All posts by jasonian

Hey, Coudal Partners! Don’t opt me in!

Two days ago I ordered a three-pack of Field Notes Notebooks. (Think of them as the start of a backlash against the seeming ubiquity of Moleskine users everywhere.) I first heard about them from a side reference on Daring Fireball earlier this year. Today I got SPAM from Coudal Partners, the makers of Field Notes, asking me to opt-out if I don’t want any more mail.

You’re receiving this because you signed up at Coudal.com or Jewelboxing and/or you recently bought something from us or one of our brands, like a Pixies or Dead Can Dance CD or a tee-shirt or Field Notes or something else (we’re a small creative firm in Chicago and we do a lot of different things). Whatever the case, thanks for signing up. If you’d like to quit getting these occasional missives, just click “unsubscribe” at the bottom. We’re really very good about that.

I call it SPAM because, despite their comments in the email to the contrary, I didn’t sign up for this email. Instead, Coudal decided (I assume), that since I ordered from them, clearly I must want to get email from them too. What does the Spamhaus Project say about this?

Opt-Out: All bulk email sent to recipients who have not expressly registered permission for their addresses to be placed on the specific mailing list, and which requires recipients to “opt-out” to stop further unsolicited bulk mailings, is by definition Unsolicited Bulk Email, a/k/a “Spam”.

Unconfirmed Opt-In: If an Opt-in request is unconfirmed, then it can not be verifiied. If it can not be verified then the Bulk Email Sender can simply say “You opted-in” which is why almost all spam claims “You opted-in to this list”.

I revisited the Field Notes website looking for where in my order process I got the chance to opt in or opt out, or a blurb that informed me that I’d be added to their mailing list, and found nothing. Not a single checkbox; not even a field for my email in the first place.

Where, exactly, did I sign up for this email?

(Ironically, this is the only email I’ve received from Coudal Partners. No order confirmation, nothing. Only a payment confirmation from PayPal; that’s where they got my email address, by the way.)

This is the height of conceit in many companies, the assumption that I want to receive their marketing screeds, which often have nothing to do with why they may have my email address. In this case, Coudal thought I’d want to know about something called “Layer Tennis“, which, near I can tell, is a bunch of Photoshop jockeys competing in an on-line design contest.

What, exactly, does manipulating images have to do with buying a set of notebooks?

After only a single interaction with Coudal, I’m already doubting my decision. Is this kind of behavior what I should expect? Should I worry that my email address will be sold? (Fortunately I use company-specific email addresses, so I can just change the one I use for PayPal if I need to.)

C’mon Coudal. I trusted you to do the right thing because Gruber usually does, and he uses you for his advertising, along with A List Apart, 37 Signals, and The Morning News, all sites I respect. If you want to email people, create a real confirmed opt-in list. Don’t just assume your customers want your marketing mails, no matter how “infrequent” that mailing is.

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The Bad Humor Man

I recently added Ask MetaFilter to my news reader. It’s a colossal waste of time, but occasionally will have something that educates or amuses.

The latest example is a mom who sticks bad jokes into her five year old’s lunch box every day, and wanted a resource for those jokes. Not only did the “hive mind” come up with some classic gems, e.g.

Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t work?
A: A stick.

Q: Why is the ocean salty?
A: Cause pepper makes the fish sneeze.

they also came up with URLs full of these groaners. I spent several minutes laughing stupidly. From Squigly’s Jokes & Riddles came these:

Q: Imagine you’re stuck in a car that’s falling off the edge of a cliff and you can’t climb out, what do you do?
A: Stop imagining.

and

Q: What did the fish say when it swam into a concrete wall?
A: “Dam.”

and

Q: How do you get out of a room with no doors or windows when you only have a baseball and bat?
A: Throw the ball up. Miss. Strike 1. Throw again. Miss. Strike 2. Again. Miss. Strike 3. You’re out!

and

Q: What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?
A: “Where’s my tractor?”

and

Q: Why do seagulls fly over seas and not bays?
A: Because then they would be bagels

Alas, my girlfriend didn’t find these amusing. I don’t understand why. Here’s a final one, from Bad Puns, that may explain it:

Two parts of the eye were discussing who told better puns. Their debate raged on, till one said to the other, “You, my friend, are simply the pupil. I am by far the cornea of the two of us.”

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Maytag/Jenn-Air dishwashers recalled due to fire hazard

Anyone who tells you owning a house is a pure joy has never owned a house. Yes, yes, the American Dream, pride of ownership, blah blah blah. Bottom line? When you become a home owner, you take on all the problems your landlord used to handle, and then some.

