SERVICE: Verizon Ads

Thursday, October 6, 2011
Dear Valued Customer,                                                                                                                   en español

Your privacy is an important priority at Verizon. We want to let you know that Verizon will soon participate in a program that will improve the ability of advertisers to reach our Verizon Online customers based on your physical address. The goal is to provide online ads that may be more relevant to you.

This program uses your address to determine whether you reside in a local area an advertiser is trying to reach. However, Verizon won’t share your address with advertisers as part of this process. Advertisers won’t know it’s you specifically or where you actually live. If you do not want us to allow advertisers to send you ads based on your geographic area you can let us know by selecting here.

What does this mean for you?

Certain ads you’ll see while browsing the Internet may be directed to you and other Verizon Online customers in your area, so these ads may be of more interest to you. For example, a pizza chain may want to deliver their ad to give a special offer to people living in a particular area. Using this program, national brands and local businesses can tailor their offers, coupons, and incentives to your local area.

Protection of Your Personal Information

Verizon protects your personal information as described in our privacy policy. You can learn about Verizon’s ad practices or let us know that you do not want to participate by selecting here. If you don’t want to participate, you will need your User ID and Password to access the opt-out page. Please note that declining to participate won’t impact the number of ads you see, just their potential relevance to you.

For answers to your frequently asked questions, select here.

Sincerely,

Verizon

# – # – #

“Your privacy is an important priority at Verizon.”

Yeah, right.

Deliver ads?

I don’t use any Verizon “online” services so how are they going to “serve” me ads?

Another confused “offering”?

# # # # #


SERVICE: FACEBOOK had a wierd one

Saturday, October 1, 2011

*** begin quote ***

Facebook account is displaying random ascii symbols instead of English words: “4dd pixors / v!dz.” instead of “Add photos / videos”, and “P057” instead of “POST”, for example. Happens on every machine including iPad and in all browsers. Anyone have a clue what could be going on?

*** end quote ***

is there a language setting in facebook?

# – # – #

That was it – the language setting had somehow been changed to LeetSpeak. Thanks!

# – # – #

It was really just a strictly wild <synonym for donkey> guess. I didn’t even know that Facebook had language settings. Please pass along my “thank you”.

# # # # #


HARDWARE: VERIZON FIOS TV grid empty

Saturday, October 1, 2011

The TV GRID is empty. Power glitch unlikely since nothing’s blinking. Reset by Verizon? Argh!

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Oct-01 @ 13:11


NETWORK: FIOS is waiting for an invite to play along?

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Last login: Thu Sep 29 08:16:27 on ttys000

ferdinand-reinkes-macbook-air:~ reinkefj$ traceroute legacy.com

traceroute to legacy.com (64.29.209.53), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets

1 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 2.182 ms 1.029 ms 1.036 ms

2 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 1.804 ms 1.662 ms 1.564 ms

3 l100.nwrknj-vfttp-142.verizon-gni.net (173.54.118.1) 9.966 ms 10.157 ms 10.182 ms

4 g14-0-5-1342.nwrknj-lcr-03.verizon-gni.net (130.81.146.210) 11.384 ms 10.288 ms 9.350 ms

5 130.81.29.192 (130.81.29.192) 11.378 ms * *

6 0.so-7-1-0.xl3.ewr6.alter.net (152.63.17.141) 11.219 ms 11.654 ms 8.044 ms

7 0.ge-7-3-0.xl3.mia4.alter.net (152.63.1.110) 54.991 ms 55.924 ms 55.475 ms

8 0.gigabitethernet4-0-0.gw9.mia4.alter.net (152.63.81.165) 56.610 ms 56.595 ms 55.118 ms

9 splicetelecom-gw.customer.alter.net (63.65.188.30) 60.230 ms 61.798 ms 58.155 ms

10 g0-7-0-0.br2.mia.terremark.net (66.165.161.74) 75.413 ms 75.862 ms 78.487 ms

11 t0-7-0-1.br2.dfw3.terremark.net (66.165.161.230) 73.765 ms 74.308 ms 74.614 ms

12 g0-5-0-1.br1.dfw3.terremark.net (66.165.161.237) 73.760 ms 72.505 ms 72.477 ms

13 66.165.161.34 (66.165.161.34) 74.895 ms 96.776 ms 74.905 ms

14 66.165.160.94 (66.165.160.94) 74.315 ms 74.715 ms 75.395 ms

15 64.29.192.169 (64.29.192.169) 74.479 ms 73.667 ms 73.206 ms

16 legacy.com (64.29.209.53) 74.099 ms 74.647 ms 78.211 ms

# # # # #

ferdinand-reinkes-macbook-air:~ reinkefj$ traceroute legacy.com

traceroute to legacy.com (64.29.209.53), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets

