The FuzzyStuff: Rant

The Single Person's Work from Home Lunch

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 17:52:00 GMT

The Single Person's Work from Home Lunch

I'm hesitant to blog this at all except that a) I really can cook (In the Boston area? Come over for dinner sometime and test me) and b) It's funny to people who don't work from home. Now bear in mind a) I am a bachelor b) I do live alone c) I've worked from home for 2+ years now c) I hate to cook for one. So here it goes, today's lunch:

Can of clam chowder that has been rattling around the cupboard for heck knows how long. I actually think a friend who was moving donated it to the "Keep Scott Eating" campaign of 2001.
Chips
Salsa (that's my "vegetable" for the day. does Salsa count?)
Chips crushed into the clam chowder since I was out of oyster crackers and I thought "these come in a bag too".
A "Capri Sun" Juice Pack bought because Target had them on sale and I thought there could be a hint of vitamin C in them.
A brownie.

Come on ... What do you eat for lunch when you work from home? I'll wager it's just as bizarre.

Thank You Microsoft for Nuking Our Christmas High Tech Buying Season

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 00:05:24 GMT

Thank You Microsoft for Nuking Our Christmas High Tech Buying Season

NOTE: This started out kinda rational and I think became a "rant o rama". Sorry. Hope it at least entertains.

This came out today:

From News.com:

Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday released additional details about digital entertainment PCs coming for the holidays. But new anti-copying technology could hamper sales, say analysts and potential buyers.

...

Von Ehman, a Windows user and an analyst for West Virginia state government in Charleston, also balked at the copy-protection mechanism.

"If you copy protect in any way, the kids will scream bloody murder," he said. "It's a young person's market, and that would be a suicide" for Microsoft in the marketplace.

...

Go: http://news.com.com/2100-1040-956285.html?tag=cd_mh

Slashdot Discussion on It

Between the above as well as Microsoft's very, very silly Mira device, it is really looking to me like the intel compatible marketplace, the bulk of the high tech PC revenue, is going to be a dreary, dreary place this Christmas. Here's a quick review of what I see as pretty much the facts:

The economy will still be bad come Christmas buying season (I see nothing to convince me otherwise; nor does the Wall Street Journal which I read daily).

In bad economic times, people don't spend on non-essentials. Multimedia Entertainment PCs are non-essentials as are Mira flat panel tablets.

Whenever there is the slightest bit of uncertainty, people don't buy -- particularly when times are bad. Whether or not the copy protection issues are as bad as the article makes out remains to be seen. We honestly won't know until it ships. Still people will be reading this press release, the Slashdot discussion and more. And we'll all suspect the worst. Finally when Mom and Dad ask little Junior if they want this system as a present, they'll say "DOH! Not on your life.".

Mira feels to me like a luxury -- not a requirement. It's also not a product that you can readily rationalize as a work tax deduction. I can much more easily see people buying an additional laptop and a WIFI hub than Mira but Mira, being newer and sexier, will cloud the market and confuse people.

Bottom line? Get ready for a bad ass Christmas PC market. Without this stuff it would have been bad. But when you add this kind of silliness in, it just gets worse and worse. A huge problem is Microsoft is trying to sell software to the entertainment industry for DRM while also trying to sell software to end users --- WHEN THEIR INTERESTS ARE DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED!!! Take a side guys! Suck it up and get out of the DRM business once and for all. It's a loser anyway and you are just going to hose yourself in the end. Your revenues really come from the OEM side on the PC maker, not Hollywood. If you have to then spin out the damn DRM stuff. I mean even Sony isn't limiting us this way:

Already Sony ships Vaio PCs with DVRs and most of the other features found on the HP Media Center PC. But Sony does not impose copy protection. So a consumer could use Sony's GigaPocket Personal Video Recorder software to record a TV show, convert the file to MPEG-2 video with another Sony application and burn the program to a DVD.

Same article: http://news.com.com/2100-1040-956285.html?tag=cd_mh

You Did NOT Want to Be in My House 10 Minutes Ago

Thu, 22 Aug 2002 11:05:50 GMT

You Did NOT Want to Be in My House 10 Minutes Ago

It's always interesting to me how technology frustrates people. It's even more interesting when it makes people swear -- that's a sign of a real issue. Here's an example. You did NOT want to be near me about 10 minutes ago. I was using Word 2000 to write a letter of reference for a friend. I was in Page Layout mode to make it look correct (he's a good guy and it's so worth doing right) and when I entered the URL of a site he helped me develop, Word made it into a hyperlink. Ok. Backspace. Remove it. Hit Space to type the next word. ACK!!!! Made it again. Go back. Remove again. Same thing. Sigh. The next words were:

($)*#)(%* )(*$%)(#*)(%*) ^%($%$(_% )_^$^ ($ *****######

Translate that into your local vernacular as you so choose. I suspect that you get the picture. Let's just say that even my cats ran away at this burst of bile and invective. And I figured it out, of course, but I'd offer three suggestions to the designers of Microsoft Word:

Automatically turn off auto hyperlink creation if a document is in page layout mode -- or ask the user when they change into it
Remember that the user just removed a link on a phrase. Why recreate it if 10 seconds ago they removed it?
If the user removes 2 or more hyperlinks in a document, ask them "Do you want auto hyperlinks turned off for this document?"

