Certified Farmers' Market Newsletter

hey friends,

we'll be at downtown sacramento's farmer's market this sunday--will we see you there? let me know via email or direct message on twitter! (direct message get sent as a text to my mobile. w & 8th st, downtown sac.

mike

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Certified Farmers Market <farmersmarkets@comcast.net>
Date: Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 11:46 AM
Subject: Certified Farmers' Market Newsletter
To: mapaul@gmail.com

Week of Monday, July 27th

Ready for Market Several varieties of melons are now ready, including red and yellow watermelon, cantaloupe, ambrosia, and honeydew melons. Did you know a 1 cup serving of cantaloupe has only 60 calories, and over 100% your daily value of both vitamins A and C? Peaches and nectarines of all sizes are available at the market. A true taste of summer is the plump and dark Fantasia nectarine. These are expected soon, so make sure you have a paper towel or a sink handy because they are juicy! Plums and pluots of all colors are ready too. Green Gage plums are golden and green with a mellow and sweet taste. Dapple Dandy pluots are a favorite variety named for their signature red spots. Flavor King is a sweet-tart variety of pluot with darker skin. Apricots are reaching the end of their season. Strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries are still for sale at many markets. Of these, strawberries have the longest season. All of these berries are a good source of dietary fiber. Now is a great time to make a vibrant and appetizing salsa. Finely chopped yellow and red onions and minced garlic are a must. California jalapenos will add plenty of spice. Fresh leaves of cilantro will provide authentic character. And four different colors of tomatoes are just more fun than one. Red and yellow Bartlett pears have arrived. It is the first pick, so if you prefer pears that are soft, you may choose to place them in a closed paper bag to encourage the natural ripening process. There are plenty of grill-friendly vegetables to choose from. Try seasoning thin slices of summer squash and Japanese or Thai eggplant. Huge Walla Walla Onions (also called Hangtown Sweets) are also available at several markets. And of course, don't forget the sweet corn. Grapes are now ready. Seedless Red Flame are a popular and sugary sweet variety. Tomatoes with History Chances are, if you shop at the local farmers' market you've picked up an unusual looking tomato. Perhaps it weighed over a pound and had flame-like yellow stripes, and you remarked to yourself, "this is NOT your grandma's tomato!" This tomato, an heirloom tomato, might not be your grandma's, but its history goes back many generations. Heirloom varieties are tomato plants that have not been modified. Instead, many heirloom varieties are the same as they were 100 years ago. Their seeds were likely saved and passed down through family members, including grandmothers, through the changing generations. This is how they earned the name heirloom. Now that heirloom tomatoes have gained popularity, their seeds and plants are more widely available, but their growing methods remain traditional. Here are some varieties available at the market: Black Prince: This juicy variety has a thin reddish-brown skin with green flesh in the inside. It is originally from Siberia, and was considered quite rare in the United States until recently. Cherokee Purple: One of the sweetest tomato varieties. It is medium sized with a mixture of dark green and red on the inside. Many people believe this variety originated with the Cherokee Indians and is more than 100 years old. Marvel Striped: This variety originated in Oaxaca, Mexico. The Zapotec people who were indigenous to the area over 2500 years ago are likely to have first cultivated this variety, as well as other pleated tomatoes. Marvel striped can be medium sized and round or grow large and pleated. It is always a beautiful warm gold with coral stripes, and has a lovely fruity flavor. A similar-lookng fruit named Mr. Stripey originates from 19th century Mennonites who farmed in the Appalachian region of Virginia. It has a mild low-acid flavor. Note: some people refer to the hybrid Tigerella as "Mister Stripey," but this is an entirely different tomato. Brandywine: Most of these tomatoes are very large and dense, and are prone to cracking. Sometimes the cracks and the heft are the best indications of a truly delicious Brandywine. They have bright colorful stripes and come in colors ranging from red and pink to yellow. It is said that the seeds came from the Sudduth family who had kept the variety for 80 years before passing them to an Ohio farmer, Ben Quisenberry. He introduced them to the Seed Savers Exchange in 1982 and the rest is... history.

Please Help Spread the Word & Forward to Friends Thank You!

For times and locations, go to www.MarketLocations.com You can also subscribe to this newsletter.

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Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

I'm in ur sidewalkz, blockn ur wheelchairz --Signed, Miramonte Trovas Mgmt

Here's an example of the douchebag in Mitamonte Trovas's front leasing office who parks his motorcycle in the middle of the leasing office's entrance. He parks it there to demonstrate two things:
 
1. How much the staff and maintenance enjoy taking shortcuts and treating their residents (wow, especially their disabled residents) like sub-humans, and;
 
2. How safe it is to leave your vehicle out of sight in the parking lot. He wouldn't want someone taking off with his crotch rocket now, would he? No, of course not. So why not partially block one of the two entrance points?
 
So glad I am out of here. Do not rent here! Unless, of course you're ghetto-fabulous. In that case, move right in. You'll feel right at home.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

Unbeatable marketing: pitting a fan on top of a donut rack.

Mike

Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

Beautiful sunset as I watch 2 cars run the red light at my old place. Dawn of a new day.

Mike

Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

Life Boils Down to 2 Questions

Life really boils down to just 2 questions...

 

 

 

 

1. Should I get a dog....? 

 

 

 

 

OR...  

2. Should I have children?

 

 

 

Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

Stay classy, Miramonte Apartments

Mike

Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

Quicken: Bank of America and the OL-226-A Error

UPDATE: Are you still a Quicken user? What are you doing? Go download YNAB and change the way you budget... for the better.


----- Original Post -----

QUICK & DIRTY:
Here's a quick PRO TIP that WORKS for the infamous OL-226-A Error that Quicken produces whenever you try to download your Bank of America credit-card-only (i.e., you don't have a checking account with them, just a credit card) account information via Direct Connect:

Create a new account and choose Bank of America - All Other States. Once your new account is created you'll need to categorize all your transactions, but from here on out you should be able to download your monthly statement via direct connect without issue.

DETAILED BACKGROUND:
For years, I was an MBNA credit card customer. Then in January 2006, Bank of America bought MBNA, and I became a Bank of America customer by default. During this transition, an important banking feature seemed to become quite flakey: the ability to download account informaiton (transactions) directly into Quicken, without going to my bank's web site and downloading them separately.

The inconvenience of not being able to download transactions directly through Quicken was one reason I lost touch with my finances for some quite some time--it was always such a pain to go update my account that I kept putting it off until there was so much data to go through I gave up all together.

Recently, I found myself in a situation where it now made sense to track my income and expenses. I went through all the motions and downloaded my transactions from my financial institutions, categorized the transactions, etc. All was well--even Bank of America--until the very next day after I set up all my accounts.

For some reason, my Bank of America account was only able to download transactions the very first day. Today, it decided it didn't want to update. Now... having had plenty of problems with Quicken in the past, I immediately wrote it off as a quicken problem and began my search.

