Rubenerd

A quick tip for those who had the same trouble I had this afternoon!

The message of doom

IMPORTANT: You must verify your email address before your listings can become active. You can verify your email address by clicking the link that was sent to you when you registered. If you need us to send you a new Activation Email, Click Here. If you need to change your email address, enter your new email address below and click the Update button. A new Activation Email will sent automatically to that address.

If you decide to change your email address in the Personal Information screen on Mocca, you should receive an email verifying your new address. Problem is, if you click the the "Click Here to Verify Your Email Address" graphic in the email, it takes you here:

http://www.mocca.com/login.cmp?sfid=###STOREFRONTS_ID###&activationcode=###ACTIVATION_CODE###

I didn't put those words in as variables, literally that's the link that's provided! Clearly someone at Mocca didn't substitute the variables in their string. That's what she said.

Fortunately, at the bottom of the message there's a misleadingly labelled link called "Click Here to Activate your Mocca listing". Clicking THIS link will activate your new email address.

At least I didn’t have to contact support

I've been moving off Gmail over the last week or so, and so far VMware and Mocca are the only sites that have given me trouble.

In the space of 48 hours, we lost two figures so pivotal in the post-Soviet world, or as Mr Havel referred to as "Post-Totalitarianism". The two men could not have been more different.

One worked in the Czech underground forming a resistance to Soviet influence, and left behind a peaceful, democratic, developed country with the highest living standards in the former Communist Bloc. He was an author, a playwright, a poet, a visionary, a jazz man, and a humanitarian.

The other man, was Kim Jong Il. Sadly, the recently deceased Christopher Hitchens would no doubt have had a brilliant line to describe Kim's passing. He traveled to North Korea, and often spoke at length of Kim's cult of personality. Here's hoping Korean can one day regain her peace.

Farewell Mr Havel. I'm downloading your Charter 77 to read on my Kindle as we speak.

UPDADE: Here is a transcript of Mark Colvin interviewing Christopher Hitchens about North Korea in 2010.

In a world where it's taboo to criticise religious figures and dogma that claim to know and represent all while rendering women subservient, homosexuals evil, safe sex in AIDS-torn countries unattainable, repression of minority groups acceptable, and holding back of ethical, scientific and medical progress as a virtue with faith, Christopher Hitchens was one of the precious few throughout history to stand up and shout "that's enough".

"Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence."

At times we didn't see eye to eye, but I harbored a deep respect for The Hitch, and unashamedly reveled in witnessing him deconstruct arguments leveled against him with honesty, passion, wit, and a memory for facts and quotes that rendered his logical arguments unassailable. Love him or hate him, but you could never ignore him.

"The only known cure for poverty is the empowerment of women"

Here's to you Mr Hitchens, you glorious bastard. Thank you for teaching us to think in the face of those who would deny us the privilege, that we need no celestial oversight to lead rich, meaningful lives, and to treasure this one shot we'll have on this planet. You'll be missed.

“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.”

The first photo is from Christopher's appearance on Australia's QandA programme in 2009, which I blogged about at the time. The second photo is my own personal stash of Hitch, complete with an interview from the Sydney Morning Herald last year about his declining health and views on the universe.

The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq this morning, crossing into Kuwait and ending the American withdrawal nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The military intervention began in March 2003 with missiles striking Baghdad and closes with Iraq a fragile democracy still facing insurgents and sectarian tensions. ~ RTE News

I remember sitting having lunch in high school in Singapore when the invasion was announced. Little did we know.

US soldiers may be leaving, but in their place are investment bankers and a whopping 15,000 embassy staff. Make no mistake, the occupation isn't over.

Was a "flat filing cabinet" for weeks while I was feeling ill. I actually have space now!

Next step, some more cable ties. The IKEA racks that keep the cables tidy under the desk are starting to max out. Not that I'm trying to think of another excuse to go to IKEA, mind.

I wanted to change the email address assigned to my VMware account. Should be pretty simple, right?

What I thought I would have to do

1. Visit VMware.com, click Log In and enter my credentials.

2. Click Access and Update Profile

3. Under “Email Address”, change the address, then click Continue.

What I ended up doing

1. Visit VMware.com, click Log In and enter my credentials.

2. Click Access and Update Profile.

3. Tried to click “Email Address” to change the address, but the text field was disabled. Under the field read “Your email address cannot be updated online. If you need to change it, choose one of our Support contact options”

4. Rubbed my eyes, checked to make sure I was reading it correct that I couldn’t update my email address online, and that I’d need to contact a support person to do it.

5. Clicked Support contact options.

6. Clicked File a Customer Service Request.

7. Filled out the form, said who I was, and what I wanted to change my email address to.

8. Step two asked if I wanted to attach a screenshot to my support claim. I took a screenshot of the above email address, but uploading failed with a Java [sic] error. Gave up, just clicked Continue again.

9. An unrequested popup window launched asking me to rate through a series of questions my experience with VMware support, despite having only just sending my support message through.