Whenever I hear someone say "There's nothing that Microsoft could add to Office", I think "Bullsh*". Office frustrates the every loving sh* out of people on a regular basis. Perhaps there is nothing more to add. Perhaps its a matter of fixing bad design decisions.

And I guess I'm not the Only One Bothered by Font Sizes:

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 21:13:59 GMT

And I guess I'm not the Only One Bothered by Font Sizes

Talk about serendipity -- Dave, Jakob and Jeffrey (and me) all focusing on the same issue at the same approximate time. Exalted company. Dave's right that the real fix comes at the browser level. Still as Mark showed us, it can be better than it is.

Triangulation. Both Jakob Nielsen and Jeffrey Zeldman ask Microsoft to let users control text size in MSIE/Win. Add my vote too. There are a few sites that I can't read because of text size issues. Some of them don't respond when I manually change the size. Further, MSIE resets the default font size when I choose it manually for one window, making me reluctant to ever set the font size through the menu. Instead I just don't read the sites that set the font size so small that my eyes can't parse the text. While MS is making changes, please also add a user pref that turns off the "open in new window" feature that Zeldman uses on his weblog. It's one of the most irritating things a website can do.

Here's a tip that a reader gave me: CTRL+Mouse Wheel scrolling increases or decreases the size. Very useful. I'd seen the effect before but never knew what triggered it.

Marketing 101: How to Piss Off Web Customers

Sun, 18 Aug 2002 11:40:04 GMT

Marketing 101: How to Piss Off Web Customers

Ok. This will be a short, brutal angry rant. I'll even admit it.

DUMP THE DAMN POPUPs IF YOU ARE TRYING TO SELL ME SOMETHING !!!!

Current Offender: Dell Computer, Refurbished Systems Page
Level of Stupidity: 10+
Waste of My Time: 10 - 20 seconds

==> Read Story <==

Thank You! Englers.org is now Accessible!

Sun, 18 Aug 2002 09:15:14 GMT

Thank You! Englers.org is now Accessible! And 401K Tidbits

Very cool. John made his website www.englers.org able to have the fonts resized. That's wonderful for me since I'm trying to NOT have my face all that close to the monitor and I'm trying to limit eyestrain (VI is up to 16 point font in a character terminal).

Here's his posting on 401Ks. Good stuff:

Take comfort dear investor... I am, especially after reading this quick read over at TMF. I read this story over at Newsweek, and sort of panicked about our 401(k), and then today TMF assuages my fears... and Josh is teaching me lessons all the time about LBYM.

The problem is not with 401(k) plans themselves but with the lack of education to go with them.

I recommend these couple of readings at TMF:

The 60 second guides to index investing, 401(k), and IRAs, all from the Motley Fool.

Moving to the GNU Free Documentation License for My PHP Writing

Thu, 15 Aug 2002 09:16:17 GMT

Moving to the GNU Free Documentation License for My PHP Writing

I think it was last Friday when Nosuch convinced me to expand the scope of my writings on PHP from an isolated set of essays here and there into a comprehensive work on building a large scale PHP application. Since I'm building an Open Source project, FuzzyOffice, it actually makes a lot of sense. And using a blog as a documentation mechanism for an Open Source work just plain appeals to me. So this brings up the question of license. Sure my code is going to be GPL'd but what about the documentation? I could take the approach of making the documentation dry and boring and then saving the entertaining writing for a commercially published work. No. I'm not doing that.

I'm the author of two (well 1 full book and partial author of 1 is more accurate) commercially published computer books published in the past 6 years and I have to say that I am suffering with rage about the process. I don't want to bother people with a brutal rant. I will comment that during the writing of my most recent computer book, I was so frustrated that I took the time to find a professional literary agent and consult with him. After discussing the situation with him, he made a very interesting comment that has been zinging around my brain ever since:

If you can write ANY other type of book besides a computer book then you should do so.

His point was very simple -- computer books are easy to get published but the compensation basically sucks, the publisher has all the control and it's pretty much a rigged game. And, on this, I'd have to agree with him. I'd also add that publishers are pretty much incompetent in general.

So, if I have rage against the system then, based on yesterday's essay, I should Open Source the documentation. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm taking a lead here from Mark Pilgrim's use of the GNU Free Documentation License that provides a legal framework for freely releasing written works. Thanks Mark!

