Trickery at Shell Gas Stations

Pumps at Shell stations are not labeled consistently; sometimes the price/octane level goes up left to right, and sometimes right to left. I refuse to believe that this is an accident.

There are two plausible explanations:

1. The back to back pumps are mirrored to reduce the amount/complexity of pipe that needs to be used. Those pumps are not all that close to each other though - I'm not convinced that there would be enough of a savings to warrant that design.
2. Shell has built the increased chance of people mistakenly choosing the premium gas into the business model. It is entirely possible that low octane users (the poorer, presumably stupider ones - like me) are more likely to make this mistake, making it a net profitable situation for the stations. Or else so many more people are trying to buy low octane that even at equal mistake rates it is still profitable to encourage confusion.

Social Bookmarking Support for Blogs

I have long resisted putting the myriad of "Digg This", "Del.icio.us", etc. buttons on my blogs. Mostly because I am too lazy to keep up with the latest fads, but also because they add a lot of clutter to a page.

Via ScienceText I have discovered a small plugin from AddThis that supports lots of bookmarking sites and will presumably be updated with whatever newest flash-in-the-pan pops up. It was easy to install in Blogger.

One nice feature is that using the button on an article on your main page results in the specific article being bookmarked, rather than your site in general.

They claim to offer usage stats as well - it will be interesting to see if anyone actually uses the thing.

why no one should use hotmail,ever

Having worked with several online businesses that communicate with customers almost exclusively via email, I tend to be concerned about the reliability of the various email services.

The following is a true story, one that will hopefully teach others the futility of trying to work with Hotmail/MSN.

Part 1 - The Reasonable Request
I emailed Hotmail tech support, and explained that emails from my server were being placed in the Junk folder. This was in spite of

* the emails being sent only to customers that had placed an order, and
* the server only sending maybe 50 emails per month to the Hotmail domain.

I received a reply in fairly short order. It touched largely on two points:

* They recommended paying 100s of dollars per year to become a certified sender, which theoretically bypasses all spam filtering.
* They suggested that the emails were failing an SPF check (X-SID-Result: TempError), and that we should go to Microsoft's SenderID page for more details.

Part 2 - The Analysis
I had set up SPF for this domain YEARS ago, but of course was not certain that there wasn't something wrong with the configuration. Following the Microsoft advice, I went to the Port25 Solutions test page and performed some tests: Passed. Doubled checked with DNS Stuff to be sure: Another pass.

Part 3 - Please Sir, Help Me to Understand the Problem
Another email to tech support: "What can I do to fix my SPF problem? The tool you directed me to didn't have any suggestions."

Response: "Yes, your SPF record looks fine. We will ensure that the SPF record is up to date on our end and get back to you."

WTF?! You maintain a cache of stale SPF records? Don't ask, just be thankful they are helping...

Part 4 - A Week Passes, With No Improvement
Yet another email: "What's up guys?"

Rather Snarky Response (from someone different): "Representative X said he will look into it and he will reply when he replies. Further more, we make no guarantees of email delivery. And really, you should just be forking over the cash to SenderScore to ensure delivery."

Here and Now
I never received a response from Representative X, and all the emails are still junked, causing many customer service complaints.

Thanks Hotmail!

Name of Satan

Di dalam Suroh Al-Fatihah, terdapat beberapa kesilapan yang dilakukan secara sengaja atau tidak, oleh sebahagian umat islam.Di bawah merupakan kesilapannya :

1. DU LI LAH (bila dibaca tiada sabdu)sepatutnya DULILLAH

2. HIR ROB (bila dibaca dengan sabdu)sepatutnya HI ROB

3. KIYYAU (bila dibaca dengan sabdu)sepatutnya KI YAU

4. KANNAK (bila dibaca dengan sabdu)sepatutnya KA NAK

5. KANNAS (bila dibaca dengan sabdu)sepatutnya KA NAS

6) Iya (disebut tanpa sabdu) sepatutnya Iyya. Iya bermaksud 'matahari'

Dalam ayat ke 5,jika salah bacaannya akan bermaksud "kepada
mataharilah yang kami sembah dan kepada matahari kami meminta
pertolongan"!!!!

7) SIROTHOLLAZI............. sehingga habis hendaklah dibaca tanpa
henti.

8) AMIN .hendaklah mengaminkan Al-Fatihah dengan betul
iaitu AA...dua harakat, MIN.... 3 harakat, semoga Amin kita
bersamaan dengan Amin malaikat Insya-Allah. semoga kita menjadi
orang yang sentiasa diberkati Allah.Insya-Allah.

Jom usha Cloverfield

A widget for J.J. Abrams upcoming movie flick Cloverfield is now online and includes a 5-minute clip from the film, which hits theaters January 18, 2008.

Check out the widget here below to watch the clip and grab the code to add it to your site.

Yahoo! Movies has also posted a clip called “On The Roof” (1:54) in which the partygoers try to get a view of whatever is attacking New York.

Cloverfield, directed by Matt Reeves, stars T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Lizzy Caplan, and Odette Yustman.

Consolidated List of Customer Support Contacts for Sony Ericsson

Here is a complete list of Sony Ericsson customer support numbers around the world. You'll never know when you'll need any of these numbers to reach for support.

Americas
United States : 1-866-766-9374
Brazil : 4001-0444
Canada : 1-866-766-9374
Chile : 123-0020-0656
Venezuela : 0-800-100-2250

Asia and Pacific
Australia : 1-300 650 050
China : 4008100000
Hong Kong : 8203 8863
India : Bangalore 080 - 57505555
India : Mumbai 022 - 56995555
India : General 39011111 (Any city)
Indonesia : 021-2701388
Malaysia : 03-78809800
New Zealand: 0800-100150
Philippines : 02-6351860
Singapore : 67440733
Taiwan : 02-25625511
Thailand : 02-2483030

Europe
Austria : 0810 200245
Belgium : 02-745 16 1
Croatia : 062 000 000
Czech Republic : 844 550 055
Denmark : 33 31 28 28
Finland : 09-299 2000
France : 0 825 383 383
Germany : 0180 534 2020
Greece : 801-11-810 810
Greece : (Mobile) 210-89 91 919
Hungary : 01 437 7300
Ireland : 1850 545 888
Italy : 6.48895206
Netherlands : 0900 899 8318
Norway : 815 00 840
Poland : 0 22 6916200
Portugal : 808 204 466
Romania : (+4021) 401 0401
Russia : 095 7870986
Slovakia : 02-5443 6443
Spain : 902 180 576
Sweden : 013-24 45 00
Switzerland : 0848 824 040
Turkey : 0212 473 77 77
United Kingdom : 08705 23 7237 Also -- 0208 7625800

Middle-East and Africa
Central Africa : +27 112589023
United Arab Emirates : 43 919880
South Africa : 0861 632222

Sony:
Sony Europe PR Office: press@eu.sony.com
Sony Europe Head of PR: Miss Maria Heavey
Sony UK general enquiry line: 08705111999
Sony UK Press Office: 01932816417
Sony UK Head of Press Office: Miss Emma Cross

Hope this rather extensive list helps you!

How to easily Add Dummy Text in Word Files?

Did you know that a simple programming language comes built into Microsoft Word. One Word Basic command can fill a page with dummy type.

Give this a try.

1. Open a new document, type =rand(x,y) in which x and y represent the number of paragraphs and sentences per paragraph respectively (valid for numbers between 0 and 200).

2. Press Enter, and you'll see the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the fence" repeated y times per paragraph in x number of paragraphs.