Knee Jerk Reactions and 10 Ways to Kill a Cat

Last week, I was greeted by an email from YouTube information me that one of my videos had been deactivated because it was reported to be in violation of community standards.  It went on to detail the consequences of further violations and informed me that I could appeal the decision, and appeal I did.

The title of the video was 10 Ways to Kill a Cat.  The video shows (with the aid of the FX Guru app) our cat being the victim of a flame thrower, a hand grenade, a rocket launcher, a cruise missile, and half-dozen other non-traditional euthanasia devices.

By now you are probably convinced the movie was rightly reported. Now, if you are saying, "No wonder it was reported" you are may be guilty of the same knee jerk reaction that probably resulted in the reporting of the video.  The fact is that I love cats and would never harm one.

It was obvious from some of the comments and the reporting of the video, that some people didn't read the description or watch to the end.  I made that clear in my appeal where I simply told the YouTube reviewers the video was NOT about killing cats.  It was about man's inhumanity to man. 

I then asked them to watch it until the end as I requested in the description. I'm pleased to say within a few hours of my filing the appeal I received the following message.

Thank you for submitting your video appeal to YouTube. After further review, we've determined that your video doesn't violate our Community Guidelines. Your video has been reinstated and your account is in good standing.
Sincerely,
— The YouTube Team

Since then, I have gone back to the video and examined the detailed statistics provided by YouTube.  It quickly became obvious to me that most people were NOT watching the video to the end.  Cat lovers were clicking off of it before they got to the end message, and cat haters were stopping as soon at the ending text screens started, and sharing it.

It appeared that my attempt at pointing out man's inhumanity to man was missing the mark.  In an effort to get more people to watch the video all the way through, I have gone back to the video and added more text along the way. 

You can make up your own mind as to the message and my success in getting it across.

My First Par

I want to tell you the story of my first par on the golf course. It was 1960 and our high school wrestling team had a vacancy in the 156 pound weight class. My good friend, Ben, fit the bill and I convinced him to join the team.

Over the course of the season, Ben helped us a lot. Even in losing, Ben netted us point that would have been taken away by forfeits, and when he won, which he did, it was a great boost to the team, but what does that have to do with golf and my first par? For that, we have to fast forward to the beginning of golf season. Ben was on the golf team and they needed a fourth player. It was payback time, and I became the fourth player on the golf team.

Believe me when I tell you Ben was a better wrestler than I was a golfer. I may have set the Guinness record for the most lost ball, even before our first match of the season. In that match, I spent more time looking for my balls in the rough and the woods than I did walking the fairways.

After a frustrating few hole of playing hide and seek with my golf balls, I teed off on a par three hole.  A big part of my problem was the fact that because of an eye problem, I have the depth perception of a one eyed man.  As a result, I often lost sight of the ball after it left the tee. This hole was no exception It looked like it looked like it hooked to the left. So after spending the next five minutes searching the rough and the woods, I was just about to give up when someone said, “Who has a Titleist 4?”

That was my ball and it was resting just six inches from the cup!!! Not only did I just miss a hole in one, I was set up for my first birdie, even before I got my first par.  With a big grin on my face, I walked up to the cup and if you remember the title of this blog entry, you know what happened next.  That's right. I TWO putted!

Well I never got a birdie, but I did get first and ONLY par.  Mercifully, a few matches later we picked up a fourth who was considerably better than me  Arnold Palmer breathed a sigh of relief as I slipped into retirement and ended my golf career.  

Norton Mobile Security Epic Fail Update

This is an update of my Feb. 24 post on Norton Mobile Security's failure to pick up on malware on my phone, poor first level tech support, and not receiving a follow up call as promised.

In that blog joked that if tech support might be on Venus whose day is 243 time an earth day.  In that case, based on a call promised after 2 hours,  I could expect a call sometime around March 15.  Apparently I was  wrong.  They may be on Pluto which has a day only six times the length of an earth day... or maybe there is another explanation.

