a.k.a How StartLogic.com Consistently Lets Me Down
// This is a transcript of the second part of my conversation with Rob M. after our initial greeting was followed with a browser crash caused by the Liveperson.net Java Applet.
Please wait for a site operator to respond.
You are now chatting with ‘Rob M.’
Rob M.: Welcome to “Startlogic’s” live chat service. How may I assist you?
Danny: Hi Rob.
Danny: we got cut off.
Rob M.: Please give me the password for email account
Danny: You have my permission to reset it on your end.
Rob M.: No I will need it from your end.
Danny: Sending my password in plain text via http to an unfamiliar URL is not something I’m confident in doing.
Rob M.: Well this chat uses secure URL
Danny: Excuse me..comfortable, not confident
Danny: I don’t know about you but I’m on http, not https
Rob M.: But your connect is directly from your computer within my chat software
Danny: The connection from my computer is insecure because it’s over the http protocol. That said, even if it was over https, the URL I’m looking at is “liveperson.net”, which is not the company I do business with directly. If you are someone authorized to conduct business on behalf of Startlogic, you should have access to a contact at startlogic who can provide you with the necessary information.
Rob M.: Well then you will get a reply for your issue through ticket once the issue is resolved, the ticket is still open
Danny: I’d like to know why I haven’t received a reply yet.
Rob M.: Because the ticket is still open in the support dept.
Danny: And the lack of a receipt acknowledgement email?
Danny: It’s been four days. For an urgent issue, this is unacceptable.
Rob M.: Well the email you got with the ticket id was the acknowledgement email
Danny: That’s an acknowledgement that the server received my email. Not a person.
Danny: Is anyone even looking into the issue?
Rob M.: Yes you will get a reply when the issue is resolved
Danny: When you and I end this chat, you’re going to feel no contractual obligation to look further into this issue. What assurance do I have that I will receive a timely response?
Rob M.: Well the issue is still open in the support dept and it will not be closed unless replied to you.
Danny: That’s not reassuring.
Danny: If your car breaks down and you bring it into the shop, how long do you expect to wait around until they let you know what’s going on and give you a time estimate?
Rob M.: Well this issue is with level 2 techs and once they get it resolved, they will get back to you.
Danny: aha! So it has been assigned to a technician?
Rob M.: Yes a level 2 tech
Danny: does the technician have a name?
Rob M.: No
Danny: if you would like to help debug this issue, you could try sending an email to [email removed]
Rob M.: Sure
Danny: You’ll get a bounce message describing the problem.
Rob M.: May I help you with anything else?
Danny: Did you get the bounce message?
// The next several messages came in very quick succession.
Rob M.: Well it will take some time
Rob M.: May I help you with anything else?
Rob M.: May I help you with anything else?
Rob M.: Please contact us if you face problems.
Rob M.: We’re available 24/7 via chat, email, or phone.
Rob M.: Take care and thank you for choosing StartLogic, Good Bye !
Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.
If you could change something regarding our service and/or products, what would you change?
I would change the entire concept of subcontracted support. Your drones are completely powerless to *actually* help me with my problems, and they either don’t have the ability or they outright refuse to contact someone at the company with whom I’m *actually* doing business in order to resolve an issue when they are unable. I’d suggest you find a different line of work before the market for your services crashes entirely.
I vaguely remember hearing about Perplex City when it was first launched, but I was too caught up in just about everything else to take too much notice. I do remember thinking that a worldwide puzzle/scavenger hunt game with an online component sounded right up my alley, but I was disappointed that the “crossover into real-life” events were centered in a country I had never set foot in.
A number of times since then, I’ve been reminded of the game’s existence, most recently when I heard that Perplex City would be having its first official U.S. event right here in San Francisco…on a day when I already had obligations. In spite of my inability to attend the event, there’s been a resurgence in my interest, and last Friday while in Berkeley for a concert I picked up a few packs of “PC” cards from Games of Berkeley.
Whoo boy, the good times are a-startin’. I love myself a good mental workout, and the Perplex City cards provide just that in diverse forms and at varying intensity. From pattern-matching to pop-culture knowledge, logic puzzles, physics problems, political trivia all abound.
Probably my favorite aspect of Perplex City problem-solving so far is scripting solutions to some of the more complicated puzzles. When I was working on a solution for card #098 ‘Magic Square’, I came up with a script which can be used to solve any 4 by 4 magic square, where the rows, columns, and diagonals all add to the same number.
