SERVICE: “TRIBUTES” emerges from beta with search still broken!

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Begin forwarded message:

From: “Tributes.com” <info@tributes-mail.com>
Date: December 18, 2008 5:20:49 PM EST
Subject: Tributes.com – Member Update

Dear Tributes Member,

The end of September marked the formal launch of Tributes.com as our site exited its testing phase and went into full production to serve families and funeral homes across the U.S. by providing the national resource on the Internet for obituary news and lasting personal tributes.

As we work to consolidate obituary news from across the country onto a single national platform, more and more people are looking to Tributes.com as a reliable place to locate service and condolence information so that they never miss the opportunity to grieve with family and friends. Obituary Alerts also ensure that you receive notification by email of any obituaries that are posted to our site for people from a particular city or town, family, school, or military unit.

Lasting Tributes to Remember Loved Ones

For those of you that have recently lost a special person or would like to remember someone that passed away months, or even years ago, we now offer a robust suite of interactive tools to help create lasting online tributes that appropriately tell the rich stories of our loved ones’ lives. You can now choose from multiple tribute offerings to create a lasting tribute, capturing and preserving special memories for generations to come. Tributes include:

Unlimited copy

Photo slideshows

Interactive memory books

Music & Video support

Custom templates

Create a tribute for your loved ones who have passed away

We take great pride at Tributes in being an important resource for our users and always are interested in your comments and feedback.

Best Regards,

Elaine Haney

# – # – #

Search for “manhattan college” still doesn’t work! Argh!!

# # # # #

President, Tributes.com

Tributes.com • 1 First Avenue, First Floor • Charlestown, MA • 02129

Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Skype knows where I am and …

Monday, December 15, 2008

… won’t give my the USA options for Skype. I’ll have to renew when I get home. Argh! Talk about to smart for its own good. Argh!

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Skype, Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECH SERVICE: Example of the danger of depending upon the cloud for computing service

Friday, December 12, 2008

Hello,

Values of n [http://valuesofn.com], the company behind Stikkit [http://stikkit.com], is closing its doors.

Stikkit will going offline at close of business (5pm Pacific Time) on Friday, December 19th, 2008.

Until then, the Stikkit service will be working as usual to allow you time to make the transition, find alternative services, and download any data you wish to take with you.

Here’s the full announcement: http://bit.ly/KoIT

It goes without saying that you _can_ take it with you: export your Stikkit content and import it into an alternate calendar, to-do list, contact management application — or just open it in your favorite text editor (Notepad, Word, et al) or web browser.

Export your stuff: http://stikkit.com/export

** Please be sure to export anything you’d like to keep _before_ Friday, December 19th. After that, the Stikkit web site will be offline and all user data will be permanently deleted. **

Thank you to everyone who has made Values of n and Stikkit possible. It has been an honor to work with you all.

Rael

Rael Dornfest

CEO, Values of n, Inc.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | SERVICE, Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECH SERVICE: Example of the danger of depending upon the cloud for computing service

Friday, December 12, 2008

Hello,

Values of n [http://valuesofn.com], the company behind Stikkit [http://stikkit.com], is closing its doors.

Stikkit will going offline at close of business (5pm Pacific Time) on Friday, December 19th, 2008.

Until then, the Stikkit service will be working as usual to allow you time to make the transition, find alternative services, and download any data you wish to take with you.

Here’s the full announcement: http://bit.ly/KoIT

It goes without saying that you _can_ take it with you: export your Stikkit content and import it into an alternate calendar, to-do list, contact management application — or just open it in your favorite text editor (Notepad, Word, et al) or web browser.

Export your stuff: http://stikkit.com/export

** Please be sure to export anything you’d like to keep _before_ Friday, December 19th. After that, the Stikkit web site will be offline and all user data will be permanently deleted. **

Thank you to everyone who has made Values of n and Stikkit possible. It has been an honor to work with you all.

Rael

Rael Dornfest

CEO, Values of n, Inc.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | SERVICE, Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

MCBA: Taking Macs off my recommended list

Friday, December 5, 2008

For all the griping about Microsoft and its problems with Operating Systems, Apple is rapidly moving into the same class. There is a very annoying problem that arrived with a required update. Now every so often the Mac Book Air stops working while it rescans and reconnects to the WiFi Access Point.

