returning to their project. But as a boss once told me a great coder is like a racehorse and some have a bit of an ego. We would shrug and continue.
I now see this attitude permeate every aspect of work. It seems no one can take criticism or even suggestions for improvement. It was a sad day when this became apparent in the writing community. Yes,I still keep my hand in. I always have. I am a member of several writers’ groups. I edit for a few sites. I have written online doco for a few. I am sad to say that it has finally become the case that writers no longer seek constructive criticism. Rather they seek to be stroked told how great their piece is and perhaps have a couple of grammatical errors pointed out. I have been in groups where if someone suggests that a paragraph is unclear to them the writer argues rather than asks for further input or for suggestions f how to make it clearer.
It has become the norm to ridicule the critique and its writer rather than thank the person for taking the time to go through the piece and offer suggestions. Nothing says you HAVE take them. One site on which I am an editor offers an award for top sites. We have certain criteria we must check and once that is done it becomes a matter of personal opinion. A petitioner for the award failed some of the base criteria, which includes things like: onsite links must terminate to a page with relevent content, HTML must pass W3 compliance, music must be by request, etc. I informed him his site was not ready for an in depth critique and moved on. The idea is not to critique the contents of the site until the mechanics are completed. Being the best of the best means all code works, the site looks good, is accessable to everyone and contributes uniquely in some way to the RPG community. The site designer/owner argued that the minimum requirements for consideration were unfair. He wanted the prize with out the work. When it was pointed out to him some was merely HTML choices for basic formatting (non W3 compliance) He replied he was not a coder, just a designer. I curbed my tongue and did not state, "Then when you are good enough to try for the award do so otherwise do not waste my time." Sorry but the point of the award is that it is the best of the best overall. If you are not capable of making the site so, do not whine. Go learn how to do it and try.
Which brings me back to the old days in writing. I functioned as both an editor and writer. None of us felt we were writing a great novel. We wrote user manuals for commercial and proprietary software packages and accompanying training materials. Her is how it would work. The author would write a guide. A first level (copy) editor would go through the guide looking for obvious errors in grammar and ensure it complied with the house style.and A tech editor would run through the guide step by step, check the veracity of the information and perhaps catch some errors the copy editor missed. The manuscript would be marked up and sent back to the writer to make changes. The writer would make them or not.
The editors would go over the new manuscript when it arrived, test and make further suggestions and send it back. The writer would do what he or she wanted and send it back. IF an editor noticed a common error they might mention it to the writer: watch tense, avoid to be, use active voice. That was all part of the editor’s job. If a paragraph or more really needed a rewrite it would be noted. The manuscript was sent back again to the editors after changes were made. It was in the best interest of the writer to make the suggested changes. Why? Because the editors had the manuscript last. Many were the times I rewrote a manual that was wrong technically, too long (there are page limits set), or was just poorly written. We called that a heavy edit. Yes, the author’s name went on the work. And we usually never re-contracted with that writer again. Why? Because there are a lot of writers out there who are willing and able to comply with a house style.
What saddens me is the lack of desire by writers to improve their craft. I give some of my worst writing to those groups of which I am a member to critique. Why? Because I know the good stuff is good. I can work with that. It is the parts I need help with that I present. The portions I KNOW are not working. I have received 0 critiques. Why? I request specifically for people to pull them apart. Grammar, I do not worry about too much that is what grammar checkers are for. But tense, tone, action, am I clear? Have I missed stating something does the dialog seem contrived? Does the action seem contrived? Is too much time spent on something? Not enough? Does the piece convey the feeling I want it to through the language used? If I am lucky I will be told “I got confused here who had what.” Most of the time I get, “it’s good, you have a typo here and that’s it now onto the next piece.”
I know I am not that good. Is it that I am such bad writer that they cannot say anything about it to improve it other than throw it out? Is it that they are afraid they will hurt my feelings? I suspect it is more that they are afraid I will argue and take up too much time or that they want to get to their pieces as soon as possible to hear exactly the same “It’s good, maybe change the tense here, now on to the next piece.” It is sad people have lost interest in improvement and rather hear praise than suggestions. But then that would be why so many computer applications are released with bugs. It takes less time money and energy to write a patch than to argue with a Prima Dona.
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