My first attempt was far less than ideal: it randomly arranged the 16 numbers and then tested to see if everything added up properly (i.e. bogosort). When I let it run for ten minutes at a time, it would run through about 12-13 million combinations and not come up with a single solution.
My second attempt used iteration to go through possibilites in a fixed order and guaranteed me a solution eventually…within the next 56 years (seriously, I calculated), if I let the script run constantly, it would check every possible arrangement of numbers for ‘magic squareness’.
My third attempt is the one I finally found success with. Essentially, it’s a modified version of the second script where I run validity tests incrementally instead of all at once after a square is constructed. The spaces within a square are filled in a spiral pattern and rows, columns, and diagonals are tested the moment they’re testable, which results in maximum efficiency.
Where the first script would have required hundreds or possibly thousands of years, and the second script nearly a lifetime, my third script only took about 23 minutes and 35 seconds to find all 924 possible solutions for a 4×4 magic square.
Come play my new game! In Usufructuary, you earn points by finding hidden objects around San Francisco. If you’ve ever played Guess Where SF, wanted to try geocaching, or just want a reason to become intimately familiar with San Francisco, then you’ll enjoy Usufru.
I know I won’t always be able to keep up with the one-a-day posting on Usufru forever, so if you’re already a friend of mine or are willing to become one and you think this project sounds interesting, consider becoming a Challenge contributor. You only need a digital camera (preferably with the ability to take short videos) and a little time and motivation. I’d prefer that contributors are willing to commit to at least one challenge per week, but that’s not set in stone. If you’re interested, please send me an email or leave a comment below.
If you just want to start playing the game, look at the Open Challenges page. There are three unsolved challenges as of this posting.
Everyone’s got gripes about MySpace. I’m no exception. Here are the things I loathe most:
Embedded audio, especially when it plays automatically. If you’ve got a song you want me to hear, link to it and tell me why you like it. I’ll decide whether or not I want to listen, thanks.
Background images that interfere with the foreground text or are otherwise distracting. I hate not being able to read things that I’m meant to.
Giant images that screw with the page layout. Can’t you create a thumbnail? In addition to the borked layouts, I hate having big distracting images on my screen that other people can see from across the room. If I want to see the original size, I can Right Click > View Image.
Ads of all shapes and sizes. I hate banner ads, large and small, whether they’re little animated gifs that dance on my screen or big flash banners that make noise when I accidentally move my mouse cursor over them.
Wantonly “dimmed” text and images. So you discovered -moz-opacity, eh? Don’t abuse it.
So I did what I always do before I write a blog post - I fixed it. Now, there’s already a greasemonkey script out there that does some of this things, and more, in some cases, but to be honest: I don’t like it. Maybe it’s just the “Flash of Unstyled Content” that happens while the page is still loading and before the script triggers; maybe I think the script goes too far in what it takes out; maybe, in some areas, it doesn’t do enough.
I decided to take a different route towards fixing the problem. Instead of a javascript solution, I opted for a pure CSS solution in the form of site-specific rules within a user stylesheet. My final version takes care of all of the things that bug me most, making MySpace usable again.
It’s a cinch to install it yourself (requires Mozilla Firefox, of course):
Download the MySpace Sanitizer Stylesheet and save it into your Firefox chrome directory in your user profile. Don’t know where that is? Mine is in C:\Documents and Settings\Danny Dawson\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\gobbledygook.default\chrome\. Yours is likely in almost the same place. If not, check C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\. I have faith in you.
Restart Firefox.
Keep in mind that this solution isn’t meant to remove all of the custom styles that people use within their profiles - just the ones that annoy me. That said, if you run into something really annoying, let me know about it and I’ll look into it if I have the time.
To: Myself
BCC: A whole lot of people
Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: Re: Slow Dance]
Body:
For an expose on this hoax, read here:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/s/slowdance.htm
If you would like to call Dr. Shields directly and ask him if he had anything to do with this email, please find his contact information available here: http://www.aecom.yu.edu/dmb/shields.htm
If you don’t feel like clicking that, here’s his office number 718-430-2653, ext 3281.
Forwarding an email without editing it for concision and deleting the list of past recipients exposes the email addresses of past recipients to everyone to whom you send the email, as well as anyone to whom the email may be forwarded in the future.
