1.30.2008

New Features: This is what happens when you take a few weeks off from the regular newsletter fare -- things back up on you. It will probably be prudent to start checking the Announcements zone on a fairly regular basis, because there are lots of things in the works. So, without further ado:

The majority of questions asked on Experts Exchange receive insightful answers from the extremely talented Experts. However, sometimes a question falls through the cracks and does not receive the attention it deserves. Experts Exchange has developed some new features to help these deserving but neglected questions get some love from the Experts.

Neglected questions

When a new question goes 12 hours without any responses, it is automatically tagged as being "neglected". It moves to the top of the Open Questions lists (and to the top of Expert filter results as well), and a note is posted in the Community Support zone if no Gurus for the question's assigned zones are participating in the Question Alerts program.

But that's not all. If you are a Guru in the zone in which the question is asked, and you have signed up for the Question Alerts program -- more on that below -- you are eligible to receive a bonus equal to the original amount of the question if your comment is selected as the answer.

Question Alerts

If you have a Guru certificate or above, you can Edit your profile (click on For Experts and then on Question Alerts) and sign up to receive notifications of every new "neglected question" in that zone. The notifications are sent automatically, regardless of whether you have a filter set up for that zone.

The obvious question is "what about all those new zones that don't have any Gurus in them?" Well, Experts Exchange will be adding a few tweaks to the program in the fairly near future. The Moderators will be able to "designate" an Expert to a zone, so that even if you just have a Master's certificate in a zone, you will be eligible for the bonus points.

File Uploads

A picture is worth a thousand words, or maybe more! Experts Exchange now allows the uploading of screen shots, logs, text, PDF and Word documents and Excel files to supplement a question or response. simsjrg, for example, is making good use of the new capability in the question Installing BES ON Windows2003 Server with Outlook 2003.

Profile Changes

On your member profile page, you will now see the grade you have given for each question you have asked replacing the listing of the Last Ten Grades Given. Open For Discussion comments, comments that are made to a question after a solution has already been accepted, are now included in each member's Comment history on the member profile page. If you are an Expert, on the For Experts tab (reached by editing your profile), you now have a button for Goodies which features wallpapers designed by the Experts Exchange development staff.

Milestones:

• Two members of Experts Exchange earned Genius certificates in the last couple of weeks. cactus_data became the 27th member to earn 1,000,000 points in Access, and ptjcb earned the 13th certificate in Microsoft SQL Server.
• angelIII went over the 19,000,000 point level. He also has 9,000,000 points in the Microsoft SQL Server zone.
• war1 went over the 13,000,000 mark overall. He also has over 5,000,000 points in the Outlook zone.
• byundt earned his 8,000,000th point.
• oBdA and Callandor both topped 6,000,000 points overall.
• acperkins has earned 4,000,000 points in the MS SQL Server zone.
• rindi has earned 5,000,000 points overall.

Kudos: Experts Exchange mentions it on the 2008 Expert Awards page, but it is worth repeating here. Kudos go out to webtubbs for his development and support of QuickEE. We would also like to recognize two Experts who exemplify the best of what Experts Exchange offers. lrmoore has not only earned five Genius certifcates -- the first member to do so -- but is also the first member to have over 2,000,000 points in not just two zones, but three as well, and will probably hit that level on his fourth before very long. TheLearnedOne has four Genius certificates, and is the other member of the 2Min2Zone club, but that doesn't begin to reflect his contributions. His efforts as a Cleanup Volunteer are match only by those of Venabili and EE's senior site administrator, Computer101.

We also want to highlight the efforts of mreuring, who had an issue with the Macintosh version of Firefox not opening external links in a new window. So, like any good Expert who is presented with a problem, he came up with a fix, a nice little Greasemonkey script.

