Friday, February 02, 2007

Jay: Blackberry Gripe

I holster the Blackberry when it’s at the top of the master inbox, looking at the newest e-mail.  Sometimes when I unholster it, it mysteriously has gone to the bottom of the inbox.  It takes serious time to scroll through 30 days of e-mail, and if I go too fast, when it reaches the top it gets confused and puts me at the bottom again.  Even though scrolling isn’t 360 degrees, which would be an option for handling the problem.

I know how to scroll a page at a time to speed it up, but haven’t yet found the magic keystroke to tell it “yo, go to the top of the inbox,” which really should exist.

Update:

And another thing I don’t really expect it to do but that would be nice is to resolve aliases for e-mail addressees.  For instance, Deb is in the addressbook at least four times, and at least three of them are simply listed as “Deb.” The primary one I use I have aliased as “jedi.” Or nicknamed, as I believe they call it.  So I am used to typing “jed” and having it extrapolate that I mean that alias and in turn that that alias means the “Deb” associated with the address I want to use.  Ironically, this matters more on the Blackberry because it’s harder to see any detail.

Just as I coped with the lack of categories being visible in tasks on the Blackberry by using two letter prefixes on each item, I’ll just have to modify the addressbook names if I want them to be distinct.  I still haven’t pointedly moved everything I might want in the addressbook on the Blackberry to the main addressbook on the computer.  Long ago I divided the addresses into categories, and this is the first reason I’ve had to change it back.


09:34 AM | Geekery • (1) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Happy Sausage Ingredient Day

Groundhog, that is.

Not to mention the late Ayn Rand’s birthday.  If a late someone can still have a birthday.  Does that mean I get to stop having birthdays?  I am often late.  Well, we still celebrate the birth of Jesus, even though we have no idea when or if that was, and even though some might say he’s not only late, but really late.  So I guess this can be Randmas, and we’ll decorate lactating sheep in her honor or something as we co-opt the important pagan holiday of Imbolc.  Or perhaps we can just continue to torment large rodents.


07:50 AM | Birthdays • Totally Random • (0) Comments • Permalink

Jay: So If You Noticed Last Night’s Outage…

Here is what happened. Basically it centers around a major fiber cut in Atlanta.


07:48 AM | Blogging • Geekery • (0) Comments • Permalink

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Jay: Credit Cards

Anyone have first hand thoughts or advice on arranging to accept credit cards for an initially small, primarily service business?

My only experience as a credit card merchant was when I was treasurer of Arisia.  At the time we accepted Visa and MC through our original bank, located in western Massachusetts (which eventually became a problem).  The bank was chosen in large part because their relationship with one of the first guests of honor influenced their granting the organization a merchant account, which at the time was like pulling teeth.  Everything was paper forms then, and we just had to write SOF (signature on file) if they mailed in the membership signup.  If I recall correctly, the percentage fee they kept was 4.5% and went as high as 4.75%, which I thought was the ultimate racket.

Obviously I’ll want the fees to be as modest as possible, while knowing I may have to bend over for a while, as a new and small customer.  At least there are many and easier options, from what I can tell.  Worst case, you can use PayPal and take cards through them, but that appears to be kludgy.  Obviously I’ll talk to the bank when I start the relevant checking account, too, but thought I’d throw this out there.


11:06 AM | Business • (1) Comments • Permalink

Jay: “Get a Real Blog,” Anyone?

Perhaps this sort of thing will result in another stampeded from Blogger to real blogs.  Or to Wordpress hosting, which is reportedly everything Blogger is not.  A shame, too, as Blogger had improved much over the years.


09:58 AM | Blogging • (1) Comments • Permalink

Jay: You Keep Using That Word…

Last night at 10:00 we ended up watching the Fox 25 coverage of the silly guerilla marketing scheme gone awry.  It was just too entertaining to turn off, and not merely because Menino was at his mumbliest.  And when will Boston elect a mayor who can at least disguise what an idiot he is?  But I digress.

They kept calling it “HOAX.” It was even in their we-have-clever-graphics-people-to-stay-late-at-times-like-this news event logo.

No.

It was not a hoax.

It was not a prank.

It was stupid marketing meme meets paranoia.  The kind of paranoia the stupid marketing people ought have taken into account, even if they stayed blind to the low quality of the scheme due to its excessive inside-joke nature.

This will all be over when the president of TBS flies to Boston in person today, apologizes in person, and hands the city a hefty check to cover costs and selective amnesia.  Not to mention the poor guy they arrested being sprung with charges dropped, because the wording of what they charged him with is not what he did and the case will be thrown out or won, depending on the court.  Much like it was patently unconstitutional to take Kelo"s property, so the city lost in the first court it went before because we pay judges to know things like the Constitution and stuff.  Oh wait…

Come on TBS, do the right thing, make it go away.  You know you can.  And fire those innovative marketing people.  Hire some smarter innovative marketing people.

At any rate, I don’t want to see or hear the word “hoax” in reference to the incident ever again.  It stings.  It burns.  Augh…


08:32 AM | Business • Massachusetts • News • Stupidity • (2) Comments • Permalink
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