Fun with spam
I get a lot of spam. A lot. And sometimes, well…I can’t help but answer it. This one made me chuckle.
From: Douglas Wild
Subject: LOVELL:URGENT RESPONSE.ATTN:LOVELL,
I am a Trustee and Executor of the estate of a deceased client(Dr P.LOVELL) in Budapest, Hungary. I have sat on a 5 year forgotten financial inheritance. In few weeks time, this fund will be transferred to the state as required by law since there’s no claim made. We can both collaborate and share the proceeds 60/40. Your part would be to receive the funds as the beneficiary, since you have the same lastname as my late client, and I will prepare the required documents and have it released to you in just days. Please reply this mail stating full name, phone and fax number details if interested. So I can start the claims process as we build a mutual trust.
Many thanks in advance as I look forward to our partnership and trust.
Regards,
Douglas Wild
My response:
From: Daniel Lovell
To: Douglas Wild
Subject: RE: LOVELL:URGENT RESPONSE.Doug,
I’m so glad you contacted me! I lost contact with my uncle, Dr. P., and looked for him tirelessly ever since he announced – somewhat unceremoniously at my parents’ 30-year wedding anniversary party, no less – that he was moving to Budapest. Lest you think I’m some lowly gold-digger, my intentions in finding Uncle Dr. P were purely innocent; he left a very expensive diamond brooch in his apartment when he left, and I desperately wanted to return it.
I’ve tried several times to bring the brooch to pawn shops, but despite being expensive, it is terribly ugly. It’s shaped like a prawn or a crawdaddy. You may actually have seen my appearance on “Antiques Roadshow,” where I was told the brooch was clearly priceless in terms of the size and number of diamonds, but also nearly worthless, because worth only counts if someone is willing to actually pay for it.
Now, of course, I am heartbroken to hear of my dear Uncle Dr. P’s passing. He was a great man. His discoveries in the field of anchovy packaging cannot be easily overlooked. With so many anchovy patents and licensing agreements under his belt, I’m certain he died atop an enormous mound of money!
Before I offer any other information about myself, may I ask whether the money smells of anchovies? I’m not partial to anchovies, nor the way they smell. Perhaps my 60 percent could be chosen from bills that smell less of anchovies than the rest? Of course, if you don’t like anchovies either, then we have found ourselves in a quandary.
Please let me know at your earliest convenience! Perhaps together we can solve “the curse of the crawdaddy brooch!” lol.
Social media experts really don’t understand social media.
There. I said it.
I follow way too many social media experts on Twitter. Too many folks who want to teach your company how to be successful in social media. They promise you heaps of good fortune with your Facebook page and they’re super excited to do your tweeting for you as well. There’s a whole industry now built around these folks, and regardless what they call themselves, they really have no idea what they’re doing. If they did, they wouldn’t be doing it.
Social media platforms weren’t really designed for business; they were designed so folks like you and me could connect with each other, share little things and basically keep in touch — in a superficial, but somehow meaningful, way. As these sites attract users, they also attract businesses — especially those who want the Internet equivalent of a storefront on Main Street.
Problem is, the goals of a business and the goals of an individual in social media are severely different. I choose to use Twitter to connect with folks, whether I know them in real life or not. Facebook is the place where I maintain a loose connection with old classmates. LinkedIn is for keeping in touch with colleagues. Businesses, on the other hand, use social media for two reasons. Those who do it closest to correct use social media to respond to customer complaints, join conversations about the brand, monitor chatter about themselves. But the majority are there to sell.
I can already hear you: “OMG, Dan. What’s wrong with that lol?”
The problem is companies and organizations overestimate their customers’ desire to engage with them. Sure, I love Pepsi and my BlackBerry. I follow both on Twitter. But I don’t engage with them. I don’t remember the last thing I read from either company. But that’s not the point…
Remember in high school how you and your friends found that perfect spot to hang out? No parents or cops or teachers…it was a place where you’d sit back, chat, maybe even sneak a couple of dad’s beers and share them in the summertime. That’s how most social media sites start. They’re little clubs where the cool kids hang out.
Imagine you’re at your little hangout and suddenly a McDonald’s opens 20 feet away. And then the AT&T store opens next to it. And an auto dealership. And 30 social media experts open storefronts, all surrounding you. Suddenly you can’t even talk to your friends without wading through all these businesses, and they all keep trying to get your attention. And of course your parents and teachers show up, because they’ve all heard your hangout is cool. After awhile, you and your friends just decide to find another place.
That’s what social media experts are bringing to social media.