NOTE: I'm not naive. I totally admit that my releasing this work means nothing in the greater scheme of things. It won't affect the market for PHP books at all. What it does do is a) make me happy b) put one more quality (hopefully) work out there c) make it easier for people in developing countries to learn tools like php (I'm a big believer in the third world) and d) take a stand. Like Mark I think that's important. It's all too rare these days when people take a stand. Still I look at things like the most excellent Rute guide to Linux and I have to wonder.... The Rute guide is a comprehensive guide to Unix. Check it out. And it's free. Think about it -- do you really need to buy that Unix book?

I hope to have more later today and the release of the 1st few chapters. I've very, very pleased. We even made a cover graphic!

NOTE: If you are knowledgeable about Radio then you've probably been reading ahead already.

About 8 Million [American] job seekers are vying for 3.5 million jobs

Wed, 14 Aug 2002 15:23:34 GMT

About 8 Million [American] job seekers are vying for 3.5 million jobs

I rarely touch politics in my blog since I am so politically disinterested but the all to obvious farce that was President Bush's economic summit yesterday inspired me to post this:

About 8 Million [American] job seekers are vying for 3.5 million jobs

Wall Street Journal August 14, 2002, Page B10

And we wonder why we can't find a job.

NOTE: The professional economists apparently lack all the historical data needed to confirm this number definitively. It's from the new "Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey" or Jolts. Still there seems to be validity to it and even if it's off by 50% then there are people who simply aren't going to get jobs. Period. Do the math. Here's another interesting quote:

"This time the data suggests that millions couldn't get a job even if they moved, upgraded their skills or took a job they once thought beneath them, says Jeffrey Wenger, an economist with with the labor backed Economic Policy Institute."

Scary. Just plain scary. But given the empirical data I have, based on people all over the country that talk to me online, all well skilled, talented people, I'd believe it.

Thanks Russ! Now for My Take on Rebol

Tue, 13 Aug 2002 09:09:49 GMT

Thanks Russ! Now for My Take on Rebol

It's amazing how relationships develop in BlogSpace. On ?Sunday? I got a nice comment from Russ in Spain (not Russ in Washington who writes about Radio). I responded and mailed it to him (tip: I recommend this if you want to build "community" around your blog; it works) as well as posting it. He fired back. I shot him some private thoughts on Groove, having been recently forced into using the rather large beast that is Groove. He then posted his Groove thoughts. Of which I pretty much agree although I am harsher (some of which is platform bias since the time of day when I need groove, I'm no longer working on Windows). He then draws an analogy with a new thing called Rebol. He argues that Rebol won't succeed because of privacy. My take is different and one that I emailed to Joe Friend a few months ago (I apologize if I already posted this, I intended to but never did).

[Approx Date: June 17]

Hi Joe,

Here's a couple of thoughts based on the obligatory 3 minutes of site surfing.

a) Sounds interesting

b) Proprietary but not wanting to admit it.

c) Requires client side software:

http://www.rebol.com/express-form.html

This is a huge disadvantage for you I would think. I don't know that much about indonesia but I would think that getting sw updates distributed would be a nightmare. And, I have rarely seen a client side vendor that doesn't regularly update. They all claim they don't but they always do and even the best of the self updating schemes require a full update from time to time. If it's of any size at all (and I think it has to be) that would be a nightmare.

d) Requires their own server. "To obtain an evaluation copy of our REBOL IOS Express client and a user account on our Express server, fill out the form below. Please provide enough information to help us understand your interest."

My guess is that developing stuff on their server from your location would be hard / time wasteful.

e) It's not open source. I know I sound like a broken record on this one but, more and more, I see the entire software biz dramatically changing within the next 2 - 5 years. And what I see is people moving to much more Open Source -- even for primary applications (office is the real exception). It's unclear to me that you can launch a new software product as a small company effectively -- and this is where the innovation happens. People can understand paying Microsoft, Bea, IBM or Sun for software but it's hard to make a big $$$ committment to a small company. Sure we can argue about Radio being an exception but Radio has huge momentum from the years of effort Dave put into Frontier and UserLand isn't a new company.

For almost every single category today you can find an open source equivalent that is as good as the proprietary solution if not better. And, while the support model for OS stuff is *different*, that doesn't mean it's bad at all. It's bizarre but it just plain works. Try hanging out on the php-general mailing list sometime and you'll be surprised at how quickly problems are resolved. Additionally I just plain find the quality in Open Source to be so much higher on certain projects that it is just bizarre by our standards. These people just plain care about their work. Drupal is an outstanding indication of this. I don't know all the team but Kjartan, one of the leads and my primary contact, is just plain unbelievable about this. I've honestly never seen anything like it -- and I used to think that I did a good job back when I had my company. I can (and am) learn from him.

