When possible, I try to spend my money in the local economy. For that reason, I decided to try buying my nutritional supplements from a Spanish provider — masmusculo.com — instead of the UK provider I habitually use. (You'd think it'd be cheaper to order in Spain, but it's not; even including shipping from England to Spain, it's cheaper to buy in the United Kingdom.)
Well, my order arrived today, and I've attached a photo of the packaging and the status of the contents.
I've emailed the photos to the company, asking if they consider this to be acceptable quality, and am waiting for a reply.
Inspired by Steven Frank’s description of his own system, I thought I’d take a moment to document how I store and backup our important data.
Backup Objectives.
I want to get back up and running quickly if a computer’s startup drive dies.
I want to be able to easily restore historical versions of important lost or modified files.
I want to have important files stored ‘offsite,’ in case the house burned down.
I want my backup system to be automated. If any part of it depends on me remembering to do something, then it will fail. (I’ve confirmed this, through personal experience, as a universal natural law.)
I’d like some redundancy.
Software/Services.
My backup system relies on the following software and services:
SuperDuper will mirror one bootable drive to another. It can be scheduled to run automatically.
Time Machine. Time Machine is Apple’s archiving backup utility, which runs automatically.
ChronoSync is a general purpose backup tool for OS X, that can be scheduled to run automatically. Critical to my system, is its ability to create an archive of changed or deleted files.
Backblaze is an online service that, for $50 per year, will backup an entire computer, along with any disks that are attached to it. The service provides unlimited storage. You can restore files online, or have Backblaze FedEx you DVDs or USB drives.
Dropbox is an online service that creates a local folder on your Mac, the contents of which are sync’d to Dropbox’s servers (Amazon S3). When installed using the same username/password on two or more machines, Dropbox can be used to keep a shared folder in sync.
Context.
My home computer is a Mac Pro, which serves the following functions:
- iTunes server (to other computers on our home network, and an Apple TV)
- Master repository for our important files
- My wife’s work computer
It has four internal drives installed:
Everest. The startup drive. Apart from applications and preferences, the only user data it contains is my wife’s account and work files.
EverestMirror. A bootable mirror of Everest.
Pumori. This is a 2TB Hitachi drive that contains the master repository of all our important files — iTunes music and videos, home photos and videos, non-current archives of personal and business documents, purchased software installers, etc.
Time Machine. This is a 1TB drive, used as a Time Machine target for Everest.
In addition, the Mac Pro has a Drobo attached, whose file system looks like this:
- /Archives
- /Backups
- /Pumori
- /Dropbox
The Setup.
To achieve quick recovery in case of startup drive failure, I have SuperDuper automatically mirror Everest to EverestMirror each night. A Growl notification lets me know this went OK each morning. (Objectives 1 & 4)
All of our personal and working current files are kept in Dropbox. This keeps them synchronized between my wife’s area of the Mac Pro, and my personal MacBook, and provides an online backup of them. (Objectives 2, 3, 4 & 5)
As a first line of recovering a lost or modified file from my wife’s working area, I have Time Machine archiving Everest to the “Time Machine” drive. (Objectives 2 & 4)
As a second line of recovering a lost or modified file from a portion of my wife’s working area (/Users/Wife/Dropbox), or from Pumori, I have Chronosync perform an archiving backup to the Drobo (in /Backups/Pumori and /Backups/Dropbox) each night. To avoid filling up the Drobo, I have Chronosync keep a maximum of five archived copies of any given file. I have Chronosync also configured to cleanup the archives by deleting files over 180 days old, but to always preserve at least one archived version of every file, regardless how old it is. Finally, I have Chronosync configured to email me if anything goes wrong during its nightly backup.(Objectives 2, 4 & 5)
For offsite backup, I have Backblaze backup Everest and Pumori. Given the large amount of data on Pumori, I decided to exclude iTunes “Movies” and “TV Shows”. They’re already backed up on the Drobo, and I figure in the very worst case, that the house burned down, I could just repurchase those as I wanted to view them again. Music, on the other hand, is something I wouldn’t want to have to repurchase, and so Backblaze does keep that backed up (approximately 45 GB.) (Objectives 3 & 4)
Final Notes.