A growing number of Fortune 500 companies are turning to Experts Exchange for the world's best technology support. Among 41 new corporate accounts over the past month are Fortune 500 companies Toyota, Liberty Mutual, CVS/Caremark, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. The Experts Exchange team can appreciate big ideas just as much as big names, so we are honored to support organizations of all sizes, industries and nationalities. In addition to these Fortune 500 businesses, Experts Exchange would like to welcome...

Corporate accounts go beyond Premium Service Membership benefits by complimenting access to more than 2 million proven technology solutions and the ability to ask Experts unlimited questions with simple license management and convenient corporate billing, all at a discounted rate.

Enlist the same support as Fortune 500 companies. Upgrades are available for current users.

Feedback: Nata's item a couple of weeks ago that Internet access on airplanes is going to prompt some interesting evolution in manners (or lack of them) promted the following response from IainMacb:

About our item regarding the uselessness of buying an iPhone if you don't want AT&T as a provider, g8kbv wrote:

And finally, we do see a fair number of auto-responses when we send the newsletter out from people who are on vacation, or at a conference, or some such. But one, received just after Christmas, caught our attention:

We just wonder if the job will still be there when he gets back. Thanks for writing, all!

Experts exchange posted the 2008 Expert Awards a couple of weeks ago, and included a couple of new boxes -- okay, one new box and one old one -- but there are lots of ways to look at the production of the Experts. We have listed a number of them below.

An editor by trade, a writer by avocation and an Expert by happenstance, ericpete puts together the newsletter for Experts Exchange.

I'm sorry, but frankly, I don't trust AT&T. Check that: I'm not sorry. I just don't trust them.

It's not that AT&T is a big company -- one of the biggest anywhere -- that has been dismantled once for being a monopoly. It's not just that AT&T plays fast and loose with its customers' personal information with the government -- in essence aiding and abetting the same kind of behavior the western world has been condemning about China for decades. It's not just that it wants to hold companies hostage into paying extra so AT&T doesn't throttle down bandwidth speed to consumers.

What really bothers me is that people are buying the smoke and mirrors bafflegab that AT&T is putting out there. For a decade, the US government has been insisting that ISPs do not have monitor traffic for illegal content, and AT&T gladly went along with that. So why the change of heart? It probably has nothing to do with heart. It has to do with AT&T recognizing that the recording and movie industries have nowhere else to go.

AT&T says that it is looking into acquiring or creating technology to slow down the piracy practiced by those evil peer-to-peer ne'er-do-wells who are taking money out of the mouths of people like Tom Hanks and Garth Brooks to the extent that they will not be able feed their families unless those good folks at the MPAA and RIAA protect them. Translated, that means that AT&T knows that people hate the movie companies and record companies, and resent the fact that most of what they pay for movies and songs doesn't go to the artist -- it goes to the companies. So AT&T has found a potential new profit center.

Since the MPAA and RIAA, through the publicity-friendly practice of filing lawsuits against 12-year-olds and colleges, have not been able to stem the epidemic of theft themselves, and since Steve Jobs has shown how much smarter he is and how much more he knows about customer service than they do, the two industries have painted themselves into a corner. Ma Bell ain't run by dummies, and sees an opportunity. It can charge the "bad guys" -- the peer-to-peer sites (and everyone else who uses a lot of bandwidth) to "ensure delivery" of their data. It can charge the consumer for "making sure you ALWAYS have your friendly, reliable Internet service" even if it has never crossed your mind to watch Star Wars on your 17-inch monitor.

Maybe it's because I live in California, and have seen what the greed of mortgage companies and banks has done to the economy ($225,000 for this place? Gimme a break...). Maybe it's because the phone went out a couple of weeks ago and took six days, and six phone calls to AT&T to get it fixed after their technicians fouled it up in the first place. Maybe it's the fact that I had to keep repeating the telephone number, the address of my service, and the last four digits of my social security number at least four times every time I called them. I have visions of carrier pigeons being sent from Los Angeles to Sacramento while I am on hold. And maybe it's the fact that I write checks to them every month but can't take advantage of the deals they offer me because they don't provide those services where I live (ah, if only Comcast offered VoIP here -- I would switch to Verizon in a heartbeat).

