Friday, November 26, 2010
My Shape
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Another me
I've been getting emails from a dating web site for the last few weeks. The emails said that people had viewed "my" profile on their web site. It was being flagged as spam by Hotmail. That's nothing new. I deleted them, as I do to all spam.
These seemed a little different.As I've mentioned before, there are a number of people out on the internet who, for unknown reasons, think that my email address is their email address. It happens for Hotmail and Gmail. I get job offers from HR people, business emails, and forwarded humourous emails that people send to their friends.These aren't spam or phishing scams, these are legit emails. Sometimes I reply to them -- in particular the job offers or business emails -- letting them know they have the wrong person. Sometimes they reply back with apologies.I began to wonder if these dating web site emails might be legit. Curiosity got the best of me today, and I visited the web site. Throwing caution to the wind, I clicked Forgot Password, entered "my" email address, and clicked Submit.Minutes later, a message arrived in my Inbox with "my" login and password.I logged in and there it was. Someone's profile with personal information that they added to the web site.Now what?I could have been malicious and changed their info or what they specified as the type of person they're looking for, but as much as it annoys me that people don't take care in entering their email address for things, I couldn't do that. And what would be the point? I'd be the one getting the emails anyway. ;)Since they had a free account, I a delete account option and killed it. Goodbye me. I hope.Was I wrong to close their account?Thursday, October 28, 2010
White Westinghouse TA-5723 Answering Machine
I do.
Earlier this week I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to check my messages remotely. I don't use that feature very often, but I really wanted it on that particular day. It turned out that the remote access code may have reset to the default and I wasn't aware of this.
Not that it would have done me much good. Even if I had gotten into the remote options, I couldn't remember what numbers to press to play the messages.
I scoured the web for information and all I could find was multiple "manual" web sites wanting me to sign up to get information, or posts from people looking for the manual. I couldn't even find a picture of the answering machine anywhere.
Later that evening I came across a quick-reference card that I made years ago. If you have one of these machines, this is for you! (Or for me in the future when I'm stuck again...)
Print this out and write your access code on it if you want. I think the default code is 19 -- that's what mine was set to until I changed it.
The configuration of the machine isn't too difficult with a little trial and error. Just remember that to access the secondary function of some buttons, you need to be press and hold it for a few seconds.
Maybe one day I'll write out detailed information and post it here. In the meantime, if you need to know anything else, post a comment here and I'll do my best to help you out.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Ottawa Zombie Walk 2010
Earlier this morning, a friend posted on his Facebook that today was the Ottawa Zombie Walk. It's an annual event where people all get zombified and walk to Parliament Hill in search of brains. I'm sure they leave hungry every time. ;)
Anyway, I checked out the route for this year and noticed that it went right past my sister's bridal shop on Beechwood Avenue. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to grab my camera gear and go zombie hunting.
I called her up and told her that zombies would be walking by at around 2:00-2:30, and said I would drop by to hang out and shoot some zombies.
I arrived at her store about 10 minues before 2:00pm, passing by a crowd of 30-40 zombies outside the Beechwood Cemetary en route.
A little after 2:00pm, they started their march and we stood outside her store watching the spectacle. It was great! Lots of creative zombies fumbled by. Some even posing. :)
One woman, heading the other way, commented as she passed, "What are these kids protesting now?!" My sister responded, "Nothing. They're just being zombies." The women replied, "Well they're good at that" and kept walking. :)
After the two large groups of zombies walked by, I packed up my gear and stood in my sister's shop and chatted. About 10-15 minutes later, more zombies came down the road. I got out my camera again and took some more shots. And again, 5-10 minutes later more arrived. I'm glad I stuck around because I got some pretty good shots of the stragglers.
Here are the pics, enjoy!