No Shortage of Opinions

United States Postal (dis)Service: Another rant

2011-11-21T22:52:00.004-05:00

Over the years I've sent envelopes via Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested. The goal is to have positive proof that the documents have been received by the person or agency to whom the article was addressed. The green form that is to be returned to the sender has a place for the recipient's name and signature, plus a space for the delivery date. There are places for other data, but these three are the most important.

Within the last year I have received several Return Receipts with no name and no signature, scrawled initials but not printed name, no delivery date, and other combinations of lack of information. USPS regulations specify that the form be filled out in its entirety. I didn't design the form! I've even written a note on the top of the form: "Signature and printed name are REQUIRED." It hasn't helped.

What is causing the lack of required information?r Are recipients thinking that their privacy is being invaded?r Probably not; in all cases the envelopes were sent to offices within town halls. The workers' identity is a matter of public record.

Are the people who actually deliver the mail not paying attention?r Maybe. Perhaps they are over-worked because the USPS is trying to cut costs. It's funny, though, that both UPS and FedEx drivers seem to be able to collect a signature and a name for every single package that I've ever sent.

If you have occasion to send documents (or anything else) and fill out the green Return Receipt card, but fail to get a signature and legible first and last name, please take the card to the Postmaster of the Post Office from which you bought the services and get your money back. It is only by customers complaints that this problem will be solved.

Comments are welcome; spam is not. Contrasting opinions are welcome; attacks are not.

"The weatherman predicted strong wind and hale."

2010-06-10T19:33:00.002-04:00

New England weather can be fierce, but I've never heard of it being described as "hale and hearty". (And, while we're on the subject, why does "hearty" so often follow "hale"?r) Is a strong wind a hale wind, as opposed to a sickly breeze?r

Do you find it jarring to see a homophone instead of the intended word? Not in intentional wordplay, of course, such as "What's worse than raining cats and dogs?" "Hailing taxis." Puns and other forms of verbal chicanery turn on the unexpected word replacing the expected word or familiar phrase. "Hailing taxis" has the added benefit (if benefit is the correct word) of being correctly spelled for either meaning of "hailing", either frozen precipitation or verbal salute. Of course, taxi drivers can give us a frozen stare or digital salute in return. But I digress.

As you've seen countless times, spell checking software will not object to homophones being used in place of the correct word. Surely not all writers whose works confuse us with "their", "they're", "there" are using dictation software to transcribe their thoughts. (If the authors were, then the software would probably get the right word more often than the human!)

Will reading aloud what one has written help?r Probably not. Another set of eyes might find the word, such as Jenny asking her father, "Gee dad, what had the pine done that was naughty?" Sure enough, I'd written "naughty pine" instead of "knotty pine." Tempted as I was to reply something along the lines of "It got board.", "It lost its pitch.", or even "It was needling me.", I thanked her for pointing out my mistake. Wouldn't you want someone to point out an "Oops!" before it found its way into electronic immortality?

All opinions expressed are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer. Comments are welcome; spam is not. Contrasting opinions are welcome; attacks are not.

"Chasing Windmills"

2010-05-11T12:45:00.002-04:00

Today I received an email message from a person whose opinions I almost always respect. Today, however, the first sentence contained the phrase "chasing windmills". While there is a possibility, however remote, that a windmill might attempt to escape, what the writer was thinking of was probably "tilting at windmills", a reference to Don Quixote, or possibly "chasing rainbows". Either way, the sentence as written was enough to start me thinking about what teachers call mixed metaphors.

In another recent message, the writer talked about "fighting upstream about finding time". (I sighed.) "Fighting a losing battle"? Sure. "Swimming upstream"? Sure. Either one. The "swimming upstream" metaphor has particular appeal in this case because of the metaphor of time as a river or stream. I couldn't help think of the song that contains the line "Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all [of us] away."

The sentences "It's not brain surgery." and "It's not rocket science." have become clichés. In fact, some people have intentionally combined them for humorous effect: "It's not rocket surgery." Fine. The speaker and the listeners know that clichés should be avoided, and that the usage was intentional.

