Customer Service Follow-up

So, after I talked about how bad my customer service experience with Comcast was, I thought I should follow up regarding my positive experience as well.

As I mentioned in my other Comcast blog post, I was not happy with the customer service I received, and I felt like the representatives on the phone were more concerned with following a script than doing what was right. I had a situation where Comcast as a company really made some mistakes, yet no one was trying to make it right. As a result, I was considering moving to FIOS.

I went to the physical Comcast location near my house to return the rental modem. I was planning on just dropping it off and verifying the fee was removed from my bill. The representative took a look at my account, and I think he saw all the issues I had been having. I wasn't even planning on talking with them due to my frustration level, but he offered me a different package. Basically, it will save me about $40 a month for the next 6 months, and gives me more channels.

I marked my calendar to call in November and change back to a cheaper plan, but for the moment, I save $240, which was an unexpected surprise.

Again, just from a customer service perspective, I am not sure why it took me physically showing up to get a good deal, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth, as they say.

So Comcast. you've won me back over, for now.

Customer Service Failures (A Comcast Rant)

I hate dealing with customer service most of the times. There are some companies that do a spectacular job of it, and others that do not. Still others are helpful in some areas and not so much in others. I get offended when companies make me use my time to fix their mistakes,

As an example of this, let me tell you about my issues with Comcast. I've been a customer since roughly 2000, between two addresses. I've had a number of bizarre issues occur, for example, when I moved, I returned my old cable box. Two years later, I received a bill for the cable box, and since it was two years later, I didn't have the old receipt. It took me getting on the phone and talking with people a few times to get this fixed.

In early April, I received a letter from Comcast saying my old cable modem didn't support the highest possible speeds for the network, and that I should call them for a new one. A few years back, I had purchased my own cable modem to avoid rental fees, but my thought was that if it meant higher speeds, I could use their modem for a month or two and buy the same model they sent me on eBay to save on future rental costs. I called and the representative asked if I wanted to pick up the new modem or to have it sent to me. Since there was no cost mentioned, I took them up on the offer to ship it to me.

The modem arrived very quickly.

Before I disconnected my old modem, I went to speedtest.net (my 163 students will recognize this site) and got a baseline speed. I swapped out the modem for the new one, spent an hour resetting everything and registering the new device with Comcast, and then re-ran the test on the site. Oddly enough, it was about the same speed.

I called Comcast and they told me my old modem would not support the higher speed connection if I chose to use the more expensive Internet service ("Blast"). I decided to stick with the new modem and find a replacement, because I have been considering upgrading.

I sold my old cable modem (again, my own personal modem) on eBay. This is when problems start.

The modem arrived to a customer out in California. He tries to set it up and Comcast tells him it is a stolen modem. The customer wants a refund, and since I sold the item and it did not work, he rightly filed a significantly not as described complaint. So, it cost me $11 to ship it to him, and $15 for him to ship it back to me. I am now out $26 because of Comcast's mistake.

My bill comes in the mail the next day, and I have three charges:
1) Unreturned modem fee ($60)
2) Shipping Fee ($9.95)
3) Modem Rental Fee ($7.00)

As you can imagine, I was frustrated. I called Comcast and tried to be polite. I find that explaining that I am frustrated up front helps me to stay courteous. The rep tells me they need to submit a research request, which would take ten business days, after which I would be contacted via email. The rep took down my email address and we ended the conversation.

I hadn't heard anything for over two weeks, so I called in. The rep I spoke with yesterday told me the credit for the unreturned modem was there (and I was able to verify this online), and she wasn't sure why I didn't get contacted regarding this. Having resolved the modem fee, I asked about the shipping fee, and the customer representative was able to refund that, since it was a charge that I was not told about, and the eBay stuff is my problem. She then tried to get me to sign back up for Comcast Voice, which really infuriated me. I told her I have an Ooma and ended the conversation.

So, Comcast refused to refund the modem rental fee, and as a result of Comcast's mistakes, I have wasted $26 on shipping, $7 on a modem rental fee, a bunch of hours dealing with their customer support, my first negative feedback on eBay, and frustration. Comcast has decided they can't do anything more for me, and while the representatives are nice, this is an obvious mistake on their part, and my inconvenience is my problem.

I think companies nowadays spend way too much time following procedures, and I don't feel like customer service representatives understand "the right thing to do". If a first-line customer service representative sees something that just isn't right, they should be getting a supervisor involved.