My gut read of people in high tech, and I really don't think I am wrong about this, is that people are just plain damn sick to death of crappy software quality. We all feel that "well I paid for this, it should just plain work". I find it so unacceptable to pay for products when the Open Source version works better. Sure the UI may be lacking but when it works that's all that really matters (as long as it is basically usable). Look at my essay yesterday about Driving Customers Away. Within 2 hours, Hanan, one of my readers, popped up with a free alternative. And, realize too that "bugs", are highly user perception right now. I felt that JASC the company was bug ridden based on how they handled support@company.com. To some extent we are all looking for reasons not to purchase stuff when there are problems. I just don't have the tolerance for crap that I used to. None of us do. None of us do. If you're going to charge me then you damn well ought to be perfect. That may be a crappy ass attitude but it's increasingly common. We tolerate things from our legacy vendors (MS, Adobe, Lotus) that we just won't from new companies.

Disclaimer: Highly vertical markets are an exception as they always are.

Disclaimer: Enhancements / addons to proprietary products are an exception as are low priced utility software.

f) If you need communications protocols then I'd look at the Jabber stuff. It's actually pretty damn good. I'm gearing up to do some work in python and php on this if you need real feedback, wait 2 - 4 weeks.

g) I found this interesting: http://www.rebol.com/email-problem.html

Whenever I see people wanting to replace email, my alert meter goes up 50%. I'll be the last one to say that email is perfect -- but the core store and forward messaging concept is so damn strong that I find it hard to imagine something replacing it well -- without ending up just as email is. And, then, all we did is make a silly, proprietary vendor richer without solving the problems. I am a huge email fan because, even when the servers go down, etc, the mail just keeps flowing. We all make a big deal out of "it's in the email, didn't you get it? Oh, I'll resend it" -- but this is the new equivalent of "The dog ate my homework". It's just not all that true.

Bias disclaimer: I have a new product coming out in this space that adds into Outlook and makes email, well, suck less. Pre-release details available soon. This doesn't mean that I am wrong about this, it just gives you perspective. I have a commercial interest here so that may affect your perception. Be that as it may.

h) The company is just plain foolish, imho. IOS is a registered Cisco trademark and they are setting themselves up for a lawsuit.

i) You can't establish platform technology at present unless you are giant or it's free. This is going to fall into some kind of small nichey space unless they change direction and, based on my read of the management team, they won't. You either understand this or you don't. I find it very interesting that no one on the senior team ever built an Internet protocol / RFC. That's bad.

Summary

The product looks interesting. I see the issues of a client side piece being the most problematic. I also can't see making a strategic committment to any kind of "platform" technology without it being fully open source.

Gah! This ended up as an essay. I should go boolean more often. That's ok. I'll merge it into an blog soon enough. A lot of my stuff originates from this so I never mind writing emails.

Scott

Attention OS X Users: Sign the Petition!

Mon, 12 Aug 2002 21:15:44 GMT

Attention OS X Users: Sign the Petition!

Interesting:

To: Steve Jobs and Apple Computer, Inc.

On Wednesday, July 17, 2002, you spoke about Mac OS v10.2 in your keynote address at Macworld New York. The public and technology media was informed shortly thereafter that Apple would not be offering an upgrade price for existing users of the Mac OS X operating system. By our signatures below, we express our anger and outrage at this decision.

Many of us agree that some form of upgrade fee is warranted for to recompense Apple for time and money spent developing of the many new technologies packaged into 10.2. Few here believe it should be free. But we feel that by charging full price, you are doing great damage not only to your customers but to your own company. We point out the following problems:

* People feel the price differential is unfair. Upgrading from 9.x directly to Jaguar will cost a user $130. Someone who upgraded from 9.x to 10.0.x to 10.1.x, and now wants to upgrade to Jaguar, could end up spending well over $280. Existing OS X users, by their use of the OS, helped Apple work out bugs and discover which features had the highest demand. Why should you penalize them for their loyalty and "early adoption" mindset, which was a clear asset to you?

* Many of us wonder why you were not advised this could be a very unprofitable move. The psychological impact of asking former users to pay full price for an operating system they have already bought will be enough to hurt Jaguar sales a great deal. We respectfully suggest Apple would see greater economic profit by offering an upgrade fee, because resulting sales in that area will no doubt be more brisk than those from selling 10.2 at full price alone. In other words, a moderate discount for existing users could vastly increase the number of sales.

http://www.petitiononline.com/nopay129/petition.html

In case you are wondering, yes I did sign it and I did give a valid email address (but they will protect it for you). Worth signing if you are even thinking about OSX. $129 for a .2 upgrade is lunacy. If you are going to charge that much then at least have the audacity to bump the version number to 11.0.

Nerdy Acronyms 101

Sun, 11 Aug 2002 21:03:38 GMT

Nerdy Acronyms 101

Some nerdy acronyms for those fellow "life challenged" souls out there:

YASNWC. Yet Another Satuday Night Writing Code.
YANSN. Yet Another Nerdy Saturday Night.
YANW. Yet Another Nerdy Weekend.
YADWS. Yet Another Day Without Sunlight.
YADWOIF. Yet Another Day With Only IM Friends.

(But I actually did leave the computer today; even went to the beach).

Buy The Wall Street Journal Today!!!

Wed, 07 Aug 2002 10:08:23 GMT

Buy The Wall Street Journal Today!!!

Bloggers don't tend to pay much attention to the Wall Street Journal since it's a pay site, no rss, etc. Still the reporting is _outstanding_. It tends to have less spelling errors than they NY Times (which I find disgraceful, but that's just me). Anyway... Today's WSJ has detailed coverage of how the CEO of Tyco, currently under arrest for tax evasion, looted company coffers to fund his lifestyle to the tune of more than $135 million. This included the company paying for a Jimmy Buffet concert for his wife's birthday.

Unfreaking Believable. Unfreaking Believable.

My Baggage Redux

Fri, 19 Jul 2002 06:29:06 GMT

My Baggage Redux

Well still no baggage. I had yet another phone call with British Air (BA) and my luggage seems to have gone from Venice to Manchester England to JFK via British Air while I went from Venice to Amsterdam to Detroit to Boston via Northwest. But I have to give British Air this -- Northwest has never called me back on my missing luggage to say "We're still looking for it" -- they're FANTASTIC. BA has been calling me ever since they found it and we just keep missing each other (it's the phone tag game). So I'd like to say "Thank you Nicole from British Air Baggage Services for being persistent and getting me my bag." My next trip to London will, without question, be on British Air.

Supposedly I'll have my bag tomorrow via fedex. I'll let you know.

My Baggage Has Returned...

Wed, 17 Jul 2002 20:48:41 GMT

My Baggage Has Returned...

I got a call yesterday from British Air in Brooklyn. My bag, checked onto Northwest for Venice => Boston, went to JFK via British Air. Go figure. It's now being Fedex'd to me. It'll be interesting to see if it ever arrives. *Sigh*

75 Minutes to Travel 22.32 Miles, No Air Conditioning, Rush Hour -- And I Feel Great!

Tue, 16 Jul 2002 20:22:25 GMT

75 Minutes to Travel 22.32 Miles, No Air Conditioning, Rush Hour -- And I Feel Great!

Since I am selling my house at present, this is basically a blatant, shameless plug for the town I live in, Nahant, Massachusetts. If you've never lived in a beach front community, which Nahant is, then you've probably rarely if ever experienced this type of situation. I just had to drive back from my consulting partner's house since we wrapped early and I can be more productive on my own keyboard, my own caffeine supply, etc. I drove the 22.32 miles (thanks www.mapquest.com for the stats!) back home. Rush hour to the max, 10 minute waits at light (thanks to the Big Dig construction). And I was sweating like the proverbial porcine mammal. I mean I was just roasting. My car, which is apparently one of three left in the state of Massachusetts without air conditioning, is something I tend to avoid during the summer except for the Pre-Sun periods of the day and the Post-Sun periods of the day. Not practical I'll admit but I'm mostly home and looking to deal with the blatantly obvious car replacement issue after the house is sold.

Anyway, here's the plug. I live walking distance to a wonderful beach with nice sand and clean Atlantic water. Even better I drive past three of the four town beaches on the drive home. And today was the hottest I've been this summer. So I just stopped at the beach I prefer as I drove by. Got out, left my cell phone, wallet and laptop in the car, walked over the seawall in my standard consulting garb of shorts, polo shirt and Teva's and went right into the ocean. That's just plain cool. No towel, etc. Swam for a bit and then got back in the car for the last 1/4 mile home. I mean shorts are basically a bathing suit, the shirt needed to be washed and Tevas -- they're plastic!

Although this is a shameless endorsement and I'm hugely biased, that's what living in a beach front community is like. It's cool.

Let's See if TrafficMagnet Bothers to Respond

Sun, 07 Jul 2002 09:27:58 GMT

Let's See if TrafficMagnet Bothers to Respond

I just got yet another spam from TrafficMagnet -- this time based on an article I posted on www.phpbeginner.com. I emailed "Christine Hall" the blog url (below) of my bile filled rant about them. It'll be interesting to see if they respond.

Rant: http://radio.weblogs.com/0103807/2002/07/05.html#a353

I'm seriously considering adding a server side access deny to any requests from this domain. Sigh. IMHO, they are idiots beyond compare. (Why IMHO? Because this makes it a statement of opinion, not fact, and that lessens legal liability AFAIK).

Glossary:

IMHO = In My Humble Opinion
AFAIK = As Far as I Know

These People Suck: Traffic Magnet -- 100% Proof Positive Spammers

Fri, 05 Jul 2002 12:44:25 GMT

These People Suck: Traffic Magnet -- 100% Proof Positive Spammers

Given that I know way too much about spam, how it's generated and detection algorithms, I generally don't get pissed when I get spammed. Now I am. These people, www.trafficmagnet.com, just sent HTML spam to my pager. I don't ever give my pager out -- it's for either client emergencies or for automatic notification of downed servers (I have background monitoring routines looking for the presence of Apache, MySQL, SMTP, etc). So, since I never give it out, they either got it from one place where it's linked in from or my automatically generating the address programmatically.

Sigh. These people suck green, moldy, decaying rocks. So strongly not recommended it's not even funny.

Laptops, Linux, Restore CD's and Why I'll Never, Ever Buy a ThinkPad Again

Thu, 27 Jun 2002 12:45:52 GMT

Laptops, Linux, Restore CD's and Why I'll Never, Ever Buy a ThinkPad Again

Disclaimer: I don't want this to seem as whining. It's just an interesting commentary on the state of our PC's now (IMHO).

I tell you -- 22 + years of using PC based hardware and I've NEVER had an experience like the past month -- machines down, hard drives crashing, OS failures, etc. If it's bad and it involves computers I've probably had it in the last month. As I said to someone via IM last night:

==> Read Story <==

Feedback About SysAdmins

Wed, 26 Jun 2002 23:29:41 GMT

Feedback About SysAdmins

My piece about when you need the SysAdmin to "Leave the Building" generated a lot of input. Given that I've been at the keyboard since 3 am (below) continuous I'm not even going to try and rewrite my essay -- I'd just make a mess out of it. Instead you should read Kjartan's piece on this. He's a damn good admin as far as I'm concerned and he took what I wrote to the next level. Thanks Man!

And thanks to everyone else who responded on this one. I'm trying to compile them but it's been a baaaad day and it's going to take a bit. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. Why? PHP 4.2. It's a big deal when a new version of your main development language is arbitrarily installed by your ISP. My ISP decided to move to PHP 4.2. 4.2 has a new "improvement" -- form elements used to be automatically cast to variables on the fly. Wonderful feature. Now, in 4.2, they require declaration. And, yes, I know that I can configure this myself with a .HTACCESS file. Don't care. Don't care. Don't care. It's just plain nasty to change fundamentals in a move from 4.1x to 4.20. That's a 4.x to 5.0 change. Or if you have to introduce it then you make the default so it's not used.

My ISP didn't tell the customer in advance or even real time so when I noticed code stop working, I dove into a wasted hour of debugging only to find out afterwards what the problem was. That's 1 hour out of my life that my I feel my ISP's blatant arrogance, stupidity and utter disregard for their customers cost me. My response? Simple. I'm out of there. A migration that I would have put off until much later is in process NOW. Nothing like migrating a 650 megabyte website with no notice, don't you think ? I won't even bother to bitch to them. So when you wonder how you lose a customer? This is a great example: Make it "better" without asking if we want "better". I was fine. I've been with these guys since 99, spent several grand with them and now I hate them with the passion of a thousand dying suns (or with the anger of one really mean smelly Yak that hasn't eaten recently).

Oh and my laptop? The saga continues. More in a bit.

When I'm Wrong, I'm Wrong -- I Love Rackspace

Wed, 26 Jun 2002 19:09:58 GMT

When I'm Wrong, I'm Wrong -- I Love Rackspace -- And I'm a Customer Again

I wrote a critique of RackSpace back in April? in which I criticized one of their policies. And I'm happy to suck it up and admit that I'm a customer of theirs again. That's right -- I left and I went back. Why? Because when push comes to shove, I'm fanatical about things like uptime, reliability and customer service. And so are they. I know the definition of 5 9s and while I'm not there yet, I feel pretty good that with a server from them located in their data center, I have a chance of getting there. So, yes, they are more expensive. And, yes, you pay for everything. But you know what? It's 100% worth it. In less than 1 day I've gotten more done in terms of raw SysAdmin stuff than I have in about 3 weeks with stinky, crappy, brand x. And a lot of the reason was that they have fantastic tech support. I mean just fantastic. I'm currently getting even tough problems resolved pretty dang quick.

Note: I still think my RackSpace essay was on point -- it wasn't how I would have done it -- but does that really matter? The important thing for me is that I have a reliable data center that I know will just plain work.

RackSpace. Highly Recommended.

