Attention Web Developers: Might want to get your sites ready for IE8
Microsoft is about to unveil the Internet Explorer 8 autmatic upgrades, meaning more and more of your users will be on the new browser version. I’ve been using IE8 for about a month now (I think) and I’ve noticed many websites that look a little awkward in this version, so it would be beneficial if you are a web developer/designer to download IE8 if you haven’t already just to make sure your websites look decent.
I personally know the header menu here on WIW is a little messed up so I will be trying to tweak the CSS to get it to work in IE8.
Does renaming the Emergency Fund make you save more?
During my morning blog reading to get my brain ready for some projects, I headed over to one of my favorite blogs and stumbled across a post highlighting something called a Ways and Means Fund. After reading Lifehacker’s take on the this new wording, I headed over to the orignal blog post regarding this new fund to get a little more in-depth informations on it … and it actually makes sense. The idea of an emergency fund is so that you have some money available in case of an emergency (i.e loss of job, medical expenses, etc), however in today’s economy either people: a) think everyday is an emergency or b) never think an emergency will happen to them. In either case they don’t have such a fund. Personally my emergency fund has grown to almost 4 months of pay and it really wasn’t too hard to do. But this isn’t about me, this is about this new idea of renaming the fund to encourage more people to, well, save.
Perhaps the problem with the whole emergency fund thing is that people don’t like to think they’ll have to deal with “emergencies.” It’s not unlike the folks who won’t make a Will because they don’t want to contemplate their demise, or who won’t buy disability insurance because they can’t imagine becoming disabled.
Maybe we’re just calling it by the wrong name. The whole idea of having to deal with “emergencies” can be a real downer. Maybe what we need is nomenclature that sounds far more proactive and positive. We’ll stop predicting disaster and instead focus on the fact that when you have money at the ready, you also have ways and means to deal with whatever life pitches at you.
Again … it makes sense, however in today’s economy how do you go about getting someone to save money when they might have very little coming in.
The best way to create your Ways-and-Means Fund is to set up an automatic deduction from your regular account to a high-interest savings account. If you don’t have much to save, it doesn’t matter — the important thing is just to start…to convert your intent into action. As long as you haven’t started, you’re not creating the means for dealing with what life will inevitably throw at you.
For those who still don’t think they have an extra $1 to put into a Ways and Means Fund, the author goes on to ask how many times you do things such as buy a cup of coffee, one of those supermarket tabloids, grab a few drinks after work, etc. Even though the author does suggest cutting back on some of these, she also suggested just doing a matching-style savings. If you spend $3 on a cup of coffee, then also put $3 into your Ways and Means Fund. Yes this might mean you don’t have enough money at the end of the month to grab the latest US Weekly with that annoying couple Heidi and Spencer on the cover, but personally I think the $3 you put into your fund will do a whole lot more for you in the long run. Seriously … how many staged photo-ops of this couple do you need to see before realizing they are also struggling with money just like the rest of us.
NOTE: I apologize for my rant about the stars of The Hills on MTV, but … nevermind.
Keep an eye out on your CC statements for TheLadders.com
While doing my monthly filing (yeah, I only do it once a month) I noticed a $180.00 charge from a company called TheLadders.com and it confused me. So I typed in the website and ended up at a career/job/resume/whatever website that promotes itself as having the most $100k jobs listed. I immediately called my credit card company to dispute the charges. While on the phone I remembered two things …
- I received a letter about two weeks ago about how a batch of cards were possibly compromised
- I remembered someone I know who had the same charge appear on their company’s credit card and they too did not know anything about the company and disputed the charge.
After about 5 minutes on the phone with my credit card company, I filed the dispute, cancelled the credit card, and will be receiving a new card in the mail. I did hesitate for a minute about the cancelling and having a brand new credit card sent my way because of all my automated payments, but I knew this would be the more secure option available. I then went back to the website to see what it was all about and I’m 99.9999999% sure the reason they uses TheLadders.com was because it pays $72.00 per 12 month membership ($180.00), so whoever is doing this is most likely hoping a few percent of those who had their cards compromised will just overlook the charge and the people can pocket $72.00.