Case in point: my dishwasher is being recalled. The manufacturer (Maytag) says liquid rinse-aid (e.g. Jet Dry, which I use and just refilled two days ago) can leak into the dishwasher’s internal wiring, short circuit, and catch fire.

Maytag Corporation has received 135 reports of dishwasher fires, resulting in product and/or property damage.

Anyone find it ironic that a device that fills with water during its use might catch fire? Yeah, me too.

My model, a Maytag that came with the house and is somewhere between six and ten years old, is within the serial number range, so I called and, after several minutes of Automated Phone Tree Hell, they confirmed I’m covered, and offered either to pay for an in-house repair, or give me $75 toward the purchase of another Maytag, Jenn-Air, Whirlpool or KitchenAid dishwasher.

I took the cash.

While I look for a new dishwasher, I’m not supposed to use this one. Three separate times on their website, Maytag says those with affected units should

  • Stop using the product(s).
  • Disconnect the electric supply to the product(s) by shutting off the fuse or circuit breaker controlling it.
  • Inform all users of the product(s) not to use due to the risk of fire.

Stop using the product and wash my dishes by hand? Are you crazy? I’ll just keep a fire extinguisher handy.

Four injuries have been reported, including three reports of smoke inhalation and one serious hand laceration when operating a fire extinguisher to put out a fire in the dishwasher.

Shit. I need my hands. I can’t hold a perfect chilled martini without them.

Well, I’ve been using it for two years without trouble. What are the odds of it igniting after I read about the recall but not before? Hm?

Does the dishwasher really need to be disconnected if it is working fine?

Yes. Customers that have an affected unit should (etc.)

By the way, this is one reason why you should register your purchases. If the previous home owner hadn’t done so, I may never have heard about this. If you have a Maytag or Jenn-Air dishwasher, take a look at the Maytag recall website to see if your dishwasher is affected.

Well, I’ve been wanting to buy a new dishwasher anyway. Now it’ll be $75 cheaper. Now, if I can just find a good sale….

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E*Trade: Pennies are for losers

In Superman III Superman III, Richard Pryor figured out that he can make himself rich by taking the fractions of pennies left over from rounding down on financial transactions. Corporations for years have added millions of dollars to their bottom-line by raising rates a few pennies per customer (calculate PG&E’s 9.1 million customers getting a one-cent-per-month increase: $1,092,000 a year). And financial institutions use money in your account as loans and investments.

This is the likely explanation for why E*Trade doesn’t let me move pennies out of my brokerage account. I have with E*Trade a brokerage account, a checking account and a home equity line of credit (HELOC). I recently noticed a $4.16 payment due on the HELOC, and $3.04 in the brokerage. I figured I’d use the brokerage to pay off the HELOC, with the difference coming from checking.

Nope.

Oh, it’ll tell you it will work, but will fail at some later point. The error message was classic too:

Transfer failed-insufficient funds
Your request to transfer $3.04 from Brokerage-#### to E*Trade Bank HELOC-#### count not be completed due to insufficient funds in Brokerage-####….

I have exactly $3.04 in there, I’m transferring $3.04, and yet it fails. When I call up their automated system, I’m told I have $3 even in the account! That four cents? Nonexistent as far as their system is concerned.

There appears to be no way to get fraction of dollars out unless I close the account. I could add $0.96 and then pull out the whole dollar, of course. But what a crazy workaround to a non-problem.

Yet another reason E*Trade continues to drive me nuts.

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Getting ringtones on your iPhone for free

Update: Now that Apple’s updated GarageBand, you can make your own iPhone ringtones without any of the hackery below! Don’t have GarageBand? It’s part of iLife ’08. It also comes for free with any new Mac, like the all-in-one 20″ iMac.


First of all, I didn’t figure this out. I’m simply putting a few pieces together from other people. That said, here’s how I was able to get ringtones on my iPhone from my MacBook, completely free.

Clue Number 1: You can mount your iPhone as a hard drive. I don’t remember where I first learned about this, but MacFuse and iPhoneDisk makes this trivial. This allowed me to mount my iPhone and copy files directly to it.

Clue Number 2: Ringtones are stored in a user-accessible location. One place I learned about this is Erica Sadun’s article on the O’Reilly Network. Erica’s article says to put the music files in /var/root/Library/Ringtones (which, when you mount your iPhone via iPhoneDisk translates to /Volumes/Library/Ringtones); this location didn’t work for me, though.

