An Eclectic Mind

Come on folks! Get a clue!

I found this message in my spam folder this afternoon:

I have xp, I have been using microsft exscel 2007 with no problems until today
the spread sheet prints with wavy lines
cells are wavy, it is not the printer because when I go back and print old spread sheets it is fine
thank you for your help

I have not edited this other than to remove the sender’s name. I had never before been in contact with the sender.

Yes, I know I’ve written books about Excel, including Excel 2007. But does that make me the go-to person for all Excel questions? Like I have nothing better to do than sit at my desk and wait for Excel user questions to come in so I can answer them?

My Contact page clearly indicates that I do not answer questions about my books via e-mail. But this isn’t even a question about my books. This is a technical support question about a printing problem. How am I supposed to know what this person — who is borderline illiterate — did in Excel to get wavy cell lines?

This message is good for one thing, however: it gave me fodder for a rant about the kind of crap I find in my e-mail in box.

Sheesh.

Days in My Life computers, e-mail, Microsoft, support

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It’s 2010, not 1957.

Yeah, I know. In the old days, calling a phone number outside your area code would likely cost you a few bucks for a few minutes. “Long distance” phone calls were pricey, often 25¢ or more per minute. Cost conscious folks had no interest in following up on a vendor or service by calling in. Thus, toll-free (originally “800″ numbers in the U.S.) were born. By the 1990s, they’d run out of area code 800 phone numbers and added 866 and 877.

Sometime before that, however, e-mail began its rise to popularity. Why call someone on the phone when you could e-mail them for free? The result: spammers and people who seem content to cast their queries to the Internet winds, hoping an intended recipient receives them and responds sometime before the end of the week.

As phone companies began competing for our business, phone rates dropped. When I ran my BBS back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was thrilled to find a calling plan with unlimited long distance for only 10¢ a minute. Then 6¢. Then 5¢. This meant I could pick up my FidoNET message groups nightly for only a few dollars a month. The added benefit: I could call my mother or sister, in the next state, and talk to them for 20 minutes for only a buck.

Time marched on. Cell phones began their rise. Cell phone service providers started competing for our business, offering better and better rate plans. I pay a flat fee every month. I get free calls on weekends and non-peak times. I get free calls to any other cell number with the same carrier as mine. I get free calls to the five phone numbers I specify that aren’t with my cellular provider. I get 900 peak minutes a month. Yes, I realize that other providers have other plans that are equally good, if not better. The point is, if you have a cell phone with any decent calling plan, there’s no such thing as “long distance” anymore — at least not within the U.S.

So why the hell do people whine and complain when they can’t contact a person or organization via e-mail? Why don’t they just pick up the damn phone and dial the number that’s provided?

Here are three examples of where I’m seeing old-fashioned thinking about making a “long distance” phone call:

• I recently designed a brochure for Flying M Air’s Moonlight Dinner Tour, which takes people to the excellent Anzio Landing restaurant at Falcon field. The brochures were designed to be distributed at Anzio to their existing customers. Fortunately, I sent a sample of the brochure to the owner/manager before having them printed. I included my company’s phone number, which is in the 928 (northern Arizona) area code. The manager asked, “Don’t you have a local number for people to call?” I had to grab a number in the 602 (Phoenix) area code from Google Voice, set it up to forward to my phone, and add it the brochure.
• At least once a week, I get an e-mail message from a helicopter pilot looking for a job. They visit Flying M Air’s Web site and home in on the Contact Us page. The page includes the company phone number — seriously, how else would you make a reservation? — but they opt for the contact form, which sends me an e-mail message. So rather than taking 15 to 30 seconds of their time calling to ask if there are any jobs available, they waste 5 to 10 minutes of their time composing an e-mail message that’s supposed to impress me just to ask me to call them and request more information or an interview. Guess what? I’m not impressed. (I’ve since added a note right above that form telling them we’re not hiring. It’ll be interesting to see how many job seekers ignore that.)
• A recent comment on wickenburg-az.com, a Web site I manage, complained that an organization seeking support and new members had not provided an e-mail address. It had, however, provided a phone number. I pointed this out in a reply to the comment, hoping he’d stop whining and contact the organization using the method they preferred.

Come on, folks! It’s 2010! Telephone communication is cheaper than ever. It also remains the fastest way to conduct a two-way conversation with someone else.

Need information? Stop wasting time with e-mail and pick up the damn phone!

Deep Thoughts communication, e-mail, stupidity

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And why this ruins things for the rest of us.

This morning, I got a junk e-mail message from a blogger I’d met on Twitter. And I’m pissed off about it.

How I Was Violated and What I Did about It

I followed this guy on Twitter for a short time and wound up on his blog, where I posted a comment. As anyone who comments on blogs knows, an e-mail address is required to comment, so I entered mine, as I’ve been doing without problems (or spam) for the past five or so years.

This blogger, however, was different. He evidently harvests the e-mail addresses from blog comments and uses it to feed his self-promotional e-mail list. The spam e-mail message from him arrived this morning when I collected my e-mail.

To say I was furious is an understatement. In my opinion, this blogger has violated my trust — and likely the trust of all other commenters on his blog. He’s used my e-mail address without my permission in a way that’s unacceptable. He’s a spammer, pure and simple, and should be subject to the same penalties as any other spammer.

(As if anyone’s actually enforcing the new anti-spam laws.)

Here’s the message he sent; I XXXed out the identifying information so I don’t send any customers his way:

Did you enjoy the free video on the 6 ways to make money on the internet?

How would you like to win the entire XXX System absolutely free?