I've had other issues with Verizon. My apartment building just got wired for FIOS. My doorbell rang, and the person said "I'm here from Verizon". I told them "you must have rung the wrong bell" - assuming he was setting up someone else's apartment. Two days later, the doorbell rang again, and it was Verizon. He asked if he could speak with me, so I assumed they might need to get in my apartment. (When they set up FIOS in the building, they had to put some equipment in the back of one of my closets). I stopped work on a project and went upstairs, and the guy was just there to try to sell me FIOS. I walked away from him, and called Verizon, because it isn't the right thing for me to be harassed at home like this. The first representative I spoke with told me to go to donotcall.gov and register there (which only opts me out of phone calls, not in-person calls). We got disconnected somehow. I called back and re-explained my problem, and they told me there was nothing they could do. I finally sent an email to the customer support on the Web site, explained the situation, explained my frustration, and asked to be forwarded to a supervisor. The supervisor got back to me and told me they added me to their "do not knock" database, but offered no apologies or explanation as to why the other reps couldn't do that.  Had Verizon been a little more helpful or a little less intrusive, I would be switching from Comcast to Verizon right now. I'm still considering who is the lesser of two evils, but it does look like FIOS would be about $20 cheaper.

For those of you going in to support-related fields, try to keep the idea of "what is right" in mind when you deal with customers. I know it is not easy, and I know I stray sometimes myself when dealing with students and co-workers, but it is a good ideal to shoot for.

Evolution

My semester is now officially over. I have from now until September off, and then I will be teaching six courses in the Fall 2011 semester (my complete Fall schedule is linked here). I got to thinking about the last year, and how it has changed me as a professor. Here are some of the things I learned this year.

1. Teaching less classes yields better results. I have in the past had a tendency to take on a very heavy load, and only teaching two courses a semester has left me with more energy to get in to the classroom. 
2. There is a better way to teach application software. This was inspired by one of my students in INF 101, Kevin. Teaching application software in introductory computing classes is difficult, because of the different levels of students. I've tried to teach this a number of ways. First I would lecture and leave the computers open, which led to people not paying attention. I feel like my job is to structure a lesson to promote the maximum possible learning, so I did not like that. I then tried using hardware to lock the computers and offer class time to work on things, but as soon as I stop lecturing students seem to disappear. I then moved to a model where I first demonstrate the software (with the computers locked), and use ungraded groupwork to practice (with two students sharing one machine to prevent drifting), and then assign an individual case problem to students. This seems to work well, but in the CIS 101/INF 101 courses, there is never enough time to leave for that groupwork. Kevin inspired me to try something different, so I combined groupwork and lecture for Access and PowerPoint this semester. I would lecture and demonstrate, and the groups would follow along. It gives the advanced students a chance to teach, and what better way to reinforce skills than by teaching? It gives less advanced students more individualized attention, since they are more likely to ask a peer a question. Finally, it keeps everyone focused on the work. I really liked how this turned out and I will use it in the future in certain classes.
3. Electronic tests have many advantages. At PCCC, I never really investigated giving tests on hte computer. We have a campus portal (which allows students to submit assignments, allows faculty to share files, etc.). This portal does not allow students to take tests online. We also have WebCT, which is primarily used for online classes at PCCC, but is available for regular classes. I may continue to use the portal for assignments, and use WebCT for tests. It's convenient, ends up with less mistakes (and no true/false answers that look like a combination of the letter T and F), and saves me from reading handwriting for essays. Bergen has a software tool called Respondus LockDown browser, which allows me to prevent students from using the Internet and other electronic files. This tool works both in WebCT (which we used this year) and Moodle (which we are moving to). At PCCC, I don't think we will have the software, but I can use the monitoring software we have in our classrooms in Hamilton Hall.
4. Open book tests work. I always was sort of against open book tests, but I tried it this year, and I see similar results to non-open book tests. The trick I never caught on to is a time limit of 45 seconds to one minute per multiple choice/true false/completion question. With a strict time limit, looking up every answer is near impossible, and students still need to prepare for the tests. Even better, if they know it is open notes, they may take the time to really organize their notes. Organizing notes requires students to re-read the notes, review them, and even look up things they are not familiar with. This is a good thing. I found the standard deviation and average for the open book tests were similar to tests I've given in the past. Anecdotally, I feel like this gives students with a good work ethic an advantage over students who come in to the class with some knowledge.
   