Browsing the web shows that this has been a problem since the First Quarter of this year.

Argh!

Don’t buy Microsoft or Apple. Bite the bullet and go directly to Linux. At least, when you have a problem, you’ll know you are on your own!

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | MACBOOKAIR | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

SERVICE: Microsoft FOLDERSHARE being replaced

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

From: Windows Live FolderShare <communications_iw_cs_enus@communications3.msn.com>

Date: December 1, 2008 7:21:57 PM EST
To: fjohn
Subject: Windows Live Sync replacing FolderShare: What you need to know

Dear FolderShare user,

We’re contacting you to let you know what’s next for FolderShare, and to make you aware of some important changes.

In December, we plan to announce a product called Windows Live Sync. You can think of it as FolderShare 2.0. It’s going to look familiar and offer the same great features, plus:

  • More folders and files—sync up to 20 folders with 20,000 files each.
  • Integration with Windows Live ID—no more extra sign-in stuff to remember.
  • Integration with the Recycle Bin—no more separate Trash folder to fiddle with.
  • Unicode support—sync files in other languages.

A huge part of Sync’s success story depends on FolderShare users like you. When Sync releases, FolderShare goes into retirement. That means your FolderShare software will stop working and will ask you to upgrade to Sync. Once you do, Sync will automatically rebuild your personal folders. We expect a lot of new users when Sync is released, so if you can’t sign in right away, please give it a little time.

Here’s the part you need to pay attention to: Sync will not be able to rebuild your shared libraries. If you have a lot of shared libraries, you should hop over to the FolderShare website while it’s still available and copy all that information. You’ll need it to rebuild your shared libraries in Sync.

Thanks for being a FolderShare user! We’re excited about delivering an even better file-synchronization experience to customers like you. We hope you’ll come along as we move forward with Windows Live Sync.

Sincerely,

The Windows Live Sync (formerly FolderShare) team

# – # – #

Yup, it worked relatively problem free. SO we have to screw around with it! Can’t have that. AND, we can’t have a seamless transition, you have to redo all you’ve done with it.

And, they wonder why people HATE Microsoft?

I’ve started the painful process of emigrating. Digging that parasite out from under my saddle. My MCBA was a my first step away on my way to Linux.

Others would be well advised to do the same. You have no control of what “they”, (Microsoft, Google, or the “cloud computing providers”), do to you!

That’s just unacceptable.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

MCBA: Excessive Airport Scanning after 10.5.2

Friday, November 28, 2008

Re: Excessive Airport Scanning after 10.5.2

Posted: Nov 23, 2008 11:01 AM in response to: Gregory Vonderh…

*** begin quote ***

Glad to know I’m not alone. Slight comfort. I almost bought a new AP thinking that had to be the problem. Of course, this has only happened since the OS update. I never had a problem prior to that. None of the subsequent updates have helped, either. Getting rid of the airport status in the menu bar has only helped in that I don’t constantly see black bars fade to completely ghosted every 30 seconds. I’m hoping that this issue is resolved soon. It’s beyond maddening.

*** end quote ***

I’m also having the problem. Argh!
# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | MACBOOKAIR | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: AntiSPAM tactic that Yahoo misses

Monday, November 24, 2008

Here’s a spam that I received at my Yahoo account. It purports to be from a Yahoo user id. BUT, if it didn’t originate entirely inside Yahoo, then Yahoo should be able to NUKE it before it hits my inbox. Seems simple to me?

*** begin quote ***

Return-Path: <jfrank@yahoo.com>

Authentication-Results: mta134.mail.ac4.yahoo.com from=yahoo.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)

Received: from 80.229.33.223 (EHLO esssrv01.eatonsquareschool.com) (80.229.33.223) by mta134.mail.ac4.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:25:19 -0800

Received: from User ([216.212.164.154]) by esssrv01.eatonsquareschool.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:17:48 +0000

Reply-To: <jfrank@yahoo.com>

From:

“Frank”<jfrank@yahoo.com>

Add sender to Contacts

Subject: Question about Item – Respond Now

Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:24:41 -0600

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/html; charset=”Windows-1251″

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Bcc:

Return-Path: jfrank@yahoo.com

Message-ID: <ESSSRV01f9hYDkngMUJ000029cf@esssrv01.eatonsquareschool.com>

Content-Length: 10368

*** end quote ***

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Yahoo Group fails to send message!!!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

*** begin quote ***

DistributeJasperJottings · Distribute Jasper Jottings

Post Message We’re sorry, but we were unable to complete your request at this time.