An Internet search for "mixed metaphor list" will give many examples, some intentionally funny, and others probably not.

All opinions expressed are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer. Comments are welcome; spam is not. Contrasting opinions are welcome; attacks are not.

Your postal fees at work. Or not.

2009-08-01T21:28:00.004-04:00

Recently a renewal notice appeared in my Post Office Box. I took the notice, wrote out a check, and took both to the clerk. The clerk tried to update the records to show that my Box rent was paid. The system wouldn't accept it. The clerk couldn't figure out what was wrong, so the Postmaster was summoned. It turns out that payments cannot be accepted until 30 days before the rental period is up! Huh? You gave me a bill, but won't let me pay it?!

All opinions expressed are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer. Comments are welcome; spam is not. Contrasting opinions are welcome; attacks are not.

Please boycott Baskin-Robbins in Putnam, CT

2009-03-20T18:37:00.003-04:00

On a recent trip to Woodstock, Connecticut I passed through Putnam, CT on a beautiful warm day. (Please keep in mind that it was a very recent trip, as of the middle of March, 2009.) Going by a Baskin-Robbins / Dunkin Donuts store, I promised myself that I would stop there after my business was done. A hot fudge sundae was to be my reward if I did a good job; an ice cream cone was to be my consolation if things didn't go as planned.

The meeting went well, the potential customer became a client by giving me a check, and I was happily on my way to my sundae. Or so I thought.

When I entered the Baskin-Robbins there was a selection of ice cream flavors, not all of which had labels. I asked the clerk what a couple were; she could not describe one of them or tell me what was in it. It looked interesting, so I decided to have it anyway. I ordered a two-scoop hot fudge sundae, one scoop of the unknown flavor and the other scoop of a well-known flavor.

A few minutes later, the clerk came back to tell me that there were no Baskin-Robbins sundae containers; would I mind having my sundae in a large styrofoam Dunkin Donuts cup? "OK", said I, not being happy, but figuring that that was my only option. (sigh)

The clerk scooped the two flavors, mashing them into the styrofoam cup. (sigh) She then went to the hot fudge dispenser, pumped it, pumped it again, looked in the container, and said "It looks like we're out of hot fudge." She couldn't find any backup stock of fudge, either. (sigh)

"How about butterscotch?", I asked. Nope. They didn't have butterscotch, but I was offered carmel instead. "OK", I said. (sigh)

Back went the clerk to the topping dispensers. Pumped, pumped. "It looks like we don't have any carmel either." (sigh) She looked in all of the pump containers; all were empty. (That meant that making milkshakes would have been impossible, too. But I digress.)

"We can give you the powder we use to make hot chocolate on top.", she offered. I declined.

Now, at this point a sane person would have walked away, never to return. I asked for the manager and was told that there wasn't one. (Huh? No manager on duty? During the mid-afternoon, during the week? Late at night, or during some parts of the weekend, I could understand. But during prime business hours? In case of emergency, such as power failure or fire, could they lock the doors? Who was watching for shoplifting, or employee theft?)

At this point another clerk drifted over. I asked the clerks to call the manager on the phone. They claimed that they didn't have the manager's phone number. (I didn't call them liars, but it was very difficult to believe. What would they have done in case of emergency, such as one employee being injured on the job?)

Then the second clerk made a major mistake: "It's winter. People don't eat ice cream." I lost my cool. It was in the 50's outside, the signs outside and inside say "Baskin-Robbins", the menu board says sundaes, shakes, etc., and it was during normal daylight hours, not near opening time nor near closing time. There is no possible debate: I am a people, and I eat ice cream all year. And so do lots of other people.

Baskin-Robbins makes, in my opinion, the best commercial ice cream of any national brand, with the possible exception of Ben & Jerry's. If it had been a mom-and-pop store, I would have understood if they had only a few flavors of ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry [or maybe coffee] are staple flavors in New England), that they might be out of one sundae topping, or wouldn't have bananas for banana splits. But Baskin-Robbins?! No toppings? And no paper containers for sundaes? And the employees can't tell a customer what is in a flavor of ice cream?