Myspace was cool at first. Everyone connected with each other. You kept in touch. You shared pictures and songs and everybody was happy. Bands all wanted Myspace profiles, because it made getting a web presence easy. Then businesses all wanted to be on Myspace, because that’s where the kids were.
Where’s Myspace today? Overrun by businesses, musicians and celebrities. My own band still has a page there, and our only friend requests come from TV shows, movies and businesses. It’s over, people. Businesses are just standing around in Myspace land, begging each other to buy.
The same is happening on Twitter and Facebook, where social media experts, in order to keep themselves in jobs, continue to push the importance of a business being involved in social media. Unfortunately, that one little fact shows just how little they understand about social media, and their own role in destroying it, one site at a time.
The sad part is that I agree that companies need to have Twitter and Facebook accounts. I think we’ve come to a point where you’re silly if you don’t. But never once have I seen anyone point out just how bad businesses are for social media. Our social media experts never say “Listen, we should be on Twitter, but we have to realize our mere existence on Twitter will surely hasten Twitter’s demise.”
That, folks, would be an honest, and knowledgeable, expert. Anyone out there ever heard that? I bet not.
What the heck is wrong with HP?
HP has finally gotten on my last nerve. I’m absolutely fed up. And, frankly, I’m surprised I’m not hearing more of an uproar from the Internets.
I’ve had quite a few HP products over the years — mostly printers and desktop machines. A year ago I decided on an HP laptop. Though I really like the machine, I was immediately assaulted with a bunch of crap I didn’t need — various HP-branded software that “helped” me do things on my brand-new Windows 7 machine. On top of that, I got the obligatory crapware, games and trial antivirus software. I deleted and uninstalled all of it, and have been pleasantly surprised by the machine. I liked it so much that when it came time to buy a new desktop machine, I bought a big HP, with lots of bells and whistles.
Again, I was forced to remove a bunch of crapware when I got Karen (I named her Karen). But I guess the sad commentary is that I’m used to that ritual. Karen ran beautifully for several months. A couple of months ago, however, I got the dreaded blue screen. The first of many.
At first it was no big deal. Karen would start up again and continue along where we left off. But then things started going crazy. So I called HP tech support. The computer was under warranty, I was told, so no worries. It would be fixed. But there were worries.
Immediately, tech support blamed the software I was running. Nevermind that I’d been running it for months, or that I’d spent a considerable time online hunting down the specific BSOD error and knew the cause. His solution was to uninstall the software I was using first and see if the problem persisted.
“Well,” I said. “It’s video editing software. And I actually use the computer to edit video. If I uninstall it, I will not be editing video…and probably not using the computer.” I asked if he had specific procedures for the BSOD I was getting. He said he did not. In fact, he did not take note of what the error was. I asked to talk to someone who had used a computer before.
I was transferred to someone else. This time, I was told immediately to format my hard drive and reinstall the operating system. The gentleman offered to walk me through the steps to do so. “No,” I said. “This is not an OS problem. It is a hardware problem.”
He challenged me, and told me to run HP’s hardware diagnostics. He said he would call back in two hours so I could report the results. “This is not a hardware problem,” he said. “If it’s a hardware problem, the diagnostics will show us.”
Well, the diagnostics wouldn’t run. The machine bluescreened in the middle of the tests. And the guy from HP didn’t call me back in two hours. In fact, HP didn’t call back for four days. My computer was 30 miles away. They said they’d call me back later that night. They called six days later. Again, I wasn’t expecting the call. I was at the mall. They said they’d call the next day.
Miraculously, things started working again. I thought perhaps they were right. Maybe it was OS related. Maybe it was just a bum update from Microsoft that was fixed. And life went on. Until two weeks ago, when the blue screens came fast and furious. Poor Karen crashed within minutes of booting up. And things were looking grim.
I backed up all my files. I wiped the drive. I reinstalled the OS. The blue screens continued.
My call to HP went as I expected. I was told to reinstall the OS again. I was told I would have to spend $20 on rescue disks to restore the machine’s factory OS install. Again I was told to run the hardware diagnostics and to call back when they completed. When Karen bluescreened during the diagnostics I called. On the other end was Buck — the first American I talked to throughout the ordeal.
It didn’t take Buck long. He listened to my story. We ran the diagnostic test again. He asked me a couple of questions, took lots of notes, and set me up immediately to get Karen sent in for repair. Less than a week later, she’s back at my desk. And things are going well.