If you truly insist on passing along a nice story, poem, joke, or some information you feel is important, please keep in mind the following three recommendations:
1. Don’t expose the email addresses of others to other people. Delete unnecessary addresses from the body of the email, and use the BCC field whenever the email that you’re sending doesn’t require people to “Reply-All”. In case anyone is reading this is wondering how I got your email address - someone else you know forgot this step. You can’t find your address below? That’s because I deleted it.
2. If “factual” claims are made in the body of the email you’re sending along, try searching Google for “hoax” along with a couple keywords from the body of the message. For instance: search Google for “Dennis Shields hoax” and you’ll find 51,800 results debunking the content of this email.
3. Keep emails concise. If you just want to pass along a poem or joke, delete everything but the poem or joke. You already read the email when it was sent to you, and you know what parts of it are interesting and what parts aren’t. Delete the garbage out of courtesy to others.
I’m sorry if you feel that I’ve wasted your time with this email. I’m sorry if you were merely an “innocent recipient” on the list and you already follow similar guidelines that you set for yourself, and thus you feel you have no need to have read this.
But at the same time, someone you know doesn’t already have similar “guidelines of email etiquette” that they follow, and remaining quiet about it won’t change the situation. Someone else is taking liberties with your contact information, passing it off to others, likely without your permission.
I, for one, can’t stay quiet about that forever, and I feel it’s inappropriate to complain about what I feel to be “a lack of manners” if I passively let every indiscretion slide. Here’s my attempt to do something about it.
If you agree with me and would like to share these words with other people you know, in order to spread awareness of email etiquette and save a lot of word-weary email users some time in the long run, please do. (I’ll be posting it on my weblog at http://quasistoic.org as well.)
But delete my email address from the body before you hit send.
Thanks,
-Danny Dawson
PostScript - I love you, Mom.
Post-PostScript - Racedrvr: My sincerest apologies to you. I did see the Snopes link you passed along about the email hoax, which I’ll include here for the sake of others: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/medical/slowdance.asp
On 12/2/05, My Mom wrote:
>
>
> This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital .
> It was sent by a medical doctor - Make sure to read what is in the closing statement AFTER THE POEM.
>
> SLOW DANCE
>
> Have you ever watched kids
> On a merry-go-round?
> Or listened to the rain
> Slapping on the ground?
> Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
> Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
> You better slow down.
> Don’t dance so fast.
> Time is short.
> The music won’t last.
>
> Do you run through each day
> On the fly?
> When you ask How are you?
> Do you hear the reply?
> When the day is done
> Do you lie in your bed
> With the next hundred chores
> Running through your head?
> You’d better slow down
> Don’t dance so fast.
> Time is short.
> The music won’t last.
>
> Ever told your child,
> We’ll do it tomorrow?
> And in your haste,
> Not see his sorrow?
> Ever lost touch,
> Let a good friendship die
> Cause you never had time
> To call and say,”Hi”
> You’d better slow down.
> Don’t dance so fast.
> Time is short.
> The music won’t last .
> When you run so fast to get somewhere
> You miss half the fun of getting there.
> When you worry and hurry through your day,
> It is like an unopened gift….
> Thrown away.
> Life is not a race.
> Do take it slower
> Hear the music
> Before the song is over.
>
> ——————–
>
> FORWARDED
>
> E-MAILS ARE TRACKED TO OBTAIN THE TOTAL COUNT.
>
> Dear All:
>
> PLEASE pass this mail on to everyone you know -
> even to those you don’t know!
> It is the request of a special girl who
> will soon leave this world due to cancer.
> This young girl has 6 months left to live, and as her dying wish,
> She wanted to send a letter telling everyone to live
> their life to the fullest, since she never will.
> She’ll never make it to prom, graduate from high
> school, or get married and have a family of her own.
> By you sending this to as many people as possible,
> you can give her and her family a little hope,
> because with every name that this is sent to,
> The American Cancer Society
> will donate 3 cents per name to her treatment and recovery plan.
> One guy sent this to 500 people! So I know that we can
> at least send it to 5 or 6 —
> (just think ,it could be you one day).
> It’s not even your money, just your time!