5. I can kill less trees. I generally would create and print assignment sheets for every assignment I give out, and run off copies. I would also make those descriptions available electronically. I did everything electronically this year in my INF 163 course, and it went well. I figure students can print things manually if they would like a copy.
6. Doing textbook supplement authoring is kind of fun. Since I had so much time on my hands, I did some freelance textbook supplement authoring. I've done test banks, PowerPoint presentations, scorecards (rubrics), lesson plans, and book reviews. I've actually had some fun doing this, and I may pick up a small project or two. 
7. Sign language interpreters have a tough job.  I had one deaf student each semester, and in a technical course, it becomes difficult for the interpreters to keep up. I have a tendency to throw out all sorts of technical terms and abbreviations, and interpreters are experts in translation, not in technology. In addition, there are many technical terms that need to be fingerspelled (in which the interpreter spells it one letter at a time). Bergen actually had a grant to provide signers for students, so they sent a team of two signers to every class, and paid a student notetaker. Even with that, there were challenges. For example, Bergen's INF 101 course has podcast and video assignments, and the publisher hadn't made accommodations for deaf students. The college allowed the interpreters to work with the student in an open lab, and the publisher did eventually provide transcripts and captioning. It was a learning experience for me, to be certain.

All in all, I think being taken out of my comfort zone has led to growth, and for that, I am grateful. I look forward to returning to PCCC, evolved.

Productivity Software and Being Productive

Programs in Microsoft Office generally fall in to a category of software called productivity software. The idea behind this is that users should be able to use the tools to save a company time, and hence money. Programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are tools many companies view as useful.

However, I hear that many companies are not impressed with the technology skills of students graduating college, and that seems counter intuitive at first. I think the issue is only partially technology-related. For example, I am in the process of teaching PowerPoint to my 101 class. I try to make the comparison between the things businesses like students to know and the things students want to know how to do. The things students like to do in PowerPoint include animations, slide transitions, and sounds. However, in a business environment, those things are generally not used. As a matter of fact, in many medium to large sized companies, employees will be using a standard company template and just adding the data they would like to the slide.

What a company would look for is certainly part technology, but also part English. A company would expect a new hire to be able to take a paper and summarize it in to a presentation. This involves very little technical know-how. If a new hire takes that paper and types in complete sentences on the slides, or spends a lot of time playing with animations, the company will not be impressed. I try to get across a few key pieces of information, for example, don't write in complete sentences on each slide, summarize data and try to use the 7x7 rule (no more than  words per line, and 7 lines per slide), and use the notes pane, especially if you plan on sending a presentation out via email (this will allow a blind user's screen reader to give a blind user a similar experience to a non-blind user).  As you can see, those are less technology issues and more using the technology to achieve a task.

Similarly, I see a disconnect between the technical aspects of Excel and the application. Every semester, I put the percentages for each component of a grade on the syllabus. Let's say tests are 40%, lab projects are 40%, and the final is 20%. With that information and knowledge of what grades the student has received, this spreadsheet should be pretty easy. However, I find most students seem to have no sense for how they are doing in a class unless I tell them.

In a business environment, this is the type of problem a new hire may be presented with. Given a certain situation you should create the formulas to get an answer. If a new hire can't figure out how to do that, is that a logic problem or technology problem? I'd argue logic problem, providing they know how to enter formulas.

Companies expect new hires to really understand the technology. It isn't just remembering every point and click, because even I forget specific tasks sometimes and have to Google it. It is also understanding the capabilities of each tool and being able to apply it to the tasks you face.

My last job before I started teaching full-time was at a highly technical company. People did amazing things with programming, but they were still doing really silly things like using a paper log book to keep track of problems. If one wanted to log something, one had to go to a specific person's cubicle and write it down on paper. I made the suggestion that we create an Excel spreadsheet and just put it on the network (in a configuration management system - don't worry about the details). Of course, I didn't try to force it on people, because that never works. I made a suggestion to my manager, and he asked me to create a prototype. He loved it and made it policy. Soon people were asking me how we could generate reports to show only open problems...show ones that were more than a month old...replace a text column with a pull-down menu...validate data...etc. This little spreadsheet took on a life of its own, but made a lot of information available to management, things they would otherwise have had to have someone tabulate by hand. It also helped reduce mistakes. This was me applying technology to an existing situation, and this was something that helped me stand out. In a very technical company, I got promotions and gained the faith of management because I could not only use Excel, but also because I had the vision to see where it could make things more efficient. I did a lot of things that helped streamline processes, and was on the fast track as a result

I think many students have a built-in understanding of computers that people thirty years older than them do, but they don't always know how to apply the tools to real-world problems. If you can do so, you will do well in the real world.