So…why am I complaining? Look: I had a pretty simple problem. The fact is, HP’s tech support staff did everything it could to keep from having to fix it. Team members blamed me, my software, Microsoft’s software…anything but the build itself. They failed to return phone calls when they were promised (in fact, at one point a caller claimed they’d called me every night; I just hadn’t answered the phone). They didn’t even listen to the symptoms or document them so that someone who actually knew something about computers could help.
At the end of my experience, I was left thinking HP’s method of dealing with customer problems such as mine is to stonewall, argue and put off any solution until the customer gives up. It’s unacceptable.
Let’s add to it my HP wireless printer. No, I can’t just install it like a normal printer. I actually have to use a setup CD, which is impossible on my netbook. So to print a simple document I’d typed, I had to download the software from HP and install. And I was horrified to find not only had it installed the printer, but also several other pieces of software — all accessible through four — FOUR — desktop icons. It’s a printer, folks. PLEASE let it BE a printer.
HP needs to learn to respect its customers. I should not have to spend time removing garbage I don’t want. I should not have to spend hours talking to tech support. Setting up a printer should not take 20 minutes. Show customers some respect and you’ll earn their loyalty. You’ve already lost mine.
UPDATE:
As you’ll read in the comments below, my poor Karen began bluescreening again, just days after she was returned to me.
In the days since, I’ve spent countless hours on the phone with HP tech support, the escalations department, and the executive customer relations department. I’m going to try to keep this update short, but I don’t know if that’s possible.
My first call to HP to report they hadn’t fixed the problem went poorly. As you can read below, I was told to test the hard drive for the umpteenth time. I politely declined, and asked if I could talked to someone else. I was told I could not, and that if I refused to run a hard drive diagnostic, the tech would not help. I was given a number to call, but that number went to dead air.
My next call didn’t go much better. I talked to two different people, and was finally told my case was being sent to the escalations department, where someone would decide how best to proceed. I asked to have that person call my cell phone any time the next day from 9 am to 11 pm.
At 2:30 am, my home phone rang. It was HP, offering to help fix the “problems you are having getting online.” Well…it was 2:30 am, and at no time did I ever say I was having a problem getting online. And I had just told them to stop calling my home phone.
The next day, Jon from escalations called. He called my home phone, again after I said not to. I returned the call, and somehow ended up with Kelsey, who said she’d be happy to help resolve the issues I was having with the “computer booting up.” Again, not the problem I was having. After talking to her extensively, I was offered the opportunity to send Karen back to Texas for repair. And I guess I could have just agreed to that. But these are people who utterly failed to diagnose and correct the problem already. I told Kelsey I want someone to come to my house, or I would like to take the machine somewhere to have someone actually look at it — someone I can talk to. She told me although my warranty didn’t cover such things, she’d send an email to someone else and try to get a home visit approved. I thanked her, and asked her to call my cell phone when she had an answer. We confirmed the number.
The next day, she called me back. On my home phone. I received the message and called back, where a man named Michael happily told me a tech would come to my house. To replace my hard drive.
I’ll admit that at this point I flipped out, and I appreciate Michael’s patience. I told him the hard drive was fine. I explained the situation. He told me he builds his own computers, and agreed the BSOD error didn’t sound hard drive related to him either. His guess was motherboard and processor. I’ll point out that in my first call to HP tech support — on Dec. 31st — I told them there was a problem with the CPU.
He made a note for Kelsey to call the next day (yesterday). Again, she told me a tech was coming to replace a part that isn’t broken. I said no. I told her I wanted someone to come look at the machine, diagnose the problem, and fix what was broken. But the repair staff doesn’t troubleshoot, Kelsey told me — that’s what the folks on the phone do. And those folks on the phone just tell the repair staff what part to replace.
Long and short is that my computer still isn’t fixed. My warranty runs out in just days, and the HP staff doesn’t seem to want to put in the effort to make sure it works.
They’ve made a big deal of waiving a $50 fee for a home repair call. But the fact is they’ve cost me hours of time and weeks of productivity. How have they made it up to me? How have they tried to make it up to me at all? They haven’t. They seem to believe it’s enough to merely get me back to where I started, despite the fact that they’ve cost me time and money.
Thank goodness for my Acer netbook. It’s gotten me through this mess. And I can assure you, HP will never get my business again.
UPDATE 2:
So…I scheduled an appointment with HP to have a tech come to my house last week to fix Karen. Well…to replace the motherboard. I took the day off, as I was told the tech would arrive between noon and 4. At 9:30 my phone rang. The guy on the other end said he was calling to confirm my appointment. “Yes,” I said. “I’ve taken the day off from work, and will be waiting.”
