Make any URL look much more terrifing
Want to make a website’s address look a lot scarier before forwarding the link to a friend or co-worker? Go to ShadyURL and make it look a lot more foreboding that it truly is. For instance, the somewhat benign http://bentcorner.com having gone through the ShadyURL process becomes:
http://5z8.info/dogs-being-eaten_r4a7n_dogs-being-eaten
Now that is really funny.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View
If you use Internet Explorer 8 to access the web and have noticed that some websites just don’t look right, or that some features just don’t work, you need to know about something called Compatibility View. It essentially dumbs-down Internet Explorer 8 so that it can correctly display so-called older websites.
To enable Compatibility View for a website, follow the following easy steps:
- Open the website that is not displayed correctly in Internet Explorer 8.
Click the Compatibility View button located directly to the right side of the address bar. It’s supposed to look like a jagged edged, “broken” document. More specifically, it’s supposed to represent a broken website.- If you do not have one of these spiffy buttons, go to the Tools menu, and click Compatibility View.
That’s it. The website in question should now look and function correctly each and every time you visit it. That is, until you delete all your Internet cookies or reset your Internet settings.
Shortly after Internet Explorer 8 went live, a lot of people evidently couldn’t read this very blog. It was because IE8 had problems with the WordPress theme I was using at the time. If people who couldn’t read my blog would have activated Compatibility View, they wouldn’t have had any problems.
I mention this because I get an absurd amount of phone calls at work from people about this very issue.
Real, but damaged
I got home from work last night to find that the Mitchell & Ness 1984 Los Angeles Raiders Marcus Allen jersey I purchased on eBay had arrived in the mail. I was happy to see that it indeed looked like the real thing and not some cheap Korean knockoff. I then discovered after putting it on and looking at myself in the mirror, there was a rip on one of the sleeves.
I don’t know how it happened. I checked the box for cuts or any other damage, but I couldn’t find any. I don’t even know how something like this would happen. It looks like it might have been cut with a either a sharp knife or with a box cutter. Maybe it happened when Mitchell & Ness received a box full of jerseys from the factory. Perhaps this jersey was sitting at the top of the box and whoever opened the box nicked it with their box cutter. I really don’t know how something like this would happen.
I contacted the seller and he responded by saying that he didn’t know it was damaged. He told me that he doesn’t have any more this size and that I can return it for a refund. He also said that he would be willing to give my a partial refund if I wanted to go ahead and keep the jersey. Honestly, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if something like this could even be fixed.
I have the worst eBay luck.
Is it real?
I purchased a Mitchell & Ness 1984 Los Angeles Raiders Marcus Allen jersey on eBay yesterday afternoon and unlike many of the jerseys on eBay, I’m fairly confident this one is the real deal and not a cheap Korean knock-off. This one looks just like the one on the Mitchell & Ness website.
I’ve had really bad luck buying jerseys on eBay. The last few I bid on and won ended up to either be flawed or obvious fakes. I hope my luck is about to change.
Why eBay doesn’t do anything about the fakes on their site is a mystery to me. I’m really surprised that the NFL doesn’t do anything about the non-licensed, counterfeit jerseys on the popular auction site. It’s not like these fakes are hard to find.
Wish me luck!
This is why newspapers are losing money
The Associated Press ran a small piece about a fake Twitter account that was pretending to be the official Twitter account of the liberal blog, The Huffington Post. Whoever was running the account was posting insults directed towards conservatives. The account has been since been shut down by Twitter. Evidently some people actually thought the fake Twitter account was the real Twitter account.
From the Associated Press article:
The feed included mostly unpublishable insults about political and media figures, including President Barack Obama.
Unpublishable? Really?
I don’t know what’s more pathetic: that this “news” article was published in the first place or that it described what was posted as unpublishable. I don’t even know what that term means. After all, it’s 2010, not 1910. How can something pertaining to the Internet not be publishable? This is why newspapers are loosing money. This is why millions of people don’t bother reading newspapers anymore. Newspapers refuse to keep up with the times, instead they pretend that we all live in some bygone era where certain words or phrases are not fit for human consumption.
That era is long gone.
The article doesn’t even state the facts. What was the name of the fake Twitter account? Is that too somehow unpublishable? A quick search of the Internet shows that the Twitter account was “@HuffPostNews”. The real Twitter account for The Huffington Post is “@huffingtonpost”. That information isn’t in the AP article, even though it’s germane to the story.
And what were some of the unpublishable insults?
- “Vote McCain 2012!!!!!”
- “Barack Obama is a stupid fucking socialist.”
- “We LOVE @SeanHannity!!!”
One would have to be mentally retarded to think this Twitter feed was in fact the real The Huffington Post Twitter feed. By refusing to show examples of said Twitter posts, it gives the false impression that anyone duped into believing this phony Twitter feed was legit was simply honestly fooled by a well executed fraud.
That is simply not the case.