The interesting thing is the the fact that the call back was not from the next level tech support.  It was from a Norton case manage who said he "noticed" that my problem was not solved and wanted to know if he could help me.

Are you kidding me???  I have no idea how many calls Norton first level support gets in one day, but I know it's a LOT!  I've been around computers since 1979 and I feel comfortable saying that the chances of a case manager coming across my case, seeing that it wasn't resolved, and calling me personally, are probably worse than the odds of me being struck by lightning on a sunny day.

Could it be that this blog actually made its way to someone at Norton? Could it be the screen shot of a popup ad sitting on top of the Norton Mobile Security dashboard was not the kind of image Norton wants to project? Could it be someone directed the case manager to follow up?  If so, calling and insulting my intelligence is really not the best way to help either of us.

At the bottom of every email I sent, is my contact information along with this signature line.  "I am perfectly capable of learning from my own mistakes.  I will certainly learn a great deal today!"  We learn by acknowledging our mistakes and extracting lessons from them.  Making excuses doesn't cut it.

Perhaps if you asked for suggestions on how Norton could improve their product or support, I could have offered some.  As it turned out, when I solved the problem myself, the source of my infection became evident.  It was a mistake I made and I learned from it. At the very least having that information would have been useful to you and I could have shared it.

I'm usually a glass half full  type of guy, but in this case the first level tech support was a fail, the product was a fail, and the very late follow up read more like damage control than concern for a customer.

If you want to call again, please do so and let's talk about what I learned when I solved my own problem.  Let's talk about how Norton can also learn from it, and prevent others from experiencing the same problem, because I can bet you that MANY OTHERS are experiencing it.

If we chat, maybe the next blog will be one about a company that listens and learns. Maybe there will be a few less calls to first level tech support and a few less failures to follow up with second level support.

Norton Mobile Security - EPIC FAIL!

If someone was sitting on your face, you would probably notice it, but apparently that's not the case with Norton Mobile.  Just check out this screen shot of aggressive ad-ware sitting on the face of Norton Mobile.  Norton didn't see it when it invaded my phone.  Norton didn't see it when I ran a scan manually, and Norton didn't see it when the ad sat on its face!

I would like to tell you the saga of how I got infected and lessons learned.  It's a bit lengthy, but for those of you who might not not want to spend the time, I'll cut right to the chase. 

At $29.95 a year, Norton Mobile is probably one of the most expensive apps the average user will buy, but if you ask me it is a waste of money. For me, it performed woefully compared to SeCore Antivirus, which offers the lite version for FREE.

I also learned an important lesson about a very popular and highly rated free app, but you will have to read on to find out more about that.

It started about a week ago, when my phone began suffering from aggressive pop-ups that would show up at random times. There was on way to close the pop-ups and the ads would stay on the screen until you clicked on them.  When you clicked them one of a number of things would happen.  In once case, it would automatically, without my permission, download a app called Mobogenie.  In another case, it would to the glispa.com marketing website, which would immediately redirect me to to Google Play to download the software in the ad.  Other times it would go to a website or directly to Google Play.

The only real harm done was the time wasted in deleting Mobogie from the download folder and the process of backing out of the process and getting back to what you wanted to do on the phone.  Incidentally, if you don't delete Mobogenie, they will continue to back up in your download folder.

Yesterday, I went to the Norton website and started a chat with a support agent, a process that resulted in nothing but frustration.  After going through steps that I had already taken without the aid of the script he was probably using, his solution was to do a factory reset on my phone. 

I have 135 apps installed and I told him I didn't pay $29.95 to be told that the solution was to wipe a year's worth of software off my phone and then spend days reinstalling it. 

At that point, he said he would escalate my call to the next level tech support and that after 2 hours they would call me to solve my problem.  Here is that full chat LINK,  That was YESTERDAY and I did not receive a call.  Perhaps tech the next level support is on Venus.  A day there is 243 Earth days.  In that case, I can expect a call sometime after March 15th.