Clue Number 3: Ringtones need a special file to point to them. I got this from a post on pastebin.com, where the author Keldegar points out that you need a specially-formatted file called a “plist” (short for “property list”, which store preferences and so on). The author also pointed to a different location from what Erica at O’Reilly pointed to; this new location (/Volumes/Media/iTunes_Control/Ringtones) worked for me.

Putting these three clues together, I’m now able to use any audio files iPhone can play as a ringtone! Here’s the step-by-step; it’s more complicated to write it out than to actually do it.

1. Download and install MacFuse. You need at least MacFuse Core 0.4.0.

2. Download and install iPhoneDisk. The latest version as of this writing is iPhoneDisk-20070826.

3. Double-click iPhoneDisk; it shows an icon iPhoneDisk menu item icon in the menubar to show it’s running.

4. Connect your iPhone. A hard-drive icon named “Media” iPhone Media hard drive icon should show up in Finder. iTunes will launch and sync if it’s set to automatically do that.

5. In Finder, open the Media drive and then the iTunes_Control folder.

7. Create a new folder inside iTunes_Control named Ringtones.

8. Copy the music you want to use as a ringtone into the Ringtones folder.

Now comes the slightly tricky part. You’ll need a text editor (not a word processor!). I’ll assume you’ll use TextEdit, but you can use BBEdit/TextWranger, TextMate, Coda, etc.

9. In TextEdit, make a new file (File > New) and convert it to plain text (Format > Make Plain Text).

10. Copy and paste the following code. You will need to change it in a couple of places to match your songs (see the next step).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Ringtones</key>
    <dict>
       <key>SongFileName.mp3</key>
        <dict>
            <key>GUID</key>
            <string>1</string>
            <key>Name</key>
            <string>A Song Name</string>
        </dict>
   </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

11. You want to change the following sections to match your songs:

  • SongFileName.mp3 is the filename of the song (as saved in Finder).
  • A Song Name is the name you want iPhone to display.
  • The number 1 can be any number, as long as it’s unique in this file (that is, if you add a second song, that song gets 2, a third song gets 3, etc.)

This file, as is, will give you one song. Here’s an example of a file with two songs:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Ringtones</key>
    <dict>
       <key>SongFileName.mp3></key>
        <dict>
            <key>GUID</key>
            <string>1</string>
            <key>Name</key>
            <string>A Song Name</string>
        </dict>

        <key>AnotherSongFileName.mp3</key>
        <dict>
            <key>GUID</key>
            <string>2</string>
            <key>Name</key>
            <string>Another Song Name</string>
        </dict>

    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Hopefully it’s clear what to copy and where to paste it. Download this Ringtones.plist file as a starting point. (As an aside, if you’re a Mac developer with the Xcode tools installed, you can use /Developer/Applications/Utilties/Property List Editor to make short work of editing this file.)

12. Save this file as Ringtones.plist to /Volumes/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes/Ringtones.plist.

Now navigate on your iPhone to Home > Settings > Sounds > Ringtones and you should see your list of ringtones!

Troubleshooting

Things don’t always go perfectly. Here are a few items that might cause some issues (usually your songs don’t show up in the Ringtones list).

The plist file is misnamed, malformed, or not in the right location.

The file is /Volumes/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes/Ringtones.plist.

Try creating the Ringtones.plist file with only a single song to be sure that works before adding additional songs.

The Ringtones folder is in the wrong location.

I got this working by putting the Ringtones folder inside /Volumes/Media/iTunes_Control; this puts it at the same level as the Artwork, iTunes and Music folders.

On Barry Bonds: An Open Letter to John Gruber

John, John, John.

I don’t get it. You’ve taken potshots at Barry Bonds twice in two days. Surely as a baseball fan you realize that one can’t “cheat” 756 home runs. Have all these years of winning as a Yankees fan blinded you to the pure joy of success? This old Mets fan is thrilled to witness history and recognize Barry Bonds for the great player he is.

Bonds was a three-time MVP winner before 2001 (when he hit 73 home runs, supposedly on steroids). He’d already hit 494 home runs, including four years of 40 or more home runs (and ten years of 30 or more). He’s been a near-.300 hitter his entire career, something that has nothing to do with power nor something that steroids would help with. And, of course, he is the all-time walks leader. Heck, he managed to hit those 73 home runs in 2001 even with 177 walks.