Cool Tools: Tunatic

I found a bunch of old CDs the other day, with hundreds of songs on them. These were CDs I had burned in 2000, 2001, and 2002. There were a number of songs I remembered, but I could not remember the name for them. I figured there had to be a tool out there to help me find the names (because iTunes imported all the files with the names Track1, Track2, etc).

I did a quick search and found a tool called Tunatic. This is a pretty nice tool that works much like the iPhone tools Shazam and Midomi. You let the computer hear the song, and the tool will identify it. It's a free tool, so I downloaded it and gave it a shot.

This worked extremely well for me. It had a little problem with some of my more obscure songs, especially anything without vocals. Since I have a computer headset with a microphone, it was extremely easy to set this up.

I'd recommend this, as long as you have some sort of microphone input.

Link to Download

The Day eBay Changed

Today is the day eBay changed to a new business model. For years, eBay has had a fee structure based on a few things (for small sellers, anyway):

1. Listing Fees (a cost for posting an item)
2. Listing Upgrade Fees (want your listings to appear in bold? go for 10 days? etc.)
3. Final Value Fees (they take a percentage of the final sale value)

In addition, eBay bought Paypal a number of years ago, so they also take a percentage of each payment processed.

For years in my CIS 152 course at PCCC and more recently my INF 163 class at Bergen, I've discussed how having an item go for 99 cents is not a good thing for eBay, in my opinion. It would be better for them to let people set a starting price and give them a free listing fee, because they would make more money off a final value fee. For example, if I list an item for $1.00 and it sells for $1.00 cents, eBay would get about 19 cents (10 cents to list the item and 9 cents for a final value fee). I might list an item so cheaply to avoid paying a large listing fee, which I am responsible for even if the item doesn't sell. Many sellers avoid risk, so they start items cheap in case the item doesn't sell, minimizing cost for listing fees.

My personal opinion was that if eBay cut out listing fees and simply raised final value fees, they would reap two benefits:

1. Sellers would list items for higher prices, therefore leading to higher final value fees.
2. Sellers would be more likely to sell items that might not sell, due to reduced risk of wasted fees.

eBay has seemingly decided to go with this, and will now allow sellers to sell 50 items a month with no listing fee, regardless of starting value. In addition, these auctions will be eligible for a free "Buy It Now", which allows an anxious buyer to purchase an item for a set price and preempt the auction.

Link to new fee information

Listing upgrade fees still exist, as do final value fees.

Of course, there are always catches. First of all, eBay will no longer just be taking a percentage of the final sale. They are also taking a percentage of the shipping cost. There still seem to be some workarounds, but eBay has done this because a seller could list a $200 item for $0.01 with $199.99 shipping and pay no fees on an item (and sellers did try to exploit this).

It seems like eBay's idea here is to keep small sellers around, while motivating medium sellers to move to eBay stores. The eBay stores are a system which has monthly subscription fees ranging from $15.95 to $299.95.

The loser in all this is the buyer who is looking for bargains, because in my opinion, they are going to be harder to find.

My Bookshelf

I am in the process of doing some updates to my place of residence. As part of it, I ended up cleaning out my bookcase and reminiscing about some of the books I found there. It seemed like a cool idea to mention what's on my bookcase and why.

Google Hacks (2005): This book was a pretty cool book for the time, teaching you how to use many of the Google services more efficiently. This book is how I learned about some of the special Google commands (as basic as using the title command or as in depth as using commands like inurl). It also gave a bunch of Perl scripts you could use to do all sorts of cool stuff, effectively combining a Perl script and Google to give you the power to automatically perform and parse searches. This book doesn't seem to have continued past the third edition (I have the second), but it is a cool read, especially for those of you with knowledge of programming.


Fire in the Valley (2000): This book details the history of the personal computer, going back to the days when people ordered the parts and put them together themselves. The central part of the book details the battle between Apple and Microsoft, made more famous by the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. I found it fascinating, though a little dry at times.

