The Vent and Rant Thread

[cromag]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Yet another scam. Block the number and ignore. We have two levels of blocking - the phone blocks with a single ring (we kind of enjoy hearing those single rings!), and for numbers that we never want to ever hear from, we have 10 slots we can have blocked at the telco, they never get to us at all.

Here in the States, if your telephone service supports "Simultaneous Ring" check out Nomorobo.

[orlok]

I'm on my third day without my PC. I recently bought a new motherboard and CPU and decided to risk the upgrade myself. What I didn't know was that two of the drives were configured as Raid 0 and that they can't just be plugged back in to random Sata ports. I have lost everything on my system and the drives are currently being rebuilt and an operating system installed. By an expert, not me... Thank goodness for Dropbox - at least most of my stuff is backed up.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by orlok

What I didn't know was that two of the drives were configured as Raid 0.

Ouch. RAID 0 is rarely a good idea, unless you really need to increase the read/write performance. It doubles the chance of losing the data on the drives. Commiserations.

[ProfCrash]

My brother has the same name as my father, except they have a different middle name. Someone called him about a credit card my father had not paid off from ages ago. My brothers response was that he was in diapers and not responsible for that card. My father does not remember the card or why he would have not paid it off, it is in no way shape or form like him.

[Cinisajoy]

When I was a kid, we once had our electricity turned off because Dad's first name, middle initial, last name did not pay his electric bill. The addresses were not even close.
Same guy owned a business and forgot to pay the state taxes. Took mom months to get that one worked out.
No, the other guy was of no relation.

On names, our local newspaper decided to leave out one of dad's brothers because they thought it was a mistake. No, the two names were similar because two of the brothers were twins.

Note both dad and the other guy have since passed on. I purposely put dad's picture on his obituary so the other family didn't get calls since other guy had already passed on.
I know because I got a couple of phone calls asking why didn't I tell them about my father.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

My brother has the same name as my father, except they have a different middle name. Someone called him about a credit card my father had not paid off from ages ago. My brothers response was that he was in diapers and not responsible for that card. My father does not remember the card or why he would have not paid it off, it is in no way shape or form like him.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

When I was a kid, we once had our electricity turned off because Dad's first name, middle initial, last name did not pay his electric bill. The addresses were not even close.
Same guy owned a business and forgot to pay the state taxes. Took mom months to get that one worked out.
No, the other guy was of no relation.

On names, our local newspaper decided to leave out one of dad's brothers because they thought it was a mistake. No, the two names were similar because two of the brothers were twins.

Note both dad and the other guy have since passed on. I purposely put dad's picture on his obituary so the other family didn't get calls since other guy had already passed on.
I know because I got a couple of phone calls asking why didn't I tell them about my father.

Yeah, I can see both of those happening. You'd think SSNs and DOBs would keep things straight.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Yeah, I can see both of those happening. You'd think SSNs and DOBs would keep things straight.

SSNs and DOBs are both Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and are covered under privacy laws making it a crime (or at least a misdemeanor) to divulge them publicly. Where I work we have to keep PII in encrypted folders or if it's hard copy in locked safes.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by wodin

SSNs and DOBs are both Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and are covered under privacy laws making it a crime (or at least a misdemeanor) to divulge them publicly. Where I work we have to keep PII in encrypted folders or if it's hard copy in locked safes.

That is a very good point. I should've realized. It is a very good think those aren't shared.

[ProfCrash]

Anyone who is responsible for credit cards and the like should have at least DOB and probably SSN on applications.

[covingtoncat73]

Absolutely furious! A "Kindle" eBook I got wouldn't download on my Paperwhite. I understand that graphic novels will not but this isn't a graphic novel! I don't like reading on my phone and Amazon cust. ser. is worthless.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Absolutely furious! A "Kindle" eBook I got wouldn't download on my Paperwhite. I understand that graphic novels will not but this isn't a graphic novel! I don't like reading on my phone and Amazon cust. ser. is worthless.

Did the book say available only for these devices? Sounds more like a publisher problem.

On the same name, my son has to put do a background check on all job applications. He has the same name as a sex offender. First thing that pops up on a search is the sex offender.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Anyone who is responsible for credit cards and the like should have at least DOB and probably SSN on applications.

They have no right nor need for your SSN. The only people you should ever have to give your SSN to are your employers or someone with whom you have a financial relationship that results in them paying you income/capital gains/interest/etc. (Since they would need to be able to report that payment/income.) So credit card companies, no. Insurance companies, potentially yes. Stock broker, yes. Your bank, yes.

If credit card companies are smart, the explicitly do NOT ask for your SSN. Then they don't have responsibility for protecting it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Absolutely furious! A "Kindle" eBook I got wouldn't download on my Paperwhite. I understand that graphic novels will not but this isn't a graphic novel! I don't like reading on my phone and Amazon cust. ser. is worthless.

CovCat:

Is it a fixed-layout novel? Like Comics? What book is it?

Hitch

[Gardenman]

If you are on Medicare your Doctor also needs your ssn. Your medicare number is also your ssn.

[Hitch]

So...I'll try to keep this short.

I had a fairly decent idea, (I thought, anyway) about a quiz that I could put on my website, and some portion of it on YT, (YouTube), that might help people make an informed decision about whether or not to try to make their own eBooks. All-in, it would be fairly simple. I can put embedded links in my Camtasia Studio videos, so if a person got a wrong answer, I could--I'D THOUGHT--say, "bbbbbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzzzzt, sorry, wrong answer, please click the link here to see why you need to know that," or something to that effect.

I'd thought that this would be easy, because for the last two versions of CS, ver.7 and ver.8, they've bragged about their quizzing capability.

Oh, but NO...that's not really what it does.

It takes the person through the quiz, but then, firstly, you can't have any type of interaction or inteface or...?, if a person gets an answer WRONG, and secondly--worse, to my mind--is that they don't get their scores right away. They don't know if they got question 5 right, or wrong.

No, the stupid platform sends ME a CSV file that tells me their contact info, and lists all their answers, etc. I, in turn, get to have to send out INDIVIDUALIZED emails, with some other program I have to scrounge up, that would take boilerplate, if John Doe got #5 wrong, says "for Answer 5, you chose XXX, but that's not quite right. You may find valuable info reading our blog article at...XXX"

I mean, either that type of automation, or I'd have to do them by hand, using our canned responses system, which I could do, but..don't really wanna.

So, one of the guys at the CS forums tells me I need to look at Adobe Captivate, or whatever, which is a MERE $1100.00. Yes, folks, $1100buckeroos USD. Or a measly $30/month, with a contract length commitment. I don't even know if I'd like the damned thing.

I want to yank my hair out. I'm seriously pissed at Camtasia, which isn't the world's cheapest software (nor the most expensive, obviously), but I've spent a small fortune in constantly upgrading to their new versions, since about CS3.x.

I am irked. IRKED, I tell you. For the love of heaven, you can embed links in the stupid videos. How hard would it be to have an auto-response, directing those who answered wrongly, off to another video? Or section of the same video?

URGHGHGHG.

Hitch