Mailing lists Jan 4, 2007
I've been in charge of a mailing list on two separate occasions, and I always take the job pretty seriously.  Most people don't understand this.  They'll say, "Can you send out an email about this stupid little thing?"  And I'll say, "I just sent out the email for this week; it'll have to wait until next week."  I don't like to abuse mailing list privileges.  Most times, people don't even read the email in the first place.  If I send even more email, it's pretty much guaranteed to make at least a few people angry.  So I naturally get annoyed when other people abuse the unwritten rule:  Don't send unsolicited messages to groups of people, no matter what.  It doesn't matter if you think people will enjoy what you're sending.  It doesn't matter if you think it'll change peoples' lives.  This is almost inevitable with Christian groups.  There's always somebody who finds some stupid thing on the internet with clouds, rainbows, and a blue-eyed Jesus, and they think everyone else in the group will really enjoy receiving it in their inbox.  One tech geek said to just put everyone's addresses in the BCC field instead of the TO or CC field.  This is a perfectly good solution, but sometimes I like to intentionally send out the whole list in the CC field so that other people know who's on the list, and also to make it possible to send messages to the group if absolutely necessary.  I think there's a fine line between use and abuse when it comes to mailing lists, and it would take a pretty significant reason for someone other than the list owner to use a mailing list. #technology
Wirefly Jan 4, 2007
Back in June of 2005, my 2-year contract with Verizon Wireless was about to end, so I was looking around for something different.  I settled on a specific phone, the Palm Treo 650, instead of a particular carrier, because I liked the device and couldn't see much difference between carriers.  Like any good tech geek, I searched online for the best price.  It turns out I found the best price at Wirefly:  A mail-in rebate made the phone half its original price.  Again, like any good tech geek, I looked around for online reviews of their service.  I read a few negative things about them not mailing rebates and things like that, so I was a little hesitant to try them out.  But in the end, I went for it.  The deal is this:  You have to submit the mail-in rebate 5-7 months after your phone is activated.  That sounds like a ridiculously long time, but it's so they know you're not just buying a phone and getting a quick rebate.  In my case, I "spaced on the time" and missed that time window, so I ended up not getting the rebate.  This made me incredibly mad, solely because I'm a pretty reliable person and I tend to be good with that sort of thing.  But oh well.  Other than that, my experience with Wirefly was good enough that I'd be willing to use their service again in the future. 

This is a sponsored post. #technology