Joecollege at Gmail: It’s a real address.

I’ve owned joecollege at gmail since the early days of the service. You know, back when we only had 10 invites a piece, people were crazy enough to buy and sell them, and we all wondered what the hell we were going to do with a gig of storage space each. In 2007, I switched to using my full name, with middle initial, as my primary Gmail account, but since some people can’t be bothered to update their contact information, I’ve kept joecollege, automatically forwarding e-mail to my primary account. Most of it is bacn: the grey e-mail that’s not quite spam because I signed up for it, but is mostly unwanted and I’m not bothered if I don’t get around to reading it.*

Every so often, however, I’ll get a form e-mail response: I’ve gotten multiple ones from MySpace.com thanking me for signing up for their service. This morning I got one from CCBC, the Community College of Baltimore County (had to look it up). I usually scratch my head: there’s no f’ing way I’d sign up for MySpace, and CCBC would probably be a step down for me academically, not to mention a hell of a commute. Doing some digging usually yields that someone signed up for a form or online service, using joecollege at gmail.

Um, hello? Why the hell would you do this? Taking the time to sign up for something like Myspace, just so I go and delete it, is absolutely ridiculous. It’s a waste of my time and yours as well. You don’t get anything out of it: even on Myspace, I get your password e-mailed to me and go and delete your account. I have the key to the box that contains the key to your box, and I can change your key without your knowledge.

Here’s an example: the CCBC form responses were mailed to me.

Form: ask_an_advisor

1. First Name: Joe
2. Last Name: College
3. Your E-Mail Address: (e-mail removed by me)
4. Verify Email address: (e-mail removed by me)
5. Phone Number:
6. Status at CCBC: Prospective Student
7. Credit or Continuing Education Student: Credit
8. Major or Program of Study:
9. Purpose for Attending CCBC: Associates Degree
10. Type of Question: Selecting a major
11. CCBC Campus attending: Catonsville
12. Question that you would like to have answered by an academic advisor. (Be as specific as possible): <blank>

Here are the fathomable possibilities:

1) Some jerk developer is testing his own website code skills. Solution: don’t be an idiot, use your own e-mail address. How can you test the form submissions if you use a “fake” address?

2) Somebody felt like submitting a form for shits and giggles. Clearly this person gets excited clicking submit buttons. Here’s my solution: form-submission computations. If you really feel like submitting a form, just for the hell of it, go to such and such website, fill out the form, and once you submit, we’ll borrow your computer for 15 seconds and do some number-crunching for cancer or something for the greater good.

Actually, why aren’t we doing this already everywhere? It’s like reCAPTCHA but on a form-submission level. If you’re going to legitimately sign up for something, 10 seconds won’t hurt. It makes it prohibitively expensive for multiple spam submissions, and it’s for the benefit of humanity. Time delay is less of a usability flaw than a litmus test on a confusing looking graphic. If you’re upfront with the form and say it will take 10-15 seconds, so much the better, since real people will wait. The actual data from the form is inserted into the database at the *end* of the time period, of course, forcing spambots to wait the whole time.

Hmm… Thoughts?

*My personal bacn filter is to move anything with the word unsubscribe in it (among others). It’s not perfect, but since I check the bacn folder often (at a subject line level) I don’t miss much.

Planet Oliners, you may have noticed…

That embedded YouTube videos don’t appear in Planet Olin’s feeds, or on PlanetOlin.com. I usually include the link to the YouTube video in the post somewhere, but you could save some serious time by subscribing to Philonoist.net’s RSS feed independent of Planet Olin. Saves you a click, gives me an exaggerated sense of self-worth when I log into feedburner and see my stats.

You know, if you’re actually interested in the videos I find. Just sayin’…

Technorati Tags: Olin, Philonoist, PlanetOlin

Travelodge needs to get out more

And see some movies. You know, like Woody Allen’s “Everything you always wanted to know about sex * but were afraid to ask.”

I’m just saying: these new pajamas made out of Dermasilk? You might want to rethink the color. And the headgear. While the pajamas may help with itchiness, can they really help with the loss of dignity of sleeping in something that makes you look like a sperm?

Check it:

Woody Allen (R) and the sperm outfit

Attractive Model and the ~~sperm outfit~~ pajamas.

Christ, I can’t tell them apart.