I also use the Drobo to archive files that are large, uncritical and not backed up. For example, original DVD rips of movies (the VIDEO_TS folders).
For probably a decade, I've used File Buddy to search for files (in my archives), when needed. It's very configurable and fast.
Backblaze is great. Since first purchasing it, I’ve bought licenses for my own MacBook, our office server, and my mother’s computer. (More precisely, I've added those computers to my single Backblaze account, so that I can manage and restore from them all in a single web interface.)
Dropbox is also great. We’ve been using it extensively for a couple years now, and it has never failed us — which is quite a feat, considering the large number of files it manages, and the crazy folder reorganizations we've performed!
Both Backblaze and Dropbox also keep archived versions of changed or deleted files, but I prefer the convenience and configurability of my own solution. It’s nice to know those other versions are there, though.
As a curiosity, I suspect both Dropbox and Backblaze make use of “Content Addressable Storage,” which is a technology to allow unique representation of binary data. For example, I’ve dropped a huge Adobe Installer DMG file into Dropbox, and watched it almost instantly appear sync’d with Dropbox’s servers. This means that some other Dropbox customer already uploaded that particular file, and my own Dropbox recognized the “signature” of that particular file, and realized that it didn’t need to be uploaded again to their servers. Very clever. Along with multiplying the profits of Dropbox (since they pay a one-time storage fee to their provider for each N payments from their customers, for a given file), this also benefits users, as folder reorganization doesn’t require lengthy re-uploads of your files.
Testing my blog after upgrading to the latest version of WordPress, I noticed that blank pages were being returned after posting comments. Some Googling and further testing revealed that the Akismet anti-spam plugin was at fault, although the reason for it (at the present time) remains a mystery.
I did find a solution, however, involving a small modification to the comments.php file in the theme.
Recently, I've been unable to use the Banc of America brokerage site. The site logs me out whenever I navigate from one section to the next. I emailed them, and got this response:
Oh, the irony. While, on the one hand, Bank of America continually makes doing business with them increasingly cumbersome in the name of 'security' (e.g. the recent requirement to setup 'SafePass'), they are now telling me that in order to use their website, I've got to configure my own browser as insecurely as possible.
We are aware of a recent issue whereby the wallst.com cookie is now required on the Account Overview page. If the cookie is not accepted, you are logged off of the website. The issue appears to be the result of recent changes to the site, and the appropriate technology partners have been engaged. You can correct this issue by going to Safari - Preferences, then press the Security icon. Please press the radio button next to 'Always' and press the red button in the upper left corner to close the window.
Obviously not a perfect analogy, but I found it cute nonetheless. A simplified exercise in Socialism, translated from http://tinyurl.com/kl7fuz :
10 friends visit the same bar each night to have a few beers. The bill for the 10 comes to $100, and they choose to split it according to the Socialist way in which they pay taxes; i.e. a proportional scale according to wealth. - The first four (the poorest), pay nothing.- The 5th pays $1
- The 6th pays $3
- The 7th pays $7
- The 8th pays $12
- The 9th pays $18
- The 10th (the richest) pays $59. The 10 had agreed to this scale, and so they were content, until one day the barman said, "You guys are such good clients, that I'm going to reduce your daily bill by $20. From this point forward, you'll pay $80." The group wanted to continue sharing the bill proportionally, so that the four poorest would still continue to drink free. But how should they divide the $20 savings among the six that had previously been paying? Simply dividing the $20 equally between the six ($3.33 each) would result in the 5th and 6th getting paid to drink, so the barman suggested they distribute the $20 savings using the same proportional scale that originally determined how much each paid in the first place. - The 5th would no longer pay. (He saved 100%).
- The 6th would pay $2 instead of $3. (33% savings.)
- The 7th would pay $5 instead of $7. (28% savings.)
- The 8th would pay $9 instad of $12. (25% savings.)
- The 9th would pay $14 instead of $18. (22% savings.)
