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One more reason I love American Express

2008-08-18T18:34:28Z

There are many reasons I love American Express. Here’s one more. I was greeted with this email yesterday:
“At American Express, the security of your account is of the utmost importance. In an effort to protect and serve our Cardmembers, we consistently monitor accounts for possible fraudulent activity. Occasionally, we find it necessary to contact our customers to verify certain charges.
(Transaction amount and vendor name were listed)
In order to verify that these charges are legitimate, we ask that you please have your American Express Card available and call the American Express Account Security Group as soon as possible at 1-800-824-9289. Representatives are available 24 hours per day, 7 days a week to assist you.
You may also call the number on the back of your card and when prompted by our system, please enter your 15 digit American Express Card number. This will automatically transfer you to our Account Security Group.”

Being the untrusting/paranoid person that I am, I called the number on the back of my card (I rarely trust anything I get like this through email or a phone call.) I called and verified that the transaction was indeed fraudulent. They are always nothing but professional on the phone. Upon verification, they canceled the card and I should be getting a new one in the next few days. Aside from getting Cash back (I have a Blue Cash card) they’re on the lookout for the bad guys. Now, I’m curious about from where my credit card info leaked. I charge so many things to it that I’ll probably never know.

“Hey, do you wanna sell your bike?”

2008-08-12T22:52:30Z

Late last night, I was asked to go pick up a gallon of milk at grocery store on my way home. I was on my very old (20+ year) mountain bike and didn’t have a lock with me. Since the store was mostly empty, I decided to just take it in with me. I walked into the store, got my milk and went to checkout.
As I’m standing in the checkout line, the guy in front of me bent down to take a close look at my bike (which made me a little uneasy.) He stood up mumbling, “…1 inch tubing…” and asked if I wanted to sell my bike. Curious about why anyone would want an old junker I asked him why. He said to checkout kingsmotorbikes.com. In looking at their site, it looks like it could be a fun project and would be handy (if I didn’t already have my beloved motorcycle.)
I probably won’t do it anytime soon, but if you or someone you know does, I’m curious to know how well it works!

Failure to simplify

2008-08-12T18:54:48Z

A while back, we purchased an all-in-one remote to simplify the use of our TV/VCR/DVD/PVR/Sound system. I thought it was great. Yesterday, I was greeted by this paper on our stove with instructions for our babysitter.

So it turns out instead of reducing the complexity of our system, I now have a vessel of concentrated complexity in the form of a remote. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to simplify such a system for the non-geek?

Linux(in)security.com

2008-08-05T17:32:48Z

I was just going through all of my items in google reader (which includes linuxsecurity.com) and it looks like someone has managed to hack some spam into their newsfeed. I find it mildly entertaining that a site so focused on security is being used by spammers.
Let me clarify that this abuse is most likely due to a bug in the software they’re using to run on their site and not Linux.
Since they’ll probably clean it all up, I grabbed a quick screenshot to show you what I saw:

Red Bull gives you wings…or a big headache

2008-08-13T20:41:03Z

Last week, I was at the Facebook developers conference. It was a pretty good conference and I learned a lot. Here are a few things I learned:

Some companies still operate with their blinders on: One of the sessions I was most excited about was “Made for Mobile.” I was hoping for some insight into developing apps for mobile phones and maybe some new “stuff” from Facebook. I was sorely disappointed. This session should have been named “Made for iPhone.” Instead of ranting in this post, I think I’ll do a dedicated post to the blinders concept.
Facebook is on the cutting edge when it comes to social networks: They announced Facebook Connect. If you’re a digg/citysearch/six apart user, you can see its effects already. It’s a new and easy way to put a social network twist on any site (using Facebook of course.)
Red Bull gave me a headache: The hardest stuff I regularly drink is Mountain Dew. Red Bull was a sponsor at this conference and as a result, the stuff was given out. I decided to give it a shot. The taste wasn’t very good. I’m a Guaraná Antarctica fan and so I’m a little picky when it comes to guarana. The taste of this took guarana and made it disgusting. To top it all off, within about 10 minutes of drinking it, I got the worst headache I’ve had in a long time. Needless to say, it didn’t give me wings and I don’t think I’ll be trying it again.
Facebook does an awesome job at scaling: This is the stuff I really love. In one session, the explained how they handle the high load demand due to their feeds. Their feeds are what displays all of your friends’ activity/actions on the main page when you’re logged in. If you think about it, that’s a lot of data. Just to generate your custom feed they have to go out and get all of the recent feed items from all your friends, filter and prioritize them, and then display it on a nice pretty page for you to see. And they do it all in around 60 milliseconds. Man, that’s fast!

Yes, yes, size does matter

2008-07-18T22:26:56Z

In hearing peoples’ responses to the post about my new motorcycle, I feel the need to make a clarifying post to show that this new machine is so much more than a little toy. Here’s a picture of my 227 pound self sitting atop the 788 pound monster.

Yes, it’s big.
You can’t tell from the picture, but I have an ear-to-ear grin (like I always do when I’m riding it.)

aLinks broken w/Wordpress 2.6

2008-07-18T22:44:38Z

FYI - I just realized that the aLinks plugin (version 1.0rc1) is broken after upgrading to Wordpress 2.6. The public side of the blog works fine, but all of the admin/posting pages are dog slow. Disabling the plugin lets everything work fine.
I can’t even get to the plugin site to see if they have an updated version (due to its slowness, I’m betting they don’t yet.)

Search box inside SERP?

2008-07-03T21:09:11Z

I just stumbled across this. It’s a search box inside one of the search results. I’m not sure who’s privileged enough to get these, but it’s an interesting usability idea.

My wife spoils me

2008-07-03T21:11:59Z

For years, I’ve been telling my wife, “I should get a motorcycle.” Every time, her response has been, “I think you should.” But I never could quite justify it. Current gas prices have changed my mind, I was able to finally convince myself it was worthwhile.
In May, I took the MSF Basic Rider Course. It was worth every penny and I highly recommend it (unless for some reason I don’t like you.)
Monday, I drove this beauty home.

I’m still in the break-in phase, so I haven’t really pushed her too hard, but I am sure having fun riding her around. I now take a long detour (8+ miles) on my way into my office. In reality, I’m taking the long way anywhere. I’m itching to get past the first 500 miles of break-in, so I can see how she does on the freeway.
I’ve also found a great online community of people that ride KLR650s.

Trip stats

2008-06-30T04:30:34Z

We just got back from a 5 day trip to Oregon. We went over to Depoe Bay, up to Portland, down to Salem for a BYU soccer game, back to Portland and then back home. The girls did a great job dealing with all the time in the car.
Trip stats:
2167.5 miles
40 hours, 20 min in-car time
54.1 MPH average speed
23.8 MPG average
24% of oil life used