Recently in rant Category

If you're going to spend money registering domains in target countries and doing targetted pay per click campaigns you should also take the time to do some basic market research. And no, I don't mean pure figures - I mean cultural stuff.

Jonathan Brazil spotted a really silly mistake this morning:

If you go to the hassle of buying a .ie and sponsored Google links for Irish searches, don't call it EIRE and price your products in GB£

The ad in question:


And here's another one I found:
I can't think of anyone IN Ireland using the term "Eire" or in what context they might even try to use it.

Seriously.

If you're going to try selling to us then learn to speak to us in terms we understand and use.

They're at it again

UK Food Exports, which claims it's an independent guide to to sourcing products from the UK, is spamming me and others again.

They're still using that stupid disclaimer and their phone number goes to a fax machine.

So since I can't contact them directly I think I'll just see if the UK data protection lot have anything to say about them ...

Today thousands of Irish teenagers will be collecting / checking their Leaving Cert results (Ireland's answer to A Levels / Bac / SAT).

Based on the media hype surrounding it you could be easily conned into thinking that the world actually cares.

Reality - they don't.

The Leaving Cert is a bit of paper. You can use the points / score to get a place in a university.

That is all.

In a couple of years time you won't care about it.

The rest of us haven't cared in years. Some of us never cared to begin with.

Putting your LC results on your CV when you're 17 or 18 is fine. Putting them on it when you're in your late 20s with a college degree is pointless. Providing details of ALL your grades is just plain wrong.

Earlier today there was apparently some kind of demonstration outside Batt O' Keeffe's offices in Cork. Of course he wasn't even there ..

Why?

Seemingly USI are upset that the minister didn't drop everything to meet them. Or at least that's what it sounds like based on their rather whingy press release. I love this bit:

Last week Minister O’Keeffe requested the help of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) to combat graduate unemployment. However, despite our request for an urgent meeting, the Minister has so far failed to meet with us.

Yeah - getting meetings with important people is going to happen overnight.

In the "real world" getting a meeting with a business or political leader can take weeks. That doesn't mean that they don't want to meet you or that they're not interested, but they have busy schedules (and no - I'm not an apologist for Fianna Fail or O'Keeffe)

But what really gets me is the entire tone of the USI release

Have all the graduates made an effort to get a job? Of ANY kind?

Or are they just sitting there expecting someone to spoon feed them?

One of my pet hates is technical ineptitude.

If you are going to run an online service then you need to get some of the technical basics right.

I'm not talking about rewiring the internet, writing new protocols or doing anything new. I'm talking about setting things up in a sane and technically correct manner.

Unfortunately a LOT of web services get basic things wrong.

BizSugar is a prime example.

They describe themselves as:

... a social bookmarking and networking site for small business and medium-sized business owners and managers. It allows you to submit, share and vote for the best business information links on the Internet.

But they obviously haven't got a clue when it comes to basic configuration of things like email and DNS.

I've been trying to signup for their service since yesterday and I can't.

Why not?

Very simple.

Their mail is configured incorrectly. When any email from them tries to get to me it fails, as they are sending from a non-existent hostname:

Jun 14 11:10:07 av-priv sendmail[12252]: o5EAA1Wf012252: ruleset=check_mail, arg1=<bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host>, relay=72.3d.364a.static.theplanet.com [74.54.61.114], reject=553 5.1.8 <bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host>... Domain of sender address bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host does not exist

Jun 14 11:10:07 av-priv sendmail[12252]: o5EAA1Wf012252: from=<bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host>, size=2265, class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA-v6, relay=72.3d.364a.static.theplanet.com [74.54.61.114]

Jun 14 11:10:10 av-priv sendmail[12260]: o5EAA4ZD012260: ruleset=check_mail, arg1=<bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host>, relay=72.3d.364a.static.theplanet.com [74.54.61.114], reject=553 5.1.8 <bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host>... Domain of sender address bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host does not exist

Jun 14 11:10:10 av-priv sendmail[12260]: o5EAA4ZD012260: from=<bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host>, size=1956, class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA-v6, relay=72.3d.364a.static.theplanet.com [74.54.61.114]

Jun 15 11:03:07 av-priv sendmail[4862]: o5FA32N8004862: ruleset=check_mail, arg1=<bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host>, relay=72.3d.364a.static.theplanet.com [74.54.61.114], reject=553 5.1.8 <bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host>... Domain of sender address bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host does not exist

Jun 15 11:03:07 av-priv sendmail[4862]: o5FA32N8004862: from=<bizsugar@networktaskcom06.theplanet.host>, size=1756, class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA-v6, relay=72.3d.364a.static.theplanet.com [74.54.61.114]

You would think that people would actually check email and DNS settings on a purely web based service, but unfortunately they don't.