- And the 10th would pay $49 instead of $59 (16% savings.) Each of the six paying friends ended up in a situation better than before. The original four contiued to drink free, as well, now, as the fifth. However, upon leaving bar, something odd happened -- they began to compare their savings: - Looking at the 10th, the 6th said, "Hey, I only received a $1 of savings from the $20, while that guy received $10!" - "That's correct," said the 5th, "I also only saved $1. It's unfair he received ten times more than me!" - "It's true!," said the 7th, "The rich always manage to receive more benefits!" - "Wait a second," argued the first four, "We didn't receive anything at all! As usual, the system exploits the poor!" The angry first nine circled the 10th, and beat him up. The next night, the 10th naturally decided not to join his "friends" at the bar. Unfortunately, when it came time for the remaining 9 to pay their bill, between all of them, they couldn't come up with even half the money needed.
UPDATE
The situation has not improved with the update to OS 3.1. Furthermore, OS 3.1 nuked my internet tethering, and so I'm now going to downgrade to OS 3.0. (I previously though tethering had been preserved, as it was still present in the user interface; however, when I actually tried to tether, it disappeared.)
INTRODUCTION
I've recently noticed poor 3G network speeds when using my iPhone, and wanted to conduct some tests to identify which of the following could be the potential culprit:
- Could it be the new 3.0 version of the iPhone operating system?
- Could it be the new 3GS model of the iPhone?
- Could it be a problem with my 3G provider, Vodafone España?
SETUP
I've run these tests using a MacBook with OS X 10.6, and both iPhone 3G and 3GS models, running OS 3.0. (Also, I should note that both my iPhones are Apple official unlocked versions, purchased in Italy, i.e. they are not jailbroken.)
TESTS & RESULTS
A) MacBook tethering to 3G-connected iPhone (Speedtest.net)
For these tests, I had the MacBook tethered to the iPhone, and ran the tests at Speedtest.net using the Spanish "Elda" servers.
- MacBook tethered to iPhone 3G, 0.18 Mbps
- Macbook tethered to iPhone 3GS, 0.14 Mbps
For comparison, here are the results when: (a) untethered, and connected to the local Wifi, and (b) tethered to the 3G-network via a different phone than an iPhone.
- MacBook on local Wifi, 6.00 Mbps
- MacBook tethered to HTC phone, 2.5 Mbps.
B) iNetwork iPhone App Test
For these tests, I ran the iNetwork Speed Test application on the iPhones, comparing the results of being connected to the local Wifi, and connected via the 3G network.
- iPhone 3G: Wifi (2.3 Mbps), Vodafone 3G (0.12 Mbps)
- iPhone 3GS: Wifi (1.2 Mbps), Vodafone 3G (0.12 Mbps)
CONCLUSIONS
Based on the following tests, I conclude that the problem must be with the 3.0 version of the iPhone operating system.
- It's not a problem with the 3GS model of the iPhone, because the performance was similar on the iPhone 3G model.
- It doesn't seem to be a problem with Vodafone, as tethered performance using an HTC phone was fine.
Is there anyone who would not prefer the default behavior of “Paste” to be “Paste and Match Style”?
In the Mac OS X operating system, when you copy content from one application, and paste into another, the source styles, in addition to the content, is copied into the destination. Unless you're expecting or desire this behavior, your workflow is interrupted and you're left with a bit of a mess to clean up (the effort of which relates to how quickly you discover what happened).
Most style-aware applications support a "Paste and Match Style" option, but some don't (like "sidenote", the application in which I'm writing this post.) For those, we're kind of stuck.
Based on how I work (mostly in plain text), as well as most people I know, a preferred approach would be:
"Paste and Match Style" should be the default behavior of the basic "Paste" function.
The current "Paste and Match Style" option should be renamed and re-functioned "Paste with styles".
Applications that are particularly interested in styles (page layout applications, graphic design applications, etc.), could, on pastes which include styles, simply prompt the user, "Include styles with this paste?"
The Rio Grande river begins its journey at the mouth of a cave near Yunquera, Spain, and makes its way down through the mountains and just by the Tolox venta where we like to have lunch on the weekends.
For quite some time, we’ve been wanting to visit the river source (“nacimiento,” in Spanish), having heard that it’s a particularly beautiful place. Unfortunately, however, neither the routes we’ve found in books, nor the ones we found on the web have accurately described how to find the place. On our first attempt, two weeks ago, we simply couldn’t find it.
This past weekend, we tried again, and this time we did find it. In this blog article, we’ll describe how to get there, and point you to the trip page we created at EveryTrail.com, where you can download the GPS track file, to ensure your own ability to find it.