While I was waiting, I decided to look for other software that might solve my problem.  After downloading and trying a few, I found SeCore.  When I installed an ran a scan, it picked up one virus and eight pieces of aggressive ad-ware.

I allowed SeCore to remove the virus and questionable apps, and my problem was solved.  Right after posting this, I will remove Norton Mobile from my phone and upgrade to the full version  SeCore.

If Norton's second level tech support calls from Venus sometime after March 15, I may update this blog.  Until then, don't waste your money on Norton Mobile!

We Can Still Be Friends

I like you ever though you are not my friend. If you sent me a friend request on Facebook and I didn't accept it, it doesn't mean I don't like you.

When I joined Facebook years ago, it was to network with other educators with whom I worked. A good deal of my work was done online and my colleagues were, spread across the globe.

As time passed, I added personal friends and family. As a result my news feed got hundreds of posts a day.  If I were to read them all, it would be a full time job. However, reading is just part of the problem. I have to consider each post I make and how my friends/followers will view them.

When I retired from education a few years ago, I sent a message to my professional colleagues and those who followed my education postings. I let them know of that the nature of my post would be changing.  They would be more focused on my personal and family life.

I said that I would not unfriend anyone, but if anyone was following me because of my work in professional development, those posts would be stopping, and I would not be upset if they unfriended me. I also mentioned that I would no longer accept friend requests from educators I didn't know personally. (I never accepted friends with whom I didn't share a personal or professional connection.)

As the years in retirement grow, the nature of my posts and my friends are more personal.  Many of my professional FB friends are also personal friends. I scan their posts and read selectively, as I'm sure they do with mine.

In the past few years, I've had dozens of friend requests from friends of friends, but have accepted only those I knew and with whom I felt I wanted to share personal information.

Recently, I was invited to join a new FB group of former Cyber Angels. Having been associated with them since 1995, I was happy to reconnect through the group. Now I find that I am getting friend requests from group members and am in the uncomfortable position of having to ignore the requests.  Accepting them would put me in a situation where the nature of my posts and theirs would be of little benefit to either party.

Because I'm FB friends with some members of the group, I received regular updates from the group and can stay current without having to add more friends, expand my already overloaded news feed, and share unnecessary personal stories.

The fact is that FB groups are a great way to stay in contact with folks who share a narrow interest without sharing too much non-relevant minutia. 

I'm looking forward to reconnecting with those of you I know and meeting those of you I don't, but it will be through the group rather than through my wall. So please understand that we can be great friends in the Former CA group without being full-fledged FB friends. 

Harry Potter, Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat and Magic in the 4th Grade

After three years in retirement, I've re-entered the classroom in a way I never envisioned.  

My grandson started school this September and his district is actively seeks volunteers.  They were looking for library volunteers, and while I wasn’t interested in shelving books, as a retired technology infusion consultant, I thought I might offer my talents in other areas.

I have great respect and admiration for librarians, and know them them as one of the earliest education groups to welcome technology into their domain.  In 1996 I received a call to provide an Internet workshop for school media specialists in the south Jersey.  When asked what they wanted me to present, I was given one of the best, if not the best response I ever received to that question.  She said, “It’s hard to say what we want, when we don’t know what we need.” 

With that memory in mind, I attended the volunteer meeting. As I sat and listened, it was obvious she was looking for the kind of clerical help that I wasn’t interested in providing, but was very open to finding out what we had to offer.  Well it’s not that I wasn’t interested in providing clerical help, as much as I wasn’t interested in driving 35 minutes in each direction to provide it.  

When the appropriate time came, I spoke my piece and alluded the kinds of thing I could and would be able and willing to provide.  Rather than being dismissive, put upon, or intimidated, I could see the wheels turning and her acceptance of what I was offering was immediate. 

Over the next week, we exchanged emails in which I gave her a much broader range of services I could offer, and asked her to get back to me once school opening was out of the way and she had time to digest what I presented to her.

