Archive for December, 2004

Interesting Auction News

0
8 years ago
by Shawn in

Can I make a blog entry about starting a new blog?

You know what? It’s my blog, so I can. Anyway, I’m starting a new blog about interesting auction news. Could be news itself or just random weird things people sell on eBay. You can find it over here.

iPod Photo Shows CD Artwork

0
8 years ago
by Shawn in , ,

I just noticed that my iPod Photo shows the CD cover art for MP3 files that contain the info. That’s pretty cool if you ask me.

Frisbee Golf

7
8 years ago
by Shawn in

I played my best game of frisbee gold ever today. I ended up being 5 under par (my previous best was 4 under). What’s really a pisser is 5 or 6 strokes were lost just because I can’t putt worth a crap. But my drives are pretty good. :)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
My Score 2 3 3 3 4 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 4 3 2 2 3 4 2
Par 3 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Motorola RAZR V3 + Bluetooth + Powerbook = Bad Ass

61
8 years ago
by Shawn in ,

I picked up a new cell phone that I had a little blurb about over here. It’s a pretty awesome phone from a design standpoint, in fact my only complaint with anything about it is the address book, which requires a new entry for each phone number they have.

The day after I got it, I was traveling to San Francisco (which is where I’m writing this from). And just for fun, I decided to see if I could get it to act as an Internet gateway for my Macintosh Powerbook wirelessly via Bluetooth. Low and behold, it works! And without even needing to install anything. It just works like magic. :)

For those of you that also have a RAZR V3 (or are thinking about getting one), this is the info you need to make it work with Cingular as a Internet gateway for your Mac via Bluetooth:

  • Download these modem scripts, unzip them and drop them into “/Library/Modem Scripts”.
  • Detect the phone with the Bluetooth Setup Assistant
  • When it asks you for the Internet settings, this is what you want:
APN/Telephone Number: WAP.CINGULAR
Account Name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Password: CINGULAR1
Modem: Motorola GPRS CID1 +CGQREQ
  • In the network control panel, go to the Bluetooth setup. Under the PPP Options tab, turn off Send PPP echo packets, Use TCP header compression. Under the Bluetooth Modem tab, turn off Enable error correction and compression in modem and Wait for dial tone before dialing.

Now you should be able to connect to the Internet via your Bluetooth port. Weeeeee… :)

Use Gmail To Spam Filter A Different Email Address

12
8 years ago
by Shawn in

I get way too much spam. To the tune of 2,000+ each day. It’s always fun to wake up and sift through 800 emails to find 3 that aren’t spam. I do some client-side spam filtering, but it’s still annoying to have to actually download the emails (especially when traveling and you have a slow Internet connection).

Gmail is by far the best web-based email system I’ve used (it’s fast, clean, etc.), but it’s not practical to use for business (since the domain is always gmail.com). Recently I noticed that Gmail allows you to access your email via POP3 (via SSL, which is really nice!). So I played around with it a little bit, and realized that stuff that gets stuck in the spam folder are not downloaded with you grab your emails via POP3. So then I was thinking, why not just forward my normal email to my gmail account, access it via POP3 like normal and then just have that account on my client setup with my real email address.

Guess what? It works brilliantly. Now I’m not flooded with spam, I don’t have to download spam for client-side filtering and when I send email, it still comes from digitalpoint.com.

The one thing that would make it even better (and make me use it from the web more) would be the ability to set the From address to my non-Gmail address. Currently you can set the Reply-To address to anything you want, but the From is always gmail.com. If that was possible, I would use Gmail’s SMTP server (it’s also SSL enabled) and I would use the web interface for Gmail more.

Social Engineering

2
8 years ago
by Shawn in

Companies trying to sell you crap are so annoying these days. They call and make up stories/lies trying to phish information out of you.

Printer Toner?
Them: “This is so and so from ABC company and we received an order from your purchasing department for copy machine toner, but your purchasing agent forgot to put the printer model on the order.”

That’s interesting for a couple reasons. One, there is no purchasing department, and secondly there is no copy machine.

Me: “It’s uhm, SP-6200. Oh wait, maybe I’m upside down. It’s 0059-DS”

Them: “Really? I’ve never heard of such a copy machine model before.”

Me: “Weird.”

Then they hang up on me. How rude! That’s the last time I send a purchase order to them for toner.

Survey For IT Companies?
Them: “Hello, we are so and so research firm, and we had a brief survey for IT companies that hopefully you can help me with.”

BTW, I can barely understand the lady because she has such a thick Indian accent.

Me: “Uh, okay.”

Them: “Do you engage in software development and if so, do you outsource any of your work to overseas companies, for example in India?”

Me: “No, we don’t have any computers, we are a janitorial service.”

Wow, they hung up on me too. I wonder if maybe they wanted me to outsource my development to them or something?

$10,000 Martini

2
8 years ago
by Shawn in ,

I think this is a good idea and all, except for one thing…

You have to order it 72 hours in advance. I think that really cuts into their sales. Imagine going to a bar and every drink you order is served to you 3 days later.

How am I supposed to know how many martinis I’ll want want in 72 hours? Maybe I won’t even be in the mood for a martini then. Dumb.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/12/01/expensive.martini.reut/

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