If you continue to receive this error for more than 48 hours, please contact our Customer Care team. We apologize for this inconvenience.

*** end quote ***

ARGH! What kind of nonsense is this? No wonder their stock is in the toilet! FORTY EIGHT hours? Are they kidding me? Time to search for alternatives.

# – # – #

UPDATE @ 9AM

The problem is in their “Rich-Text Editor (Beta)”. That allows you to send an HTML message. The old version forces a plain text message. That is working.

# # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Website fraud

Saturday, November 22, 2008

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2008/11/classmates

Classmates.com User Sues; Schoolmates Weren’t Really Looking for Him
By Ryan Singel Email 11.12.08

*** begin quote ***

When Classmates.com told user Anthony Michaels last Christmas Eve that his former school chums were trying to contact him, he pulled out his wallet and upgraded to the premium membership that would let him contact long-lost fifth-grade dodge-ball buddies and see if his secret crush from high school had looked him up online.

But once he’d parted with the $15, Michaels learned the shocking truth: No one he knew was trying to contact him at all. Classmates.com’s come-on was a lie, and he’d been scammed.

{Extraneous Deleted}

*** end quote ***

Instead of NJ chasing after eHarmony for not “servicing” homosexuals, maybe they should chase the corrupt politicians who are stealing our tax dollars. Or, this site that is defrauding folks.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Missed opportunity

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081118/D94H4S981.html

`$100 laptop’ group reboots Give 1 Get 1 offer
Nov 18, 12:06 AM (ET)
By JESSICA MINTZ

*** begin quote ***

SEATTLE (AP) – The One Laptop Per Child project is set to resume its Give One Get One promotion for its kid-friendly computers Monday with logistics help from Web retailer Amazon.com Inc.

*** end quote ***

Boy, did they miss their opportunity. I tried to get some last year. Argh! Now with the various alternatives, they have missed the boat.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: UBUNTU 8.10

Saturday, November 8, 2008

http://www.ubuntu.com

Downloaded the latest release. Some platform problems getting it down, but got it. Luggable comes up on the live distribution clean. Connected to the home wireless network by selecting the network and supplying the admission password. Looks like we have something that will be my “production” release for my secondary desktop. Good bye Microsoft is on the horizon!

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: No DRM!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7708268.stm

_45172350_mp3compatiblelogo.jpg

New MP3 logo gets online support

*** begin quote ***

Seven of Britain’s largest music download sites have got together to promote a new “MP3 compatible” logo.

*** end quote ***

No DRMs for me. I’ve been fooled too many times. I have load of cassettes with great content; don’t lock me in. Argh!

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: DROPBOX, a better FOLDERSHARE?

Thursday, October 30, 2008

https://www.getdropbox.com/

DROPBOX

Perhaps a better version of FolderShare? (A file sync utility with some bells and whistles?)

Note: For some reason, they’ve given me some invites.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECH: BACKUP, Backup, backup. Fail at your own peril!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

http://cli.gs/7q2rBv

Back Up Your Computer to Save Time and Money

Saturday, 25th October 2008 (by J.D.)

*** begin quote ***

Here’s a public service message: Back up your computer regularly. This has more to do with your pocketbook than you might think.

Not only was I sick this week, but the hard drive on my laptop crashed. It’s gone. The Apple Geniuses (that’s what they call themselves!) cannot salvage it. I was able to pull the single most important document (the GRS spreadsheet) and a few posts-in-progress, but I lost a hell of a lot, including:

*** end quote ***

It never ceases to amaze me how pros get caught short.

And, as I have learned the hard way, back in my FBC days, you have to test the restoration.

