Entries Tagged 'Dominating the World Technologically Speaking' ↓

Oh, Twitter. Why are you always causing me to delay my gratification?

Quit being broken. It’s not cute and 2.0 anymore. It just makes me grumpy and more prone to use Facebook.

On a related though less important note, your bird icon scares me. It reminds me of the PacMan ghosts.

Please stop that immediately.

Image credit: twitter.broken.com and ghosts.

When it comes to personal finance, if I can’t do it online, I don’t want to do it at all.

I realized this today when I went to increase my credit limit on two of my credit cards.

I went to one bank site, clicked on request increase, and received a message seconds later that my credit limit had increased 600%. (I guess it’s been awhile since I last requested an increase.)

I went to the second site, and they said to call their 800 number and request an increase. What? I have to use a phone? I can’t just click on a glossy button and get instant gratification? I have to interact with other humans? And I can’t even email them? Forget it. I’m good with my 600% increase on my other card, and I’ll just quit using your services.

Likewise, if I can’t pay for something online, I don’t want to use it. Amazon.com, Paypal and eBay have set a trend that makes any site without an online payment option dated and unfriendly. Most major stores support this trend by offering online catalogues with shopping carts to streamline your purchase process.

When we were running a business from home, we discovered that even the Post Office lets you pay for postage online, print out your packing slip and schedule a pick up time for the mailman to come to your house and get your package.

As a business, why would you not want to make it easier for people to pay you? Ever?

As a consumer, I realize how easy it is to impulse buy when your purchase is instant, so I try to take the time to think each online purchase through. But once I’ve made the decision, I don’t want to have to call someone to make the purchase. There are just too many other places that will take my money instantly for me to bother with you if you won’t.

What sites irritate you because they don’t offer an online payment option? From a customer’s standpoint, is there ever a valid reason for a business not to offer this?

Image credit: credit cards, button, old phone, usps.

This will be a kind of weird post, because it’s not about taking over the world, it’s a guide for setting up mail rules in Entourage. But how embarrassing would it be to be in a meeting with the Evil League of Evil and be the only one there who couldn’t filter your email. Yeah. Didn’t think about that one, did you. Anyway, now you’re covered.

To explain: I needed to write a guide for a family member, and I wasn’t feeling it in Microsoft Word. Nothing against it, but I was using large images, which wouldn’t fit on the page, and kept making these huge white spaces, and that bothered my soul. So I’m just going to post it here, and have complete control of editing, as opposed to trying to edit around Word formatting. Happy sigh.

How to Set up Rules in Entourage

1. Open Entourage. Good luck setting anything without this step, noobs.

2. Select the Tools menu on the top of the screen and click on Rules.

3. In Rules, select the type of account you have. In this particular situation, I know this person wants Mail (IMAP). I’m using Entourage for an Exchange account so my example uses Mail (Exchange).

4. Click on New at the top left hand corner to create a new rule. This window should pop up:

5. Enter a rule name. I’ve chosen “Resistance is Futile.”

6. Click on Add Criterion. Use the drop down menus under Add Criterion to select the requirements for the rule. For example, if you want to filter all emails sent from WorldDominatorsWeekly@wdw.com, your window should look like this:

I’ve used “Is” for the second dropdown, because I know the email address and can match it exactly. There are a variety of different choices, just use your common sense to filter emails however you want to. For example, if a different person sends out the email each week from the same domain, you might just want to set your rule to “Contains” and “@wdw.com.”

7. Now you need to tell your rule what you want it to do with the emails you’ve filtered. Click on Add Action which is in the same window, underneath the criterion you’ve just set.

Use the dropdown menus under Add Action to set the action you would like. For example, I want to move my filtered emails to go into my Newsletters folder, which is a subfolder of my Inbox.

To choose the destination folder, use the second dropdown menu. If you don’t see the folder you want listed, select “Choose Folder,” then select the folder you want in the new window that will pop up, and click Choose.

Now your window should look something like this:

8. Click Okay and your rule should be visible (with a small check mark) in your Rules window:

If you see your rule, close the Rules window, and since Macs save automatically, you’re all set.

9. Note for rules with multiple criteria: If you’re having trouble with any of your rules, make sure the criteria is very specific and outlines exactly what you want. If you’re using more than one criterion for a message, and you want it to filter if ANY of the criteria are met, make sure you change the Execute dropdown to reflect that, since the default setting is to only filter the message if ALL of the criteria are met:

You’re Done!

Good job! You’ve successfully created a mail rule. Now, you can set your rules to filter all emails from people you don’t like straight to Trash. Hehehe.

This afternoon, I discovered a very small nick on the top cover of my laptop. This is most likely because I cart it around from meeting to meeting, in the office and out at restaurants, and I lock it up under a pile of notebooks whenever I leave it at my desk.

While I appreciate the sleek shiny dolphin-like appearance of my naked laptop, I decided to get it a nice cover to prevent wear and tear. I was all set to get the Incase cover when Jon reminded me to check reviews.

After reading some negative reviews (which I won’t post, because I haven’t personally tried this case, so I don’t know how accurate they are), I decided to keep shopping.

Speck was my next choice. I found three positive reviews at Dennis.ca, testfreaks and macnn.com.

Speck’s price was 50% off $50, which was exciting. Having to pay shipping was sad (amazon has spoiled me) but on a whim, I did a quick Google search for coupon codes and found two valid codes on retailmenot. The codes worked together on the Speck site, knocking off about $11. Good deal, yes? (Or, an evil consumer plot to make me THINK it was a good deal?)

When I actually receive this case and try it out, I’ll follow up with a review either praising or trashing it. I’m excited about the 74 vents in the bottom and the fact that it is a pretty aqua color.

If it keeps my laptop from getting dings and scratches, I’ll be happy. If it causes my laptop to overheat or prevents it from opening more than 90 degrees, I will set the case on fire and video tape it for your amusement. So you see, it’s really a win-win situation here.

When you buy something online, do you bother to search for coupon codes? What sexy money-saving sites do you frequent?

Image credit: speck case