The Art of Intrusion (2005) / The Art of Deception (2003): Two books by Kevin Mitnick detailing some hacking and social engineering topics. It is fascinating how social engineers can manipulate a person to the point where you are thanking them as they steal your information. These books taught me about things like SQL injection attacks (which we just talked about in my 163 course - see page 175 of the Art of Intrusion). I asked the librarians at both PCCC and BCC to get these books to have on hand, they are definitely worth checking out.

Cryptonomicon (2002): This is a tough read, but it's an excellent fictional novel. It has two main storylines. The first has to deal with a group of people in World War II who have broken the German's secret code (Enigma). This was early cryptography, and it was interesting to see the characters intercept messages but not actually warn troops sometimes, because they also did not want the Germans to know they had broken the code. The second storyline has to do with a group of more contemporary individuals trying to create a secure digital cash system, using cryptographic methods.

And, just to show I have more than computer books on the shelf...

The Butterfly Revolution (1961): I actually had to read this for a freshman class in high school, and my teacher gave me one of the books since I liked it so much. It has to do with a socially awkward teenager who goes to a summer camp, where he ends up involved in a takeover of the camp. Chaos ensues. Picture "Lord of the Flies" in a summer camp.

The Machine (2009): A book about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. Even as a child, I read a lot of books about baseball. I remember in high school having to write a persuasive essay, and I wrote one arguing that Pete Rose (featured in this book) was innocent of gambling charges. Of course, he later admitted this so I was wrong, but as a fan, I guess I was blinded. So, the book involved one of my favorite players, and had the extra bonus of being authored by my favorite sports blogger, Joe Posnanski. I've been reading his stuff for years, and it was cool to see him go from a small writer for a Kansas City newspaper to someone who writes for Sports Illustrated. Behold, the power of the Internet!

The New New Thing (2000) / Moneyball (2004) / The Blind Side (2008): All these books are written by Michael Lewis. I was first introduced to him through the first book listed, which was about Dr. Jim Clark, founder of Netscape and Silicon Graphics, and how it was fascinating for him to take chances on new technologies and stay at the forefront (and find the new "new thing"). The book detailed a company called Healtheon, which later merged with WebMD. The Blind Side and Moneyball were both excellent sports books which had movies made from them.


The Closing of the American Mind (1988): This book was recommended to me a few years ago by a colleague from PCCC, Dr. Ida Greidanus. The author feels as if modern colleges and universities are failing students, and that America is in a crisis regarding higher education. I think this book made some excellent points which got me thinking about my teaching in a different way.

The Dark Half (1989): The first Stephen King book I ever read.


There are many more books on the bookcase, but I think that's a good enough sample for today!

Spyware

Spyware is a topic I don't feel like many of my students really see the risk in. I figured I would put up some information about it since I am going to be talking about it in class soon.

Not THAT type of spyware (Image from icanhascheezburger.com)

Spyware isn't the same thing as a virus, and this was a problem at first. Programs started appearing that would monitor what a user was doing and possibly transmit the results elsewhere, and antivirus software programs did not block them, because were not a traditional virus (especially in that they did not replicate/copy themselves to another machine).


Some examples are keyloggers, advertising software ("adware"), and tracking cookies,

Keyloggers keep track of the keystrokes entered on a computer. They can be either hardware or software based. A hardware based keylogger would simply plug in between the keyboard and the system unit. Since most people don't regularly examine their computers, this is a good way to spy on someone. It is generally a little more difficult to detect since the operating system may not even detect it, but it has the drawback that you need physical access to the machine. Software keyloggers are a little safer, but also more likely to be caught by anti-spyware tools. Some of them can record the keys you hit and even email or upload the log file to someone.

Adware keeps track of a user's browsing habits and pops up ads. The adware tends to be a little more aggressive than your standard pop-up ads. Certain adware will attempt to scare you in to buying things like antivirus software. The reason this can be more malicious and dangerous is because once it is installed on your machine, it has more permission to do things (like pop up windows or change system settings) than a regular Web site does.


Tracking cookies also present a threat, though they are less scary than the other things mentioned. These keep track of your viewing habits and store information on your computer. These may be used to, say, display more ads about cars and less about baby clothes if you often click on car ads and never click on baby clothing ads.


The main thing that distinguishes tracking cookies and adware is the way they are used. Adware is usually installed versus the tracking cookies just being left by a Web site.

Either way, you should have some sort of anti-spyware protection on the computer. Most antivirus tools come with some sort of anti-spyware at this point, though if you are looking for extra protection, tools such as Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy do have free versions.