The error code Quicken gave me was OL-226-A. Seems like lots of people had this error, and most of them had to do with Bank of America. I later learned that many of *those* people were specifically using Bank of America - California specifically.

After lots of troubleshooting over many weeks and months, I finally broke down and called Bank of America, where I waited on hold for over 20 minutes before I spoke to a rep, who proceeded to tell me that I could not use Quicken for a Direct Download of financial transactions because I had a credit-card-only account. He went on to say that if I had a checking account with them, I'd be able to do it no problem.

"No way," I thought. I need a second opinion. So I spoke with the rep's manager, who proceeded to tell me the same story: I must have been downloading transactions all these years by, and I quote, "some unexplained glitch in the system."

I'm sorry, what did I just hear? That must mean that somehow I've been beating the system all these years until something went haywire.

<FoulLanguageWarning>
Excuse me? I think I need to grab my boots, because the bullshit's getting pretty thick. I mean, what kind of shit is that? This is the largest fucking bank in these United States of America, and you mean to tell me that I can't download my transactions using the most popular financial software on the fucking planet? Something's wrong here. Something doesn't add up!
</FoulLanguageWarning>

So after I got off the phone, flaming pissed, I set out to end this bullshit once and for all--after all, I can't leave my boots on forever.

About 15 minutes of serious digging landed me on this gem of a thread from Quicken, which I seem to have misplaced because I first started this post back in December of 2008. (Side note: wow, the blog post that time forgot.)

In any event, I was able to delete my current Bank of America account in Quicken, the re-establish it using this little trick: when Quicken asks you what state your account is located in, choose Bank of America - All Other States.

That's it! So far, it seems to be working well... but I must say, I'm a Mac user once again and I've been waiting eons for Quicken to come out with a Mac version of Quicken... and I've been let down yet again. Quicken Financial Life for Mac will not be coming out until at least February 2010. I say "at least" because they company has pushed it back several times since 2008. At this point, I think I'm considering moving on to something like Mint.com -- I've been trying the two in parallel, and I'm noticing some interesting differences.

For example, Quicken only downloads Bank of America's credit card statements once per month as an entire statement; Mint, on the other hand, downloads transactions on a per-transaction basis, as if you were logging into the site directly and viewing the latest and greatest. This is particularly handy because after a month passes and I download all my transactions into Quicken, I often wonder what certain expenses are that I don't have receipts for. With Mint, I can check it daily, weekly, whenever the mood strikes me.

What's more, while both programs automatically categorize your downloaded transactions, Mint puts Quicken to shame because it is constantly improving its algorithms/database to predict which category your income and expenses really are. Unlike its aging great grandfather Quicken, which seems a bit like it's playing pin the tail on the donkey--in the dark.

Would I switch to Mint today? Probably not. While graphs are nice, I like the reporting in quicken because I use a zero-based budgeting system and need to make sure certain numbers get down to zero by the end of the month... reporting makes that easy. I also like the flexibility of entering transactions manually--like when you write a check today and nobody deposits it for a month--that Quicken has and Mint desperately needs. Sometimes those laggard checks get deposited at the wrong time, creating surprises. But had I been able to enter that transaction manually, I'd have seen that my balance really wasn't $1,000 but $1,000 minus that $500 check and, well, I wouldn't have bought that $501 collector's postage stamp. ;)

Phew, that was a long post. If you're still reading this, you either really liked what I had to say (thank you) or have too much time on your hands. Or both. ;)

Till next time, World!

Maintenance at Miramonte Trovas Apartments

Our apartment at Miramonte & Trovas, while recently built, has a moisture issue for reasons we have yet to understand. We have been told (and have tried) to open our windows, run our air conditioner more often, and basically "do it yourselves" to get rid of the moisture problem.

Well, we've finally had it with the maintenance here, and that is why we're moving.

When we walk into our apartment, it feels damp and muggy. There is a smell about the air--a musky smell. We generally sneeze and sometimes cough upon entry. Our eyes become irritated. Sometimes one sneeze turns into a sneezing fit that goes on a good 5 or 6 sneezes. We have no pets. Our doors have been closed all day. We're not allergic to anything inside our apartment--except the mold.

You see, the moisture problem has led to a mold problem, which management here at Miramonte Trovas doesn't seem to care about "unless there's staining or the bathroom walls are bubbling, because they're designed to do that when there's mold." Basically: unless you've got a full-blown mold outbreak from a leaky pipe and your wall or cupboard is mushy or falling apart, they could care less about your plight and give you the old "there's nothing we can do" attitude.

That's not team spirit. And certainly not representative of the way they feel about their tenants, right?

Wrong. We've been given lots of advice about how to stop the mold from growing... such sage advice as, "leave your windows open while you're gone during the day." Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, given that we're on the first floor. Oh, and then there was the obvious one: "you know, just keep your windows open... even when it's raining outside... I know it's tough, but that'll help keep the air flowing." Are you kidding me?

And then there was this: "78 degrees is a little warm for an apartment while you're gone all day... how about 70?" Wait, isn't the whole point of air conditioning to keep the place nice and comfortable while you're home? While we're at work, there's no point to keep the house at 70 degrees. 78 has been fine at every place we've lived in before.

Our conclusion: this specific unit has some kind of ventilation problem, but nobody wants to do anything about it and make it right. The manager even went so far as to say that all of the apartments have this moisture problem because of their "low ceilings" and the apartments being "on top of one another."

Excuse me, but aren't all multi-level apartments on top of each other? Oh, and by the way, in what world do "

And those mold home test kits? Don't even bother. According to our management here, you could set the petri dish outside and get the same results as what we got inside, which was nasty. So the mold test kits are worthless.

So, management offered to send out a ventilation expert, and see if there was something wrong with the apartment's ventilation system. Note I said system, not just a couple of fans. But you can guess what happened by now. No system was checked--just two fans. One in the bathroom, the other in the kitchen.

Here's the video below, complete with transcription based on what I could hear. The man in blue is our maintenance guy. The man in red is the ventilation expert. Mind you, these guys are supposed to try and figure out why our apartment is always so moist. Could be anything. Bathroom fan, laundry room fan, HVAC ductwork... and here's what they spent their time on. (Skip to 3:00 for entry into apartment.)



Transcript:

Blue: "Hello, Maintenance!"



Red: "Not the best location for one of those, that's for sure." "...ceiling..."

Blue: "They're all like that though."

Red: "Ah."



Red: "and then there's somethin about the kitchen fan, too--from what I was told."

Blue: "It's a recycler, there's uh--uh, there's no exhaust... they think it goes up to uh..."



Red: "Maybe that's what she's trippin about."

Blue: "What?"

Red: "The fact that there's no exhaust and she doesn't understand that."

Blue: "Oh yeah, duh"

Red: "It's smokin, and it's blowin out there."

Blue: "Yeah, they're weird dude."

Red: "Oh really?"