Microsoft wants to make Bing the official search engine of teabaggers and birthers everywhere
Microsoft is in talks with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to de-index every News Corp owned entity from Google and allow Bing, the new search engine owned by Microsoft, to become the only search engine for News Corp properties. This would mean that if you wanted to search for something on Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, or the New York Post, you would have to go to Bing, not Google. The same would apply to 20th Century Fox, Fox, Fox Sports, FX Networks, and a host of other entertainment and sports networks.
According to the Financial Times, News Corp isn’t the only media company approached by Microsoft to make Bing the exclusive search engine.
I cannot help but believe that this is a really stupid idea. Not just for News Corp, but for Microsoft too. A deal like this wouldn’t stop anyone from using Google to find News Corp related content. For instance, say Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck say something incredibly stupid on Fox News. If went to Google and performed a search of what they said, you might not find anything that directly links to Fox News, but you would still find a plethora of web content related to whatever Hannity or Beck said. Microsoft may pay News Corp money to de-link from Google, but that’s not going to stop bloggers and others from linking to News Corp entities.
These bloggers and others would simply move to the top of the Google search results.
A move like this would also hurt Bing’s credibility. I’m not sure being the official search engine of Fox News is anything to be proud of.
Tweetalarm is like Google Alert, only with Twitter
If you’re anything like me, you probably have more than a few keywords plugged in over at Google Alerts to find out if and when these keywords pop up on the World Wide Internet Web. With the popularity of Twitter, I’ve often wished there was something similar to Google Alerts for Twitter.
Now there is.
Tweetalarm is a free service that emails you imediately if and when certain keywords are tweeted. Check it out if this is the kind of thing that interests you.
Local student suspended for posting a video to the Internet from home
An honor student from Musselman Middle School was suspended from school because she posted a 41 second video taken with her camera phone of a fight between to students from her school. As far as fights go, it’s not much of one.
The “fight” supposedly took place next to the Inwood, West Virgina school’s football field.
The girl posted the video to YouTube not from a school computer on school grounds, but from her home using her own computer. So why then was she suspended from school? According to her principal, James J. Holland, posting the video created more problems than the actual fight. He also didn’t like the fact that the video was put to music.
Uh huh. Posting a video is worse than a punch in the face? I don’t believe that. I’ve been punched in the face. I’ve been videoed. Getting punched in the face is far worse than appearing in a video that gets posted to the world wide Internet web.
You can’t even tell who the two kids fighting in the video are.
It could have been worse. The principle boasted in a voice mail message to the girl’s parents that he could have automatically suspended her for 10 days if he had ruled that posting the 41 second video was “cyber bullying.” I’m sure whoever came up with the rule against “cyber bulling” is glad that an idiot like principal Holland can misuse the rule as he sees fit.
I’m not sure what they teach at Musselman Middle School, but I’m guessing that the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment is not covered very much.
Netflix: Very Long Wait
I don’t know what’s the deal with Netflix, but I can’t seem to get them to send me movies. Once I select a movie, it sits there in my queue with the words “Very Long Wait” displayed next to it for weeks. I’ve had the movie Pineapple Express in my queue since before it was released on January 6 and it still shows “Very Long Wait”.
At first I thought I was because I upgraded my account to include Blu-ray movies. That was when it seemed Netflix stopped sending my my selections. I went a head and stopped selecting Blu-ray discs and instead just chose old fashioned DVDs. That doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference. It still took me nearly three weeks to get them to send me a copy of Wanted.
I’m not waiting anymore. I’m going to go ahead and cancel my account and just go back to renting movies from the local video store. At least with the old fashioned brick and mortar video rental store, if they don’t have copies to rent me, I don’t have to pay them.
That’s not the case with Netflix.
Foxmarks ate my bookmarks
I had the Firefox add-on Foxmarks v2.6 installed on all of my computers. Its a piece of software that automatically syncs bookmarks on every computer you use. Its one of the few add-ons that I actually used with Firefox. I never had a problem with it until the other day. For some inexplicable reason, it ate all of my bookmarks.
I had my bookmarks filed and sorted into perfect order and now most of them are gone.
I’m now left with only one folder of bookmarks (Politics) and everything else is gone. I’ve lost hundreds of my bookmarks.
This is precisely the kind of thing that makes me want to wash my hands of all open source software. When something goes totally wrong with open source, you are forced to remember that you paid absolutely nothing for it. It has absolutely no warranty and it is provided totally “as-is”. In fact, if you read the term of service (TOS) included with Foxmarks, you will see that the makers disclaim any implied responsibility that the software even works the way its supposed to.
What’s the point of even making it?
The makers of Foxmarks are trying to create a new and supposed better search engine. It will be based entirely on the data mined from Foxmarks user’s bookmarks. Their goal is not to create a quality bookmark synchronizer for people to use. Their goal is to compile information provided by Foxmarks users so they can create a search engine to make a buck.
They wont be getting any more of my help.