Do you believe Bonds is taking steroids even today? If not, when do you think he stopped? If you think he’s stopped, do you believe it’s altered his performance negatively? And if you don’t think he’s stopped, do you think he’s a blathering idiot for continuing to do it with this level of scrutiny?

If all Bonds did was hit home runs, without ay depth to his game (cf. Mark Mcguire), I might lend credence to the “it’s the drugs!” camp. But you have to look at the big picture here. The man has been a consistently great hitter.

You can hate Bonds, believe he knowingly took steroids, think he’s the worst thing about baseball, but c’mon, how can you watch his sweet swing and reflect on his entire career and think that’s the result of taking illegal drugs?

Let it go. The man’s done something only two other players in the history of Major League Baseball have ever done: hit seven hundred or more home runs in his career. He has been one of the best hitters in baseball for the 22 years he’s been playing the game.

Ten years from now, when Alex Rodriguez or whomever is breaking Bonds’ record, you’ll marvel at how you’ve witnessed baseball history twice in your lifetime.

Enjoy the moment.

Best,

Jason.

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756 for #25! Bonds stands alone

Congratulations Barry Bonds!

200708080106

I’m a huge baseball fan. Have been since I was 11. Collected the trading cards. Celebrated my teams’ wins and rued their losses. Had my heart broken and experienced unbridled elation because of baseball.

Throughout it all, beyond the crack of the bat, the field of green, the nuances of this pastoral game, have been the numbers. Some of those numbers are magical and bring a knowing smile to fans, even the record has been broken: 56, 61, 2,130, 714 and 755.

714 and 755 are more magical than others. 714 home runs (Babe Ruth) stood as the most home runs by any player in all of baseball for 53 years. People swore it would never be broken, until Henry Aaron came along, on his way to 755 home runs, which stood for 33 years, and likewise was thought to be unbreakable.

Wny? Consider this: Besides Ruth, Aaron and now Bonds, no one else has even hit 700 home runs. The next active player, Sammy Sosa, has 604, and the guy behind him (Ken Griffey, Jr.) has 589. Barry has been steadily climbing the charts for years now, and no one else was even close.

Seeing this milestone broken will remain a memory of a lifetime. When I’m 80 and doddering, I’ll be telling the story of 756.

And Bonds hits one hard. Hits it deep! It is outta here! 756! Bonds stands alone! He is on top of the all-time home run list! — Duane Kuiper, Aug. 7, 2007


“756 HRS” image screen-captured from barrybonds.com.

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iPhone activation

Whoo hoo! I have in my grubby, nail-bitten hands an iPhone of my very own. Actually, since The New AT&T (which seems very much like The Old AT&T) hasn’t managed to activate it yet, what I actually have is a brick.

It’s a rather sexy, shiny brick, though. I can’t stop sliding the unlock button.

I know!

Here’s an on-going tale of my activation. Let’s see together how long it takes for me to have a working iPhone.

7:30 PM: Take a few unboxing photos of the iPhone. None of them came out very well. Very disappointed.

8 PM: Connected iPhone to MacBook for first time. I thrill at the trill iPhone makes when you dock it. The excitement is palpable as iTunes launches, tells me it’s looking for iPhone and then… tells me I need to update to Mac OS X 10.4.10. Sigh.

10:30 PM: Y and I finish iChatting; she logs out and goes to bed, I fire up Software Update and kick off the update process. While a couple hundred megabytes find their way to my MacBook, I surf the internet (i.e. twiddle my thumbs).

11 PM: Software Update completes, reboots, reboots again (really Apple, think you could warn people about that?). Log in, connect iPhone (ah, there’s that trill!), up comes iPhone, and I can finally start the process. I choose a family plan (awww!).

11:13 PM: My first email from the iPhone_Activation_Support team! Oh, its just giving me an order number and thanking me for buying an iPhone. Uh, you’re welcome?

11:19 PM: I hit my second hurdle. My activation “may take a while”. No guess as to how long “a while” might be. I get another email letting me know that AT&T is now processing my order. Uh, thanks?

Midnight: Still not activated, I decide to get some shuteye. Maybe I’ll wake up to a working iPhone!

7:30 AM: Wake up. iPhone still not activated. I start to worry, ever so slightly. I grab my T-Mobile phone, just to make sure AT&T hasn’t ended that service before starting my new one. Nope, T-Mobile still works. Whew.