Blue: "Yeah, they give me the weirdest shit dude, like... I dunno, she's allergic to hot air or some shit."

Red: "Hot air?"

Blue: "And then she had something uhm, ... I just fixed her fucking doors or something."

Red: "Okay."

Blue: "Kinda weird people."

I dunno, I'm just drivin up here to check the fans, and it looks like all conditions are clean.

A fine example of how our apartment complex treats it's disabled residents and visitors

Here is a best-in-class example of how Miramonte Trovas Apartments treats its disabled residents and visitors. Not only are they parked in the handicapped parking space, but they're also blocking the wheelchair ramp. Stay classy, Miramonte!

Mike

Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

This is how you give great #CustomerService

I received an email the other day from the founder of Pandora, an internet radio service that plays only the music you like, based on a simple premise: start off your radio station with an artist or song as a "seed" and watch it grow as Pandora presents you with music it thinks you might like, based on your seed. All you have to do to improve the service is vote a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down to the song that's playing. It learns what you like and don't like, and then adapts to give you quite possibly the best "radio station" out there.

Needless to say, it's indispensable at work, the gym, parties, the list goes on. Apparently, I like it so much that the email from the founder said I was in its top 10% of users, and that my service might be changing slightly. It outlined the details, which seemed reasonable enough such that I was inspired to write back and thank him, cheer him on even.

What happened next was rare: I got an email from Steve, Pandora's Music Operations Manager, who actually sat down and took time out of his busy day to write me personally and make sure I knew it was personal by including a very unique word that I used in my email: "wallop". That's definietely not a word used in a canned response.

That's what inspired this post. It's a free advertisement/endorsement for Pandora and they paid absolutely zero dollars for it; well, let me take that back--all they paid was probably about two minutes worth of someone's time to sit down and write four sentences thanking me for writing, as well as reassuring me that they were fighting the good fight to keep internet radio alive. These guys are the real deal. I knew there was a great reason I loved them so much, aside from the must-have service that everyone (yes, even you!) should use.

Companies whose customer service sucks, please take note: you can change your ways and respond in a way similar to how Steve at Pandora did. This creates customer delight, such that they are inspired to be walking advertisements for you, wherever they go. I've signed up family and friends to Pandora and they report that they love it, too. So...

ROCK ON, PANDORA!

 

(Email chain reprinted with permission.)

________________________________________________________

Here is Tim's original email:

 

On Jul 7, 2009, at 3:03 PM, "Tim Westergren - Founder, Pandora " <tim.westergren@pandora.com> wrote:  

Hi, it’s Tim - 

I hope this email finds you enjoying a great summer Pandora soundtrack. 

I’m writing with some important news. Please forgive the lengthy email; it requires some explaining. 

First, I want to let you know that we’ve reached a resolution to the calamitous Internet radio royalty ruling of 2007. After more than two precarious years, we are finally on safe ground with a long-term agreement for survivable royalty rates – thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our listeners who voiced an absolute avalanche of support for us on Capitol Hill. We are deeply thankful.

While we did the best we could to lower the rates, we are going to have to make an adjustment that will affect about 10% of our users who are our heaviest listeners. Specifically, we are going to begin limiting listening to 40 hours per month on the web. Because we have to pay royalty fees per song and per listener, it makes very heavy listeners hard to support on advertising alone. Most listeners will never hit this cap, but it seems that you might. 

We hate the idea of capping anyone's usage, so we've been working to devise an alternative for listeners like you. We've come up with two solutions and we hope that one of them will work for you:

Your first option is to continue listening just as you have been and, if and when you reach the 40 hour limit in a given month, to pay just $0.99 for unlimited listening for the rest of that month. This isn't a subscription. You can pay by credit card and your card will be charged for just that one month. You'll be able to keep listening as much as you'd like for the remainder of the month. We hope this is relatively painless and affordable - the same price as a single song download.

Your second option is to upgrade to our premium version called Pandora One. Pandora One costs $36 per year. In addition to unlimited monthly listening and no advertising, Pandora One offers very high quality 192 Kbps streams, an elegant desktop application that eliminates the need for a browser, personalized skins for the Pandora player, and a number of other features: http://www.pandora.com/pandora_one.>

If neither of these options works for you, I hope you'll keep listening to the free version - 40 hours each month will go a long way, especially if you're really careful about hitting pause when you’re not listening. We’ll be sure to let you know if you start getting close to the limit, and we’ve created a counter you can access to see how many hours you’ve already used each month.

We’ll be implementing this change starting this month (July), I’d welcome your feedback and suggestions. The combination of our usage patterns and the "per song per listener" royalty cost creates a financial reality that we can't ignore...but we very much want you to continue listening for years to come. 

Please don't hesitate to email me back with your thoughts. 

Sincerely,  

Tim

Founder   

This is a one-time account message. 

© copyright 2009, Pandora Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

360 22nd Street - Suite 440 - Oakland CA - 94612 

If you have any trouble, please email pandora-support@pandora.com. Privacy Policy

 

 

________________________________________________________

My response:

 

Well, I think this is a great compromise. $1 is quite reasonable, considering how much it probably costs you to play just one song. Thanks for the heads up! I listen every day at work, tell all my friends about it (and invite them, too), and it's especially useful at parties. 

Keep up the good work and I hope you're able to knock some sense into the music industry because they sure deserve a wallop.

Mike

 

 

________________________________________________________

Final response from Steve:

 

On Jul 8, 2009, at 12:37 PM, Steve Hogan <steve@pandora.com> wrote:

Mike,

Hi, I'm helping Tim out with these emails due to the large volume.  We're thrilled to have your continued support, and I'm glad to hear that you think one of our new options will suit your needs.  We'll do our best to keep Pandora as free as possible, and I hope we can be the soundtrack for your workday for many years to come!

We will continue to wallop as best we can!

Cheers,

Steve Hogan

-- 

Steve Hogan

Music Operations Manager

--

PANDORA® 

internet radio from the music genome project

www.pandora.com

-

360 22nd Street Suite 440        

Oakland CA 94612                    

tel: (510) 451-4100 ext. 447 fax: (510) 451-4286

 

Posted via web from michaelpaul's posterous

View entire (paid) WSJ articles for free

This evening Debbie wanted to read an article she found on Wall Street Journal (WSJ) but the article ended after only a couple paragraphs. That's when she turned to a service called BugMeNot, which allows you to log into a web site with a (usually fake or generic) user ID created by one person solely for the purpose of sharing it with others so that others don't enter their personal information and get spammed by the site.

Well, paid sites are barred from BugMeNot, and that's where her search ended. Or so she thought. Just type in digg.com/ before the URL. (It will look like this: digg.com/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124649298279583139.html). Then, just click Submit to Digg and sign up for an account if you don't have one. Once you've submitted it and you're logged into Digg, you can view the entire article for free. The reason this is possible is because WSJ and Digg have a little agreement between each other to make this happen. So you're not "cheating the system" or anything, you're just taking advantage of something that not too many people know about.

