* Gearhead: Two tools for finding out what’s going on * Backspin: Cell phone disservice * Gibbsblog: The past 7 days
Gearhead: Two tools for finding out what’s going on
When you sit down at someone’s PC to fix whatever they’ve broken, do you find yourself always going through the same old process of trying to figure out how exactly the machine is configured? We have just stumbled across a solution: BGInfo written by Bryce Cogswell of the now famous SysInternals and Winternals (recently acquired by Microsoft; see also this security blog).
To read this week’s Gearhead, click here.
Backspin: Cell phone disservice
OK, gentlemen, let’s get started. First of all, no note taking. These meetings never happened. We’re here to review our progress in cost savings and revenue generation. Don’t forget that we’re leaders in the cell phone service biz, and we’ve got a fiscal quarter about to end, so we need to make that big push to make our shareholders happy – not to mention making sure we get our bonuses. So, Hoskins, how’s that plan you laid out doing?
To read this week’s Backspin, click here.
Gibbsblog: The past 7 days
Gadgets for the Old and Disabled
I have a question: Why don’t any of the companies that make cell phones, CD players, or any other “gadgets” consider the needs of the elderly and disabled?
My father just turned 80 and he’s a jazz fanatic (that is jazz as in real jazz: Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, and so on). I figured it was about time he had a portable CD player so he could listen whenever he wants to and so the hunt was on …
Why not an iPod you might ask? That has a reasonably large and simple interface. Well sort of. First of all he doesn’t have a PC so he’d be locked in to whatever was loaded on it. Second, I’m not sure that the user interface is all that friendly to people who haven’t grown up with PCs and digital gadgets. I figured that a portable CD would be easier.
Anyway, I spent a long time trying to find a portable CD player and I could not find one designed for people who have poor eyesight or poor dexterity. Hell, I’m just over fifty (alright, slightly more than “just over”) and with many of them I couldn’t see the markings on the buttons!
Spammers in the IT Business
It amazes me when I get the same spam from companies on multiple e-mail accounts that are reserved for column feedback. When these companies are of some reasonable size and obviously don’t understand the requirements of the CAN SPAM Act it can be attributed to naivety. When they claim to be in the IT business then it becomes surprising.
Mostly I ignore them and consign their message to the bit bucket but other times I call them to find out why they are getting it wrong. I want to know how they got my addresses and why don’t they understand the CAN SPAM Act. Sometimes the problem is a single individual who is naive and goes it alone with some spam software and sometimes the company simply makes a mistake. But when a company hits what are, in effect, multiple honeypot addresses you know that they are habitual spammers.
The most unforgivable is when a company repeatedly sends spam that is both non-CAN SPAM complaint and claims to be an IT company. This is the case with an IT recruitment company named BSVTECHNOLOGIES Inc. based in Menomonee Falls,WI.
I just got non-CAN SPAM compliant spam on two feedback accounts from someone named Ekta Jaikumar who works for BSVTECHNOLOGIES and not only doesn’t she answer her phone but she also has no greeting message. I tried to speak to the company but after a five minute uphill struggle with a nice lady who spoke marginal English and seemed to not have much of an idea of how the company functioned I gave up.
So why is this company’s spam a problem? Because over the last two months Ekta along with Vinod, Kris, and Vejandla have sent me a total of 11 spams that have got past my filters and as they seem to plan to send more (all the messages offer an unsubscribe option) so I either have to go through their unsubscribe rigmarole or add them to a blacklist both of which require me to do something — the same kind of somethings that I have already done twice today and it is not even lunchtime yet!
The biggest question is how can they purport to be in the IT business if they are such obviously ignorant, willful spammers? It just doesn’t make sense that you could claim to understand the IT world and be capable of providing IT staffing if you don’t get what are really basic issues of on-line conduct. This apparently this hasn’t bothered the likes of Microsoft, HP, GE, Wellpoint, Johnson & Johnson, and Experian all of which are on the company’s list of clients.
As I wrote in Backspin some time ago, we desperately need something better than CAN SPAM because until we do, dolts like BSVTECHNOLOGIES can happily carry on behaving badly.
[Update] I just got a reply from BSVTECHNOLOGIES and they apparently admit to spamming!
Hi Mark
We will take care gibbs. Sorry for all this happening. We are trying to make it as best opt-in and seems to be our marketing team is not cleaning the email database correctly. We will shut down the whole spam process until cleaning of the database. Just now our team said they got some virus on their system and thats the reason why some emails are going everyday automatically. We will promise that wew will shutdown our email server until we solve all of our problems.
Thanks
Kris
BSV technologies
Stupid Error Messages
We’ve all come across products with error messages that make us shake our heads in disbelief that any programmer or engineer could be so unbelievably dense. I thought that the Windows application message “An Unexpected Error Has Occurred” could be the best but this morning I found one that if not better is at least equal.
I own a Motorola RAZR V3 and as usual I switched it off last night and plugged it into the charger. This morning I disconnect it, flip it open, and I’m greeted with the message “Cannot charge.” Better still the phone could not be switched off — I had to take the battery out to do that. Once I replaced the battery it started up fine.
I’ve read that a bad battery can cause this problem but my phone’s doesn’t appear to be failing. I suspect that the battery was almost full and it may be that trying to charge an already charged RAZR when it is switched off is what causes the problem but the error message and the fact that the phone can’t be powered down is retarded.
I’m certain that there are worse messages out there that support really bad engineering decisions … anyone care to offer up their favorites?