Adventures in Laptop Repair

My friend had an old laptop he brought to me today. It was pretty old. It has 64 MB of RAM, a 233 Mhz processor, a 4 GB hard drive, a dead battery...a real winner! In addition, whoever set it up installed Windows XP on it, so it takes FOREVER to start up.

He asked me if I could put it in Spanish so he could send it to his niece in Puerto Rico.

I decided to take a look and see what I could do. After all, it keeps my tech skills fresh!

As I have never done a Spanish install before, I first started by going to the Windows control panel. I took a look around, and went in to the language settings. Ah ha, I thought, this should fix it. I switched everything to Spanish, restarted the machine, and waited for it to work.

Sadly, this did not work. The Windows XP system files were installed in Spanish, and this did not even change the Start Menu to Spanish. It made sense when I thought about it. All the programs were already installed in English. A little Internet research showed that in order to do what we wanted, I would need a special installation of Windows with a new license key. License keys are generally tied to a specific version of Windows, so even if I got the Spanish version, I doubted the existing license key would work.

I was also sure that my friend did not want to pay for a new XP license for this machine.

At this point, I had a few options. I could have considered pirating the key, but my personal ethics ruled this out. Even if they didn't, the risk of downloading stuff from torrents/file sharing networks (0-day viruses, getting caught) would deter me.

Besides, when I thought about what my friend wanted for his niece, it was a computer that allowed her to do Internet research and type papers. At this point I decided to investigate Linux. I figured there should be a Spanish distribution of Linux, and it would certainly run better than Windows on this machine.

I am familiar with Ubuntu Linux, but it did not look like there was a complete version, so I did some searching and found Asturix, a Spanish Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. I downloaded the CD image and burned it on to a CD.

I brought my new CD back to the old laptop, and tried to open the CD-ROM drive. No response. Luckily, I know about the trick to open a stuck CD-ROM drive with a paperclip (that's why that tiny little hole is on the front of the drive!).

I opened the drive, inserted the CD, and started the machine. I walked away and came back, and it booted directly in to Windows. I restarted, and went in to the BIOS (the computer's basic input/output system). It was correctly set up to try the CD-ROM drive before it booted off the hard drive.

I restarted again, and paid attention this time. When the computer restarted, the CD-ROM drive made a very odd sound and then stopped spinning, and then the computer booted in to Windows. To verify, I went to My Computer, and the CD-ROM drive wasn't even listed, which means it was malfunctioning.

Normally at this point, I would consider creating a USB boot drive, but this machine was so old, the BIOS did not support it.

At this point, I considered partitioning the hard drive, but it just wasn't worth the effort for me.

Fall 2011 - What I'm Teaching

I've got my tentative Fall schedule set up. I figured I would pass it along.

At PCCC - Passaic Campus
CIS-101-P02 Computer Concepts and Applications
Monday, Wednesday 8:55AM - 10:10AM

CIS-101-P01 Computer Concepts and Applications
Monday, Wednesday 10:20AM - 11:35AM

At PCCC - Paterson Campus
CIS-152-ME1 Internet/E-Commerce Technologies
Thursday 7:05 PM - 9:35 PM

CIS-170-M01 Website Design and Tools
Tuesday, Thursday 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM

CIS-290-M01 Database Fundamentals
Tuesday, Thursday 10:20AM - 11:35AM

At Bergen CC - Paramus Campus
INF-163-001 Internet Concepts and Applications
Monday, Wednesday 3:55 PM - 5:50 PM

The battle for online sales tax

Funny, we were just discussing this in one of my classes, and now it jumps in to the news.

There are a number of ways to make money online. Advertising is an obvious one, along with having a Web catalog. There are always sites that do on-demand publishing like CafePress where someone can design shirts and link to their store there, and CafePress handles the printing and shipping.

One of the other ways has traditionally been affiliate marketing. This is the type of thing where I can link to someone else's site, and they give me a percentage of any sales generated by you clicking on the link. Many companies, such as Overstock and Amazon have these types of programs.

For example, I have one that I don't push through Amazon Associates here. That link takes you to Amazon, but if you bought something, Amazon would give me a small percentage of it. This is a great program, with very little risk to either side. Amazon makes money, so do I, and my users may buy something they were going to buy anyway through the link.