Enjoy!

Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

Seriously, who brings their DOG to the MOVIES????

Mike

Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

I heart my car

... Especially when the tires are shiny and clean. I sure hope it doesn't have an untimely death like my last few. ;)

Mike

Posted via email from michaelpaul's posterous

Conversations with a TV Character

I was lost in the interwebs today, which I often am, and stumbled upon this twitter account, @drlisacuddy. Name: Lisa Cuddy, MD. Location: Princeton, NJ.

"Wow," I thought. I haven't seen a doctor look like this much of a cover girl in... well, ever. "Something's not right about her twitter background though," I thought. It must have been the way she sat in that modern white thatched chair with her ankle twisted just right, aligning her high-heeled shoe with the floor with that hooker kind of pose. Or perhaps it was that casual half-smile with those "Hey, big fella" cougar eyes. Or, it could have been that low-cut top combined with the pencil skirt that stopped above the knee. After putting it all together, it was clear to me that this person was a fake.

But her username has "dr" in it, she has MD in her name, and she's in Princeton. Seems possible... but that background... oh that background!

Well, I should have read her complete twitter Bio first, especially that last part: Dean of Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Mother to Rachel. (Character property of FOX and David Shore etc).

Turns out, this girl's from a TV show on FOX called House. I was unwittingly duped.

See, I don't watch much TV. Hell, I don't even own one. But this goes to show how mainstream twitter has become and versatile the communication platform really is. For some people, twitter's all about "whatchya doin?" while for others, it's all about promoting their new book. Others use it for news delivery. And yet, here we have a fictional character with her own REAL twitter account, making the show she's a part of more immersive.

In other words, people are having conversations with TV characters. Like... what? Mind = blown.

So, I tweeted about it:


And then, about an hour and a half later, I got an unexpected response from "her":


Crazy, right? But interesting. I don't watch the show, but if I did, I'd probably follow the characters if I was really into it. Why not? It's almost like you're a part of the crew who has the inside track on what's going through a character's mind--what's going to happen next. What an immersive experience that could be, if done right.

So, kudos to the FOX team for using Twitter in a creative way.

I tagged this post as [human interactions], but now I'm not so sure. ;)

Go make someone's day today

It's Friday and for some reason I'm in a particularly good mood this morning. So, I decided to respond to what many people might view as a boring but necessary corporate reminder about filling our our time sheets. Apparently, that email made her day, which in turn made mine.

All personally identifiable/confidential information has been changed, except my name.

________________________________________
From: Doe, Jane
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 10:30 AM
To: Paul, Michael
Subject: RE: Approvals and the holiday weekend

Thank you so much for the note. I really appreciate it, it made my day!!

________________________________________
From: Paul, Michael
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 9:51 AM
To: Doe, Jane
Subject: RE: Approvals and the holiday weekend

Jane,

Please never feel like you are a broken record when you’re sending out important information like this about how to set up a delegate. There are always new people coming on board who don’t yet know how to do this, and there are always those of us who might want to add another one and haven’t done it in a long time. Not speaking for myself; just standing up for others.

Also, I find a lot of value in these reminders. There have been several times where I have left work on Friday without submitting my time sheet and my project’s designee always sends me a text message reminding me of my blunder. I thank her for that, just as I thank you for this. :)

Keep up the great work, and I hope you have a great weekend too.

Mike
________________________________________
From: Doe, Jane
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 9:11 AM
To: All Members
Subject: Approvals and the holiday weekend

Hello everyone. As we look forward to a long weekend; I wanted to remind you to submit your timesheets today if possible, since the approval deadlines will not change and Monday, May 25th is a holiday. I am sure you all have this down by now, but here is a reminder on how to set up a delegate in PSA if necessary.

[Instructions]

I know you are all working really hard these days; and I hope you are able to enjoy a relaxing and fun-filled holiday weekend.

~Jane

Jane Doe | HR Director
Our Great Company | p.213.867.5309| c. 213.867.5309| f. 213.867.5309
123 Green St, Suite 1| Greensville, CA 90210

Wash Your Hands

With the recent outbreak of Swine Flu, I thought I would take a moment to do this public service announcement: please, wash your hands for 20 seconds.

Don't do what so many people do after they go to the bathroom. What am I talking about? Well, you know the type--they're the ones who turn on the water, splash some on their finger tips, flip the faucet off, and quickly dry their hands on one sheet of paper towel before hastily exiting the bathroom. The entire process takes them about five seconds.

What's the number one way to prevent the spread of disease--not to mention just simply avoiding catching a cold? Wash your hands. And don't be one of "those" people who do the 5-second squirt. Strive for cleanliness and, hey, you might even consider using soap!

The proper way to wash your hands is with warm water, soap, scrub for 20 seconds, rinse, and then dry. The whole process might take a minute, tops, from start to finish.

So please, don't do like a lot of people do and just shrug it off... do the world--and yourself--a favor by washing your hands so you keep yourself healthy and you don't end up like this guy (or this girl):

The TrapCall Bait and Switch

On April 8, 2009, TrapCall, a free service that allows you to unmask a blocked Caller ID, sent out an email detailing "important changes coming to TrapCall." Normally I just shrug these off and read them whenever, but I decided to read this one about 23 hours later. Boy, am I glad I did.

You see, TrapCall made the decision to change the way it does business. TrapCall has decided that its free account will now be ad-supported. But how do you do that? Not everyone has text messaging plans, so that's out. Ah, let's see... how about changing the way you check your voicemail? Yes, that's it.

Now, you've got to change your voicemail number to some other number, which, when I tested it three times, I was twice unable to get through. (My first attempt was greeted with an "all circuits are busy" message, the second attempt went through, and the third attempt was met with a fast busy signal.)

Once you've changed the number and successfully dialed in, you'll be greeted with a "short advertisement." Though how short, I don't know because it's been a while since I keyed in my voicemail password. Why, you ask? Well for one thing, when I set my voicemail up, I entered my password exactly one time and haven't used it since. Reason number two: I'm an iPhone user.

I don't know if you've heard of the iPhone or not, but it's this slightly revolutionary internet connected device that a few people think is pretty cool. One of the selling points on the iPhone was/is its Visual Voicemail feature. For those who don't know, Visual Voicemail is great because you can sort through your voicemails just like email. It provides a visual interface to your messages so you can easily play the ones you want, delete the ones you want, call a person back after listening, and many other great things. It's as easy as reading and deleting email.

Now, after getting so very used to this great way of interacting with voicemail, imagine a world where this valuable feature is gone. That's right, gone. So I've gone from Visual Voicemail bliss to back to the stone age and having to dial in to retrieve my voicemail. On top of that, I have to sit through an ad. Ugh. Way to ruin a great free service.