My story was entertaining. Since it was a test! If it’d had been “for real”, the outcome might have been different. I was challenged to justify at the highest levels why the organization had to run a very expensive Thanksgiving Day test of our recovery capability. IT was a huge multimillion dollar effort. I was insistent. (That was in my younger days when I was full of “principle”.) We were under regulatory scrutiny and my plan was pulling them out of the mess that they were in. (Those were the days when folks listened to my advice as opposed to seeing my gray hair!) I refused to sign off and certify to the regulatory authority that we were in compliance with the agreement to “be recoverable”. The entire chain of command was saying it was a lock sure process. But, I insisted on a test. (In injineering skool, we waz taught about Mister Murphy and his law!) My Boss and his Boss gave me weak support, but under pressure had to admit that based on their reviews they saw no reason why a test was absolutely necessary. So, I was called up on the carpet. (It was a very lovely RED carpet.) To explain. (Get my arm twisted.) It was a subcommittee of the BoD. (I learned later that it was the Audit subcommittee.) My defense was simple: “The regulators will hold me and the Board of Directors personally liable if we cause a market meltdown by being unable to recover. Since I’m too young to be unemployed, I need a test to sign off. I’d suggest that you have more to lose financially that I do, so you might want a test too.” That simple logic carried the day.

The Head of the Largest Business unit, (a trading desk), was to go run the test. I was there as an observer. (Soon to be unemployed, if the grazillion dollars was wasted.) The Head Poobaah was one of the one’s who confidently predicted success and was upset that “his bonus was going to be reduced because of the expense of this test”. Rules of engagement were that WTC (where the data center was) is gone. A core cadre of people are in Sunguard Philly with all the back up stuff stored there and were to recover the business from that point. (It really was the simplest of the seven disaster scenarios.)

(Can you see where this is going?)

Bottom line: Test failed. AND, among the reasons for the failure, in addition to the usual media and process failures, was that the Poobaah’s trading desk had essential data store on their PCs on the trading desks that was NEVER baked up.

That incident taught me to have lots of “belts and suspenders”.

From time to time the Universe has reminded me of that lesson. Hopefully, you can learn it without the painful experience.

# # # # #

1 Comment | Technology | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

SERVICE: File Sharing

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

http://drop.io/

Simple private sharing.

Drop.io is the simplest way to share files online.

Simply set up a private space to drop any files by phone, email, web, widget or fax and then share them with whoever you want via a variety of outputs.

# – # – #

[JR: Recommended]

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Google Search bug; reports content that’s unreachable

Monday, October 6, 2008

Google Blogs Alert for: “manhattan college” -marymount -“marymount manhattan college” -“borough of manhattan college” -marymount -manhattan.edu -bmcc.cuny.edu -msmnyc.edu -mancol.edu -gojaspers.com

Good night, Pop. Love you.

By Gina DC: Armed and Clever!(Gina DC: Armed and Clever!)

He was graduated from Manhattan College in New York in 1942 with a bachelor of arts degree in English and history. He did graduate work at the New School for Social Research in New York, at the University of Vermont, the University of …

Gina DC: Continuity Cop – http://evilbeej.livejournal.com/# – # – #

# – # – #

As you might guess, I have my ‘agents’ spread far and wide across the internet looking for any hint of a Jasper. They are wrascally wrabbits doing all they can to hide. What I find personally very frustrating is when and ‘agent’ calls home with a great story. I go to ‘collect’ it and it’s NOT accessible. Argh! IMHO the engines should not index content that is not reachable. TO me this is a flaw in Google and Live Journal. Argh! And, Gina may not be aware that she has NOT posted a heartwarming tribute for the word to read. She just writing to her friends. I hate to be teased. Sigh!

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY SERVICE: FACEBOOK database are often out of sync

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Funny how you can find people by “Find Friends”, but you can’t add them to a list or suggest them to others. I suspect that the various databases in use by facebook are not updated very frequently.

Hmm, maybe an “employment opportunity” for a FOWG from the days when “directories” were differentiated from “databases”.

You also can’t get a list of your “friends”. Is that to conceal lost data?

Fascinating!

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: FACEBOOK flaw

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Always thought birthdays were a great way to setup a granfalloon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon

You can’t find dotcomeraden! http://tinyurl.com/34n533 on Facebook who share your birthday.  Only your Facebook Friends can do it for you. It’s like a “Robbie Burns” message. You know the gift to see ourselves as others see us. Facebook tells me that you share the day with others in my circle; it doesn’t tell you.

Here’s a gift you can give your Facebook Friends. A networking stretching weird one. They did NOT say that opportunity would be a fat old man with strange ideas!