However, this has also been at the center of a big war. This is not a new war. However, online retailers do not need to charge sales tax to residents of a state in which they do not have a physical presence. So, take NewEgg. They are located in California, so they are required to collect sales tax for anything sold to California residents. However, they do not have a physical location in Alaska, so residents of Alaska do not have to pay sales tax on NewEgg purchases. Of course, companies like WalMart and Best Buy have been fighting this for years, because they feel like it puts them at a disadvantage. State governments don't like this either, but a Supreme Court decision (Quill v. North Dakota) from 1992 said companies without physical locations in a state do not have to charge state sales tax (this ruling was for mail order catalogs).

With many states in dire financial situations, this has become even more of an issue. Some states have made the argument that if a site has affiliates in a state, they now have a physical location in that state. Since I live in New Jersey, this would mean Amazon now has a physical location in New Jersey and must charge sales tax.

To me, this is a very loose interpretation of the law, but a number of states have passed laws to require any companies with affiliates in their state to collect sales tax. Amazon's response has been to just end the program in the states that pass this type of legislation. Amazon terminated the program in Rhode Island, North Carolina, and Colorado, so anyone who lives in those states can not be affiliates. Amazon has been doing battle with New York over this issue, and (to summarize the legal blah blah blah) the state basically now has to prove that having an affiliate in a state is really the same as having a sales representative in a state.

This is now even more newsworthy because Minnesota has a bill in the Senate that would try to collect Internet sales tax. The article linked also states that Minnesota made $20 million in income tax from Amazon Associates, so they are on the brink of losing the program.

In addition, the governor of Illinois today signed into law a bill that did the same thing as other states, and Amazon predictably cut ties with affiliates in those states. I am not sure if the Illinois government really expected anything different, but now Amazon Associates is no longer available in Illinois. Walmart, as a company that already charges sales tax to everyone, is pushing their affiliates program, since this is the only option some people have.

If the government really wants to do this right, maybe the original law needs to be revisited, because it has become a big staring contest.

No, your operating isn't perfect either

When I was in college, I gave up on Microsoft's operating systems (I got tired of Windows freezing on me) and ran a distribution of Linux called Debian for a few years. For my needs, it worked well, probably even better than a Windows system did. I did a lot of programming, and the Linux operating system was very similar to the Unix (Solaris) operating system that our assignments ran on.

When I teach introductory classes, I have students who have Macintosh computers at home or people running Linux. When we come to computer security, I will generally mention the idea of antiviruses. I generally will have some student say "I don't need one because I am not running Windows". Sometimes, I even get "you can't get a virus on a Mac (or Linux) system".

This is factually incorrect. In security, there are no absolutes. There are viruses, malware, and other programs which end up out there for both operating systems. This doesn't mean the Macintosh and Linux operating systems aren't inherently safer, however.

If I am a hacker, I have to determine my audience (much like a research paper). Who am I hacking? The answer is probably something like "new computer users". Most new computer users are not running Linux, and therefore, if you are writing an exploit, you want to target non-Linux users. Similarly, if you are writing an exploit through the Web, you want to target your biggest audience, and that would be Windows operating system users running the default browser (Internet Explorer). Of course there are other reasons you might target the Windows/IE combination (such as Active-X controls).

The reason this is on my mind...out at the Pwn2Own hacker challenge, some folks from a French penetration testing company hacked a fully patched Mac. They did it using an exploit in the Safari browser.

Link to story

Teams will also compete to create more exploits for a number of different browser/OS/plug-in today and tomorrow.

Most Popular Pirated Movies 2010

I was wondering what the popular 2010 searches were, though not on the Google search engine. I was wondering what people were searching for on the torrents. This follows up to my post about keywords people were using to find me.

So, I did manage to find a site that was referenced by Gizmodo, who I trust. The site TorrentFreak had a list of the top ten pirated movies of 2010.

The list is linked below, but I am not surprised that the most popular movie was Avatar. However, I was surprised that the movie Kick-Ass was second, though it was a low-grossing film. While Avatar made almost $2.8 billion, Kick-Ass brought in around $100 million. It's the second lowest grossing movie on the top ten list.

I was also surprised that Iron Man 2 was not higher up the list (it came in at number 5, after Shutter Island).

The sheer number of downloads (16.5 million of Avatar alone) makes it apparent why movie companies are trying to crack down. Then again, Avatar did make almost $2.8 billion dollars, so it is pretty doubtful the Internet cut in to the profits THAT much.

Kick-Ass and the Hurt Locker, on the other hand...maybe.

TorrentFreak's Top 10 downloaded movies of 2010

Stalking? There's an app for that.