Internet woes
My connection to the world wide Internets has been extremely slow since yesterday. At first I thought perhaps it was my router. I’ve had trouble with it lately in that my Internet connection completely dies and to get it back up in running, not only do I need to reboot it, but I have to return all the settings to factory default. I then have to go in and change everything back to where it was before it died, things such as wireless security and the wireless network name.
It’s a pain in the ass, but when it works, it works. I can go months before I have to do a major hardcore reboot to the router.
This problem is different. Some sites are extremely slow while others load up perfectly normal. I can quickly go to my blog, but the Feedburner widget and the Sitemeter image do not load. Other websites load, but some of the sidebar ads coming from other sites wont load and display.
Just to rule out the router, I disconnected it and plugged my modem directly into my desktop PC. It was just as slow and unresponsive.
I finally was able to go to my Internet provider’s website, MYACTV.net. The browser window would timeout the other times I tried to go there. They show that they are experiencing partial outages:
We are currently experiencing an issue which is causing slow internet speeds. We are aware of the issue and are working to correct it. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Hopefully they will be able to fix it soon.
eBay goes to PayPal or credit card only
I read over on the Consumerist that the bloated Internet auction giant eBay will be switching over to a PayPal or credit card only auction site. What this means is that if you win an auction, you have to pay for the item with either PayPal or a credit card. A credit card can be used only if the seller is set up to take credit card payments.
You can’t use a money order, a check, or even cash.
A part of me doesn’t really care since I’ve pretty much stopped using eBay entirely. I used to use it a lot. I even named this very blog after an eBay auction that went south. I had bid on and “won” an Alfonso Soriano baseball card that was advertised as being in mint condition. When I got it in the mail, I discovered it wasn’t quite in mint condition. It had a bent corner. I tried getting the seller to agree to take it back and refund my money, but he wasn’t having any part of it. This was right around the time that I was thinking about getting into blogging. I decided that I would try to extract something positive out of an experience that at the time I perceived to be negative.
EBay has just become too much of a hassle. No matter how simple the item up for auction is, it usually includes a plethora of rules and conditions. Then there is the whole feedback thing. I’ve kind of moved past caring about leaving or receiving feedback. I cared about it in the late 90’s, but not so much anymore. I purchased something off eBay a few months ago and the seller has been sending me an email at least once a telling me to leave feedback and he will do the same. Who cares? I just looked and he has a feedback of 317. I have a feedback of 437. Why should it be important to either one of us? I sure know it’s not important to me.
As it stands now, the only reason I buy something off eBay is when I can’t get it anywhere else. I would happily pay more for something if it meant I didn’t have to deal with eBay. [eBay]
Del.icio.us bookmarking site gets a major overhaul
The Del.icio.us bookmarking site has gone under major overhaul. For one thing, they changed the spelling to plain old Delicious. It’s about time. If you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time, you know I am quite a stickler for spelling.
That of course is not true. I am a terrible speller. If anything, my lack of a spelling ability makes me extremely annoyed when companies attempt to be creative by dicking up the title of their website. I don’t know who they were trying to impress by placing a couple periods where they didn’t belong, but I was not impressed.
I was not amused.
Slashdot named most overrated blog
TIME has published a list of their 5 most overrated blogs and Slashdot comes in at #1. Not that I was suprised that Slashdot would make the list. I’ve never quite understood what was supposedly so bloody great about the site. What I thought was interesting was what TIME had to say about Slashdot:
Reading Slashdot these days is like visiting the IT guy at work. He’s infuriatingly smug and cares passionately about stuff you don’t care about, and views your lack of interest as further confirmation of his intellectual superiority. Enjoy.
Now that is funny!
Website title spam
I’m getting tired of websites that have keyword spam in the title. For example, go to MSNBC and bookmark it. Instead of it simply displayed as MSNBC in your bookmarks, it appears as the following:
Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News – msnbc.com- msnbc.com
They have combined what should be the description with the title. This results in a very lengthy and confusing title in your bookmarks. It’s lengthy, unsightly, and totally unnecessary. It’s hard enough keeping bookmarks organized and efficient without content providers junking up the title with spam words. They’ve spent millions of dollars over the years creating the MSNBC brand name. People already associate MSNBC with the news. They don’t need to beat people over the head with it.
MSNBC isn’t the only one doing this. Too many websites do this. I wish they would all stop.
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Follow me @rickrottman
Some people should really learn how Facebook works
Her comment to me was both insulting and extremely hateful.
I know this because when she posted the comment, an email was automatically sent to me by Facebook showing me her comment as well as a link to the comment on Facebook. When I clicked the link, it only showed the original comment thread. Her hateful reply to me was missing.
I can only guess that she regretted leaving the comment and deleted it from Facebook. The problem with that is, I still read the comment in the email.
People really ought to learn how Facebook, or for that matter, the Internet works. If you insult someone and call them names, deleting the comment doesn’t really do anything.