“Well,” he said, “if we can’t make it today, will you be around tomorrow?”
What?
He explained they were trying to find a tech, and he’d call me in a couple of hours to let me know when they’d show up. He never called. Nobody did. I spent the whole day waiting. The next day I set up another appointment, for Saturday. But you know what? I was sick of it. Something needed to get done.
I called Kelsey the next day and told her to get creative, make me an offer and make me happy. She promised to get back to me the very next morning. She didn’t. I called and got Todd on the phone. Though she’d promised to call, Kelsey actually had the day off. And that was really all it took.
I’d decided the night before that it was time to take more drastic action. I told Todd I was through being nice. My next stop would be small claims court. His tone changed immediately. He actually listened to my story — even acted bewildered when I told him I’d diagnosed the problem even before making my first call to support. He offered to put in a request to send a new machine. In the meantime, he told me to allow the repairman to replace the motherboard — just in case.
Saturday came, and the motherboard was replaced. The repairman watched as Karen booted up and promptly bluescreened. He called HP.
I could hear his conversation, and he explained the BSOD error. “Why are you replacing the motherboard?” the guy on the other end said. “This is a problem with the CPU.”
Exactly.
It’s now Tuesday, and I just got off the phone with Todd. HP is sending me a new computer — one with better specs than Karen. I’m relieved to hear that, and I’m glad to know this fiasco is finally coming to a close. But my feelings haven’t changed. The next time I shop for a computer or printer, HP will not be on my list.
It should not take three months and the threat of legal action for any company to listen to its customers and response appropriately. Had I been listened to three months ago, Karen would have gone to the shop, the CPU would have been replaced, and I’d be singing HP’s praises here. Instead I’ve been frustrated, annoyed, and treated like a fool.
I’m not a fool.
UPDATE 3:
Well, the saga seems to have ended. I received my new computer on Friday. It wasn’t the one I was promised — that one, I’m told, was sold out — but an acceptable replacement. I used it over the weekend, and it seems to be working fine. I’m now about to send old Karen back to HP, where I hope she’s treated well.
I’ve certainly written more than enough on this subject, so I don’t want to belabor the point much longer. Yes, in the end, HP did the right thing. But that end took a LONG time to get to, not to mention several threats on my part and hours upon hours of aggravation.
Here’s my advice: Do not take no for an answer. Fight tooth and nail to get what’s coming to you. If HP refuses, don’t be afraid to take the company to small claims court. Remember that you’ve paid for the machine, and the law says you should expect it to work.
The iPad is not a game changer. Get over it.
I’m writing this from my brand-new netbook, which shows you exactly how useful and user friendly I find the iPad, and how excited I am that a new iPad is just days away.
You may recall that I mocked the iPad a bit at its launch, pointing out nine things the iPad couldn’t do. But I bought one anyway, knowing the limitations, because it felt wrong to trash a device I never used. Perhaps, I reasoned, I was missing something about the overall experience. And I believe in giving devices the benefit of the doubt.
I’ve been living with the iPad now for about two months, and I can tell you that not only has life with the iPad confirmed everything I wrote at launch, but the device is actually less useful than I expected. In many ways, it’s just plain worse than I imagined.
First off, it just stinks to type on. The on-screen keyboard is a miserable experience for a touch typist. Yes, it gets better with practice. But I shouldn’t HAVE to practice typing. I know how to type already. That means e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, document creation and editing are all miserable. Any time I have to type on the iPad — even just typing URLs and search terms — I cringe. Apple has not improved on the keyboard. At all.
Secondly, you really have no idea how much Internet you’re missing without Flash until you try running a device without Flash. And there’s a lot of Internet out there that the iPad just can’t display. A lot of that content is Flash video; on the iPad, you get nothing but YouTube and whatever video you find in apps made specifically for iPad. The most annoying thing ever? The e-mail from a friend, linking you to a video…that you can’t watch.
But at least you’ve got YouTube, right? At the iPad launch, Steve Jobs said YouTube “shines” on the iPad. Well…not quite. You actually don’t even get all of YouTube on the iPad; instead, you get only what’s available on the YouTube mobile site. That means unless a video uploader has specifically chosen to make their videos available for mobile devices, you won’t see it. Videos from Vevo don’t even show up in search results. And worse? No device I own has a tougher time playing YouTube videos. The constant halting and buffering is enough to make me curse Steve Jobs at the top of my lungs, out of pure frustration (I actually yell “JOOOBBBBSSS!!!). And I can’t even choose which resolution to watch those videos in.