People in planes and airports are like sheep.

They also do things that make absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

Typical scenario goes like this ..

Plane lands in airport and taxis to wherever it's going to stop. It stops. The doors do not open immediately, as they have to wait for the groundcrew to their thing. Even if they're using their own steps there's usually a delay of a couple of minutes between the plane stopping and the door opening.

This is not novel.

This is normal.

So what happens with the passengers?

This is the bit I don't get.

Bearing in mind that the doors are CLOSED.

They all stand up and start getting themselves tangled up trying to get off the plane (which still has closed doors).

Why is that?

Or what about when they're in departures?

Even if the gate is CLOSED, they'll all stand in a line waiting to get on the plane - even though:

• the gate isn't open
• the plane isn't going to go anywhere until they've got on board

Are they all sheep or is it just me?

Personally I prefer waiting in my seat in the plane until the people who are "in a hurry" have got out of the way. I'll see them when they get stuck in customs anyway ...

Since I first posted about iPhone tethering with Vodafone Ireland..

Vodafone launche the iPhone in Ireland
There's now a thread over on boards.ie about tethering
There's also a couple of oldish posts about setting up tethering on unlocked phones ..

And I still haven't had a proper reply from Vodafone on the subject.

If Vodafone's reply is that there is something "special" about packets of data when they go via an iPhone ... .. .

Vodafone Ireland are launching the iPhone in a few days time.

However the "standard" iPhone plans won't offer all the features that they could do. If you want "tethering" you're expected to pay more.

Most smart phones have bluetooth, so if you're stuck somewhere with a dodgy internet connection you can use your phone as a modem. For some stupid reason the Apple iPhone does not have this feature enabled by default, so you have to get it turned on by carriers.

Vodafone Ireland want to charge an extra €10 / month for this!! (The cost varies depending on the plan type)

So even if you have a data plan already ie. you're already paying them for bandwidth, they want an extra €10 / month to turn on an option.

How can Vodafone justify this??

According to Vodafone Ireland's Twitter account:

"Tethering on an iphone works differently to that on other handsets, so this service isn't included in your package."

Wow! That's the best non-answer I've seen this week!

One of the other mobile operators came out with this clanger:

"iPhone tethering costs more as it uses a lot more data than traditional browsing on your iPhone itself"

Logic? Zero

Welcome to rip off Ireland!

While I doubt this is Oracle's normal policy, they really do need to teach their staff how to market properly.

Using email to help promote sales is a good idea, but the way that this is being done is incredibly bad and damages email marketing in general.

So far today I have received 5 separate copies of an Oracle "offer" on my work domain. I also received multiple emails a couple of weeks ago in my personal email.

It is incredibly annoying.

Why?

Because I never signed up for ANY of these emails and now I'm being asked to unsubscribe, which in some cases is going to be nigh on impossible as the emails in question do not send - they are only setup to receive only.

So how can I get off Oracle's spam list?

I can't reply to the emails, as they seem to be coming from some automated system.

And judging by the email addresses that are being targetted it's pretty obvious that the email addresses were scraped off websites.

Like a lot of people I've been playing Mafia Wars on Facebook for quite some time. You can usually check your progress once or twice a day, which probably takes a couple of minutes at a time.

Yes - it is addictive

No - Nobody will ever win.

But it's still semi-amusing and keeps me vaguely entertained.

However they may have gone a little bit too far now with their latest addition - SMS notifications.

If you are a player based in the US you will be able to signup to get alerts when you are attacked etc., which means that you will never really have any peace from the game, which I don't think is a particularly good idea for the players. For Zynga, of course, the more time people spend on their platform the more money they will earn.

Here's what the offer looks like:

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I still see it as being a bad move.