A large part of Facebook's appeal is the ability to add apps to your account. Games (such as Farmville or Vampire Wars), social apps (like Yelp or horoscope apps), self improvement apps (dieting apps, investing tips) and many more can be found on the site, many of which are free.

There are times where Facebook will determine that certain apps violate their terms. For example, in early 2009, Burger King created an app that, if you dumped 10 friends, would give you a free Whopper. Really. Facebook's rationale was that apps are not allowed to tell people if you've dumped them as friends, and this app did.

Facebook just pulled the plug on an app that many contended was a stalking app. Breakup Notifier was an app released recently. The whole purpose of the app was to let you know if someone's Facebook relationship status changed. For example, if someone was listed "in a relationship" and changed their status to "single", you would be alerted.

Many people view this as a stalking app, but in my opinion, if someone puts this information out there publicly, there really isn't anything wrong with it. I could just as easily bookmark a profile and revisit it to see if someone changed their profile status, and I would also be able to see it through my News Feed. This app would just monitor it for you and send you a response via e-mail when that status changed, providing you with real time information.

Facebook has apparently permanently disabled the app, citing some reason or another. Was it the 3.6 million users it amassed in a week (and the strain it added to their servers), was it complaints, or was it something else? I would guess complaints. I am assuming that the same people who post their relationship status publicly are the same people who wrote to Facebook to complain.

Undeterred, the creator of the Breakup Notifier has created another app, Crush Notifier. This works very much like speed dating. Let's say Sally has a crush on Tim. She would mark that she has a crush on him, using this app. Tim would not receive notification of Sally's crush, so Sally does not risk rejection or awkwardness. However, if Tim marks through the app he has a crush on Sally, they would both receive e-mail notifications that they like each other. Crush Notifier even has a business model, where you get two uses for free, and would need to use Facebook credits to receive any further e-mails.

Amazing how social media continues to change society, huh? Well, as Ricky Bobby said, "Does that blow your mind? That just happened!"

I am the number 6 Google result for "cat-proof software"

Statcounter (the site I mentioned which showed what browsers people were using to visit my site) provides a lot of cool features. If I had my own Web server, I could get this same information by perusing my Web server logs, but since I am running a site through Google's Blogger service, I don't have access to those.

Statcounter logs all sorts of information, for example, computer IP address, operating system, browser information, screen resolution, and more. One of the other things that is cool is that it can tell you how people found your Web site, assuming they didn't just type it in to their address bar.

For example, if you Google:
Professor Cameron blog

I am the first result for this. This makes sense. If you were to then click on that Google link, I would be able to see that someone Googled that and found me using those search terms. I can also see which search engines people used to find me. Of my recent visitors, 55 found me using Google, 7 using Bing, 4 using Yahoo!, and 1 using Ask. (Note: Statcounter only logs the most recent 500 visits for free users, and many of them didn't find me using a search engine, hence the small numbers).

I sometimes will pop on the system and see how people for finding me, and there are always some interesting results.

For example, I have a number of searches I would expect. The following searches led people to me (again, some Google, some not):
interesting computer stuff (name of the blog, that makes sense)
professor cameron (makes sense, that's me)
fun stuff with professor cameron (I assume someone just forgot the name of my blog here)
eric cameron pccc us (that's me!)

In addition, there are searches that turned up specific blog posts of mine. I have a number of searches related to computer hardware disposal (due to a recent post), PCCC Panther Alert (something I've discussed a few times - PCCC's emergency alert system), Zune disaster (an older post), an assortment of things related to Microsoft Office hotkeys, and other such searches. As a matter of fact, I am the number 6 result on Google for cat proofing computer due to a post from last year.

Then, there are the bizarre ones. These serve to show me that search engines, though amazing, still have a ways to go. Here are some of the bizarre searches that have led people to my site:

• simple one touch notification pagers from chef to servers 163-001
• i get taken advantage of a lot
• AVERAGE TIME WASTED WAITING FOR OLD COMPUTER
  
• Bergen Community College, "flight simulator"
  
• Professor Cameron porn
• wife playing world of warcraft when supposed to take children +subpoena

Some of those are bizarre! I wonder what was going on in that last search...

Anyway, you can see searches like Professor Cameron porn would lead you to this site because somewhere in a page is each of those words. I posted about pornography a few times, and of course Professor Cameron is on every page, so yeah, that works.

I am pretty sure whoever was searching for that was disappointed when they found my blog.