Therefore, I ask you to boycott the Baskin-Robbins / Dunkin Donuts store on Woodstock Road in Putnam, Connecticut. The store where there is no product that is clearly advertised and has such bad service does not deserve to remain open. Vote with your wallet.

All opinions expressed are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer. Comments are welcome; spam is not. Contrasting opinions are welcome; attacks are not.

How to verify you actually endorsed a check

2008-12-17T04:01:00.002-05:00

Have you ever had someone claim that they paid you by check and you had no record of being paid? Did they offer to either fax a copy of the check or mail it to you? If they did either, were you sure that the back of the check (containing your signature) actually matched the front of the same check? Here is one way that you can be reasonably sure that you were actually paid, and without having to see the check itself.

Suppose that there were a way to make your signature unique on each check. My suggestion is to generate a number that you will write following your signature, and to have that number specific to the check that you're signing. (We'll use the phrase "magic number" to refer to the number you'll write after your signature when you sign your check.) The number should be generated in a way that makes it very hard for someone else to figure out how it was created. No, you won't have to remember how many checks you've signed, nor will it be the date that you signed the check (or received it, cashed it, deposited it, etc.). The magic number will be based on the serial number printed on the face of the check itself.

Here are the criteria for generating the magic number: The method must be difficult for the person paying you to determine, but easy for you to use. Having several cancelled checks should not help break the code. Check numbers of any length (3, 4, 5 digits or more) must be acceptable. You must not need a computer to generate or validate the number; a pen and paper or simple calculator should be enough. The magic number should be two or more digits, and short enough to be read easily over the phone.

You have probably already thought of some ideas. Good! Some possibilities include moving the digits around in some pattern (check number 1234 equals 2413, check 5678 equals 6857), adding a number to the check number (check number 1234 equals 1327, check 5678 equals 5771), etc. You may come up with a better way than I have, explained below.

What we need is a one-way transformation: A method that can't be traced backwards. It would be too easy to figure out that the magic numbers in the previous paragraph came from (respectively) taking the even digits then the odd digits, or adding 93 to the check number.

If you've done computer programming, you've probably already said "Aha! Modular arithmetic!" or "Modulo!". If not, please keep reading; the name may not be familiar, but it's an easy concept.

Not all numbers are evenly divisible by other (smaller) numbers. 10 divided by 3 is 3 with a remainder of 1, for example. 17 / 5 = 3 remainder 2. The simple way to refer to this relationship is 10 modulo 3 is 1, and 17 modulo 5 is 2. ("Modulo" is usually abbreviated "mod". 29 mod 6 = 5. 30 mod 6 = 0 [30 is evenly divisible by 6 so there's no remainder].)

The minimum result of a modulo operation is zero (no remainder). The maximum result is 1 less than the divisor. In order to get a two-digit result (most of the time, at least) we should use a two-digit number as our divisor. Some examples may help.

1234 mod 19 = 18. 1234 mod 58 = 16. 1234 mod 97 = 70. 5678 mod 19 = 16. 5678 mod 58 = 52. 5678 mod 97 = 52. Notice how we got 52 as the answer for two different divisors? That's what happens with modulus arithmetic, and that's why it is very difficult to reverse-engineer the divisor with just the original number and the result of the computation.

How can you calculate your own magic number easily? First, decide on your two-digit number, the divisor. For example, let's try 42 as our divisor and check number 1234. 1234 / 42 = 29.38095 (an exact number, including a decimal portion). Throw away the decimal portion and we have 29. Multiply 42 by 29 and we get 1218. Subtract 1218 from 1234 and we get our magic number: 16.

For check number 5678:
5678 / 42 = 135.1905 (approximately!)
42 * 135 = 5670
5678 - 5670 = 8
For check number 5678 out magic number is 8, so we can either use one digit or add a zero before or after the 8: 08 or 80.

