Politics.NET

http://www.google.com/toolbar/ie8/index.html  Yeah it's for real. A Microsoft browser optimized by Google. 

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a curious charge of $40 from Enterprise (read the post for background). The gist of it is Enterprise Rental Car stuck me with a fee that they could not substantiate. They claimed I ran a toll while driving one of their cars and that they've: decided to pay the fine for me decided to charge me a 33% "admin fee" for that privilege decided to wait several months before notifying  decided to charge the fine + admin fee to my credit card. So I did what anyone should: I called them to dispute it. Didn't get anywhere with them so I filed a dispute with American Express. After a couple of disputed charges, Amex ruled in my favor and I thought all was done. Well, guess what? It's not! Apparently, Enterprise really wants their money. So they've decided to send me another notice (with no mention of our prior entanglement) decided to change the fine from $30 to $25 (no reason given) decided to call it a "parking fee...

If there is one piece of electronics that I absolutely hate, it's home printers. In my experience, they just don't work. Every single one of them that I have bought (HP, Lexmark etc) have all been crap. They never work when you need them to. The worst, I think, is HP. First, the POS takes 2 cartridges and HP, in their bureaucratic fashion, have made it so the printer doesn't even print if you don't have both cartridges in place. Really? How deliberately diabolical is that? Imagine, it's late on a saturday night and you really need to print a black-and-white document and the printer says "Sorry, you don't have color ink so I won't print your black-and-white document!" I mean really? What jerk came up with this innovative way to piss off consumers? Why should a printer refuse to work because 1 of 2 cartridges is empty? I remember in the old days, if your printer took both color and black cartridges, it'll use the color to print black documents an...

After going to FedEx Field to watch the Redskins 2 Sundays ago, I have to say I don't know what all the fuss is about with the gameday experience at FedEx Field. Every year, Sports Illustrated ranks FedEx Field amongst the bottom in terms of gameday experience. And anecdotal evidence, from radio talk shows, seems to suggest that going to watch a game at FedEx Field is akin to sadomasochism. And even I have wondered about the sanity of the 90,000 fans that pack the stadium every Sunday. So this Sunday, I decided to try it for myself. See how bad it is. Worst case scenario, I'll have 1 more reason to hate Dan Snyder. So first things first, knowing that I hate traffic, we decided to take the Metro. I figured that'll be better than paying $30-40 to park and sitting in traffic after the game. Unfortunately, even though the stadium is only 12 miles away from my house, it takes 1 hour by Metro on a Sunday afternoon. Can't really blame that on Snyder but will it kill Metro to...

Occasionally when we have to travel to NJ, we rent a car from Enterprise. Their closest location is within walking distance of our house and their rates are so cheap even having to keep the car for a couple extra days (since they do not open on Sundays) doesn't make it as expensive as renting from Avis (which tries harder by opening on Sundays and costing almost twice as much). Anyway, Lara rented a car from them in March. Put the EZ Pass on the dash and drove the car to and from NJ. Fast forward almost a month later, I get a letter from Enterprise. The gist of it was "Hello, the car you rented 4 weeks ago got a citation from NJ transit for $30 for running a toll. We have done you the favor of paying the citation for you and have billed you an additional $10 for that pleasure. Please visit our fancy schmancy website to automatically pay with your credit card. Or we will bill it to the credit card you paid with." That's $10 for a $30 "charge" (I'll ge...

On most login screens on the web, what are the 3 form elements you typically see: username password checkbox so the site can "remember" me Right? These 3 things are virtually synonymous with login. So much so that you can tab from one field to the other without using the mouse (at least I can). Anyway, so I ordered something from Walmart and to pay, I was required to sign into my Walmart account. Here's Walmart version of the universal login dialog. See if you can spot the odd item and the piece of switchroo that'll make the North Korean soccer team proud: "Sign me up for Email Savings and Updates"....Really Walmart? You think people want to think about subscribing to mailing lists when entering their username/passwords? How many people have accidentally clicked the button hoping to make the website "remember" them only to find themselves receiving junk from Walmart?

What's wrong with this menu control: You've probably seen it a few times. You hold down Ctrl and select all the choices you want. Simple, right? Sure it is. But what happens when the menu has over 1300 options? Imagine trying to select Barrow, Alaska and 3 counties within MD. It's a nightmare. But the funny thing is the developer probably doesn't see anything wrong. Why? Because  he tested the site using a much smaller dataset he just picked from the first few options to test his query he lives in Anchorage, Alaska :) I doubt that he went through a test case that included picking multiple choices from different sections of the dataset.  yes this is a blog without babies or politics :)