1 * * *

2 * 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 4.325 ms 1.766 ms

3 l100.nwrknj-vfttp-142.verizon-gni.net (173.54.118.1) 7.405 ms 9.316 ms 12.011 ms

4 g14-0-5-1342.nwrknj-lcr-03.verizon-gni.net (130.81.146.210) 43.334 ms * 9.774 ms

5 so-6-0-1-0.nwrk-bb-rtr1.verizon-gni.net (130.81.29.192) 9.888 ms 7.858 ms 9.550 ms

6 0.so-7-1-0.xl3.ewr6.alter.net (152.63.17.141) 9.036 ms 9.648 ms 7.047 ms

7 0.ge-7-3-0.xl3.mia4.alter.net (152.63.1.110) 55.140 ms 55.427 ms 85.065 ms

8 0.gigabitethernet4-0-0.gw9.mia4.alter.net (152.63.81.165) 56.946 ms 66.278 ms 58.106 ms

9 splicetelecom-gw.customer.alter.net (63.65.188.30) 57.717 ms 58.689 ms 60.307 ms

10 g0-7-0-0.br2.mia.terremark.net (66.165.161.74) 76.709 ms 76.813 ms 81.045 ms

11 t0-7-0-1.br2.dfw3.terremark.net (66.165.161.230) 76.421 ms 103.590 ms 72.552 ms

12 g0-5-0-1.br1.dfw3.terremark.net (66.165.161.237) 74.357 ms 74.819 ms *

13 66.165.161.34 (66.165.161.34) 74.476 ms 79.334 ms 72.652 ms

14 66.165.160.94 (66.165.160.94) 74.853 ms 74.175 ms 76.947 ms

15 64.29.192.169 (64.29.192.169) 72.631 ms * 73.467 ms

16 legacy.com (64.29.209.53) 73.761 ms 74.728 ms 75.582 ms

ferdinand-reinkes-macbook-air:~ reinkefj$

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Oct-01 @ 08:25


SERVICE: Anyone else seeing problems with GMAIL?

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Lately, I’ve been noticing poor response times from GMAIL, but not GREADER?

Strange.

Could the vaunted Google email infrastructure have problems?

A lot of folks have organized their personal lives and corporate careers around free Google apps like GMAIL.

Is their a chink in that armor?

# # # # #


HARDWARE: Smarter roads?

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/09/27/massapequa-park-to-use-sensors-to-detect-illegally-parked-vehicles/

Massapequa Park To Use Sensors To Detect Illegally Parked Vehicles
Mayor Insists Move Has Nothing To Do With Money, But Villagers Not Impressed
September 27, 2011 9:37 PM

*** begin quote ***

MASSAPEQUA PARK, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) – Be careful where you decide to park your car.

Massapequa Park will be the first Long Island municipality to use electronic sensors embedded in the street to detect illegally parked vehicles.

Police can quickly slap a $25 fine on the vehicle after the wireless discs notify them of the violation by transmitting a signal to the officers’ cellphones.

*** end quote ***

Of course, it has everything to do with money.

But, this brings up an interesting opportunity.

Why can’t cars be instrumented to help the drivers. For example:

(1) Why couldn’t the sensors broadcast a priority message to the car’s radio informing the driver? As opposed to just facilitating a ticket.

(2) Why don’t we have a whole class of infrastructure that makes roads “smarter”? I seem to spend a lot of time sitting at red lights with no cross traffic. Maybe we need a “go on red at your own risk”?

(3) Why don’t roadways “broadcast” their parameters? For example, speed limits should be transmitted to a dashboard gadget; no speed limit signs would be needed. For example, “wrong way” should trigger a dashboard audible alert “stop”.

(4) Why don’t we have inter car communication?

# # # # #


HARDWARE: Don’t trust driving directions

Sunday, September 25, 2011

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/09/24/2346222/IBM-Seeks-Patent-On-Retailer-Rigged-Driving-Routes

IBM Seeks Patent On Retailer-Rigged Driving Routes
Posted by timothy on Saturday September 24, @07:46PM
from the go-here-you’ll-like-it dept.

