Martha's Ramblings

Remember that Wendy’s commercial with the old lady wanting to know “Where’s the Beef”?

Well, this old lady wants to know ‘Where’s the Quality?’

I purchased some Hanes pajamas for gifts in December.  This month (January) I have been patching and mending seams that were not sewn properly in said pajamas. Every pair. They fit loosely so it isn’t a ‘busting out’ problem. They are always advertising on TV for Hanes underwear, but I suspect I have purchased Hanes pajamas for the last time. I think they need to spend less on advertising and more on quality control.

Appliances should last for more than five years without expensive repairs. However, the new dryer quit alerting me when the clothes were dry when it was less than two years old. The sensor that tells when the clothes are dry quit working when it was less than five years old. Now it is taking twice as long to dry clothes than it did when it was new five years ago.

The new washer sprang a leak, less than five years old.

The new refrigerator had to have a repair when it was three years old.

The new dishwasher had to be repaired less than five years old.

Oh yes, these appliances are all made by GE, which brand won’t ever be purchased by me again. I just hope some company out there does make good appliances.

They don’t make stuff like they used to when it was all made in the USA.

Martha

Much has been said about Facebook’s privacy or lack thereof, but Facebook isn’t the only place that wants all of your personal details.

I subscribe to a number of RSS feed and some of them are about security.

One of the these feeds is offering a free ‘unofficial guide to Facebook privacy‘.

To get the guide all you have to do is fill out a form.

Facebook only requires your name, age and a valid email address.

Although your birth date is not required, looks like they want a lot of information just to get a Facebook privacy guide!

What a sneaky way to get your employment details! And what will they do with all that information if a user provides it?

Martha

There are a lot of these things I don’t want.

I don’t want a Snuggie.  It might be OK, but the way it looks, it’s long.  Since it is long I suspect I would sooner or later trip over that long part and fall.  If I used it, which I probably wouldn’t.

I don’t want a Chia pet, ever! I don’t care what it is, I don’t want one!

I certainly don’t want a Clapper. ‘Nuff said about that.

In fact, it is easier to say what I do want from things advertised on TV.

The list:

1.

That’s it!

Martha

Today I discovered something in Gmail that surely has me worried.

I use two Gmail accounts, one for personal stuff and the other for business related stuff. This has really worked just fine for the most part (except when I signed up for Coke Rewards and the spam gate opened!)

Generally Gmail handles the spam just fine.  I do look in the spam folder as occasionally a legitimate email goes to the spam filter, but not often.

But today something odd happened.  I have been having a problem with other websites hot-linking to my images so I have decided to ‘watermark’ all my images.  I am not really graphics inclined and all of the watermark files I have made are ok for some, but not for others.  So I have searched for a program that will do the trick for me and I found one reasonably priced so I bought it.

I of course had to provide an email address and I used the Gmail address I use for business.

I kept waiting for the confirmation email from the site, but it didn’t show up.  Don’t know why I decided to look in the Trash folder, but I did and there was the email I waited for.  In the Trash! I did NOT delete it!  In fact there were three emails from the vendor.  I could understand if I had found them in the Spam folder, but the Trash?

So now I am getting concerned about Gmail and I guess I will have to search the trash from now on. Hopefully this was a temporary blip, but now I feel I can’t trust Gmail.

Martha

Lee Harvey Oswald’s used wooden coffin auctioned and sells for more than $87,000.

Is it just me or is this sick?

Martha

I’m talking Microsoft here!

They can’t seem to come up with original names for their email clients and talk about confusion!

We have Outlook in Microsoft Office and Outlook Express in Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows.  OK, that’s not too bad, but still confuses lots of folks.

Messenger and Messenger Service was also confusing to a lot of us.(Not exactly email but still…)

In Vista we got Windows Mail.  That was a bit buggy so they came up with Windows Live Mail. (That was certainly buggy for me!) Then to top it all off we get Windows Live Mail 2011!

Please, Microsoft, name the next email version something new!

Martha

Oh yes, they are.  I am talking about the ‘search’ of passengers who fly.  The initial ‘pat downs’ were bad enough.  Now they are assaulting passengers in a way that would be considered a sexual assault and illegal anywhere else.  Passenger Security Checkpoints

They are ‘feeling up’ people in a totally unacceptable way! It is absolutely outrageous!  If the people don’t protest to the powers that be it will surely continue.

I know the flying public wants to be safe when traveling.  But I seriously doubt they want to be felt up.

Here is one would-be passenger’s experience. TSA encounter at SAN

For what it’s worth, I will never ever fly again until the TSA stops treating passengers this way!  I predict air travel will diminish, trains, buses and auto travel will get an uptick.

Martha

Robo calls.  These are even worse when the robo caller doesn’t recognize the answer machine or voice mail.  (Do you hear me, Secure Horizons?)  And the robo caller keeps calling and filling up my voice mail.  Ugh!

It’s bad enough when you call a customer service center (especially the phone company) and have to listen to some automated robot before you can get through to a real person.  Now the robot is calling us!

The supermarket keeps re-arranging where stuff is located. Pressed for time I have to search all over the store for stuff I need.

All of a sudden stuff I am used to buying is no longer sold where I shop. I really hate this!

The product I want says ’0 trans fat’, but the ingredients (in teeny tiny letters) list ‘partially hydrogenated oi’.  Hey dummies, that’s trans fat!

Those drug company commercials that want us to ‘Ask your doctor’.

Those awful commercials that end up with folks in bathtubs in the middle of nowhere.  For shame!

Victoria Secrets commercials.  Just because. (I have never ever known or seen in person anyone with a figure like those models!)

There are more things that really bug me, but for now this is all I want to say.

Martha

I keep getting an email from various friends and family about October having 5 Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. (This is true.) Then the email goes on to say “This happens once every 823 years.”  (Definitely NOT true!)

How can folks be so gullible!

Well if enough people say something, then folks start to believe it however ridiculous it may be. This is true of a lot of the junk emails getting sent around in cyberspace.

There are a number of sites that have taken the time to debunk (explain) the truth about this hoax. One is the Hoax Slayer and another is Snopes.

If people would just stop to think they might realize that some things just aren’t realistic, common sense should tell us it wouldn’t happen only every 823 years!

Martha

Some ‘free’ things are not free.  If you have to provide your personal detail in order to receive information, it isn’t free.  Companies pay big bucks for user details, so many sites try to collect them.  That’s why there are so many social networking sites.  They don’t charge you a fee, but you pay with your details.

I am a fanatic about Facebook privacy.  So when I saw this ‘free’ offer for “The (Very) Unoficial Guide to Facebook Privacy Free Guide“, I bit.

But it isn’t free.  In order to get this guide I have to provide a LOT of personal information.
“Complete and verifiable information is required in order to receive this Guide.”

I suspect the guide would tell me not to provide this kind of information to Facebook, but I think I’ll just pass on this ‘Free Guide’.

Can you say ‘Hypocrite’?

Martha