LinkedIn Spam Disaster 20130301

Posted by & filed under Uncategorized.

Sorry! And LinkedIn, darn you, that was AWFUL!

I tried to add a *few* people to my LinkedIn connections from within LinkedIn, by allowing LinkedIn to access my gmail account.
Due to some bug, even though I only picked a small number of people, it spammed what seems to be every email address it could find in gmail.

I AM VERY SORRY!

Please DO NOT connect with me on LinkedIn unless we know each other personally and professionally.

Thank you
Chris

UPDATE 20130923: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/linkedin-sued-by-users-who-say-it-hacked-their-e-mail-accounts/

Back to Work!

Posted by & filed under Personal, Work.

I AM SO PSYCHED!!!

As of this morning, I’m officially back to work at Care.com in my full-time role as Web UI Architect. 🙂

So when I’m now suddenly less available and slower to respond than before (e.g. via email, voice, FB etc), that’s why.

Have an awesome day and work week everyone!!! 🙂

An Apology (also, a lesson in Acceptance)

Posted by & filed under Personal.

Not so long ago, I de-friended most of my FB connections. Here’s what happened:

One evening a couple years ago, I was in a fit of pique against FB for some outrageous (albeit predictable) privacy policy change. I decided to trim my FB connections down from about 200 or so to the dozen people closest to me, and to essentially cease using FB altogether. Once I started unchecking names on my “friends” list, I found it hard to stop. I removed about 3/4 of my connections before I came to my senses. [I will plead the 5th regarding my sobriety at the time.]

I’ve since reconnected with many of the great people I “defriended”, but not quite all of them (yet?). I sincerely apologize if I offended or annoyed anyone reading this with that action (or this post). Mea culpa. Live and learn?

In any case, I still loathe many things about FB, but I have also decided to accept it, for now, given that’s where everybody is. Until that changes (which might be great), I am consciously re-embracing it as a mechanism to be connected to people I couldn’t realistically be connected to as closely in any other way.

Thanks in advance for your understanding and/or willingness to [re/]connect, and no problem at all if you choose to stay outside my FB network. Best wishes to everyone who reads this, and have a great day!

Sincerely,
Chris

How to request a Verizon FIOS DVR upgrade

Posted by & filed under How To, Technical.

Success!

We just renewed our FIOS contract (to save some $ while improving our home internet/tv/phone services). Verizon has a notorious and apparently justified reputation for difficult-to-impenetrable customer service. This morning I finally finished interacting with their escalated support tier, and managed to determine exactly how to request a DVR upgrade (as ours was very old and unreliable, and has a puny hard drive). I figured I’d post about it, in case it might save someone else some frustration. Here are the steps:

1. Go to http://www.verizon.com/upgrademydvr and sign in.

2. Select the “Settings” dropdown located at the top of the page.

3. Select the “Set Top Boxes” link from the dropdown menu.

4. Select the “GO” button in the box on the right marked “Want more from your FiOS DVR?”.

5. If it doesn’t show that an upgrade is available, enter your name and email address to be contacted when the DVR upgrade becomes available to you.