10. Was told I’d have to wait 24 to 48 hours. At least fortunately, someone got back to me within 2 hours.

11. Was given a link to a different online form where I can register with a new email address, and was informed support staff would transfer my VMware licences to the new registered address. This was due to the fact VMware “has no option” to update addresses in existing accounts.

12. Changed email address, completed registration.

What has this Saga taught us?

To VMware's credit, their support staff were helpful and got the job done in record time, though I still think I shouldn't have to go through such a rigamarole just to update my email address. Something tells me perhaps my keys are derived from my email address somehow… I have no other reasonable explanation given I've been changing email addresses on hundreds of sites over the last week without ever running into an issue like this.

In any event, I think VMware should revise the statement on their Update Profile page to more accurately address what is required to change an email address, rather than just providing an indirect link to contact account support. To me, that's akin to asking a software user to contact their system administrator when something goes wrong.

If we needed any further proof how breathtakingly out of touch some people are, look no further than this contributed article to Forbes If I Was a Poor Black Kid.

If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently.

[..] I’d use the free technology available to help me study. I’d become expert at Google Scholar. I’d visit study sites like SparkNotes and CliffsNotes to help me understand books.[..]

Technology can help these kids. But only if the kids want to be helped. Yes, there is much inequality. But the opportunity is still there in this country for those that are smart enough to go for it.

Jaw, meet floor. Could he have been any more condescending if he tried?

The story has generated over 75 pages of comments on Forbes, not to mention dozens of articles written in response. I think Cord Jefferson from GOOD put it best.

Marks believes that the only thing low-income minorities have to overcome is terrible teachers and a lack of technological knowledge; the rest of their problems stem from outright laziness.

UPDATE: Not appreciating the irony in his article heading, Gene Marks has changed it to If I Were a Black Kid. The original title is still in the permalink.

Photo from the Kheel Center, Cornell University Flickr account, also found through Cord Jefferson's article.

Some over reported news:

Alec Baldwin likes [Zynga’s] Words With Friends, the Scrabble game available on multiple platforms including the iPhone, so much that he missed a flight because of it. [..] On Tuesday, Baldwin was kicked off an American Airlines plane at the Los Angeles International Airport and had to switch to a different flight.

A more recent update on older news:

Online games powerhouse Zynga is shooting for $1 billion in its IPO, according to an amended prospectus filed on Friday morning.

Well, what do you know.

CNET is reporting Dell will no longer be selling netbooks, due to falling demand and likely low profit margins:

Dell is [no] longer interested in selling Netbooks–that category of 10-inch class laptops that saw mild success for a couple of years but is now facing a serious existential crisis.

And here was Michael Dell's backhanded comment about HP deciding to stop selling PCs, less than 6 months ago, due to falling demand and low profit margins:

Goodbye HP, Sorry you don’t want to be in PCs anymore..But we do more than ever. How would you say goodbye to HP?

How would you say goodbye to Dell?

Hot off the heels of hiring their next CEO in as many years, HP have updated their logo again, three years after I blogged about their last logo change. Eventually they'll update and restore their consumer business too!

HP, number 3? #Rhyme

When I first read on The Twitters that HP were updating their logo, initially I was unfased. Or is it "un-phased"? I've been obsessing over too much Star Trek again recently. In any event, I expected the updated version of their logo to be an evolutionary step once more, just as their removal of the rectangle in 2008 was.

Turns out, while the logo is being heralded as an evolutionary change, to me it's anything but. In place of their original, timeless H and P letters… wait, hold the phone. H and P… HP… Hewlett Packard! And here I was thinking they just used lowercase H and lowercase P because they looked like the inverse of each other! Now that's smart!

Sarcasm aside though, what I loved about their old logo was the clever use of the letters which double-mirrored each other. You know when you dip something in chocolate, and then you dip something in chocolate again? This is what HP did with their old logo. Double everything is good. Well, almost double everything.

Degrees of separation

Their latest logo retains the classic HP 13 degree sweep, which even seems to be asserted more now in mockups of their business documents, letterheads and such. That much I can appreciate, some may scoff at trivial things like this, but the fact the angle of these lines has been a part of their corporate brand for so long and they've been able to keep it in the current design is hat-tip worthy. If I were wearing a hat.

In place of the letters however are four lines of two differing lengths, which if you're short sighted like me resemble HP if I put them on my screen and proceed to walk 20 metres away. Up close though, for some reason I keep seeing an elephant raising an arm to ask a question. Or leg, or whatever it is elephants have.

Why change a timeless logo like this that has its roots in 1941? HP is facing unprecedented challenges of late; their consumer businesses are struggling, arguably their largest acquisitions haven't gone over so well, they've gone through more CEOs than I have all time favourite anime characters, to not even speak of their mixed performance in the enterprise. The company needed a distraction, and they got one in this new logo.

Like mustard mixed with custard, branding is a funny thing. It's easy to dismiss, but sometimes a change of clothes can transform a person. Will a refresh of this logo refresh HP's fortunes? Will they start making the 16C again? I'd be happy if they did that. For now, let's just wait and see.

Thanks to the always fascinating Brand New for the graphic and information.