One other minor annoyance about that whole affair: Each phone call includes at least three recorded messages that tell you to use this new-fangled Internet thingy to report a phone outage or to check the status of a report. Great. Except that you have to "create an account" first (they send me a bill every month -- don't I already have an account?). To use that account, they will either call you with a password (insert visions of Homer Simpson) or they will mail it to you -- not email it to you, but good old "kill another tree" mail. It took six days to get the phone line back up, and three days after that, a nice envelope with my password arrived.

But mostly, it's the fact that what I look at (mostly news sites and Experts Exchange) is none of their [blank] business. I do believe that "freedom of the press" belongs to the guy who owns the press, and it's up to him to decide what he should publish and what he doesn't have to. But I do not believe that the trucking service he hires to deliver his newspapers has any right to remove the sports section just because he thinks there is too much talk about the Giants and not enough about the Patriots. It's a short step from deciding that something is copyrighted, or that it takes up too much bandwidth, to deciding that it just doesn't need to be seen at all.

I suppose, though, that the marginal competence with which they handle the rest of my business with them should make me feel significantly less concerned. The one system they have down pat: making sure that they get paid.

About those two buttons. Here's what they do.

One of them, with the words "Delete Question", is visible only to the asker. Unless the question has no comments in it, it doesn't actually delete the question; it automatically posts in the Community Support zone, and asks us to look at the question and dispose of it. If you want us to close the question and accept your answer as the solution, that's fine -- use the Delete Question button.

Are we going to automatically delete it? Virtually all of the time, the answer is "No." We post a message to all of the participants in the thread saying you have asked for a deletion or closure. Four days later (under most circumstances) we will decide what to do with the question. But here's the thing: just because you got an answer that you don't like doesn't mean it isn't correct. Just because an Expert has said "you're doing things the hard way, so do this instead," doesn't mean that he hasn't answered your question. And if the Experts point that out to us, we are very likely to pay attention to them.

Oh, and while we're on the subject... please do not use the Delete Question button to ask us to delete your request to delete another question. All of the Mods post a note that it will take four days to deal with the issue -- so all you're doing is making more work for us. We will take care of the matter.

The other button says "Report Abuse", and is visible to every particpant (and even non-participants) in the question. It can be used to get the Moderators' attention about a question, even if it isn't "abuse". If there is a file uploaded that needs to be removed, the button will give you the chance to tell us that. If someone has posted a link to a warez site known to download a trojan, you can use the button for that as well. Even if you think that the question is something special, and you want the newsletter guy to hear about it, you can use the button.

Two reasons a lot of us have jobs: They are also lessons in prudent management. First, it might not be a good idea to give the keys to the vault to someone who knows how to pick the locks. Second, and this from someone who made a good amount of money running Help Wanted ads: put your business's name (or some other identifying characteristic) in the ad. The consequences of not doing so (especially in an economy headed in the wrong direction) could be unfortunate.

Marinara or Alfredo? Just because we once had to clean up a mess like this, a selection of nightmares.

Mixed Feelings Department: We have mixed feelings about air travel nowadays. We do fly -- probably a little more often than most people -- but our various encounters with the TSA (my bride has artificial knees, so she gets the "personal" treatment) have been somewhat unnerving on occasion, and the tendency for Southwest to want to fill its planes makes some trips less than comfortable. Still, they aren't expensive, which is nice when the grandkids live half a country away. So we're not sure we're all that enthusiastic about the company's plan to install wireless Internet on four of its planes this summer. If we wind up on one of them, we'll let you know how it goes; the one piece of luggage we never turn over to the SkyCaps is the laptop.

Now, how do we get Microsoft to buy into it?: Just in case you weren't paying attention, the princples to be used in designing next set of HTML standards are available. Don't worry -- you won't have to learn anything new until 2010 or when Microsoft ships an operating system that isn't filled with bugs, whichever occurs first.