"But wait," they say, "Visual Voicemail will continue to work flawlessly with the Bug Trap plan! It's only $2.95 a month. Cheaper than Starbucks ;)" Hurray! It can be argued that $2.95 is a fair price to pay for such a great service, but that's beside the point. The point is this: without warning, they told their users, "ohai, btw, you'll need to create a new voicemail account, like, yesterday. and you'll get to listen to an ad b4 u listen 2 yer voicemailz. kthxbai!"

So basically what this means is they've crippled your Visual Voicemail feature without advanced warning, and are basically saying, "You don't like it? Step up to the $2.95 service plan." Classic bait and switch. Don't believe me? here's the tweet straight from the horse's mouth to prove it. And another. And another.

Here's something else that chaps my hide: as of this writing, TrapCall is in BETA. Here, let me show you:


That's the logo from its website at 9:38 PM on April 9, 2009, one day after they sent out their letter, wherein they mysteriously removed the BETA tag. So aside from the obvious, that's also what's rubbing people the wrong way. You don't pay for a BETA service. BETA means that the service or product is in TESTING MODE. So not only is this service in BETA, but they're crippling your visual voicemail, and throwing an ad in there that may or may not be relevant to your interests. Unless, of course, you pay.

Not only that, but TrapCall gave its users very short notice before they made the switchover. The email was sent at 8:56 PM and said "Important Changes Coming to TrapCall Tonight". AKA Zero Notice. They claim to not have switched over iPhone users yet, but some users are reporting on Twitter that they have been unable to access voicemail. Here's a conversation that happened on Twitter about this:


Talk about a way to ruin a great thing. Forcing people to sit through advertising sucks. Bait and swich tactics suck. But the service is useful! *Grumble* However, I'm not going to pay $2.95/mo for it. Perhaps $0.50, or even $0.99, but nothing over a dollar for something that kills a perfectly good feature of my phone for no reason other than advertising.

So, below is the email in its entirety, excluding personal information. It contains nothing about them moving out of BETA, other than the BETA tag being removed from their email's logo.I guess the question is, did they suddenly come out of beta and not announce the switch?

Also, pay careful attention to the "When do I have to make my decision?" section: they say that if you don't wish to upgrade, no further action is needed--but you still have to change your voicemail number to access your voicemail. Say what?

One more thing: we have two phones in our household that were using TrapCall's free service. I canceled my iPhone account with TrapCall immediately, but tested out the other phone to see what would happen when we rejected a blocked call.

First, the blocked call was sent to TrapCall, unblocked, and routed back to our phone. Then we rejected the call and sent it to voicemail, which sent the call back over to TrapCall's servers. But because we had not yet changed the voicemail number to the new number, TrapCall routed the call *back* to our cell phone, where we had to reject it a third time. At this point, the call was routed to AT&T's voicemail system, and we were able to play it without listening to an advertisement.

I don't know how TrapCall's voicemail system works (whether it's a 3rd party voicemail system or whether it just plays an ad before routing you to your cell company's voicemail system), but I do know that once you reprogram your voicemail number to the new one you will be forced to listen to advertisements before your voicemail is played to you.

You're receiving this newsletter because you are a TRAPCALL CUSTOMER TrapCall.com.

Wednesday April 8th, 2009 Important Changes Coming to TrapCall Tonight Dear Michael (Mobile Number 2138675309), We're writing to notify you of some important changes coming to TrapCall's service rolling out over the next week, starting Wednesday evening April 8th, 2009. TrapCall is committed to offering our basic Fly Trap package free of charge, however, we will be making some changes in the way the free package works. You will now need to dial a TrapCall access number to retrieve your voicemails. The TrapCall voicemail number is: 509-554-5555. We strongly recommend that you store this number in your phonebook under the name "Voicemail". back to top How will my service be affected? If you are a FREE Fly Trap account user, the only feature that will be affected is your voicemail, everything else will remain the same: You must dial 509-554-5555 to retrieve your voicemail. If you are a Free "Fly Trap" user, you will hear a short advertisement before your voicemail is played to you. Unfortunatley, if you currently have visual voicemail as a feature on your phone, it will no loger work with the Free Fly Trap package. back to top How can I avoid these changes to my TrapCall service? To avoid having to hear ads or to continue to use your visual voicemail, you can simply upgrade to TrapCall's Bug Trap plan for just $2.95 a month. That's just 10 cents a day or about the price of one cafe latte from your favorite coffee house! To upgrade to TrapCall's Bug Trap plan, simply visit: http://www.trapcall.com/premium back to top When do I have to make my decision? If you do not wish to upgrade, no further action is needed! You can upgrade to a premium plan which will give you an ad-free voicemail experience at any time by visiting http://www.TrapCall.com/premium. back to top How do I completely cancel my account? We would hate to see you go, but if you wish to completely cancel your account and restore your phone to your original settings, please visit https://www.trapcall.com/user/cancel Did you know we have a 15 day trial for all our premium packages? To try one of our premium packages for 15 days Free, please visit http://www.TrapCall.com/premium. back to top We really hope you're enjoying TrapCall. We've got a lot of exciting TrapCall updates to announce very soon! Thanks for your support! The TrapCall Team Follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/TrapCall Become our fan on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/TrapCall/52724928587

Not interested anymore? Unsubscribe. TrapCall and the TrapCall Logo are registered trademarks of TelTech Systems.

Turn Twitter into a real-time news aggregator

Today there was a shooting in Binghamton, NY. I found out about it on Twitter via @JasonCalacanis. I was curious to know more about it, so I searched Google News. While I did find some interesting articles, that's only one perspective. What about the people's account and what's on their mind, though? For that, we turn to Twitter.

But then we have a problem. You arrive at search.twitter.com, but the question becomes, "well, what the hell do I search for now? Shooting? Murder? Answer: none of the above. You search for *everything* around the Binghamton, NY area. But how? Not everybody has the werewithal to tag their posts #Binghamton every time they talk about the shooting... and who says that's the right tag to use? In short, it can be hard to find exactly what you're looking for.

The shooting occured in Binghampton, so what we will search for is tweets that happened in or around Binghamton. But how? We use a qualifier. That qualifier is near:

So, a sample search on Twitter might look like this, giving you highly relevant results about the current event:

This is just one way to use search on Twitter. For tons more options, you can build a custom search using the Advanced Search, which you can get to by clicking on the link at the right of the Search button. In the search above, you might also include the following qualifier, filter:links, which again can be found on the Advanced Search page.

Having fun with the help center reps

Today I had a "Live Chat" online with my bank about an auto loan with a loan agent who was all but unreachable. Slightly frustrated that my issue was diverted to a cross-sell for a product I essentially already use, I decided to take a different, to the conversation.

I would also like to point out that, while I understand why scripts are necessary, I really hate them being read to me--especially via text chat. It feels like I'm talking to a robot.

Personally identifiable information (other than my name, since you already know what it is) has been changed.