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: WPDC, Why don’t tags operate like categories?

Saturday, September 6, 2008

WPDC is the free, and unequaled, wordpressdotcom (and did I mention free!!!)

Yeah, I know “beggars and choosers”, but …

It would be nice if on the creation screen tags, like categories, could “suggest” the most frequently used ones, or show a list of all current ones to choose from.

The free, and unequaled, wordpressdotcom is still my favorite; even if it doesn’t work the way I’d see it work.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

LINKEDIN: Backed up my contacts and profile. You?

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Download my contacts in CSV format.

Printed my profile into a pdf.

You?

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Backing up Facebook?

Monday, September 1, 2008

*** begin quote ***

had his previous account frozen by FB due to a malicious virus attack on FB. Now he is trying to reconnect with friends. Please help him. Up to 92 of 200.

*** end quote ***

Interesting?

As with any online service, how do you back it up?

I’ve been told that, for example, on linkedin to print your profile in an editable form and take a CSV export fo yoru contact file.

What can you do on Facebook?

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Suggestion to WP

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Make no mistake, I love the free, and unequaled, wordpressdotcom. But, I did make a suggestion.

*** begin quote ***

Any ideas about allowing the meta data to be in the post’s body and parsed out?

For example, You Tube allows me to post to my WordPress blog. Great! BUT, there always is a big butt, it doesn’t ‘do’ all the things I need. No title, no category, no tags, … you get the idea.

HOW ABOUT:

in a post if (let’s make it easy) at the beginning, the word “TITLE:” as the first thing in post triggered a suck out up to the title block. I’d suggest it should recognize: “TAG:”, “CATEGORY:”, “DATETIME:” for delaying, and well you get the idea.

It would be nice if I could email my posts in to.

Yeah, yeah, I know, ‘beggars and choosers’,
fwiw,
fjohn

*** end quote ***

# # # # #

1 Comment | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

LINKEDIN: Groups killed

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

LinkedIn is further mudding the waters with group. Without disclosure or discussion, it is making unilateral changes. It no longer passes through to the underlying Yahoo Group. And, the management tools are gone. It makes it just worthless.

Oh well. When the LinkedIn competitor comes along maybe they will treat the PAYING users as if they mattered.

*** begin quote ***

First, thank you for managing your group on LinkedIn. We sincerely appreciate the time and effort you devote to your members, and we know they value it. Together you have made Groups one of the top features on LinkedIn.

This Friday, we will be adding several much-requested features to your group:

Discussion forums: Simple discussion spaces for you and your members. (You can turn discussions off in your management control panel if you like.)
Enhanced roster: Searchable list of group members.
Digest emails: Daily or weekly digests of new discussion topics which your members may choose to receive. (We will be turning digests on for all current group members soon, and prompting them to set to their own preference.)
Group home page: A private space for your members on LinkedIn.
We’re confident that these new features will spur communication, promote collaboration, and make your group more valuable to you and your members. We hope you can come by LinkedIn on Friday morning to check out the new functionality and get a group discussion going by posting a welcome message.

Sincerely,
The LinkedIn Groups Team

*** end quote ***

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | LINKEDIN | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Will Obama’s announcement crash the net?

Friday, August 22, 2008

My understanding is that Obama will announce his choice for VP tomorrow by simultaneous email, im, voice mail delviery. To all his supporters at the same time.

Hmmm!

Will all that message traffic overwhelm the internet?

idunno, interesting question, don’t you think?

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECH SERVICE: Turn Gmail’s SSL Feature On Now

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Why_You_Should_Turn_Gmail_s_SSL_Feature_On_Now

***Begin Quote***

Why You Should Turn Gmail’s SSL Feature On Now
By Scott Loganbill August 19, 2008 Categories: Software & Tools, Web Basics

Let’s talk security and why you should take advantage of Gmail’s recent SSL feature, and why you might want to be careful using other non-SSL webmail services.

But first, make sure your connection is secured using SSL.

How do you know a connection is secured by SSL? The handy “s” after “http” will tell you. For example, https://mail.google.com is encrypted while http://mail.google.com is not. You can force an encryption by adding the “s” yourself, or by turning on “Always use https” from the Browser Connection settings of your Gmail account.

***End Quote***

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »