By Ruben(nerd) Schade, a UTS university student and IT guy in Sydney and Singapore. c.2004
So I re-claimed my blog on Technorati after they stopped pulling in items from my feed. This was the response I got:
Nov 21, 2012. This site does not appear to be a blog or news site. Technorati does not support claiming of forums, product catalogs, and the like. You can review our site quality guidelines at http://technorati.com/blog-quality-guidelines-faq/.
Oh, please. Time to put my account with them to pasture, me thinks.
So I wanted to download some trial software from Adobe.com. No wait, scratch that, I was required to download some trial software from Adobe.com. This is My Tale.
Firstly, I'm fully aware that I'm a paranoid internet user. I run NoScript for dynamic content, XSS protection and a slew of other privacy and security features, PermitCookies for cookies and RequestPolicy for XSRF protection. These tools all operate on a whitelist principle; that is block everything by default unless I explicitly make an exception.
Most sites break with these extensions blocking everything, but temporary exceptions allow sites that were written poorly (in my opinion!) to work. That is, except Adobe.com. No matter what I did with these extensions, Adobe.com refused my login credentials, and when I attempted to create a new account just in case my old password didn't work, the site refused to finish the signup form.
For a company with billions in the bank and with the specialities they have, this is inexcusable. I'm sorry, but I don't buy into the idea that it's my fault for my privacy and security extensions if almost every other site is able to work without problems!
So eventually I gave up attempting to use Firefox to access this site, so I fired up Camino. Before I got extremely paranoid Camino was my favourite Mac browser, and I still use it for sites that refuse to play nicely with my bolted down Firefox installs.
After ascertaining that the site wouldn't log me in because I'd forgotten my password (which they didn't inform me of in Firefox), I went through the process of resetting my password. Adobe.com assured me they'd be sending me an email to my elected email account with a link to reset my password.
That was over two hours ago, and nothing arrived. Nothing in my spam folders or filters, nothing. Eventually I gave up and opted to create a new account with a disposable email address, which fortunately worked.
I got a kick out of the fact the sign up screen truncated the Australian Capital Territory rather than just abbreviating it, and that they informed me my password was not between 6-12 characters. That's right, Adobe complained that my password was too secure. @ShaunLorrain on Twitter knows what I'm talking about.
@Rubenerd I know right, @Adobe always tells me my password is too long or complex.
Seriously though, who designed this facacta site? What a bunch of jabronis.
Of course downloading trialware from Adobe can't be easy either. Adobe, like IBM/Lotus and Microsoft, can't just give us a direct download to the software we're requesting, they have to get us to download a stub application that is then used to download the application. Reminds me of this dialog box on Windows that I blogged about, and my adventures with downloading Windows 7.
Unfortunately its even worse than the obnoxious Java applet you need to run from IBM to download Lotus Symphony. Like the Microsoft download tool, Adobe actually makes you download an application to your desktop in the form of the Akamai Download Manager that then downloads the file you requested.
I like to keep my systems extremely neat, clean and tidy, and I simply don't install software unless I have to. Considering I spent most of my living days in front of computers, my /Applications folder on my Macs and my package managers on FreeBSD and Linux are kept reasonably trim. The fact I have to download and install software to download and install software... is offensive. It means I have to uninstall the junkware they got me to install... to install something. Given Adobe's appalling software security track record and the fact they're software is known to be the most insecure in the industry now, installing extra software from then puts me on edge.
As of now this download is moving along at about 430KB/s, which means it should be done in about an hour. Granted at least their downloads are faster than getting drivers from HP, if I were downloading 1.72GiB of stuff from them I'd be waiting for weeks for it to finish. Not an exaggeration!
In the meantime, if you'll excuse me, I'll be using Inkscape!
It just keeps getting worse.
Australian customs officers have been given new powers to search incoming travellers' laptops and mobile phones for pornography, a spokeswoman for the Australian sex industry says.
This internet filter, our delapidated IT and communications infrastructure, refusal to classify mature games... all this from a supposed free Western society. I have offically lost what little respect I had for my birth country.
As Jim Kloss said on my post on the subject before:
Educated people, when treated badly, will simply leave.
When I'm treated with more respect by foreign officials than people in the country of my citizenship, I know there's something wrong. :/
In what could be characterised as classic duopoly abuse, Woolworths supermarkets here in Australia have announced they will no longer honour Visa debit card requests. Ugh.
I have a Visa debit card with my credit union, it's been fantastic. I can pay for goods and services online and sign for things in shops but the money comes from my checking account instead of an expensive line of credit that I don't trust myself to be responsible with. Credit transactions are also free, unlike direct debit EFTPOS (the Aussie equivalent to Singapore's NETS) which incurs a small charge each time.
What this Woolworths decision means is that when I give them my card to pay for groceries, I won't be allowed to say credit anymore and I'll be forced to use EFTPOS. This way Woolworths pawns the cost of the transaction to me. Yeah, gee, thanks guys.
I shop at Woolworths here at Mawson Lakes because they're walking distance from my house and they have a really good selection of stuff. A lot of the produce comes from here in South Australia which I argue has some of the best food in the country (despite being born a New South Welshman!).
While overall I prefer living in Singapore, supermarkets there are either extremely expensive (Cold Storage charges double digits for small blocks of cheese) or their selection is abysmal (NTUC Fairprice is in many ways a glorified 7-11). You also constantly have to check where food is made, because if it comes from the United States chances are it'll be laden with partially hydrated corn syrup... YUCKIES! Except for grains from Bob's Red Mill in Oregon, that stuff is so wholesome and tasty it should be illegal.
That said, this move by Woolworths is kick in the pants of their customers, and what's worse they know they can get away with it. With most Aussies only having a choice between Woolworths or Coles in shopping centres and whatnot, this kind of blatant exploitation is almost the norm rather than the exception.
What I want to know is whether this kind of behaviour is legal. I know cash is the only form of legal tender, but if they have signs in their window advertising they take Visa, MasterCard, ChuckPeddle and the like, are they allowed to refuse it just because it's a debit card? Is it false advertising?
Might be time to send a letter to the Better Business Bureau, assuming they haven't been inundated with correspondence about this already.
Is there an IGA or Foodland within walking distance of Mawson Lakes?
Ladies and gentlemen, this evening it has come to my attention that I grievously forgot an event so epic in size and importance that I may be feeling the repercussions for many millennia to come, assuming my plan to live forever pans out. I forgot @Zombie_Plan's Birthday.
Now you must understand, I've never met Mr Plan. Our communications have primarily consisted of 140 character or less Twitter messages and the occasional blog post. As such I have long since suspected that he isn't real, he's either:
So here's my thinking. If the former assertion is true, then this person is a fake and therefore doesn't have a birthday, unless you count the day the fake persona went online. If the latter is true, as far as I know computers don't have birthdays because they're not birthed, unless you consider programming and sophisticated fabrication and construction to be a metaphorical equivalent.
In either event, I submit to you dear reader that I did not forget Zombie_Plan's birthday, for in fact he/she/it does not possess one. Happy Birthday sir, when I make it back to Adelaide for the last time we'll have to do coffee or beer or pancakes or grilled cheese sandwiches or a sickening combination of all four!
And finally some blatant spam linking on his behalf:
Dear CNET Member: Get ready for this year's big game by creating a new list on CNET, and enter to win a new LED TV in the Samsung Super Bowl Wish List Sweepstakes! [...]
SWEEPSTAKES OPEN TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF ONE OF THE 50 UNITED STATES OR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AT LEAST 18 YEARS OR AGE OF MAJORITY IN STATE OF RESIDENCE AND OLDER ON DATE OF ENTRY. [...]
Dear CNET, I provided my location in my account profile with you, please don't send me spam that doesn't even relate to me. Sincerely, Ruben in Singapore and Australia.
This sort of thing happens to me all the time, and not just from CNET. How hard would it be to check a user's provided country before sending them offers and competitions they're not eligible for? One or two extra lines of code?
Won't make any difference of course.
Ruben Schade
Singapore and Adelaide, Australia
Planet EarthCopenhagen Summit delegates
Copenhagen, Denmark
Planet EarthTo the leaders in Copenhagen,
Regarding your abject failure in your duties.We had low hopes and expectations, and you delivered exactly what we expected. I don't know whether it was a few of you who hamstrung the negotiations or whether you all played your own part, and to be blunt I don't care. Collectively, the results are the same.
As supposed custodians of this beautiful planet Earth, and as supposed representitives of us, the people of Earth, you have let down your constituents in ways you apparently can't begin to fathmon.
May you have a more joyeous holiday season than the rest of us.
Peace, health and happiness,
~ Ruben
It seems that fix for the Huawei USB SingTel Mobile modem I painstakingly detailed last week has stopped... fixing. Stopped working. Like a Monty Python parrot, it has ceased to exist. What's worse is the error message is informing me I have to contact myself. Don't they know talking to yourself is the first sign of madness? I mean, I talk to myself enough as it is.
Damn straight Chanandler Bing, I didn't want that page I wanted Google! Wonder if any data got Sidekicked?
To be fair Gmail was out again a few months ago too, so it's just further proof that all this reliance on cloud computing whatnot is a problem.
Dell's profits are way down, and Microsoft makes a move that could scare beige box makers even more.
CNET is reporting in an article surprisingly titled Dell earnings down 54 percent that Dell's earnings are down 54%. What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders ^_^.
This comes on the heels of Microsoft's downright bizarre move to brand an Acer notebook computer as their own, presumably in an attempt to deliver the same vertical experience Apple does. Much as they abandoned their PlaysForSure partners (with an outdated web page to boot) and went with their own integrated Zune system, could this be a sign Microsoft are willing to start their own hardware business to compete with their own partners in the personal computer space?
The recession, these moves by Microsoft, the razor thin profit margins on netbooks, it's certainly not a good time to be a beige box PC manufacturer. Especially when your products are being sold in stores where creepy, cringeworthy things like this happen. Run away!
I agree with No Illusions and G'day World host Cameron Reilly's comment on Twitter, it's almost as if Microsoft's strategy is to be as lame and embarrassing as possible. Another example of programmers and engineers like Nick Hodge being stifled by management and a marketing department that are so breathtakingly out of touch with the outside world it beggars belief.