Getting to the starting point.
We began by driving to Yunquera, about an hour’s drive into the Sierra de las Nieves region north of Marbella, Spain. There’s a round-about as you’re leaving Yunquera (with a green gas station on the left). Take the second exit in this round-about, heading down a narrow road, staying to your right. After less than a kilometer, you’ll pass a recreation area on your left. Just after this recreation area, is a small road that leads off to the left, through a row of trees on both sides. (At the beginning of this road, is a Junta de Andalucia sign announcing a number of trails in the area.)
After about three or four kilometers, there a road off to the right, just as the road you’re own curves relatively sharply to the left. The road to the right is marked with what looks like an aqueduct passing overhead. Turn right on this road, and park your car about 20 meters later, at the junction of the next road which also branches off to the right.
This next road off to the right is where you’ll be walking. You can’t drive it, thankfully, as the neighbors have put up a chain across the road to prevent all but those willing to walk from visiting the Nacimiento del Rio Grande.
Path to the Nacimiento del Rio Grande.
After about 700 meters walking down this road, there is a sharp curve to the left. This curve is marked by a “plazoleta”, or “small plaza”; basically a little area where cars would have, in the past, perhaps parked. On the right side of the road, in this curve, a trail begins to descend just between two rocks. It is this trail that leads down to the river. If you miss this curve, and continue down the road, you’ll come to a point (about 200 meters later) where you’ll see a house on the right (with a heavily plant-covered outside garage), and (looking down the hill) a water reservoir on the left. If you get here, you’ve gone too far. (Turn around and walk about five minutes back up the road.)
From the path leading down to the river, it’s about a 200 meter walk. You’ll eventually come to a set of stairs on your left, that lead steeply down to a small dam that built on the river. At this point, you can do one of two things:
- You can walk across the dam, climb up onto a small water aqueduct and follow it to the river source cave on the right. In August, there wasn’t a lot of water, but we reckoned this area must be spectacular in the winter. It’s the perfect place for a picnic.
- Instead of crossing the dam, climb up onto it, and straight off it (on the other side, but without crossing), and follow the path down to a pool of crystal clear water, backed up by the dam, and suitable for swimming.
Attached below are some additional resources for you:
You can view our trip photos at Flickr, in this photo set.
You can download the GPS track file which begins at the point we parked the car from the trip page at EveryTrail.com.
In the sport of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I've been fortunate (having trained under some great coaches) to have won gold medals two times at the European BJJ championships. On both occasions, I fought in the lightweight division, 76 kg (including the gi/kimono). Generally walking around at 76 kg, I would need to only lose about 2 kg a couple days before the event (to compensate for the weight of the gi), and would generally be one of the bigger and stronger participants in the division (being at the very top of the weight range).
This year, my walk-around weight increased to about 81 kg, and prior to the European championships, I decided to forego trying to lose 7 kg, and just fight at middleweight, 82 kg (including gi). That turned out to be a major mistake, as the fighters in that category walk around at 84- and 85 kg, and cut down to 82 kg for the event. It felt like fighting monsters, and I didn't win a single fight. So, for 2010, I will, without question, try to return to the lightweight division. Losing weight, permanently, takes time, and so I decided to start the process a couple months ago. My goal is to reach 76 kg. I began at 81 kg, and after 45 days, have gotten down to 77 kg -- so I'm almost there. WEIGHTBOT FOR THE IPHONE If you have an iPhone, there's no better tool to track your weight than Weightbot, from the people at Tapbots. http://tapbots.com/weightbot/ As a product developer myself, I have mad respect for the effort these capable guys have put into make the user interface beautiful, simple and efficient to use. DIETING & WEIGHT LOSS The reason I ended up at 81 kg is simple: I love to eat, and I love beer (in particular, Corona with lime, or the Spanish Cruz Campo).
