wanderingstan

Do you ever get the feeling that customer support people don't even read what you've written? Here are 2 recent favorite interactions of mine. If you have some of your own, please send them in for my growing collection.

My email to MySpace support:

Everything on MySpace has turned to Spanish for me since I came to Colombia. I do not speak Spanish.
I clicked on "English" when it first gave me the option, but still everything is in Spanish.
HOW DO I GET MYSPACE IN ENGLISH SO I CAN USE IT?

HELP!!!

MySpace's answer

Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:29:41 +0000
From: help@support.myspace.com
Subject: Re: Not Found (-4) - no subject found in database (-4)

Hello,
It looks like there is incorrect or defective HTML code somewhere in your profile. Only if you have a Music account are you able to choose "safe mode" to locate the code and remove it. Otherwise, an avid HTML code user could look for the bad code and remove it themselves.

To edit your HTML code, after logging in, go to "Edit Profile". If you see code you did not include in one of your sections you should delete it. Another option is to delete the code that's present and repaste the code to that section. One of these options should take care of the problem.

If this does not address your issue completely, please press "Reply" and provide any additional information you feel is relevant. Please do not alter the subject as it will be considered a new inquiry. For the most up to date messages about MySpace, subscribe to the MySpace Help blog! You get updates almost every day! Go here to subscribe. www.myspace.com/myspacehelp

Thank you for contacting MySpace.com.

My comment to AARP.org:

Any links I click to your site get redirected to your homepage. So it's impossible for me to link to a specific article on your site.
E.g. I want to link to this article:
http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/yourlife/older_wise_bloggers
but it redirects me to the home page at
http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourworld/.

How can I link to a specific article on your site?

-Stan

AARP's answer:

Thank you for your interest in the new AARP.org web site. We apologize for the ssues you experienced during registration on our Online Community Page.

In order to verify your registration, please call our toll-free number 1-866-839-0463 between the hours of 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday.

We appreciate your patience with this matter and look forward to hearing from you. We hope to see you online very soon.

Sincerely,

Jessica
Member Communications
Member@aarp.org

Laptops are the way to go. It's work, play, communication, and entertainment in one little package I carry under my arm. Unfortunately, today's laptops are an ergonomic nightmare. You have to choose between making your arms happy or your eyes happy: if it's low enough that your arms are at a non-carpal-pain angle, then your head has cramp down to view the screen. If the screen is high enough that your eyes are at a good level, then your arms have to reach up to the keyboard.

But these days I see more and more people using wireless keyboards when they're at their desk. The Mac keyboards are especially slim--which got me thinking: why not have the wireless keyboard built in to the laptop which you can pull out anywhere?

The random thoughts you get on an airplane flight...

I've spent the last two days in Silicon Valley. It evokes a strange mix of emotions in me every time. My first visit was in high school, supposedly to look at Stanford but mostly to hang out with my cool older cousin. Not only did he let me see an R-rated movie, but he had his own startup with office space and some really smart co-founders. They all talked with a confidence, intelligence, and zeal that was every bit as powerful as missionary.

Today, many years later, it is awe-inspiring to realize how much cultural change has come out of these nondescript buildings. Legendary names appear fastened to normal brick buildings: Apple, Google, Yahoo, Craigslist, Facebook. And that's also what is so strange: the overall ordinariness of it all. Anywhere else in the country it would be indistinguishable from strip mall suburbia. Except maybe a little cleaner, and with more sports cars. The people don't look extraordinary at all, but the buzz I felt in a Palo Alto ice cream shop today was palpable.

On Tuesday I had lunch with Pete Warden who besides sharing my frustrations with Outlook, has actually built some cool stuff working towards a better way.

We also talked about the resurgence of Apple since he started working there, and I confessed that in my youth I had been the biggest Apple fanboy.

Here is photographic proof of one manifestation: A Members Only™ Jacket that I had the Apple logo embroidered on. Tara did a full post about it last year.

Apparently I have grown a little bit since then! And good thing that my Mom sewed my name and phone number inside.

I take a lot of flack for not switching back to Macs now, but that's a subject for a longer post. For now, the Ferrari keeps puttering along.

Launchy has become the search engine of my programs folder.