Fun and Games Department: We want to know -- and be honest: How many of these do you know?

From our wandering correspondents: Ryan_R sent us a note a few weeks back that is worth mentioning:

We will accept reviews.

Meanwhile, Zone Advisor lherrou came across an some scary consequences of installing Microsoft's Service Pack 3 for Office.

Speaking of twisting your arm and wrapping it around your throat: Microsoft put the word out last week that automatic updates will now include -- like it or not -- an upgrade to IE7 (note to CPColin: The boat sank. Get over it...). Your choices are to 1) turn off the Automatic Updates and go through the process manually, 2) suffer through the peculiarities of how IE7 renders websites (including Experts Exchange) because Microsoft considers itself to be the arbiter of standards, even if the World Wide Web Consortium begs to differ, or 3) get another browser. We are personally partial to Firefox.

A good walk spoiled: Okay, we'll admit it: the chances of us playing on the PGA tour anytime soon are remote. But we do like getting out in the sun, hopefully away from cell phones, for a few hours taking out our frustrations on an inanimate object, or even a golf ball. So why in the world would we want to play golf using a mouse and a monitor? Because, as Hardy Greaves noted, "It's not a game you can win -- you can only play."

Unclear On The Concept Department: Business Week doesn't want you to link to their site. SEO consultants everywhere are weeping.

Can you jump out of a virtual building: In addition to proving (and making it possible) that Andy Warhol was right, the Internet has long been a fertile ground for fantasy; everyone, at some point, has wanted to engage in a little make-believe, whether it is something as simple as a whimsical username or as malicious as posting comments about young teenagers on MySpace. For most of us, there is a dividing line that (at least in our own minds) is pretty clear. But one can only wonder what people were thinking when they bought into -- using real money -- the idea of 200 per cent per year interest in a "virtual bank" at Second Life. One thing is certain: There is no way they're getting a refund from Linden Labs.

Sign of the Apocalypse: All that stuff we had a few months back about the cyberwar between the Russians and the Estonians? Apparently, at least part of it was the work of one hacker... in Estonia. Unless, of course, you believe the CIA.

Friends of this column (or at least readers) will remember that I complained about some of the things I don't like about my new laptop (notably that it won't stay connected to our wireless home network from ten feet away). The other thing I didn't like about it is that it came loaded with a whole bunch of stuff I didn't want and won't ever use.

I won't use the common term for the software that comes preloaded on the computer, but I saw a link to a story about the Revo Uninstaller, a free (for the time being) utility that picks up where the uninstaller that comes with Windows leaves off. It also has all of the standard utilities -- history cleaners, a file wiper, and such -- but just making it easy for me to get rid of that Symantec residue (mold?) is reason enough for me to like it.

California has a new law that will prohibit drivers from using their cell phones while driving, and Massachusetts is considering a law that will stop people from texting while driving -- probably good things, considering how often I see those nutcases nearly causing accidents all the time. I just wonder if the Governator has an interest in the various companies that make Bluetooth devices, or will this be an acceptable alternative? It's certainly a lot cheaper.

And if it weren't so funny, it would be scary: I got an email last week (supposedly from PayPal) telling me that they had held up my paying for "Live Strip Chat Camera S*xy Girls -www.video-chat.co.uk - Girls Show" because the request came from a European IP address. (I put in the asterisk because we never know why email filters cause the newsletter to bounce, but I don't want to take any chances.) The email says it would show up on my "monthly statement" in the amount of $127.34 -- a nice round figure -- unless I told them to not pay it.

Now, I don't have a PayPal account to begin with, so I knew it was a bogus request. But as with most phishing attempts, they play the psychological game very well. I can just see wives out there everywhere wondering if hubby is misusing the family funds, and clicking on the link to cancel -- which, of course, would require the divulging of credit card information and such.

Don't do it. Even if he is spending $127.34 on live chats to England, there are much safer ways to get your revenge. Remember Lorena Bobbitt.