If you use a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel, you can have your magic number calculated for you even more easily because Excel has modulus arithmetic functions built in. It may help to label your columns "Check number", "Divisor", "Magic Number". To test, put 1234 in cell A2, put 42 in cell B2, and the formula =MOD(A2, B2) in cell C2. The result (16) should appear in cell C2 when you hit the Enter key.

As usual, the explanation takes much longer than the actual work! I can't guarantee that you won't have people cheating you, but you will be able to ask "What's the two-digit number after my signature?" and tell whether they're telling the truth.

Begin using your system soon, keep track of when you started using it, and use it for all checks. If you use the modulo method to generate magic numbers, be sure to use the same divisor at all times! (42 is a too commonly used number, thanks to Douglas Adams.) Print the magic number clearly so that 1's and 7's don't look alike, for example.

Questions and comments are very welcome. I'll help you if I can!

All opinions expressed are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer. Comments are welcome; spam is not. Contrasting opinions are welcome; attacks are not.

For everyone who has a Web Page

2008-11-30T18:29:00.005-05:00

For everyone who has their own Web Site, these tips are offered. Each is based on years of practical experience. This message is a stream of consciousness; cope.

Your Site name is important. If you are a Justice of the Peace, as I am, a name with "Wedding", "Marriage", "Justice of the Peace" or some other word meaningful to prospective couples is going to help your Site be found by search engines. Having your name as the name of your Site may feed your ego, but it won't help search engines find your Site if searchers are looking for your product not your name. (And the chances are poor that potential customers are looking for you by searching for your name.)

If you don't already know HTML, you can learn the basics in less than an hour. HTML for Dummies is a good basic book. If you rely on a software package to generate your Pages you'll get way too much junk in your Pages. Microsoft's tools are the absolute worst. They assume that everyone uses Internet Explorer and creates Pages that are not portable among browsers. Remember, our Sites have to be usable by people who use PCs and Macs, Windoze and UNIX, are sighted and visually challenged, deaf and hearing.

Don't play music or any other audio without the visitor's permission. It is rude. The visitor could be web surfing at work, and hearing Here comes the Bride! could lead to your visitor being fired. (I'm staying away from the ethics of surfing while "working.") Consider unsolicited sound to be the audio version of email spam.

Use, but don't overuse, the keywords that you put in the list in the head of the HTML. (If that sentence doesn't make sense, talk to me directly.)

For pity sake, spell check every Page every time you change it. Look for homophones (their, they're, there) that you've used by accident. Watch out for "its" and "it's", and other traps. Use correct, but not stuffy, English (or Spanish, or ....) If you are a professional, sound like it. If you're not, fake it.

You must validate all of your Pages with a tool such as validator.W3.Org (notice there's no "WWW"). Search engines will appreciate it, and visitors will appreciate it even more. (Again, if this paragraph doesn't make sense to you, talk to me.) Even if you do not create your own Pages (and maybe especially if you don't!), validate 'em. Don't take any excuses from your WebMaster. The World Wide Web Consortium is smarter than your WebMaster. The W3C sets the standards; follow the standards and everyone who visits your Site will see what you see.

Flash is pointless. (Flash is a program that produces flashing, scrolling, fancy graphics.) Flash is often used in "Welcome" screens that the visitor has to endure or click to avoid. Annoying! It wastes resources, including visitors' time. People will move on in nine seconds, typically, if they don't see something that interests them. No matter how pretty and clever your WebMaster thinks it is, search engines don't like it. Next.

Sentences which begin with "You", "Your", and other second-person pronouns are much more friendly than "I", "My", and other first-person pronouns. It's not about you; it's about your visitors. You exist to serve your customers.

Search engines love content. So do brides and grooms. For example, a NJ bride called me because she found photos of a beach site she liked in CT. She said she called me first because she found what she liked on my Site. Content attracts buyers, no matter what business you're in!