All you have to do is recommend the system to a friend via a twitter to enter.

We will be giving away 20 full XXX system accounts between now and January 20th.

Click here to enter!

XXX Media Group | XXX | Lincoln, NE 68516 | US
Unsubscribe from future marketing messages from XXX Media Group

Call me an idiot, but I clicked the unsubscribe link. (They say that doing that often just confirms your address and spreads it.) The link sent me to the Bronto Web site, which is evidently the software this jerk uses to send his spam. It supposedly unsubscribed me. But it went a step further — it offered a complaint link. So I clicked that and filled out the form.

I also forwarded the message to spam@uce.gov, which is something I’ll be doing with ALL spam I receive from now on.

Then I went to Twitter and reported the jerk as a spammer there.

Why This Hurts Legitimate Bloggers

I’ve been blogging since October 2003. That’s six years now. My blog has accumulated thousands of comments from readers. All of them entered what looks like legitimate e-mail addresses. Are they? I don’t know. Other than a few notable exceptions when I wanted to network with a specific person — Miraz Jordan, who wound up co-authoring a book with me, comes to mind — I haven’t tried using them.

I don’t spam my commenters. I appreciate their input; they make my blog better. Why would I violate their trust and start spamming them via e-mail? Why would I make them less likely to contribute their comments to my blog?

So you can get an idea of how annoyed I am about this asshole.

Imagine a first-time commenter who happens to comment on this jerk’s blog. He feels good about adding to the conversation and is ready to do it again elsewhere. But then he gets spam from this jerk. He realizes that putting his e-mail address out there on the Internet can get him all kinds of spam. So he doesn’t do it. Maybe he starts putting fake e-mail addresses in his comments — making him impossible to contact if the blogger wants to for a legitimate, non-spam reason. Or maybe he simply stops commenting at all.

All because one jerk is harvesting commenter e-mail for spam purposes.

What You Can Do about It

The best thing anyone can do about spam is to report it to the authorities.

If you receive spam on Twitter, use the Report For Spam link on the user’s profile page. Do it every time you receive Twitter spam.

If you receive e-mail spam, forward it to spam@uce.gov. You can also visit the FTC’s Spam Site to learn more about how you can reduce the amount of spam you get. And while you’re surfing out on Government sites, visit OnGuard Online for real information about how to protect yourself and your computer from Internet fraud.

But whatever you do, don’t stop commenting on blogs. Most bloggers appreciate your contributions and won’t betray your trust.

Social Networking blogging, comments, e-mail, spam, Twitter

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E-mail from a reader.

I get the occasional e-mail from readers who evidently think I can perform miracles for them — or perhaps take them by the hand and lead them to the life they dream about. Like this one, which I got today:

I’m 35 no wife or kids and no ties to anything or anyone and want to learn top fly I can get the money to go to a school I just want to change careers and I have learned to live on 35k a year no matter how much income I dont mind being away from home for 14-28 days as long as there is hot showers and the internet please get back to me as I would like to find out more directly from you as to what I should be doing I have looked around for schools and filled out my FAFSA for aid

To the person who wrote this — who I won’t embarrass by mentioning any names — what the hell do you expect me to do for you?

If you’re incapable of doing your own research to find a flight school in your area, you’re likely incapable of learning to fly or getting a job as a pilot, too. Stop whining and begging for help from strangers. You’re 35 years old! Get your fucking act together and make your future happen.

And for chrissake, if you’re going to contact people by e-mail, learn how to punctuate!

Sorry, folks, but this is the end of a long week for me, I have a splitting headache, and I’m spending the night at a Super 8 Motel inhabited by loud drug addicts. Whatever patience I usually have for e-mail crap like what’s quoted above is long gone.

Flying aviation, careers, e-mail, flight training, helicopters

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Another commentary rant on the stupidity of people on the ‘Net.

Back in January 2007, I wrote a blog post titled “How to Contact Amazon.com Customer Support by Telephone.” As you might imagine, it provided step-by-step details for navigating Amazon’s Web site to arrive at a page where you could get them to call you.

Over the following years, that post has been a sort of central clearing space for Amazon.com technical support questions. People seem to think that even though the post appears on my blog, which has no Amazon.com branding and shares no design elements with Amazon.com, I can somehow answer their Amazon.com technical support questions and resolve problems with their orders. Sometimes I approve the comments, just to show how stupid the people posting them can be. Other times I just delete them as if they’re spam.

But this morning, I got an e-mail message from someone who obviously read the post there and decided to escalate her case. Keeping in mind that the only way a stranger can contact me via e-mail is through the use of a form that clearly states the kind of contact I’ll respond to, I find it amazing that she e-mailed me this, with the subject “phone”:

I order alot of books from amazon.com and i would love to contact them by phone because i have a question i would like to ask them, but maybe you would know. The book by richard laymon island and quake is that both books together? Or am i better off buying both books? Also what is the headline cover on the book? Is that the paperback books?

Pardon me, but WHAT THE FUCK does she think I do? Study the Amazon.com catalog? Have some kind of secret connection to Amazon.com staff? Have a relationship with all the listed authors and publishers? Have nothing better to do with my time than field questions from morons who can’t get the information they seek from people actually paid to help them?

Obviously, I’m not going to answer her question. She’s just lucky I didn’t include her name here, so everyone would know what a total idiot she is.

And maybe — just maybe — my link from that post to this one might clue in a few of the idiots so they stop wasting their time requesting Amazon.com technical support from me.

Deep Thoughts books, e-mail, stupidity

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