Yeay for a new fall lineup! TV Guide did an awesome job on this TV Grid:
http://www.tvguide.com/special/fall-preview-2008/fall-schedule.aspx
22
Sep
Awesome TV Grid
Glenn Greenwald has a good article relating the Bush/McCain privacy policies to the hacking of Gov. Palin’s Yahoo email account on Salon at:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/18/privacy/index.html
In summary, it says that the Bush Administration’s policies on warrantless wiretaps, the carnivore program, the White House Cybersecurity Initative, public video cameras, etc, all lead themselves to being able to look into the private aspects of a persons life. All of these policies have been supported by McCain. Given that, the article questions if they have a right to expect privacy in their yahoo email.
Outside of the fact that this account was being used by a government employee for government business, which would have been open for public inspecition via FOIA had it been sent on government systems instead of Yahoo, one should be able to expect privacy in their daily lives. It is a good reminder to everyone that even though something isn’t specifically declared private by legislation, we have an expectation of privacy and that the vendor is doing everything they can to protect our data. Hopefully they take this lesson with them and remember it when they vote to erode privacy rights further.
As a side note (since so many people have emailed me this since yesterday afternoon): While I am a big proponent of two factor authentication, I don’t know that it is necessary on email (would be nice if it was offered as an option though). A member of Anonymous “hacked in” by guessing the answer to Palin’s secret question of “Where did I meet my husband”. Of course, secret questions only work if the answers to them are secret. Perhaps Yahoo would be wise to implement a solution which sends a physical letter to the person with their new password when someone forgets it.
05
Sep
Google Chrome
>not impressed with Google Chrome.
Sure, it’s a nice browser. Sure, it has good search if you type in a URL wrong. Sure, it has a phishing filter. Sure, it knows your favorite pages and your recent bookmarks. Sure, it can stay running if one of the tabs crash. Sure, it has a sleek looking UI.
But:
a) is it better than IE or Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape or Safari? and
b) do we really need those features? what about the features we don’t get that others offer?
To answer in reverse - features are always nice, but not at the cost of performance. Sure, everything that is said about google’s browser is cool. But it feels slow. Text pops up fast, but then I’m waiting over 30 seconds for images to show up. Worse with the GoDaddy page when I used it to renew a domain - it kept telling me pages didn’t exist. I’d hit reload and amazingly they existed. Got very annoying. No other browser gives me that problem. Even Google Reader was terribly slow.
Plus, I’ve fallen in love with the Mozilla Labs Ubiquity plugin. Google offers no plugins, and is no where near as simple in their “one-box” as Ubiquity is.
To me, it’s yet another web browser. It does a job. Not as feature-rich. Maybe it will get there sometime.
05
Sep
Niagara Falls Trip
Had a fun trip to Niagara Falls on August 14-16th.
Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cchoffme/sets/72157606793426204/
I really didn’t pay attention when Starbucks announced they were closing their stores, because I don’t have brand loyalty in my coffee. I get it where I can, when I want it, and it tastes all about the same to me.
But the smell of the coffee shop on the other hand is what draws me. And that started my visits to Starbucks recently, and taking me a little further away from my normal route to work/home. They don’t smell like something is burning like Beaners does (oops, sorry, Biggby…).
After a couple quick visits, I decided I wanted to stay a while and type up some notes on my laptop. I turn it on and get a login prompt. I frown. The login prompt doesn’t tell me what to do, so I get up out of my comfy chair and ask the barista.
Turns out that you have to make a purchase in conjunction with using a Starbucks Card. He hands me one. There is a sticker that says “register this card at http://www.starbucks.com/card”. I look at it and say “hmmm”. I take it home.
I go to starbucks.com, and see that to use the WiFi, you have to make a purchase with this card once every 30 days and in exchange AT&T gives you 2 hours of internet per day. Cool.
I figure, “well I better add some money to this card so I can use it to make a purchase”. I go to the website, and click “ reload a card”. Plug in the numbers on the back of the card, and I’m told by the website “sorry, you must register your card first”.
Ok, so I click on “register a card” and again key in the numbers on the back of the card. It tells me that I can’t register the card because I didn’t get the card in conjunction with a purchase of $5 or more at a Starbucks store. BUT I can click “order a card” and order the exact same card as I’m holding in my hand loaded up with money, and they’ll deduct a small shipping charge???