Don't make it hard for people to contact you! Put your phone number on every Page. Bottom, top, wherever; just be consistent. When you change your phone number (move, etc.), update it on every Site on the Web. Update everywhere you advertise, Google, your own Site, and everywhere else. People will not try to find you if they hear "The number you have dialed is not in service." They'll think that you are out of business.

If you list your email address anywhere on the Web, you'll get spam. Lots of it. There are ways to minimize it, but you can't eliminate it. Deal.

Use one URL (Web Site address) for each business (or type of business). The more places that point to your URL the higher ranked your Site will be. Bottom line: More visits == more customers. (I'm not willing to debate the fine points of this tip. If you know facts that contradict me, then you know why they contradict me. Let's not confuse innocent people with esoterica.)

Use your URL on all your advertising. Just having a Site does not mean you'll get traffic. Your Site can answer many more questions than your business card or brochure. And your Site can do it at 1:33 AM, without waking you up.

Your Site should contain the latest information. If the laws that apply to your type of business in your state change, update your Site. (That means that you've got to keep up with changes, too!) If you officiate at weddings, as I do, photos should show not just the current season of the year; some people (gasp) plan ceremonies months in advance. Yeah, the beach looked nice in July; the wedding is in December. Sure, the fall colors were nice; the ceremony is in March.

Have links to local vendors. Reciprocal links are nice. Play nicely. Praise musicians, florists, caterers, etc., who do good work. What goes around comes around. It costs you a few bytes, but it could earn you big rewards.

Having spent more than 25 years as a designer / developer, I've seen some horrors. I will not review your Site for free. I'll just take a brief look, usually out of curiosity. If you would like help, ask a specific question here so that everyone can learn.

Blessed are they who link, for they shall be linked to.

All opinions expressed are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer. Comments are welcome; spam is not. Contrasting opinions are welcome; attacks are not.

Did you ever think about how much you know?

2008-08-20T11:30:00.002-04:00

Recently I met with an inventor who needed some technical help. Because I signed a non-disclosure agreement, I can't talk about the specifics of his invention. Meeting with him did bring out a lot of information that I'd forgotten that I knew. Has it happened to you yet?r

It is amazing to think about how many things have gone from being a proof-of-concept laboratory device to something that we take for granted in a few short years. Lasers is what brought this to mind. The following is not intended to be a technical dissertation, but just a few random things that I'd forgotten that I knew.

Laser used to be an acronym: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Now we don't even think about it standing for individual words. Lasers are used in CD & DVD players, printers, and even the laser pointer that you can buy very inexpensively at places like Radio Shack. The laser pointers show up as a small dot, even across relatively long distances. That's because the laser emits coherent light that isn't bothered by the air and dust particles between the source and the target. (What makes laser light coherent and what "coherent" really means is too big a topic for this discussion.)

Laser light is great for some things, such as making a small dot across the room, but doesn't work well for others. Laser light cuts through mist and fog, for example, making it a poor choice for automatically turning on a foghorn at a lighthouse. Incandescent light, such as is produced by a (now-old-fashioned) light bulb, however, bounces back and is diffused by fog. Having a light detector near, but shaded from, an incandescent light bulb would be one way to turn on a foghorn.

I'd forgotten what I knew about lasers and coherent light until the inventor and I talked. What have you forgotten that you know?r Something to think about: Just knowing what you know, plus what you could find out easily and without paying money, how would you automatically detect that enough snow had fallen over night that you would need to shovel your walk, and have something wake you up earlier in the morning than usual?r You don't need to answer, it's just a thought experiment.

2008-03-29T16:06:00.002-04:00

All opinions expressed are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer. Comments are welcome; spam is not. Contrasting opinions are welcome; attacks are not.

The other day I stopped to get gas. The only pump was the one farthest from the door of the gas station (you'll see why this is important in a minute), so that's where I pumped my gas. In a couple of minutes, a delivery man carrying several cardboard boxes walked from his truck toward the door of the gas station. The customer who was pumping gas at the pump nearest the door left her pump, walked to the door and held it open for the man carrying the boxes. Both smiled, and he thanked her. This happened twice more, then the delivery man left. The lady finished fueling and left.