Technorati Tags: Woody Allen, Travelodge

Tags: Humor

Magic Wheel: Like a unicycle, but somehow more geeky

If you’ve got £119 ($240USD plus another $60 for shipping), and don’t mind getting stared at by strangers and friends alike, plunk those pounds down on a Magic Wheel. Part Razor scooter, part unicycle, and part thumbing your nose at God’s divine wisdom to make you bipedal, the Magic Wheel’s sure to be a hit with all those lazy mofo’s who can’t afford a Segway. And hate skateboards. Rollerblades too. Check out the video:

Technorati Tags: Magic Wheel, Gadgets

Tags: Videos

Just a reminder…

Another excellent season of American Idol continues tonight at 8 PM Eastern on Fox:

Mm. Paula.

Tags: Videos

So Freaking Cool

Check out this bubblegum sequencer.

Tags: Videos

I called it.

Or rather, I guessed it.

I have some new insight to share with you regarding the portable device Apple is working on. In a previous article, I described the mysterious portable as perhaps Apple’s rival product to the Intel Ultra Mobile PC ( UMPC ) initiative. In talking to several sources close to the secretive project, a few more details have emerged while the actual identity of the device is still shrouded in mystery.

From Eye On Apple

Lame Commercials, Boring Game

Ugh. You know it’s a bad sign when you can read through hundreds of RSS feed items during the Super Bowl. And then think it’s a good idea to do some blogging….

Super Bowl commercial rates were $2.7 million per 30 seconds this year, but apparently, the FOX network decided that it was money well “spent” to advertise the Daytona 500 and “Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles” ad nauseam, two things that a good chunk of the audience doesn’t care about. I haven’t seen a really groundbreaking commercial yet: the Audi parody of the famous “bed” scene from The Godfather was well done, and the parody of Rocky for Budweiser (Anheuser Busch) was enjoyable. Fed Ex also scored with the “Carrier Pigeon” spot. Mediocre first half showing for the Bud Light brand. Miserable commercials for godaddy.com and salesgenie.com (big surprise)

If you missed it, check out the next showing of Puppy Bowl IV: they’re sooooo cute. I want a billion.

Hoping for a better second half both in the game and during the comercials.

Apple continues to blow me away

Whether or not you’re sold on all the products, face it: Tuesday was the most exciting day for Apple since the release of the iPhone (or even its announcement 1 year ago). 4 majorly big things, culminating in what had long been common knowledge on the Internet: the release of the ultra-thin Macbook Air.

There’s been a lot of criticism of the Macbook Air since Tuesday: who is it for? Why buy it? OMG Apple fails, right? After all, it’s no power machine, running on an oldhat processor. Many people point out, correctly, that upgrading the basic Macbook to 2 gigs of RAM would produce a computer with nearly equal specs at a significant price reduction.

Folks need to learn: it’s not what the product is, but what the product does. And what the Macbook Air does over the Macbook is provide ultra-portability to the masses: for the first time, a 3(!) pound notebook that just works is available. True, there are what can be described as design flaws: a lack of audio in and ethernet ports may come back to bite this thing. But both of those can easily be converted (at a cost) into USB. Stereo speakers would have been nice, too, but in an ultra-portable with a headphone jack, they’re not absolutely essential. Sure I would have liked to see a MacTablet, but this is pretty darn close.

Another thing: it’s not what this product is, but what the next product is. Pity on you if you can’t see the convergence of form factors happening. Apple devices are slowly moving to the singularity: a full on computer in a package the size of the iPhone is years, not decades, away. The limiting factor is the screen dimensions on which they show the eye candy.

And here’s the kicker: I don’t even think the Macbook Air was the killer app on Tuesday. For all the talk of Time Capsule and the iPhone/iPod Touch refreshes, the defining Apple moment was the iTunes Movie Rentals. In the span of about 20 minutes, Steve Jobs killed Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and most of Netflix. With high speed internet reaching ubiquity, over-the-ether movie rentals were inevitable. But take it one step further.

What Apple should do is copy the iPhone apps/widgets business model to movie rentals and music downloads for independent filmmakers and musicians. Aspiring artists can Radiohead the mainstream record labels and upload songs, albums, or indie films onto iTunes. Your movie’s or album’s world premiere could happen in hundreds of living rooms at the same time. Apple could even take a rake on the distribution and first-time filmmakers might still achieve the holiest of Hollywood grails: profitability.

There’s thousands of aspiring filmmakers who just became more enamored with Apple: a whole distribution mechanism could be coming soon to a home theater near you.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iTunes, MacBook Air