Getting my weight back down to 76 kg was going to require a change of habit (or, the establishment of some habits, depending how you want to look at it.) The things I didn't want to give up included my yummy daily lunches, and my afternoon post-workout couple of beers. The resulting strategy included: 1. Eliminate all between-meal snacking. This has been the most difficult part. I was so used to grabbing a snack frequently throughout the day. 2. Eliminate all sweets. This hasn't been as difficult as I expected it to be. 3. Reduce consumption of breads to a minimum. No problem here. I have a piece of toast with breakfast, and maybe a small piece at lunch. 4. Cut back on sauces (ceasar salad dressing, kebab yogurt sauce, things like that). Again, no real problem here. 5. Eat well at breakfast and lunch, and eat very lightly at dinner. (Note, lunch and dinner, here in Spain, happen generally generally around 2:00 PM and 10:00 PM, respectively.) Following this simple plan, I've been losing about 0.5 kg (1.1 pounds) per week, and without feeling deprived of what I really like.
I recently contacted Bank of America regarding the refinancing of my home. (I'm hoping to take advantage of the relatively low rates currently available.) Refinancing involves speaking with a loan officer. Loan officers generally are compensated, at least in part, through commissions.
1. Beginning in a "Live Chat" with, let's call him "Bob," the first question I'm asked is the rate of my current mortgage. "Does that really matter?", I asked. "No.", replied Bob. (At this point, I'm thinking that at some point during the process, I would have been told, "Wow, Matt, look how much lower this rate is than your current one!", when, in fact, that's irrelevant; I want the lowest rate offered in the market right now.) 2. We move on to a phone call, and I'm quoted a rate of 5.5% with 0.5 points. Bob asks, "So, how do those numbers look to you, Matt?" Obviously, this isn't their best offer. 3. I replied that Bank of America was my first stop, and so I didn't have a comparison reference yet. "Matt, why don't you call the credit union right now, and call me straight back. These numbers just dropped today, and may not be available long!" Yes, the age-old, "You must act fast!" tactic. How clever. 4. An hour or so later, I emailed Bob a screenshot of the credit union's numbers; same interest rate, but no points. I ask him to email me Bank of America's best offer. Bob replies, "Matt, I've already got some discounts approved by my manager. What time can we speak on the phone tomorrow?" Ah, the sneaky application of the triple-technique: (1) place himself in the neutral position between the customer and the "managers," (2) information can only be passed when speaking (to give him the chance to respond to whatever my reaction might be), and (3) again, the insistence on acting quickly ("We must speak tomorrow.") 5. I replied to Bob, saying that I will be unavailable the following day between the hours of 8:00 PM and 11:00 PM (the window during which he wanted to call), and could he please instead send me Bank of America's best offer. Disregarding my statement of unavailability, he tried calling three times between 8:00 PM and 11:00 PM. At this point, I'm wondering whether to continue with Bob or not. This process feels something akin to buying a used car at Shady Al's Shack. I'm not completely sure why I find it so distasteful, perhaps because (a) it feels somehow insulting, and (b) it's terribly inefficient, thereby wasting my time.The following resume, verbatim, just landed in my inbox. Seriously, how could we not hire this guy!? The only thing he's not, is concise.
==== Resume of {Name Deleted} ==== A Man for All SolutionsHighly Versatile, Strategic and Resourceful, Cost-Conscious and Efficiency-Driven, Grounded and Well-Rounded, People-Empowering and Widely Respected Executive Generalist Leader of All Facets of Business, including Penetrating New Markets and innovating New Product Lines Overview: A constant stream of outside-the-box solutions
Calm, cool and collected, creating a corporate culture conducive to continuous contribution from all corners. SNAPSHOT OF LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY Free-thinking, open-minded, solution-finding leadership with watchful eye on the future and the ideas to get there. The steady hand of consensus and family-style leadership that makes loyalty among dealers and customers as well as employees a fundamental truth. A light personal touch to elicit dedication. Not adverse to disagreement or controversy. Never hold people back, always challenging to push capabilities, wanting team to work with me rather than for me. Leadership track record of achieving long-term sales growth from $300K to $8 million and ultimately increasing over 435% to $35 Million through a combination of team building, restructuring, acquisitions, and in-depth across-the-board training, creating the #1 revenue-producing part of the organization Philosophy of taking the long view and risk of making surgical strategy changes to business direction and setting a new course for igniting significant continuous growth and market expansion, which has led to minimized cost and maximized profitability with a fraction of the original employee base, watching