>
> PLEASE PASS ON AS A LAST REQUEST
>
> Dr. Dennis Shields, Professor
> Department of Developmental and Molecular Biology
> 1300 Morris Park Avenue
> Bronx , New York 10461
>
I post this merely as a warning: the Private Del.icio.us Bookmarklet is misnamed. It really should have been named “The Anonymous Del.icio.us Bookmarklet”.
If you’d like to see what people have been using the bookmarklet for, just visit the Private.Bookmarksdel.icio.us account.
You’ll notice I tested the bookmarklet on my del.icio.us inbox. You might also notice that a number of links are posted which require a username or password, or are otherwise unaccessible. My theory is that these links were never intended to be shared in a place where search engines could find them, which is exactly where they now are.
If you want to be able to bookmark a link on del.icio.us without that link being visible to the outside world, this bookmarklet is not for you. If you want a way to anonymously bookmark an embarassing link on del.icio.us, send it to everyone.
Posted in Web, Technology at 2:23 pm by Danny Dawson
Updated 2005-12-15 to add trailing slash to list of included sites.
As much as I love Johnvey Hwang's Del.icio.us Director, I got really tired of having to click his bookmarklet every time I loaded my del.icio.us links page, so I created a Greasemonkey script to do it for me. In all honesty, his bookmarklet was already optimized to become a greasemonkey script, so it only took me a minute or two to convert it.
What took a bit longer was creating an easy way to share the GM script with others. With a little javascript/php/mod_rewrite action, I eventually came up with a clean, efficient method to generate user-specific scripts on-the-fly. To get your own, follow the directions below.
(This script was tested on Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 and Greasemonkey 0.5.3. Your mileage may vary with other configurations.)
After submitting the above information, a pink-highlighted link should appear below. Right-click this link and click "Install User Script...". To finish installing the script, click "OK" on the dialog that appears.
It doesn't seem like you've entered your del.icio.us username yet. Try again or comment below to warn me of the problem.
Once all that's done, every time you visit your own del.icio.us page, the Director should auto-load.
If you experience any problems with the script generator, or have questions or suggestions, I welcome them in the comments. I'm notified via email anytime someone comments on my weblog, so I will get back to you eventually if you include accurate contact information.
Posted in Web, Technology at 6:33 pm by Danny Dawson
A friend asked me recently if she could print some of my graffiti photos to hang on her wall. I was honored and thrilled, and I decided I wanted to make it easier for her. In doing so, I thought it would be nice to offer this tool to everyone else as well.
What does that mean? That means you can now order prints of your Flickr photos (or anyone else’s Flickr photos) with just a couple clicks.
How to get it working:
1. Install Firefox and Greasemonkey, if you haven’t already. (If you’ve just installed Greasemonkey, you’ll need to restart Firefox once before moving on.)
2. Right click the link to the Flickr/Shutterfly Integration script and click “Install User Script…” When prompted, click OK.
3. Go visit a photo page. Down in the bottom-right, in the “Additional Information” section, there will be a link that says “Order Prints”. Click it.
4. If you want to add more photos to your order, repeat step 3.
Known issues:
If a really large picture is added to the cart, the image dimensions might not pass correctly. If this happens, remove the picture from the cart and try it again. The image should take less time to load the second time around because Firefox will have cached it, and adding it to the cart now should work just fine. This will be fixed in a future release. Fixed. See below.
I will update this blog post with changes in the future.
Posted in Web, Technology at 2:32 pm by Danny Dawson
I got tired of the gigantic prompt that my last version of this bookmarklet made, and I figured that I might as well go ahead and fix the browser compatibility issues and give it a catchy yet descriptive name…
I love shortcuts. I can’t tell you how much I love shortcuts.
I also hate long URLs.
And I love customization.
Thus, I present the Custom Shurl Bookmarklet. Just drag and drop it onto your Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox. Hell, it might even work in IE or Safari. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t tested them. Edit: Works in IE 5.2 on the Mac, but not in Safari. It also doesn’t seem to work in IE 6 on the PC.
There are two ways to use this bookmarklet:
Highlight a word or two on your current page and click the bookmarklet. You’ll be taken to the advanced Shurl result page with a link generated using the highlighted words.
Without highlighting anything, click the bookmarklet. You’ll be prompted to enter a word or phrase which will be used to generate the link.
I’ve changed all the references above to link to my post with the newest version, but just so I can remember how hilarious it was, here I’ll preserve version 0.1: Custom Shurl Bookmarklet
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