A short time later, she sent me an email with the disclaimer that what she was about to propose might sound crazy and that I shouldn’t hesitate to tell her no.  As soon as I read the word crazy, I smiled.  She had come to the right asylum!  After all, I had taught a self-contained classroom without any text books and created life science curriculum by writing songs and singing them in the classroom.  My teaching partner dressed up like a tree to teach her class photosynthesis.  Heck, the biggest part of my teaching career was defined by crazy!  

Her 4^th grade book club was doing Harry Potter. At their next meeting she wanted to sort them into the four Hogwarts houses; Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor.   We would reenact the Sorting Hat scene from Harry Potter.   She had a sorting hat that was every bit as authentic as the one in the movie, and would tape her smart phone inside the hat. I would be outside in the parking lot providing the voice of the sorting hat and working from descriptions she had written for each student.

When I arrived, so as to not lose and time with her students, she had already primed and tasked one of the other volunteers to set things up and test everything out with me.  We taped, tested and got ready for the class. 

As the librarian called each student up I used a script she had written to sort them into their respective houses. I couldn’t see what was going on, but after the first student, it seemed to me that they were buying into the “magic”.   

When the second student was getting ready to have the hat placed above her head, she said, “That’s kind of creepy.”  Before reading her script I ad-libbed, “No, it’s not creepy.”  

I wish I could have seen the expression on her face, because the next student said to the librarian, “How does he know all that stuff?” 

Not waiting for her answer, the sorting hat said, “The sorting hat knows everything.”   After the rest of the students were sorted, they got down to the business at hand, which was reading and discussing characteristics of each of the Hogwarts houses, and what would happen in following weeks. 

 

Later, the librarian confirmed that they bought into it completely.  Had they questioned it or guessed what was going on, we had plans to introduce me, but that wasn’t necessary.  The sorting hat will be there for future Hogwarts students.

There were three things that really made my day.  First, was that she was doing exactly what I had spent my technology consulting career trying to get teachers to understand.  It's not about technology! It's all about the curriculum.  Technology is simply a tool! You start with a curricular problem and then look for the technology that will help you do it in a way that is better or more efficient than without it.   

Second, the technology of choice was the smart phone, a tool that has yet to make significant inroads into schools. They were just coming into use during the final years of my “working” life, and this was the first opportunity I had to use it with a class!

Finally, was that I wasn’t teaching anything. I was the assistant! There was very little prep and no pressure. It was a fun day and great to get back in the classroom. Well, actually it was getting back into the parking lot in front of the classroom.

Next on the agenda will be something more in my wheelhouse that will truly get me back in the classroom.  I’ll be doing some Internet safety work with all of the 4^th grade classes.  

More about that later!

Chatting with Dish

I'm on the board of our condo association. Two of us are looking into the possibilities of changing our rules to allow for more satellite dishes than are now permitted.  Having spent quite a bit of time researching the FCC regulations and other issues, all we needed to do to finish our report was to find out more about installers and the specifics of installations. 

Unfortunately, talking to a real person about this issue has, to this point been impossible. Numerous phone calls and visits to dealers who sell Dish or DTV, have proven fruitless.  Today, I went to the dish site and used the Chat feature to talk with Benjamin, who assured me he was a real person. I went it the conversation with little or no expectations of getting my questions answered. The conversation completely lived up to my expectations and I offer to you my chat session, in its entirety, for your consideration.