sales mushroom without established brand recognition against the biggest names in the business + Highly adaptable and capable in all facets of business with solid understanding from first-hand experience of how all the pieces fit and work together or against each other + Mentored by company_s top executives _ CEO, President, V.P. Treasurer _ and advanced steadily from warehouse / shipping / receiving, operations, credit / finance, and sales to Company President and General Manager within only 4 years of recruitment, overcoming all natural resistance to rapid rise at so young an age with down-to-earth personality + Always fine-tuning the organization from the micro to the macro, building up and building back down, dealing easily with constant flux + Widely diverse functionality across the industry spectrum, easily adapting to new and challenging economic environments, an innovative purview of new products with sharp eye to penetrating new markets with freshly conceived product introductions, training, educating, and serving customers and Mergers & Acquisition leadership + Demonstrated willingness and courage to approach the board to express desire to uproot things as they are and even take control from the chairman, a huge risk taken that proved prescient + Policy of holding annual forums for eliciting feedback + More interested in contributing to the greater good than status or title, equally at home being a team player as in lead roles + Optimize team productivity and company efficiencies + Always evaluating, reevaluating and absorbing, inciting feedback from all sides, and always believing there is a better way of doing things + Able to unify, motivate, educate, train and retain people and induce cohesiveness and synergy, with an eye for spotting diamonds in the rough and polishing into gems Select Accomplishments
+ Took unprecedented strategic risk that culminated in more than 4X growth to $35 Million in sales + Heralded the introduction of new products into new markets, ultimately increasing sales for a single product line from $300K to $8 million between 1982 and 2002, on course to $35 Million + Made a series of unprecedented strategic moves to set a new future course, accepting a strategic 50% cut in revenues in selling off a whole division to completely change direction to stimulate dramatic growth, recasting the company in a whole new light and image including a new name, followed by launch of spinoff acceptance company to independently push sales of new product line regionally, rising 40% with 25% more dealerships in place, while cutting outside financing need by 40% and increasing inventory turnover + Expanded into new geographic areas, picking up new distributorships and markets and cracking the $1 million threshold, gradually building steam across state boundaries to $8 Million in sales + Pared sales team down to only 25 from peak of more than 100 + Increased profitability 65% with a fraction (25%) of original employee base + Leased out old warehouse and oversaw new design and building of new office/ warehouse/showroom and reduced overhead by 80% + Expanded territory reach which increased electronic sales by $8 million and appliance sales by $1 million + Completed strategic acquisition of 3 distributorships that boosted sales and increased the bottom line by 65% after consolidations + Doubled appliance inventory turnover due to new in-house financing program + Consistently ranked in top 6 nationwide electronic and appliance distributors year after year in product line, parts & service, and overall performance + Developed a nationally recognized WAC Distributor/Dealer Floor Planning Program that greatly enhanced product sales, which reduced cost by about 40%, increased return of inventories, put higher branded product on the floor, expanded sales and profit, and achieved more market penetration per dealer than ever before
CapitalOne could have emailed me with the following short note:
"Due to forthcoming changes in our online banking, please visit the following URL if you access Bill Pay via Quicken: capitalonebank.com/betteronlinebanking . If you don't do Bill Pay via Quicken, you can safely ignore this email." I don't do Bill Pay at CapitalOne via Quicken, and so I could have immediately got on with my day. Instead, CapitalOne chose a process which unnecessarily cost me about five to seven minutes of my time. 1. They emailed me to let me know that a new "secure message" was waiting for me in my account. 2. I then had to login, figure out where the "message" area is, navigate there, and then click on the new message. 3. The new message told me that changes were coming, and to learn more, I needed to visit that above URL. 4. I visited the above URL, and determined that this update doesn't affect me. Considering every aspect of the user experience is important. Due to this experience with CapitalOne, instead of thinking "What a smart bank!", I'm left thinking, "I wonder how much of my CapitalOne fees goes to supporting inefficient operations?"Unfortunately, Google Voice doesn't yet support forwarding to international numbers, which, for someone like me, living in Spain but with considerable interests in the US, is quite a bummer. (What I particularly like about Google Voice is its call screening facilities.)
