The Schlog » Entertainment

Thought for the day

David Schrag — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:14:42 +0000

Working with computers is easy. Working with people working with computers is hard.

I’ll give him a C for Chutzpah

David Schrag — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:24:25 +0000

All bloggers know that comment spam is an incredible time waster. It used to be that my comment spam involved only tried to promote pornographic and pharmaceutical web sites, and did so in a very explicit manner. Recently, a more pernicious form of comment spam has appeared. This takes the form of a seemingly harmless comment like “Nice blog, just what I was looking for.” The comment is accompanied, though, by a link to some gambling or other totally irrelevant site.

Today, though, I got a comment that went right to the point:

Post comments on websites automatically using automated comments posting software. Get thousands of backlinks per day, increase your sales and earnings. Automated comments poster is the best way to build backlinks and promote websites automatically!

Hey, at least they’re being honest.

I do like coders with a sense of humor

David Schrag — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:32:04 +0000

I had to create a support ticket at Dreamhost. I like their style. Here are a couple of the questions they ask, along with the options available in the pop-down menu:

I’m not sure how well these responses work for people whose first language is not English, but I definitely appreciated the effort.

A good laugh from The Onion

David Schrag — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:47:06 +0000

The accidental severing of three undersea cables has led to a massive Internet slowdown in India. What do you think?

More answers at http://www.theonion.com/content/node/73678.

Name that syntax!

David Schrag — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:43:50 +0000

This quiz is for the linguists among you. Can you guess the original language of the following product description? See comments for answer (sort of).

What offers the Public SyncTool?

Escalation inquiry: You will be asked, which data record you would like to use, if both data records (PC and Notebook) were changed.
No inadvertent deletion: You get an overview which data records were deleted, before the synchronisation start.
Visual control: You receive a graphic opinion, which file is synchronised and which profile is used.
Public ShareFolder: You work with Public ShareFolder and you can synchronise your personal file with the “public folders”.

If you are using additionally to your desktop PC also a notebook, you would like to keep the Microsoft Outlook data of both systems synchronous surely. Doubled or even repeated data retention (redundancies) should be avoided in a network, if possible, or do you copy each document that lies on the server, additionally again on each PC? Notebooks or Handheld PC (Palm, PDA, Blackberry etc..) make here an exception.

To synchronise Microsoft Outlook between a PC and a notebook you have the following variants:

Install Microsoft Exchange Server
Copy regularly the Personal Folders
Install synchronisation software: Public SyncTool (PST)

To copy regularly the “Personal Folders” is exactly said no synchronisation. Synchronisation is called literal: Manufacturing the parallel feed of procedures or machines. Transfer in our case: Providing two data records and the exchange of new information equal by older entries, whereby only the part of the data record is changed, which is unequal. A temporally current entry is not compellingly the correct one thereby.

Pardon me, do you speak HelpDesk?

David Schrag — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 15:01:53 +0000

WebHost4Life’s SharePoint hosting architecture seems to mirror that of Mail2Web. Both of these companies allow me to create a SharePoint site in a subdomain of a domain hosted elsewhere, unlike 1&1. Both WebHost4Life and Mail2Web allow me to access my site at a fixed IP address prior to creating an A record in my authoritative DNS servers, provided that I modify the hosts file on the machine that will access the SharePoint site. Neither company warned me that I would have problems modifying the hosts file in Vista. However, Alvin from WebHost4Life did give me this rather peculiar admonishment:

ATTENTION: Please delete the entry [in your hosts file] after the testing. Or you will by pass the public DNS record and might direct you to the wrong server, and unmoral behavior might come out.

If that happens, I’ll try to capture it on video. I’m particularly curious about exactly where that unmoral behavior will be coming out from. The USB port, perhaps? Or the PCMCIA card slot?

Finally, something useful on the Internet

David Schrag — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 22:12:46 +0000

The world can’t be a bad place if I can make myself look like this:

Now you try!

I’d like to meet the guy who wrote this spam

David Schrag — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:03:36 +0000

My spam filtering service is very good, but I still get one or two spams a day. These generally end up in my Junk E-mail box in Outlook. Normally I pay no attention, but this one was so outlandish it made me laugh. Is this guy on a quest to find the most illiterate and gullible people on Earth?

FROM: MICROSOFT MEGA JACKPOT [m_promo2007@bellsouth.net]

TO: microsoftnationallottery@hushmail.com

SUBJECT: MICROSOFT CONGRATULATE YOU!!!!

ATTENTION WINNER:

Do contact the Details below for further Clearifications and to

Claim

the Award Sum of 5.5 Million Great British Pounds which was Awarded to

you in a Personality Test Program held to Honour our Customers.

MICROSOFT MEGA JACKPOT E-MAIL PROMOTION

Mr. Harry Moore

Director Microsoft Promotion House.

Contact Email:harrymoore_uk@yahoo.co.uk

WINNING INFORMATIONS:

REGISTRATION NO: 9027640

INSURANCE NO: MIC006

TAX CLEARANCE NO: 28456

AMOUNT WON: £5,500,000.00

NAME:

CONTACT ADDRESS:

TELEPHONE NUMBER:

FAX NUMBER:

OCCUPATION:

CONTRY:

WINNING EMAIL ADDRESS:

Do email the above Claims Administrator, at once with all the Winning

Information above for further processing of your winnings. To avoid

unnecessary delay. They are needed to proceed.

Congratulations!!!

Secretary

Mr. John Callaghan.

This email and any attachments to it contain information that is

confidential and may be privileged. It is for the exclusive use of the

intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient(s) please

note that any form of distribution, copying or use of this

communication

or the information contained in it is strictly prohibited and may be

unlawful. If you have received this email in error, please return it to

the sender and delete the email from your records.

Even Microsoft looses it sometimes

David Schrag — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:10:39 +0000

Microsoft programmers are responsible for all sorts of incomprehensible, unhelpful error and warning messages. But at least they usually get their spelling and grammar right. Look what I saw today:

Microsoft, repeat after me: Don’t choose to loose.

How to reset an iPod

David Schrag — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 16:46:48 +0000

I know Apple gets high marks for style and ergonomics in some quarters, but today I had a Nano freeze on me and I had no bloomin’ idea how to turn it off and on again. Where the hell is the reset button? How do I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete? I tried all the button combinations I could think of. I came close, as it turns out, but didn’t quite have it. If your iPod freezes, follow these instructions.