Sidebar: Understanding "5 9s"

The term 5 9s is really, really simple but misleading if you never saw the math. All it means (and if I have this wrong, I know someone will let me know) is that if your service, whatever it is, is "5 9s" then it's online and usable for 99.999% of the year. So I made a little spreadsheet that looks at a full year's time and what this means in terms of uptime.

# 9s	%age that Means	Days Per Year	Hours Per Year	%of that Time You are Up in Hours	Amount of Time You Are Down in Hours	Time You Are Down in Days	Time You Are Down in Minutes
2 9s	99.0000%	365	9125	9034	91.2500	3.8021	5475
3 9s	99.9000%	365	9125	9116	9.1250	0.3802	547.5
4 9s	99.9900%	365	9125	9124	0.9125	0.0380	54.75
5 9s	99.9990%	365	9125	9125	0.0912	0.0038	5.475
6 9s	99.9999%	365	9125	9125	0.0091	0.0004	0.5475

So if you are only 99% reliable that actually is exactly the same thing as saying "Mr. CEO Sir? We're going to turn the web site off for 3.8 days". That's not a good thing. I know that my stuff will probably never by 5 9s but why not try? Quality. It's a good thing.

If You Are an ISP: Here's EXACTLY How to Lose A Customer

Wed, 26 Jun 2002 09:26:52 GMT

Remember CTRL+A, CTRL+C -- My "Software Bug" Condom

Just reminding you of it since I just lost an entire essay when I forgot and then I clicked on Post & Publish in Radio (it just went into the ether) when it didn't work. Notice that the title of this piece has no resemblance to what this post is about? That's because when you backtrack with the rich edit control under Internet Explorer for Windows, you lose content in that form object -- but not in a normal form object. And so it goes (sad too since it was a good angry rant). Oh well.

Interesting: It's seems to be tied to the # of visible windows on screen -- not the amount of memory (I'm at 1/2 gig of RAM). I close more windows and then I can do stuff. Anyone got a thought here? I'd say it's GDI resource leaks but I thought more RAM made that better. And I never saw GDI crap affect server style stuff like Radio but perhaps ...

www.pageseeker.com = Actually an Evil Spammer

Wed, 26 Jun 2002 08:16:28 GMT

www.pageseeker.com = Actually an Evil Spammer

Long time readers may recall that I have something going on in the Email space. I talked about it at the beginning of this blog when I thought we were about to ship (yup, I can blow ship date estimates as well as everyone else -- when it's my own code -- not a client's thankfully). Now that we just got the install routines written, which of course illustrated some new interesting errors to fix, ah yes, love software, we're starting to feel better about talking about it.

I just got a new spam that indicates to me how much we are on track in terms of the need for our product. The product, which will remain unnamed for now, is an inline anti spam system for a leading email product and does lots and lots more (think about our background in implementing relevancy ranking in search and retrieval and you'll get some ideas -- and then you'll still be surprised). We've basically rethought email based on about 18 months of thinking and ten months of coding. One of the reasons why I expose my personal email address so much is to get as much spam as possible. If it gets past our spam filters then we rebuild them / rethink them. So, anyway, pageseeker...

I just got an email that sneakily slipped by us. It had one of those oh so lovely hard core pornographic images embedded in it via a <IMG tag and it got by us because all the textual content was graphical, not text. Sneaky!. Sigh. Unacceptable. The concept of someone's 7 year old child or, worse, my Mother getting this is basically our criteria for a successful anti-spam routine. Explanation: My partner in this project, someone I've worked with for 15 years now, is a Dad with another on the way and my Mother now uses the Internet. I do not have any kids.

Anyway, back on track: Drop into analysis mode. Tracert it, nslookup, etc. And I discover that www.pageseeker.com is sharing the same damn IP address with this hardcore site. So, either www.pageseeker.com just happens to be on the same box by chance or what looks to be somewhat legit is actually a pornographer. Sigh. Here's the thought:

PAGESEEKER: WOULD YOU PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL?

I mean there isn't anything wrong with pornography; it's a personal thing. And that's not something I even bother to debate anymore. Flames on this topic don't even get read anymore, they just go to /dev/null so feel free. And bear in mind that I don't have any personal issues in this area -- I just think that it's a personal choice that shouldn't be forced on anyone. And when you deliver hardcore imagery right to a mail box that may have Preview Pane turned on, that is forcing it and that's just plain wrong. (And that's how my day started -- go into email -- cursor down -- and Yikes!). And then it got worse. More in a bit.

If You Ever Buy Groceries With Your ATM Card, You Want to Read This

Thu, 20 Jun 2002 10:09:52 GMT

Check Your Bank Statement: Using that ATM Card May Cost You $1.50 PER PURCHASE!

If You Ever Buy Groceries With Your ATM Card, You Want to Read This!!!