Okay, so I give in and realize I’m going to have to go into the store. It was about time for my 7pm coffee anyhow, so I go down to Starbucks, order $5 worth of product, and get my card. I sit at the table, boot up my laptop, go to startbucks.com/wifi and set up my account. Register my card. Register the AT&T WiFi Account. It tells me I’m completed, and gives me a “click here” button to login. I click there. I login with the username and password created 4 minutes ago - it sends me to a T-Mobile prompt that says my login failed. I try again, no go. I try logging in to the “Member Services” page for AT&T and it lets me in.
I pull out my iPhone and see that I have a email from AT&T asking for me to confirm my email address (something I couldn’t do from the WiFi because I couldn’t get to my email). I confirm it.
I go back to login, still won’t let me. I give up, finish my coffee and go home frustrated.
I get home and see in the FAQ for the WiFi (which I also couldn’t see at Starbucks):
I just made a purchase with my Starbucks Card and I can’t get online?
Although rare, it is possible that very recent transactions won’t show up when we check your card for activity. We apologize for any inconvenience, and ask that you try again another time – don’t worry, the purchase you made will count toward this great reward.
A year ago, SBUX stock price was at $29 per share. After the announcement of store closings, it’s now gone up to $16. Why is this?
- The coffee is better than others in the area. (subjective, I know)
- It’s actually cheaper than the others in the area (Latte and Cookie at Biggby - $5.70, same at Starbucks - $4.35).
- They [in theory] offer free wireless access.
- The atmosphere (aroma, music, staff) is better.
- The barista always convinces me I need a (really good) cookie.
Wait, shouldn’t these things be indicative of stock prices going up instead of down?
User experience is just as important in coffee as it is in the iPhone (or any selection of electronic devices). Adding in rules for purchases, special cards that you have to put cash on for no apparent reason, wireless accesspoints that you have to make accounts for, not being able to register for an account in-store, and not being able to read the FAQ’s on getting online all create unnecessary hurdles to entry and distract from your reason for being there - to get a good cup of coffee.
The Biggby experience: Paper punch reward cards, available internet, no music, poor aroma, more costly. Yet, that is where I get most of my coffee from.
Starbucks, stop stepping on Information Technology. It’s fragile. Customer loyalty is too.
Ask yourself two questions, “what happens to our customers experience when this doesn’t work as we expect it to?” and “can we do it without this layer of added technology?”
Saga continues (8/13/08):
Got on the internet yesterday at Starbucks by changing my password (why that worked, don’t know). Try again today, but no such luck.
Need to add funds to the card to get more coffee tomorrow, go to website and get this error:
Nice…
Just finished watching “Wargames - The Dead Code”. I had very low expectations for this movie, but it turned out not to be terrible. Incredibly unrealistic, yes, but terrible no.
That being said, I think the appeal for me to the original is that it is incredibly feasible that scenario could have happened. Blueboxing and wardialing to find a miliary system with an open phone line. Probably still could happen today.
The basis for the new one is that there’s a gaming site that you can win lots of money by betting that you can beat a computer game, and if you can beat the game, you’re considered a terrorist and the computer goes after you.
I couldn’t figure out what the girl was doing still helping out Will (the new David), that she barely knew, evade the police in Canada. In the original, Jennifer was part of the cause of the problem so there was at least a reason that she would want to help save the world.
And what’s up with WOPR! Spewing off nonsense and using color and graphics in a terminal window from a machine in the early 80’s?!? Read some of the text on it’s display - the producers should be embarassed with themselves, where is the attempt at realism!?
And did they really have to try to steal so much out-of-date stuff from the original? The hacking-the-payphone-with-a-piece-of-metal trick, really? We all know that hasn’t worked for many many many years. Why even include it?
Falken - did the story really need him to have another family and have another kid, and then fake his own death? He already had his family die in the original and a fake death. Was a second really necessary?
Argh! 2 of 5 stars is the highest I can give it. See it if for no other reason than to mock it…
24
Jul
Wargames
At the Lansing Mall 6 to see the original WarGames on the big screen.
Feels strange to be back here. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I worked here. They’ve really cleaned this place up!
23
Jul
Testing
Testing Wordpress iPhone app.
19
Jul
thewebsiteisdown
Vista indexing has always been a pain. Computers have been slow due to it ever since the upgrade. Added more memory a while back, but still no good.
While the indexing is nice, it isn’t all that useful. I know where I store my files within my home directory. So I turned indexing on my home directory off.
Wow! What a difference! I can actually watch my iTunes media again! Woohoo!