The only thing I’ve found pleasurable on the iPad is gaming. And only casual games, at that. Angry Birds and Cut the Rope are fun, easy time wasters. I enjoy Doodle Fit, a couple of air hockey apps, checkers. But more intense gaming that requires using on-screen joystick controls is nearly impossible. Games like Super Fly, Mortal Kombat and Back Breaker are difficult to impossible. And the entire device is too heavy to hold comfortably.
Frankly, the iPad just doesn’t do anything it does better than any other device. The Nintendo DS is a better, more portable and cheaper gaming device. My netbook is better at surfing the net, composing and reading e-mail, watching video, and generally, well, everything. It’s just about the same size as an iPad when closed up, and it cost me half what the iPad set me back.
The new iPad addresses some of the shortcomings of the original. It includes cameras, a dual-core processor, HDMI out. But it doesn’t address the fundamental issues: The iPad is not useful enough to be a must-have device. In fact, I pick mine up rarely anymore. And that only to play a quick game or watch YouTube video.
Apple has shipped a lot of iPads, and they’ll ship a lot more in the coming year. A trip to any computer store will show you that the netbook market has eroded (I haven’t seen anything other than Acer Aspire One models in ages). My fear is that netbooks will soon go the way of the dodo, based purely on the “oh gosh” factor of the iPad. Thanks to its price and “magical”-ness (read: marketing), the iPad is one of those devices people desire. Unfortunately, it’s a disappointing little beast.
That’s not to say the iPad is all bad. I see plenty of ways businesses — especially sales professionals — could use it. But for me, still, it just isn’t right.
Twitter is not for chatting (a rant).
Twitter is a pretty cool service. I really like how easy it is to connect to people like this guy or this lady and also these other people who tweet interesting things. I also use it to follow headlines, keep up on my beloved Yankees and catch the latest tech trends.
That, in a nutshell, is what Twitter is about: connecting with people, sharing and consuming in short, 140-character bursts. The consumable is a feed of information. In my down time I scroll through my feed on my BlackBerry, just checking on what my tweeps are up to.
A few months ago, I started noticing a few folks I follow actively participating in Twitter chats, little discussions anyone can join by simply following a hashtag and tweeting their thoughts, also using the hashtag. If you’re a chatter, you probably think this is pretty cool, and I see your point. I really do. Unfortunately, you’re wrong. It isn’t cool. It’s downright rude and shows a degree of ignorance and disrespect for your followers. That may sound mean, but hear me out.
First, if I follow you, it’s because I’m interested in what you have to say. I expect your posts will be directed to your audience — including me. When you’re in a Twitter chat, it’s as though I’m standing attentively next to you while you talk to someone else. If 30 of your followers are in your chat and you have 2,000 followers, you are not holding up your end of the trust relationship you have with 1,970 followers.
Second, if I happen to be following several people involved in a chat, it’s like a herd of buffalo just stormed through my living room. Your decision assumes that the space belongs to you for that time period, despite what anyone else thinks.
I find it interesting that a large number of these chats are attended by people who should know better: professional social media types, community managers and the like. These are people who regularly preach the virtues of listening to your audience, being attentive to the concerns of your customers, actively engaging in conversation. But when it’s time for a Twitter chat, they’ll chatter away, blissfully ignorant that they are doing the opposite.
The other night, I’d had enough. A Twitter chat had so dominated my feed that it made Twitter impossible. I let the chatters know I was unhappy. The response was a link to this blog post, which, in effect, tells me that my options are to get over it, unfollow the chatters or use a third-party client for Twitter. A big point of the post is the author sees plenty of things that annoy her, so why should she worry about who she annoys?
The problem with those suggestions is that they put the onus on the rest of us to take the buffalo out of our living rooms, when few would argue that the buffalo belong there in the first place. They should be grazing somewhere else. This post has some excellent suggestions, all of which were summarily rejected by chatters.
In a back-and-forth on Twitter with the author of the first post, I was told there are about 250 chats, with 30 to 500 participants each, which I was told should prove their popularity. But even if each of those chats had 500 unique participants, the total number of chatters on Twitter would be 125,000 — a statistically insignificant number, considering the estimated 160 to 190 million Twitter users. So, again, why should 99.9 percent of us be forced to change?
Perhaps the most galling thing I’ve read from chatters is “If you don’t like it, don’t follow me. I don’t care.” First, if you don’t care, I won’t follow you. Second, if you don’t care whether anyone follows you, or whether your treatment of your followers drives them away, you’re doing it wrong. Care what people think. Value them as followers and allies. Respect and cherish their attention.