I will now be going over all my credit card statements line-by-line when they come in the mail and most likely keep track of them on a weekly basis online.
Got my Google Voice acceptance last night
I’ve been waiting by my inbox for weeks for my Google Voice acceptance email to arrive and finally, late yesterday it arrived! It reminded me of all the nerve wrecking days waiting for the mailman to arrive so I could see if I got accepted to any of the colleges I applied for. Argh! So much stress!
I won’t go into much review/detail of Google Voice right now as I’ve had it for less than 24 hours, but I did want to mention a small problems I ran into while testing it out last night. I was wanting to test out the voicemail transcription feature and left myself a voicemail at around 9:40pm last night. According to Google Voice I should’ve received an email letting me know of I had a new voicemai plus the transcription would be included. I waited about 20 minutes with no email nor any listing of the voicemail in my Google Voice dashboard. So I then left myself yet another voicemail about 20 minutes later. Same result. Hmm … so I called it a night and told myself to give it another try in the morning. When I got to my computer this morning both the notifications appeared with a received timestamp of 1:51am … about 4 hours after the voicemails were left. Not the best turnaround time, but the only thing I thought might be causing the delay would be the transcription. Maybe it does take them longer to transcribe the voicemails than I thought and going by the first two, they weren’t too far off what I left:
hi i’m just testing out the voicemail to see if it works and see if you can and if that’s okay bye
It only messed up a few words … instead of “and if that’s” … I said “get this” … I give it an A on that transcription.
hi scott it’s not your voicemail hopefully you get this this week school if it works okay bye bye hey
I said something along the lines of “Hi Scott, this is your voicemail. Hopefully you get this. It will be cool if it works. Okay bye bye.” … the fact that I personally couldn’t understand a few of the words I have to give Google an A- on this one.
So far, so good and I thought it was time to give it another try to see if the delay was still happening. I called my Google Voice numbe, left yet another random voicemail and within 30 seconds the email WITH the transcription appeared. AWESOME!
hey sue i’m just testing without a and see what’s going on i thought this might be a great day well leave myself random knows so i know whether i should be doing today okay bye
I said “Hello, I am just testing this out again and see what’s going on. I thought this might be a great way to leave myself random notes so I know what I should be doing today. Okay bye.” … this time I give the transcription at B but the speed an A+!
The only other feature I tested was the SMS system. I sent myself a message to my Google Voice number and it showed up on there within seconds … and then I received the text message back to my phone. Hmm … not sure why that happened. I looked around the settings but didn’t see any place I could disable the delivery of a copy of the received SMS to my phone. I’d prefer all SMS messages sent to my Google Voice number just to stay in the Google Voice inbox … not be also sent to my cellphone.
I’ll keep you updated on my further tests of the service, but I do see this coming in handy with my web working.
So … what else can go wrong this week?
First … my annoying Brother MFC420CN printer decided it didn’t want to function since it was out of CYAN, even though all the other inks were supposedly full. Instead of arguing with my printer for hours on end, I gave in and decided to replace the CYAN. Popped out the old, put in the new, clicked YES to the question if I replaced the ink, and then the printer decided to tell me the other two colors and black were also out. Lucky for me I had some zeplacement ones in my office and began removing them. I started to notice some ink on my fingers, but didn’t really pay attention since I knew I could just watch it off … but then looked down at my jeans and I looked like a freakin’ Easter Egg … and it isn’t even Sunday yet! So I emptied out my pockets, including taking out my Blackberry Curve, and changed my jeans, and re-pocketed everything as I needed to head out to the bank.
I get to the bank and had a few freelance checks to depoist and had to fill out one of those deposit slips. Instead of using the basic math skills I learned in school, I normally take out my Blackberry and use the calculator function just to make sure. I take my phone out and … the little trackball looking thing has disappeared. It was in there when I put the phone on the bed when I changed my jeans, but between the bed and the bank the ball disappeared! The only thing I could do is call either the last number in my call-log or dial any number I had memorized (who does that any more?). Even though I was now very frustrated, I was nice to the teller, made my deposit, and then headed home to search for the missing trackball.