To work around this limitation, I have Google Voice forwarding to my US SkypeIn number. This works well when I'm at the computer, as I can answer my Google Voice calls directly in Skype. But what about when I'm not at the computer? One of Skype's preferences is forwarding, and I have it configured to forward unanswered calls to my iPhone. While this works fairly well, a parameter I'm still fiddling with is the time after which Skype considers the call "unanswered" and does its forwarding. If you set this value too small (like "1 second"), then you don't have enough time to answer Skype calls when at the computer. If you set it too large (like "10 seconds"), then your Google Voice call will timeout and get dropped long before Skype has time to forward to the iPhone. Presently I have this value set at "4 seconds", which seems to be a good trade-off.Unfortunately, Google Voice doesn't yet support forwarding to international numbers, which, for someone like me, living in Spain but with considerable interests in the US, is quite a bummer. (What I particularly like about Google Voice is its call screening facilities.)
To work around this limitation, I have Google Voice forwarding to my US SkypeIn number. This works well when I'm at the computer, as I can answer my Google Voice calls directly in Skype. But what about when I'm not at the computer? One of Skype's preferences is forwarding, and I have it configured to forward unanswered calls to my iPhone. While this works fairly well, a parameter I'm still fiddling with is the time after which Skype considers the call "unanswered" and does its forwarding. If you set this value too small (like "1 second"), then you don't have enough time to answer Skype calls when at the computer. If you set it too large (like "10 seconds"), then your Google Voice call will timeout and get dropped long before Skype has time to forward to the iPhone. Presently I have this value set at "4 seconds", which seems to be a good trade-off.In case you missed it, TechCrunch received some 300+ confidential documents related to Twitter (the company), which were attained by a hacker. These documents contained minutes of meetings, business plans, talks with companies like Google and Microsoft. In short, a disaster for Twitter.
This morning TechCrunch published an article [ http://bit.ly/1aLJGr ] detailing how the hacker attained these documents, and it really highlights the need to frequently reassess our computer security.
In short, the hacker exploited a common feature of web services, in which a new password can be sent to the user's default email account. Having gained access to one email account, the hacker could then one-by-one gain access to a variety of the user's subscribed web services. Gaining that access was tremendously helped by the fact that the target used the same password for multiple services.
It's clear that, today, security is a domino context, in which the compromising of one weak link can bring down the whole structure.
After reading the TechCrunch article, I did a quick review of my own security policies, and noted the following:
* It is important to review security policies periodically. Regardless how solid a policy appeared in the year 2000, it can become quite brittle and fragile in the context of the year 2009.
* I am once again reminded how happy I am to be using a tool like 1Password [ http://bit.ly/1Golyl ], to create strong, random, unique passwords for all the web services I use.
* I'm glad I took the decision to use PGP to encrypt the entire disk on my MacBook.
* I wish everyone used PGP, so that I could encrypt all my email.
I recently placed an order for a camera with Pixmania.es. After a few days I received this email (with my order number edited; so don't click the link):
Su pedido 9HJ1-6706EDIT fue envíado.
Visita http://www.expansys.es/tracking.aspx?EDIT para más información. Según el transportista elegido, y para tener más información: - contactar directamente con DHL al 902122424 o 915867927 - contactar directamente con SEUR al 972 242 526
Order Processing
eXpansys
+34 933 938 182
mailto:orderstat@expansys.es
http://www.expansys.es
In such a short email, Pixmania have failed on five points:
The email is from Expansys.es, which as far as I can tell, is a completely different company. Presumably they've merged or something? This is akin to placing an order with Best Buy, and getting a fulfillment email from Amazon. My first thought was, "Oh no, did I somehow order this thing twice!?!" A short explanation to the customer could prevent a lot of confusion.
The only information available in the tracking link, is a note to say that the product shipped and that they've sent me this email.
And this is uniquely amazing: The text beginning with "Según el transportista elegido..." means this: "Depending on the courier company we choose, please call either DHL or SEUR to get more information about the status of your order." Yes, you read that correctly. They either don't know which courier they've chosen, or just don't want to tell me.
Without a tracking number, I'm not going to get very far calling either DHL or SEUR. Both this email and the Expansys website only display the Expansys order number.
Finally, when calling the "Order Processing" telephone number +34 933 938 182, I'm told that "This telephone number is unavailable."
You would think that somebody at Pixmania (or Expansys?) responsible for user experience would have, just once, placed an order at their own site, and observed what happens.