One stranger took the initiative to help another. Nobody would have thought less of her if she hadn't. There was nothing for her to gain, except the feeling that she'd helped someone.

I will strive to be as helpful to strangers as the young lady.

How useful is a digital voice recorder?

2008-03-29T14:59:00.006-04:00

All opinions expressed are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer. Comments are welcome; spam is not. Contrasting opinions are welcome; attacks are not. Any products mentioned have been purchased at retail. No incentives have been offered for expressing my opinion.

MapQuest (WWW.MapQuest.Com) is very useful for driving directions. Having printed directions is very handy, especially for keeping track of mileage and making comments on the route. Writing notes en route, however, is inconvenient and can be hazardous to my health and insurance premiums. What I needed was a way to take notes without writing.

A visit to Staples (WWW.Staples.Com) brought the answer: A Sony IC Recorder (eSupport.Sony.Com). There's a round, recessed Record / Pause button, an oval Play button, and a raised rectangular Stop button. (There are more buttons for additional functionality, but they're not needed often.) There's an LCD screen, built-in microphone and speaker, plus jacks for external mike and headphones.

It is very easy to use the recorder. The design makes it easy for me to keep my eyes on the road while recording a comment. The screen at the top of the front is smooth, making it easy to orient the recorder in my hand. The Record button being recessed means I don't accidentally start recording. A short beep confirms that recording has begun. The Stop button stops recording (duh!) and a little longer beep confirms that the recording has been saved. The Play button sounds a short beep, the message is played, and another beep says that the recording has ended. Pushing the Play button while recording stops recording and plays it back immediately.

That's the basics of using the recorder. One of the best benefits of the IC Recorder is the USB cable that enables me to upload the voice files to my PC. There's software that helps me to edit the audio, and even convert from the Sony proprietary format to an MP3 file. The quality of the MP3 audio is not as good as other formats, but that shouldn't matter. You wouldn't be using the IC Recorder for serious podcasting anyway.

The downsides of the IC Recorder? Messages are recorded in four "folders", A through D. Each folder can hold up to 99 messages, no matter what length each is. Switching folders isn't something that can be done without watching the screen and pressing multiple buttons. If I'm driving and have just recorded message 99 in folder A, I can't record another lump until I pull over and switch to folder B. (grumble, grumble)

The recorder is not cheap, but isn't expensive when you consider all of its features.

If memory serves, the files uploaded to the PC can be scanned with Dragon's speech recognition software (http://WWW.DragonTalk.Com to produce text. So far I haven't tried it.

What experiences have you had with portable digital voice recorders? Any tips for using them, or fun uses?

Customer Service: Good and otherwise

2008-03-22T00:36:00.001-04:00

The person who, when asked where the vitamins are, says "I'm sorry; I don't know, but I'll find someone who does." is providing much better service than the person who says, vaguely, "Umm, Aisle 6, I think." The person who says "This is my first day, you'll have to ask at the Service Desk." isn't serving me, but they're especially not serving their employer.

The person who is busy stocking shelves in aisle 3, but stops and walks me to aisle 7, then helps find the right vitamins is providing really good customer service.

Customer service is part of marketing. (In fact, nearly everything is part of marketing.) You got me into your store by advertising. You haven't sold me anything yet, possibly because I don't know what I want, but more likely because I don't know where it is. If you want me to buy from you, serve me. A smile would be nice, but it's not required.

A few years ago I worked in a hospital. Many floors, several wings. I described myself as "A programmer guy." Nothing to do with medicine, and certainly not a salesman, nor a marketer. My philosophy was that if someone looked lost, I'd offer help getting them to their destination.

No matter where the visitor was headed, I'd say "Well, I'm going that way. Let's walk together." No directions. No "Take the Peach Elevator to the fourth floor, ...." Fortunately department policy was that being late to a meeting due to getting a visitor un-lost was OK. Even better than OK, it was providing simple courtesy, otherwise known as customer service.