Duration (actual chatting time) 00:14:11
Operator Gertrude

Chat Transcript
info: Please wait for a representative to respond.
info: Hello. My name is Gertrude. Have you financed a vehicle with Rich Uncle Pennybags in the past 18 months? In the event your vehicle was stolen or totaled in an accident, have you considered how you would pay off your loan and/or come up with a down payment on a replacement vehicle? Rich Uncle Pennybags has a low cost solution that will assist you in these situations. Would you like to hear about it?
info: Your confirmation number for this chat is 123ZOINKSLIKEHEYSCOOB4
Gertrude: Hello Michael, how may I assist you today?
Michael Paul: Hi Gertrude, I just recently got approved for an auto loan and want to know if I can just walk in to a Rich Uncle Pennybags branch to finish the paperwork, or if I still have to deal with "KT", the person assigned to my loan, over the phone.
Michael Paul: KT seems to be unavailable whenever I call.
Gertrude: I will be happy to assist you with this today. In the meantime, have there been any changes to your mailing address, telephone number, or e-mail address?
Michael Paul: no
Gertrude: Thank you for your patience. You will not be able to walk into a branch and sign paper work. Once you and K.T. are able to talk he can set up an appointment with you to visit a branch. While I have you online, I may have a way for you to monitor your account easier. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
Michael Paul: sure, go ahead.
Gertrude: How often do you use Rich Uncle Pennybags' online banking?
Michael Paul: every day
Gertrude: Great! Based on the fact that you use Rich Uncle Pennybags' online banking often I would recommend Finance Works. We are proud to offer Finance Works, a free personal money management tool. This great software is offered by Intuit, the same company that offers Quicken. Rich Uncle Pennybags is the second financial institution in the nation to offer this valuable money management tool. Finance Works will save you time because you can track, organize, and itemize all of your expenses. You can integrate your other Rich Uncle Pennybags accounts, as well as accounts you hold with other financial institutions. With this convenience, you can manage your expenses in one online banking session!
Gertrude: Would you like me to walk you through setting up Finance Works?
Michael Paul: No thanks, I already use Quicken connected to Rich Uncle Pennybags, but i might look into it in the future
Gertrude: Great! Is there anything else I can assist you with today Michael?
Michael Paul: Yeah, I'd like to assign my loan to someone else, because I'm having no luck with K.T. The guy seems impossible to reach unless you have the secret Bat Phone number.
Michael Paul: :-)
Gertrude: I have his direct phone number, would you like me to provide you with this number?
Michael Paul: No, because I have that direct phone number, too.
Michael Paul: ...unless you have the direct number to his Bat Phone ;)
Gertrude: I will be happy to see if I can get another loan officer to contact you.
Michael Paul: That would be outstanding, I really appreciate it.
Gertrude: May I get your best contact number?
Michael Paul: cell phone: 269-867-5309
Gertrude: Great! I will try to have someone contact you soon. Is there anything else I can assist you with today Michael?
Michael Paul: No, you've been great Gertrude! Thanks so much for having someone else contact me.
Gertrude: Thank you for choosing Rich Uncle Pennybags. If you need any assistance, please contact us at (800) 867-5309, or Live Chat at www.RichUnclePennybags.com! We appreciate your business! Have a wonderful day!
Michael Paul: You too :-)

What can Google Apps for your Domain do for me?

I recently decided to set up Google Apps for my domain, OlisProducts.com.

"Whether your business is moving everything to the cloud, just wants an affordable email solution or struggles to give employees access to critical information, Google Apps will help you stretch resources and work smarter."

This allows me to do a few things, for free:

1. Email. Use Gmail--including the web interface--for all my company's communications. That means that mail coming from mike@olisproducts.com actually gets written, sent, checked and managed through Gmail, just like I'm already familiar with. (What, you aren't already a Gmail user? Go sign up and try it out today.) Why is this nice? Because I love being able to use all the features that gmail offers, like labels, filters, searches, keyboard shortcuts, etc. Once you get used to the web interface and what it has to offer, you'll wonder why you ever used that beastly beast called Outlook.
2. Document sharing. We're always working on different documents, whether they're recipes, notes about past and upcoming shows, or copy for upcoming newsletters. And spreadsheets. Lots of spreadsheets. Wouldn't it be great if our staff could collaborate on documents without being in the same room? Now we can. In fact, there's no "locking" of a document like there is in a normal office setting. While you're editing your spreadsheet, someone else can come in and make edits while you make yours. Google makes seeing who's where in your document a breeze.
3. Calendars. Oli's Products goes to several trade shows per year, and it's helpful for our customers to see where we've been and where we'll be next. With Google Apps, creating that calendar is very simple. Embedding it into our website is even simpler--just copy and paste some code.
4. Corporate IM. When you're logged into your domain's Gmail account, you have a chat list right in the left side of the web browser containing all of your domain's users and online status. You can, of course, add and remove people at will.
5. Sites. If you need a basic web page for something--planning club meetings or activities, for example--you can create basic web pages to suit your task using an easy WYSIWYG editor. No coding required... just drag and drop. Click and edit. Simple.

Perhaps the best thing (for administrators) is the admin panel. It boasts a simple to use interface that lets you command and control just about everything you could think of, from sharing options to resetting peoples passwords.

So, if you're a small company looking to get it all together, give Google Apps a try. It's free, so there's nothing to lose.

Get things done... using Things (for Mac and iPhone)

Straight to the point: if you want to get things done efficiently and all the other to-do managers have failed you in the past, give Things a try. Things, by Cultured Code, is for the Mac and has a companion for the iPhone that's slowly working its way up to have the same feature set as the Mac version.

I'll leave the description up to the creators of the program, but I will tell you this: it's remarkably useful and simple to use. It's got a very simple user interface, and there are too many useful features to pick a favorite. One of them is the ability to tag a task with keywords like "15 min" or "easy" or "errand". Since you can also sort by these tags, you can quickly create a "calls" list or an "errands" list or a list of things to do that will take "15 min" or less.

Another great feature about Things is the ability to organize tasks into Projects and Areas of Responsibility. Projects are large tasks that require smaller mini-tasks. For example, I might have a project called "Paint the house" and the mini-tasks of that project might include things like "buy paint", "find some help", and "check the weather forecast".

Areas of Responsibility allow you to group tasks by how they fit into your life. Is it a financial type of task? Relationship? Are you a blogger? Then you might have an area of responsibility called Blogging.

One final feature that sticks out is the virtual shoebox. That is, say you have a task that's just something you'd like to do, but not necessarily today. It can be done someday in the future. But what do you do with the task since you don't want to clutter up your lists with things you'd like to do someday, but not today? Simple. Just put those tasks in the Someday box. Using this Someday shoebox, you can remove those tasks which don't need to be done anytime soon, but still keep them somewhere in the system for reviewing at a later date.

If you own a Mac and an iPhone, the iPhone version is worth purchasing as well. It's not quite as fully featured as the Mac version (yet) but they're working hard on bringing it up to speed and have made many significant improvements to it over the past several weeks since it's been announced.

