eXPedient Demise

Jack of all trades… tech, games, movies, Colditz and other stuff from a geek on the coast

SOPA Strike Blackout

Some of you may be wondering why you have been getting redirected the last 24hrs to a SOPA related site – for those that dont know, SOPA is a US initiative against piracy etc.

So why was this site, a .co.nz, taking part in a strike for a US law ?

Well, although this site is a .co.nz based domain, the actual hosting company is US based, and if for any reason they got shut down due to SOPA, then this site along with thousands of others would be off the air.

More info on SOPA is available here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

http://sopastrike.com/

Scam letter : Spanish lawyers offer millions

My father in law recieved the letter below in the post (yes, POST, not Email) from France :

(Click to enlarge)

Its a good scam… ;)

My father in law’s surname is not very common at all, yet this scammer has somehow dug up his details and targeted my father-in-law.

Things which indicate its a scam :

  • Letter is from a Spanish office yet posted from France. (Although they explain theyre in France on business)
  • No “Sir/Madam” – they have no idea who theyre targeting.
  • The whole letter is usual scam fodder.
  • The office for the company online is at a different address than whats on the letter.
  • The domain for the email address (victoria-legal.com) is not associated to Victory Chambers at all (Victory Chambers is a legitimate lawyers office)

So if you hear a relative mention “lawyer from Spain” or “Victory Chambers”, alarm bells should start ringing…

 

Dont let your business be killed by social media

Bit of an off-shoot from the previous post about how to kill your business via social networking/media…

A lot of people (including myself) have used social media to get the attention of a company to have an issue resolved or assistance requested (or to win things). And usually this has been quite successful, Ive had a few minor issues resolved with Orcon just by using Twitter, raised the occasional complaint with other companies and had a resolution quickly or even won items from various companies.

But on the other hand, there have been a LOT of negative responses and messages pushed through social media, either by a disgruntled/bored employee, or an impostor. Do you really know who is running your social media ?

The previous post was a classic example, new company starts up and jumps onto Facebook. All good. Then someone within the company decides they’ll try to be helpful and register a Twitter account under the company name….without notifying anyone else. Then offers things which the boss knows nothing about…. it can backfire very quickly and make the company look bad.

What can you do to prevent this sort of thing ? Well, if you plan on using the internet to promote your company, then my piece of advice is to get onto Twitter and Facebook, and register your company name – even if you dont plan on using the accounts. Do it just so noone else can impersonate you and make you look bad – and remember to put in the description of the accounts somehting along the lines of “Official FB/Twitter account of xyz company, however not monitored, for contact pls email/call”.

This way people who do want to contact you via social media will see you dont actively use it and will know to make contact other ways and hopefully avoid contacting impostors.

Also make sure those people who are running your social media accounts for you, are trusted and will communicate with you with whats being done on the accounts.

Last thing you want, is the public wandering in demanding their $$$ worth of goods they won on Twitter and you having no idea what theyre on about……

If you wish to monitor what is being said about your company on the internet (and not just social media), then Google Alerts can be a great source of information and let you know what people are saying about you and your brand.

 

How to kill your business via Social Networking

*** UPDATE ***

1:43pm 4/1/2012

Shore Rd Cafe has contacted me to say it is not their Twitter account and had no idea it was there – so appears a “gremlin” has decided to promote the buisness…. unfortunately in a bad way. They are now pursuing a way to shut it down.

Just shows however how affective social networking can be…

*** Original post***

Just on Twitter and a fellow Tweeter (Twitterer ? Twit ?) recieved a message from a “local” cafe….

(Read from bottom up – click image to enlarge)

This is NOT the way to promote your business Shore Rd cafe of Remuera….. fine, maybe it was a bored staff member, but it does not reflect well on your business attitude.

#fail

Xmas Attitudes

The madness has set in around the world with Xmas shopping.

Thankfully we had finished most of ours last week so have advoided a majority of the chaos that has ensued everywhere.

I did however have to pick up a couple of small things from The Warehouse after work, so off I went at 1.30pm to the Albany store.

In the carpark outside the store, there were people fighting for parking spots  in the hot sun – I thought “crap, I’m not going to find a park”. After a minute of looking around I remebered that they have undercover parking around the back of the store.

Wow… it was only 1/3 full – out of the sun – easy access to the store. Yet everyone was fighting outside over a park…. suckers.

Into the store I went…. chaos. People running around, pushing, yelling and behaving like manners were something you had to buy at a premium and only had to be used at 5 star restaurants. I fought my way to the item I was after and paid for it and got the hell out of dodge…

I remembered I needed something else but had already left the store, and no way was I going back in there, so thought Id visit my local Whangaparaoa Warehouse store and pick up the last thing there.

Expecting chaos, I was pleasently surprised to find that even though the car park was rather full, I found a car park (under cover again too) and went into the store…..

Everyone was calmly walking around doing their business, no yelling, no pushing….. and it’s not like the store wasnt busy.

I found what I was after and had a 15s wait at the checkout, paid and left. Done. No stress.

It must be the lifestyle up here in Whangaparaoa, everyones so happy and relaxed, it rubs off onto everything, which is GREAT.

No wonder we’re loving it up here after living in the mad “city” area of Glenfield for so long….

Quick Review : HereAfter

Hereafter (2010, Matt Damon) – Avoid. Just avoid. You will want to join the hereafter, after watching this movie. The story is so disjointed it isnt funny, and when things finally do start to click into place the movie ends. Even reviewers dont know what this movie is about, some say its a ghost story, some say its a docu-movie on different peoples views of death – its neither, its just rubbish. Matt Damon, can I have 2 hrs of my life back please ?

2/10 (the 2 is for the relief I felt when the credits rolled up)

Stop SOPA!

SOPA breaks our internet freedom!
Any site can be shut down whether or not we've done anything wrong.

Stop SOPA!