NOTE: For international readers, this is U.S. centric (as far as I know).

The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran an article about how when you use debit cards i.e. an ATM Card at the Grocery Store, you may be getting, well, royally screwed. Apparently banks get less transaction fees when your ATM card is used as a debit card than as a credit card. The difference here is that a debit card doesn't require a signature and, since the $$$ come out of your account in real time, there isn't even a chance of them making interest on the transaction. They are arguing that the fees are justified because since there isn't a signature there is a greater chance of fraud. Horse puckey I say. Horse puckey. That's what the PIN is for.

So, rather than being the normal slacker, uninformed consumer that I am, I looked at my online bank statement. Here's what I wrote someone in an email about this:

It's not EVERY time you use the debit card that it costs $1.50 per transaction but it is at least some of the time. This seems to be true at least for Super Stop and Shop part of the time.

06/14/02 Debit Card Purchase: Sssc Swampscot MA -103.47

06/14/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

(that was my groceries).

Here's the list of fees from 5/23 to 6/19:

06/19/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

06/03/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

06/10/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

05/28/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

06/14/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

06/03/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

06/10/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

05/23/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

05/31/02 ATM Network Fee -1.50

That's 9+.5*9 or 13.50 in BANK FEES! JUST FOR USING MY ATM CARD!

Talk about unbelievable, unrelenting, just plain unacceptable greed. For years banks have been trying to get us all to use ATM cards for purchases. And now this. No wonder!

Class action consumer lawsuit anyone?

Fighing Back!

I set up an email account, atmfees@fuzzygroup.com to capture feedback. If anyone wants to send emails of fees they've been charged that would be very cool. I'll publish it in a week or two. DO NOT send any sensitive financial info of course. And I have mis-stated any facts, etc or someone has links to this piece (the WSJ has no permalinks for non subscribers) then email scott@fuzzygroup.com and I'll get them posted.

The Stop and Shop complaint list is 800 767 7772 if this happens to be where you were screwed on fees (they're big in the north east at least).

The Pennies Option

I'm strongly tempted to start paying for groceries in pennies, dimes and quarters as a protest action. A long time ago when The Interface Group (the producers of Comdex) treated me very, very poorly, I paid a $2,000 plus bill in about 18+ boxes of loose change shipped UPS to them. And I didn't tell them who much was in each the box... I never had a problem again. After all... Legal Tender is Legal Tender. This is very frustrating even for you but oh so satisfying. A National Pay in Change Day anyone?

Change My Bank

As an FYI, my bank is Fleet out of Boston. I suspect that I will NOT be a Fleet customer much longer. Does anyone's bank not do this? Any recommendations?

Want to Forward this to Someone Else?

If you want to send this to someone else, use this url:

http://www.fuzzygroup.com/go/?atmfees

(Hey -- a lot of people who aren't bloggers don't get the permalink icon so why not make it easy for them?)

This Just Blows: Internet Ecommerce for Software Should Be Immediate

Tue, 18 Jun 2002 01:45:50 GMT

This Just Blows: Internet Ecommerce for Software Should Be Immediate

I just bought a windows installer package. I looked at InstallShield, Wise, MindVision and others. And I ended up picking Wise and now I'm sorry I did. It's not the product, I haven't gotten it yet. Here's the two problems:

The price changed between yesterday and today by $100 -- more expensive. No idea why. When I tried to call, I got the "Hours are from M-F, 9-5" line.
Sigh. Done. I did the ecommerce ordering at 7:03 this evening (or thereabouts, it was after 5). When I finished I got this astoundingly stupid message:

Thank you for choosing WISE.

Orders are processed Monday through Friday between 8:30 and 6:00 EST .
Typical processing time is one hour.

You will receive an order confirmation via e-mail, instructions on how to download your product(s), and the total billed to your credit card when your order is processed.

I had time set aside (actually Brian, my partner in email crime, had time set aside) to do this tonight. Now it's not until tomorrow morning and then at whenver they get around to it. Hello? Clue Free? Are you there? And so it goes.

Kuro5hin is Broke: But Am I All that Surprised?

Mon, 17 Jun 2002 18:02:13 GMT

Kuro5hin is Broke: But Am I All that Surprised?

One of my favorite sites, but not one I actually visit often, is broke and needs cash. Rusty's story on this. Well worth reading. A great piece of work.

Comments and Why I am Not Surprised

NOTE: No matter how I write this you are about 95% likely to think either:

Scott's just an idiot
Scott's being pissy to a great site.

Neither of these is accurate to any degree. There is a fundamental disconnect between users of sites and designers of sites. This disconnect turns me, as an advertiser, away at the door. This story shows how far we differ from designers -- and I am both a *nix guy and a programmer and a regular reader of sites like this.

==> Read Story <==