And now, I can strike this item off my to-do list.

Blog about Things

Ah, that feels better.

Things for Mac: $49.95
Things for iPhone: $9.99

An easy way to shorten a URL

UPDATED 2/16/09

Have you ever had a long, ugly URL like this...

http://www.theunion.com/article/20090111/NEWS/901119997/1053/NONE&parentprofile=1053&title=Record%20high%20temperatures%20possible

...that you wish could look more like this: http://is.gd/fKGK ?

Quick tip for the day: head on over to http://is.gd and find the Instructions page. From there, drag the link inside the Bookmarklet section up to your Bookmarks Toolbar (aka Favorites Toolbar). If you don't have that toolbar enabled, you can enable it using View > Toolbars > Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox, or View > Toolbars > Links in good old Internet Explorer.

When you're viewing the page you want to create a short link to, just click the newly-created Bookmark link you created and a short link is created for you using the is.gd service.

Now you can post simple, easy links to services like Twitter or in emails, IMs and more. How about you: do you know of a shorter link than is.gd?

=============
Update: 2/16/09

Just found a way better service than is.gd. Same length, but much more useful: it's called tr.im. That's http://tr.im

If you were curious, .im is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Isle of Man. It is administered by the Government of the Isle of Man and managed on a day to day basis by Domicilium, an offshore Internet Service Provider based on the Isle of Man.

What tr.im does is not only shorten a URL, but provide analytics about who's clicking your links, including such information as the visitor's location (country), Browser version, platform, and more. Crazy cool!

What's more? Simply create an account on the site (all you need is a username, password and email address to confirm you're a human) and you can keep track of all your tr.ims. PLUS, it's taking advantage of Twitter's API, so you can create a bookmarklet using the process above and tweet right from there!

Oh, I love the interwebs.

AppSniper pays for itself

I wanted to write a post about AppSniper, but MacLife just reviewed it and said everything I wanted to say... so here's the useful linkage: http://www.maclife.com/article/iphone/appsniper

How much will it cost per year to own and maintain a kitten? - Mahalo Answers

How much will it cost per year to own and maintain a kitten? - Mahalo Answers

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Brown sludge in bottom of Blendtec blender cup

I recently came across a brown sludge that coats the metal ring at the bottom/base inside my Blendrec blender cup... any ideas what this stuff might be? I scraped it off with a toothpick, as it doesn't seem to come off with a hot water rinse alone. Doesn't appear to be rust.

Skype crashing on you? It might be a driver issue.

Does Skype keep crashing on your Windows machine? Try this helpful hint: Make sure that your webcam's driver is up-to-date, preferably using drivers developed by the manufacturer.

My mom and I recently had this problem where we couldn't audio or video chat for longer than just a minute or so--sometimes the conversation lasted only seconds. It was very buggy. Skype would crash on her computer, but not on mine (I'm on a Mac, for reference). We found it interesting because I could skype just fine between my home Mac and my work's Dell laptop, so I isolated the problem to my mom's computer, which is a fairly recent and capable model.

The problem stemmed from us not using the correct driver for the web cam, a Logitech Pro 9000. After some troubleshooting, we discovered that Windows automatically installed a default generic driver for the webcam. So we went over to Logitech's website, downloaded the latest driver for it, installed, rebooted, and presto. As I write this blog, I'm video chatting with my mom and the timer is 40:21 and counting.

Apple Mighty Mouse goes ABSOLUTELY BERZERK!

OK, so it's 2:11 AM and I finally figured out why my Apple Mighty Mouse is going berserk.

First, some background. The might mouse is touch sensitive, meaning the top shell can sense where your fingers are and produce the correct type of click, according to where your fingers are. For example, both fingers down will default to a left click, while lifting your index finger (if you're right handed) will produce a left click because it can sense that your left finger is off the top of the shell.

So this evening, I had a little work to do on the company laptop. I pushed my mac keyboard and mouse out of the way to make room for the laptop, did my work, then closed the lid (left the laptop on), and then proceeded to use my mac with the keyboard and mouse.

I noticed some peculiar things happening with my mouse. See, the Mighty Mouse has two side buttons--one on either side--when you squeeze them, it makes a little clicking sound and activates exposé. What was happening this evening was that ANY time I touched my mouse, I'd hear the clicking sound and exposé would activate. It seemed to get worse, then better, then worse again, seemingly at random. Sometimes, it got so bad that it would literally toggle back and forth between activated and deactivated, many times per second--while my hand was simply resting on the damned thing. I could hear the clicks. It was insane.

But it only did it seemingly at random, which pissed me off. So, I sought out a solution.

At first, I tried to take the mouse apart... but in fear of breaking the damn thing, I chose to find other alternatives. Scouring the web left me with nothing--apparently the only major problem people have with the Mighty Mouse has to do with the scroll ball. Alas, I was about to give up and bring it to the Apple Store when I woke up.

But then it hit me: maybe this isn't a mechanical problem, but an electrical problem. Could the Mighty Mouse be short circuiting? Impossible; I bought my Mac over the summer of 2008, and Apple makes some pretty high quality products so I doubt I'd see my poor little mouse go belly up in only a few short months.

Nevertheless, I began to test things. Systematically. Starting with the cord, I jiggled it. After a while of going up and down the length of the cord, I discovered that the problems stopped once I hit the base of the cord where it connects to the keyboard. Could this be it? No, but there's a reason, which I'll detail below.

See, the point where the cord connects to the keyboard is the point at which my hand and arm was completely off of my LAPTOP that was sitting on my desk! Once I put my hand/arm back on the laptop and touched my mouse, crazy shit began to happen again. This was it!

Upon my enlightenment, I smiled with delight--for a couple reasons. One, I fixed my problem myself (yay me!) but two, I don't have to waste time at the Apple Store looking like a total loser because my symptoms would never have shown up. Imagine: "Hi, my mouse is going crazy." Apple tech: "Looks fine to me." Me: "Fuck. Never fails; you go to the doctor for medicine, but magically, by the time you arrive, you feel much better than you did 30 minutes ago."

So I got all excited to write this post to share with the world my discovery, and moved my laptop from the desk to my lap, so I could access my keyboard. As soon as I touched my mouse, what do you think happened? Well I'll be damned: same problem. Mouse went haywire again.

I then put the damn thing on the floor (avoiding contact with it) and what do you know? Mouse is perfectly normal.

So the bottom line is this: this damned Mighty Mouse is sensitive to electrical impulses, such that if an electrical current flows through the top shell that's more than a human's, it throws the whole damn thing out of whack.

2.5 hours of my life wasted, but at least now I know, and so do you.

How to sync firefox bookmarks and passwords

Do you use more than one computer? Well then, this tip may be indispensable: keep all your bookmarks and passwords in harmonious synchronization across every single computer that you use.