Benjamin (ID: M9H) (Listening)
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Hi, my name is Benjamin (ID: M9H). How may I help you?
Art : I am a board member of our condo association.  We are considering allowing for dish installations, but need answers to questions about installers and  installations.  Is there a number I can call.  I have had no luck speaking to a human.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Are you chatting to set-up satellite TV today?
Art : No... I need answers in order to change our policy and rules
Benjamin (ID: M9H): You're chatting directly to Dish sales department. My name is Benjamin and I'm a real person that you chatting with.
Art : Then it would be nice if I could get my questions answered
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Sure, how can I be help with your concerns today, Art?
Art : Have you read the part about me being a board member and asking about installers and installations?
 Benjamin (ID: M9H): Thank you for having interest about our services that we offer. What are your concerns regarding our installation and installers?
Art : I would like to know who does the installations in our area.  Our zip code is 03077
Benjamin (ID: M9H): For our installation, we do give free installation and since that you're residing on a condo you need to have a land lord's permission a verbal agreement or a written permission will do.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): We can install our dishes on a tripod mount set up or a pole mount set up as well.
Art : I understand that, but quality of installation is our primary concern and we need to know WHO is doing the installations in our area.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): We do give you guys the 100% world class professional installation to give you guys the 100% optimal reception. We do send our highly trained Dish Network technician to do the installation for you.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): By the way, who is your current provider? Is it cable or other satellite provider?
Art : I represent 80 home owners in a condo association who only has cable now.  I need to know WHO installs in our area.  WHO are your highly trained techs?  Do the work exclusively for DISH?
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Yes, you're chatting directly to our online sales department of Dish.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): I apologize, I don't have the exact names for our installers. Once we finalize and generate an account number automatically it will be assigned to the first available technician to do the installation.
Art : But are they YOUR techs exclusively or are they contractors who also do other things for other companies?
Benjamin (ID: M9H): We do have direct technicians and we do have local contractors as well which are highly trained by Dish Network to give you guys the 100% customer service in terms of installation.
Art : We need to speak to someone about the specifics of installations were we are going to allow them.  Is it possible to have someone come out to look at a typical installation location and talk to me about it?
Benjamin (ID: M9H): For the condo/apartment installation, we are only allowed to set up dishes on a patio, balcony, wall where we can do the wall mount set up and any areas where tenants are allowed to use.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Art, for me to check services in your area and locals are exactly coming from. Can I have the address please?
Art : Address removed for privacy
 Benjamin (ID: M9H): Your locals will be coming out of Boston, MA. You will have (ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX) and they are available on both standard and high definition format.
Art : Do you know what the Turing test is?
 Benjamin (ID: M9H): Just to verify, what do you mean by "Turing test"?
Art : It is the test you are failing.  You might want to Google it.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): One moment as I double check it.
 Benjamin (ID: M9H): Thank you for waiting.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Just to manage your expectation, you're chatting with a real person, Art.
Art : That's disappointing.  I could accept that I could talk to a computer for 30 minutes without getting a straight answer, but not a human.  Have you considered a career in politics?
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Art, regarding your concern about who will do the installation. We don't have the exact information about it. Once the work order is generated, it will be distributed to the first available installer's.
Art : Deja vu!  Benjamin, answer me this.  It is possible to get a yes or no answer to a question?
Benjamin (ID: M9H): As we have discussed earlier, the area that I mentioned where you guys can have install the dishes like patio, balcony and other area that tenants that are allowed to used  . We are able to set up dish as long we have a verbal permission or a hand written permission from the land lord.
Art : I'll take that as a, NO.  Thank you for your CPU time.
 Art : I have to go start dinner now.  It will take me about 45 minutes.  Can you hold on so we can finish our conversation?
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Yes.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Art, I understand that you're about to take your dinner. If you just give me 5 more minutes of your time, we will be able to get you qualified for the best offer.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): I can see that there is an activity on your end. Please let me know once you're ready for us to proceed with your concern.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Just to check, is everything okay on your end. Please let me know once you're back for us to proceed with your best deals and great saving offer.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Are you still with me?
Benjamin (ID: M9H): We have noticed that you have been idle for more than 60 seconds.  If there is no response, your session will disconnect in two minutes. Thank you for choosing DISH Network.
Benjamin (ID: M9H): Due to no response I will now end this chat session. Please feel free to log in again for further assistance. Thank you for chatting on dishnetwork.com, have a great day.
Benjamin (ID: M9H) has disconnected.