*** begin quote ***

theodp writes

“On IBM’s Smarter Planet, you may drive further than need be to get to your destination. Big Blue’s pending patent for Determining Travel Routes by Using Fee-Based Location Preferences calls for the likes of Walmart, Starbucks, and Best Buy pay a fee in return for having your route calculation service de-optimize driving instructions to make you do a drive-by of their stores, and an additional fee if GPS tracking of your car indicates you actually took the suboptimal route. The same IBM inventors also have a patent pending for Environmental Stewardship Based on Driving Behavior, which calls for yet another fee to be assessed when a retailer-friendly-but-suboptimal route causes your vehicle to enter a congested area and produce more pollution.”

*** end quote ***

Wow, if it’s not ONSTAR selling your data, then it’s routing you the “wrong” way.

Seems like a FTC, FCC, DOJ, FBI, and SEC might take an interest in this one.

# # # # #


HARDWARE: Parking meters are a sign of a strategy

Sunday, September 25, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/nyregion/uprooting-the-old-familiar-parking-meter.html?_r=1

The Last Days of the Old Parking Meter

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

Published: September 18, 2011

*** begin quote ***

The city will remove its last decommissioned single-space parking meter in Manhattan on Monday, transportation officials said, the start of a yearlong process that will eventually eliminate all the steel-and-sludge-hued meters in the city.

*** and ***

The old-fashioned, pole-mounted meter will now yield to the robotlike Meter of Tomorrow: a solar-powered box, equipped with Wi-Fi, that can handle eight parking spaces at once and can shut itself down on free-parking Sundays.

The city’s Transportation Department, which recently accelerated its meter retirement program, says the change will benefit city and citizen alike: the new meters read credit cards, speak seven languages, require less maintenance, and free up room on the sidewalk.

But the death of the classic meter also means an end to some of New York’s smaller pleasures: the satisfying clunk of a coin in its slot, the illicit thrill of finding an extra few minutes still counting down.

*** end quote ***

This hardware upgrade demonstrates that the strategy is raising revenue; nothing else.

Parking meters were originally intended to ration limited parking so that a spot couldn’t be tied up all day.

Europeans solved this with a plastic “sundial”. The driver upon parking would put the “sundial” on the dashboard after dialing in the current time. If you cheated and dialed in a later time, then you risk a ticket. If you overstayed, then you risked a ticket.

Zero capital investment; simplicity.

Argh!

Not all hardware upgrades are worth it. If you’re rationing parking spaces, you could use “sundials”. But if you’re raising revenue, then it’s not enough. The upgrade should be issuing tickets. This doesn’t.

# # # # #


SERVICE: “mouse to spouse”

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Read a fellow alum’s blog. It was too personal to link to. but she used an interesting turn of a phrase … “mouse to spouse”. Referring to the various dating sites. Having just attended a wedding that started with an internet chat, maybe she needs to rethink that disgust with such services.

Now I’m not shopping for a “spouse”, but a “mouse” might not be a bad way to go. As an ITSJ (sic), it fits my predilection.

To stay in my “mole hole” and pound away at the keyboard.

Argh!

# # # # #


NETWORK: What do you do when the inet doesn’t inet

Friday, September 23, 2011

http://www.irishcentral.com/

*** begin quote ***

ferdinand-reinkes-macbook-air:~ reinkefj$ tracert http://www.irishcentral.com

-bash: tracert: command not found

ferdinand-reinkes-macbook-air:~ reinkefj$ traceroute http://www.irishcentral.com/

traceroute to http://www.irishcentral.com/ (67.215.65.132), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets

1 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 1.725 ms 1.114 ms 1.281 ms

2 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 2.185 ms 5.412 ms 3.534 ms

3 l100.nwrknj-vfttp-142.verizon-gni.net (173.54.118.1) 8.548 ms 6.758 ms 8.521 ms

4 g14-0-5-1442.nwrknj-lcr-04.verizon-gni.net (130.81.146.236) 9.607 ms 7.261 ms 7.487 ms

5 so-6-0-1-0.nwrk-bb-rtr2.verizon-gni.net (130.81.29.194) 13.408 ms 7.395 ms 7.574 ms

6 0.so-7-0-0.xl4.ewr6.alter.net (152.63.20.13) 17.648 ms 11.947 ms 12.394 ms

7 0.so-6-0-2.xl4.iad8.alter.net (152.63.0.130) 17.047 ms 52.156 ms 17.317 ms

8 pos7-0.gw4.iad8.alter.net (152.63.41.33) 17.796 ms 19.431 ms 17.285 ms

9 65.222.158.82 (65.222.158.82) 19.852 ms 22.606 ms 20.081 ms

10 * * *

11 * * *

12 * * *

*** end quote ***

Sort of like calling an old friend who’s cross country and the number just rings off the hook. Or they “go AWOL” from FACEBOOK or email.

Argh!

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Sep-23 @ 10:37