Grab Bag II
Just over a month ago, I posted a few random things that didn’t merit a full post of their own. Let’s do it again, shall we?
Let me start with some stuff I’ve had for a couple of months. These are two screens from Adorama camera. First, the checkout screen includes this option:
Skip past the work of creating a password I’ll never remember? Kudos!
The same goes for the credit card form:
There’s a nice wide space, and it allows for spaces and dashes — just like all card input boxes should. Also, you don’t need to choose the card type; the system is smart enough to recognize it from the length/prefix. Not sure why they allowed “2005” in the expiration pulldown, but that’s a minor quibble.
Sadly, Adorama’s order processing doesn’t hold up to their order taking. Originally, I was so pleased with the smooth checkout experience that I took these shots with the intention of making a post entitled “I Adore Adorama.”
My adoration quickly faded when my camera order was held up with unclear status messages that were ultimately revealed to mean “We’re holding this order until a rep can call you and attempt to upsell filters, memory cards and other gear.” Very annoying. I’ll have to look to B&H in the future.
OK, next we have spell-checking by search engine. A few days ago I discovered a user from MSN.no visited my site because I’m listed as using the non-(English-)word “reelation”:
Sorry, Norwegians! It was just a typo. Fixed now.
On to network names. A few weeks ago, I had to fire up my laptop for some Windows-related work. Our wireless router’s been a little hinky lately, so I did a scan and got this back:
Obviously, somebody within a few hundred feet of me thought it would be a good idea to use his/her telephone number as a network ID. Clever! Then when someone cracks the encryption, s/he’ll know how to find the address as well.
I also enjoy the “Customer ID” option. I picture somebody following instructions to the letter: “In the SSID field, enter your customer ID.”
Still, neither of these compare to one I found at home awhile back:
Stay classy, Fat Dog!
Speaking of classy, let’s move on to the reason Adblock was invented, also known as an incredibly tacky ThinkSecret.com ad:
I went back and forth as to whether I would actually reward this advertiser by clicking it. Finally, I decided I should — so that I might report my findings, in true quasi-journo fashion.
Well, here’s the report: it makes no noise, but instead urges you to download a “jokes toolbar.” Ugh. Why do I use Safari again? Oh yeah, great PDF rendering.
…and also, how else would I get my weird-ass mortgage ad fix? This one comes from the Trib. She’s melting!
Well, actually she’s… pouring body wash on herself? Outside? I don’t know. All I know is this Flash ad would continually loop this woman squeezing goo over herself and silently laughing/screaming like she’s having a gay ol’ time. Of course. It makes so much sense…
I’ll tell you something that does make sense now, in hindsight. That would be the reason C-SPAN pulled Colbert from YouTube. Sure, they’re said it was because they wanted to put an authorized version on Google Video, but seems they wanted to put it somewhere else as well:
Can’t blame ’em, I guess. Name another time everyone was clamoring for C-SPAN content…
May 31st, 2006 at 10:25 pm
i clicked the fart button. i couldn’t help myself. it was as if it was reading my mind-
“you know you want to”
“actually, you’re right! I do want to!”
and so i did. and it farted at me.
pure poetry.
June 29th, 2006 at 11:33 am
I, for one, am ALWAYS clamoring for C-SPAN content…I even told that to the dude from the channel at the book fair…actually he was from Book-TV…that used to make my Sundays so blessed.