I came home and started to search the bedroom. First I located a small metal-looking ring on the floor and then after searching for another couple of minutes I found the little trackball-esque device. I managed to get it all put back together and working … now I just hope my insurance on my phone will cover a replacement because this trackball looks like it will fall out the next time I put it in my pocket.
Sorry for the rambling, but I guess these are just the pains of being a fulltime web worker. Hopefully the advice I found in the Cleaning Bible about soaking the stain in warm milk will get the stain out, otherwise I’ll be really annoyed as they were my favorite jeans.
Inventor spends weekend and develops $5 eco-friendly cardboard oven
CNN has a profile of an entrepreneur based in Kenya who, over the course of a weekend, developed an eco-friendly oven out of two cardboard boxes.
What the box also does is eliminate the need in developing countries for rural residents to cut down trees for firewood. About 3 billion people around the world do so, adding to deforestation and, in turn, global warming.
By allowing users to boil water, the simple device could also potentially save the millions of children who die from drinking unclean water.
The inventor, Jon Bohmer, entered his solar oven idea into the FT Climate Change Challenge and beat out an estimated 300 entries to claim first prize and $75,000 which sounds like he will be putting directly into the project.
Jon Bøhmer, the cooker’s inventor, said: “It’s a great feeling. The prize is just what’s needed to get this project off the ground. There’s only so much I can do on my own.”
Bohmer said his oven has already gone into production in a factory in Nairobi, Kenya, that can churn out about 2.5 million boxes a month. According to estimates the oven can boil 10 litres of water in two hours, destroying the germs that kill millions of children each year.
Sorry for the lack of posts today, but my Internet got messed up
I know … I know … just last week I wrote this blog post about what do you if your Internet goes down and I really didn’t follow anything on it. Basically at around 11:30am this morning my USB wireless dongle decided it didn’t want to connect to my wireless network nor any other available ones around. No, it could see them perfectly fine, but when it came to connecting to them, it decided to take the day off. So my afternoon consisted of purchasing a new USB wireless dongle and finding out it didn’t want to connect either. Returning it. Rearranging my whole wireless Internet setup in my house to move the cable modem into my office and connect it directly to my computer … and now I have Internet.
Tomorrow I will get back on track with posts … hopefully.
Reminder: April 8th is the deadline to update privacy policy for Google AdSense
For those web developers / webmasters out there who run Google AdSense, make sure you’ve updated your Privacy Policy in regards to their new interest-based advertising. Even if you’ve opted out of the user interest categories for your website(s), according to Google you are still required to update your Privacy Policy.
Yes, you’ll still need to update your privacy policy. Even if you choose to opt out of displaying ads based on interest categories, your site(s) will continue to show ads based on user interactions with an advertiser, such as visits to advertiser sites. As a result, your privacy policy still needs to reflect interest-based advertising.
No need to piss off the big G, so better be safe than sorry and get those updated. I know my whole day tomorrow will be filled up updating all my Privacy Policies. Ouch!
Excuses for being late to work … that you shouldn’t use!
CNN.com posted a very funny list of the “12 of the most outrageous excuses employees have heard for being late to work.”
1. My heat was shut off so I had to stay home to keep my snake warm.
2. My husband thinks it’s funny to hide my car keys before he goes to work.
3. I walked into a spider web on the way out the door and couldn’t find the spider, so I had to go inside and shower again.
4. I got locked in my trunk by my son.
5. My left turn signal was out so I had to make all right turns to get to work.
6. A gurney fell out of an ambulance and delayed traffic.
7. I was attacked by a raccoon and had to stop by the hospital to make sure it wasn’t rabid.
8. I feel like I’m in everyone’s way if I show up on time.
9. My father didn’t wake me up.
10. A groundhog bit my bike tire and made it flat.
11. My driveway washed away in the rain last night.
12. I had to go to bingo.
Did the Colbert-bump ignite the Twitter and Google talks?
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone appeared on the Colbert Report last night only leading to further speculation that … there actually in some truth to the whole Colbert-bump. Less than 12 hours later the rumor surfaced about the Google and Twitter talks.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Biz Stone | ||||
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