One of the best things about Firefox is its extensions--the ability to add functionality to the web browser that didn't exist before--functionality that is limited only by the imagination of developers out there worldwide.

Do yourself a favor and download this must-have Firefox extension, Foxmarks. Add it to firefox on each of your computers, and you'll never have to leave your bookmarks or passwords behind again.

But what if you're on a public computer? No problem, just visit http://my.foxmarks.com to access your bookmarks. Your passwords will not be available to you from here, but at least you've got your bookmarks. Besides, if there's a password you really don't remember but it's on your home computer, that's ok because you could always just use LogMeIn and, well, that solves that problem.

Scotty: Log Me In

Recently I've found myself spending more and more time wishing I could log into my home computer from work. My home computer's a Mac, which explains why I can't simply Remote Desktop from my work laptop running Windows XP. In addition to that, the corporate firewall creates more connectivity issues than I knew existed. What a drag.

But then I found a service on the internet called LogMeIn. All you have to do is create an account, then download the LogMeIn software to the computer you want to log into from a remote location. Once that's done, remote control of your computer is as simple as visiting LogMeIn.com, and literally logging in. Once authenticated, you can click the Remote Control button and be connected to your home computer via your web browser. (Side note: for the best experience, you'll need to install a small browser plug-in, available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and other browsers.)

Amazingly, this even works using the iPhone. If you're on a WiFi connection, you can access your home computer (or whatever other computer you've set up with the LogMeIn software) remotely and I must say it works great.

Best part: the service is free. You can't copy files or print to a local printer--for that, you pay extra--but that's why it's free. LogMeIn is willing to bet that if you start using its free service, you'll eventually come to appreciate the value of the added functionality of the paid services it offers, of which there are several.

Deceptive website example

OK, this will sound kinda geeky, but that's what this blog is about, right?

So I'm reading some of my mail in gmail this morning, and I did something rare: I looked at the advertisements to see how relevant they were to the context of my email. For reference, I was reading a notification that a billing statement was ready. Of the eight ads on the right hand side, only two caught my eye because they stood out from the rest--not in a good way, necessarily, but they were just different.

You see, while the rest of the ads had a green location of www.WhateverSite.com, these two that stood out had a green location address that omitted the www in replace of an actual word like "balance" or "bills". In this case, I decided to click on the ad with the location of "bills.iGrantCash.com".

I was taken to a page that threw me back to the late 90s with its dithered iGrantCash.com icon (complete with one sole underline under the letters "ash.com"). Anytime I see a web site with shoddy graphics, I immediately throw a red flag because these days, graphics should be very polished since our monitors can display millions of colors.

Anyhow, that was strike one. Strike two came when I glanced at the very prominent top right corner, which touted, "Total grant sites: 57. Sites that were scams: 56. Legitimate sites: 1." Of course, my first question was: is this one of the scam sites? Then I thought, nah, this must be the "1" site that is not a scam. Hmmmmmmm.....

What else did I see? Somehow, this P.O.S. site from the 90s had been featured on such prominent sites as MSN, CNN.com, AOL Search, NBC, CNBC, CBS, Fox News, Forbes, the list goes on. A critical thinker might ask, "how is this so?" considering the web site looks like a piece of trash, while the non-critical thinker (or citizen desperate for cash) just says "whew, that's reassuring." So, with a critical eye, I continued reading on.

The truth finally came at the bottom of the page, where I read this in the fine print:

"As Seen On" logos and trademarks are owned by their respective companies. This site is currently advertised on all the media outlets identified under "As Seen On" logo banner.

So basically, they feel like they can say they've been "seen on" MSN, Yahoo, and others, because they advertise on those sites. Thus it is their advertisement that has been "seen on" those sites, not actual articles about the great product itself, which is simply links to information you can find using any search engine.

So now comes strike three: every single link on this web page directs the unsuspecting visitor to the exact same page: http://www.igrantcash.com/NewForm.jsp?

This is a sign-up page that screams, "Congratulations You are Pre-Qualified

For Free FREE Government Grant Money"

Again, this new sign-up page features logos from major companies such as CNN, NBC, CNBC, and Fox News, which makes the casual web surfer feel comfortable and at ease. My first question was, "gosh, how did little 'ol me get pre-qualified to receive thousands of government dollars for free? was my 'click' simply enough for them to say OK?"

By the way, that sign up page asks for your name, address, city, state, phone and email among other things, and it's not even transmitting the data using the https:// protocol (HTTP Secure). In other words, it's sent across the internet in plain text.

After entering in some fake information, I'm led to a second page asking for my credit card information. This time, however, it does use the https protocol, so at least they're taking my credit card information securely.

That's a nice thought.

So the bottom line is this: you may have read this post and say, "you ain't teachin' me nothin' new, essay!" But that is not the point. This post wasn't written for you. This post was written for those who are skeptical about a site for some reason, but can't quite put their fingers on why. This little lesson, for example, would be a great thing to teach someone in your life who is just getting started on the internet, or who has been using it for a while, but isn't quite as tech savvy with regard to graphics quality, where links go to, and security protocols such as https.

Nicolaus Labor Day Parade and Craft Faire

Oli's Products is striving to spread the word that gluten free food tastes great, one craft faire at a time. Labor Day is typically a holiday when many people head to the water, relax, and have a BBQ. It's a three day weekend, so why not squeeze the Nicolaus Labor Day Parade and Craft Faire into your schedule? Get out of town, enjoy some good food, live entertainment, and explore the local arts and crafts. Come on by and sample our signature Sweet 'n Spicy Sauce or our Thick 'n Chunky Salsa. Check out website for the details.

Peppers are in Season

Here in Northern California peppers are falling off the tables at farmers market and the prices are going down in the grocery store, which can only mean one thing: Oli's Products is in full production. August and September are our busiest months for producing our two main products: Oli's Sweet 'n Spicy Sauce, and Oli's Thick 'n Chunky Salsa, as we strive to use local and fresh ingredients. We also have seasonal offerings, and currently have Oli's Sweet 'n Spicy Sauce: Mango in stock.

Did you know that the haberno chili is the second hottest pepper in the world? We use the habanero in all varieties of Oli's Sweet 'n Spicy Sauce and in the hot variation of Oli's Thick 'n Chunky Salsa. So whether you like a mild taste or you love the burn we've got the perfect treat for you.

As Fall slowly approaches, our craft fair season is gearing up, which means if you're in the greater Sacramento area you can come on out to our booth locations and sample our products in person. On August 17th you can find Oli's Products at the Loomis Basin Community Park in Loomis, CA. The fair is being held in support of the Lewy Body Dementia Association, Inc. and is going to be a fun-filled day of volleyball, food vendors, and crafts. And as a special treat, in addition to our two other product lines, Oli's Products will be introducing its death-by-chocolate brownies. If you can't make it out to see us in person and are having a chocolate craving we welcome you to make a special order at OlisProducts.com.