7:45 AM: Visit AT&T website, call the iPhone activation number (877.800.3701), get to a Customer Service Rep (Senetria). I explain the situation, that it’s been eight hours or so, and no activation. Her reaction?

AT&T isn’t responsible for activating the iPhone

Blink. Blink.

She insists that any iPhone related questions are handled by Apple, that’s it’s all “done on the Internet”.

Ah! It hits me: she thinks I’m having problems using iTunes! I explain that I’m not, and she goes away for about 10 minutes, looking things up, I presume. When she returns, she informs me that I need to call iPhone Customer Service at… 877.800.3701, the very number I’m currently dialed in to.

8 AM: OK then. She transfers me over to Dave, who, I presume, is sitting in the next cube over. He looks into the magic AT&T systems and divines that “people” have been touching my account (ewww!), and that something should be happening Real Soon Nowâ„¢, perhaps as soon as 20 minutes, but he suggests I practice patience for another three or four hours. I thank him reluctantly and hang up.

8:08 AM: Lo! Another email from AT&T! “Processing Mobile Number Transfer”! This is great! My phone is semi-activated! I can receive calls on my iPhone, and start playing with all the features! Well, except for that “calling people” thing. Over-rated anyway.

8:38 AM: Still another email from AT&T! Is it… can it be? Yes! “Congratulations, AT&T has successfully transferred your existing mobile number.” Sweeter words have never crossed my spam filters.

And only nine hours to do it. Not the “super easy” activation some other people experienced, but relatively painless.

I won’t bother telling you how cool this phone is, you either already know or have read about it a million other places.

But I’ve got an iPhone!

Whoo hoo!

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TicketScam

I don’t like going to concerts. They’re crowded, you usually can’t see the stage well, and the music is either too loud or the performers are screaming and out of breath. Not the best experience. I haven’t been to a live show in some ten years.

So you’ll understand how big a deal Matisyahu must be for me as I consider purchasing tickets for his upcoming tour.

He’s playing at Catalyst in Santa Cruz, and tickets are listed as $35 each. Sounds reasonable, right? Ah, but wait.

Tickets: $35
Fee: $3 (per ticket)
Processing: $0.50
Tax: 5% (per ticket)

There’s a “fee” and a “processing fee”. Suddenly a ticket is actually $40.25. But wait, there’s more. You want to actually get those tickets? Well, you’ll have to pay for that too.

Will-call: $1
Mail: $3.50
Print at Home: $2
Secure: $10

Yes, they’ll charge you a buck for standing in line. For saving them printing costs? They’ll double the charge. For the cost of a forty-one cent stamp (“Mail”) they’ll charge you $3.50.

And “secure” delivery? That’s the United States Postal Service’s 1-Day Priority Mail, which costs $4.60, with “insured” delivery, which $2.45 for up to $200: $7.05. Why the extra $2.95?

So what will four tickets cost? 4 x ($35 + $3 + $1.75) + $0.50 = $159.50 plus delivery.

Total: $160.50 – $169.50.

So each ticket really costs as much as $42.38, not the advertised $35. That’s a 20% premium!

Here’s what’d odd though: If they’d just advertised the price as $42.50 per ticket, and “thrown in” 1-day shipping, free Print At Home and Will-call, I wouldn’t have even blinked.

I understand the reason behind this though: it’s pure marketing. They’ve figured they’ll get people “in the door” at $35, not $40, and once in the door, they at least have a chance of selling you. After all, advertising $140 for four tickets will get more eyeballs than $170 for those same tickets, even if the latter is your true out-of-pocket cost.

Will I still buy the tix? There’s a decent chance I will. But it will be knowing I’m being nickel-and-dime’d to death.

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Nike+iPod Graphs

Thanks to CowPuppy K, I learned today that the Nike+ website lets you share graphs of your runs (or, in my case, my walks…). Great for bragging rights if you’re in a challenge, like I am with Y. Here’s the graph of my last five “runs” (alas, you will need Flash, so if you’re reading this on your iPhone, my heart bleeds):

(The graph only shows one of the last five “runs” at any time. You need to navigate using those tiny arrows to see the others.)

Here’s the state of Ying’s and my “most miles in 30 days” challenge:

More miles in two weeks than I’ve walked in six months. Maybe longer. Way, way longer. But it’s paying off: I’ve dropped about five pounds. Nothing you can look at and see, but it’s certainly motivating.

I’m sure eliminating beer from my dinners for the same 30 days hasn’t hurt either (I love wine, but nothing beats a good beer. Can’t wait for that first frothy head in August).

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