If you send email to customers it's important that you let them know where the email will come from and then use then use this address consistently. Using different email addresses is a recipe for getting trapped in spam filters. This is equally important for marketing and other messaging like bills and canceled flights.

I bring up flights because I'm flying to the UK later today and was planning to return on Sunday. British Airways' Cabin Crew is going on strike this weekend and my return flight has been canceled. Instead of sending a text message BA tried to notify me by email. This would have been fine if they used the address they've used for years, but instead they used a new address and a new domain. In fact in the process of canceling and re-booking I (eventually) got email from britishairways.com, my.ba.com, email.ba.com and pop3.amadeus.net.

Since I've had the same email address for twelve years now I get a fair amount of spam. I use SpamArrest to keep myself sane:

94.9% of my email is spam. Since I started using the service SpamArrest has eaten 482,494 messages for me. I'm far from alone in using white list based email filtering so if you want your message to get through transparency and consistency are the way to go.

Add your comment...

Related Posts

• Really BA?
• Why Microsoft is Likely Doomed Based on one Email Folder
• I Love Email
• Immature Gmail Exploit
• Think before you print?

(All Marketing Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Email marketing - don't shoot yourself in the foot #marketing #britishairways #spamarrest #spam #email Transparency and consistency are important when sending email. Let the customer know where the email comes from and always use the same address. )

Yes.

Some more color. I use Intuit's assisted payroll service, which is fantastic. You run payroll straight out of QuickBooks and Intuit handles all the tax disbursement and filing for you.

I got an email today with an attachment called securedoc.html claiming to be a message from Intuit. The idea is that you open the attachment and then login to view the message.

It really couldn't look any more like a phishing email, however I called Intuit and remarkably it's a real message. They seriously expect me to open an email attachment and provide account information. The support person at Intuit was able to read the message to me and it was just a routine acknowledgment that some tax rates had been updated.

Intuit is seriously training its customers to fall victim to phishing attacks. The right approach would be to say that a message is available and to log in to your account to retrieve it, or better still to send a message through the existing system in QuickBooks. Securedoc.htm is just begging customers to provide their account information to the bad guys.

Intuit's payroll service stores bank account information, employee Social Security numbers and other data that you really don't want to expose. If you're an Intuit Payroll customer please call and complain. If you've received one of these messages I'd also recommend forwarding it to [email protected], their address for reporting phishing attacks. 

 

Add your comment...

Related Posts

• Is it safe to open securedoc.html (Cisco Registered Envelope)?
• Better Paperless
• Licensing Fail: WinZip vs. ScanToPDF
• Shiti
• Immature Gmail Exploit

(All Etc Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Is Intuit Insane? #etc #spoof #phishing #intuit #quickbooks Intuit is training its customers to fall victim to phishing attacks by sending messages using securedoc.html )

I finished off my BlogEngine.NET migration yesterday missing a couple of useful sections from the previous incarnation of this blog. The first is a list of the most popular posts based on Google Analytics data. I've just finished porting this from a UserControl to a widget for BlogEngine.NET. To use this just download and extract this zip file to your widgets directory:

MostPopularFromGA.zip (5.22 kb)

You can see the widget in action under the Most Popular heading to the left if you're reading this post on the blog.

Most of the settings should be pretty obvious. The Google Analytics profile is the exception. This isn't the ID included in your tracking code. To get the profile log in to Google Analytics and click Edit next to the profile you want to use. At the top of the page you'll see a Profile ID. You need to use this number prefixed by ga: (i.e. ga:1234567). Once you have this and your account credentials entered you should be up and running.

The Post must match settings is a regular expression used to filter the Google Analytics report to only include blog posts. The default value corresponds to a default BlogEngine.NET install and only includes pages that start .../post/ (the regular expression is ^/post/). If your posts are under .../blog/posts/ then just update accordingly (^/blog/posts/). If you want to include the most popular pages regardless of the path just leave this setting blank. 

If you have any questions or feature requests leave a comment below. 

Add your comment...

Related Posts

• Migrating from Blogger to BlogEngine.NET
• Geotagging posts in BlogEngine.NET
• Migrating a C# Integration from GA3 to GA4
• The curious case of the missing slugs (in BlogEngine.net 2.8)
• Converting Blogger ATOM export to BlogML

(All Code Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: BlogEngine.NET most popular pages widget using Google Analytics #code #blogengine.net #googleanalytics A BlogEngine.NET most popular posts widget using data from the Google Analytics API. )

(Update June 22, 2010: I've released a tool, Blogger2BlogML, that converts Blogger's ATOM export file to BlogML. I ended up doing this because of problems with comments when I migrated this blog — I had to fix these up manually which was painful. I'm now working on some larger blogs where this would be impossible…)

In January I got an email from Blogger announcing that they're killing FTP support. Apparently only 0.5% of Blogger blogs are published using FTP and it's a huge pain to support, mainly because many hosting providers restrict FTP access to certain IP addresses and if the Google servers running Blogger that moment aren't listed it's technical support time. 

Fair enough, but a bit painful for me as I have five blogs running on top of Blogger. I need FTP publishing as the templates I use end up running as ASP or ASP.NET pages. I Thought He Came With You is the first to move - if you're reading this post then it's up and running on BlogEngine.NET. This is an open source ASP.NET blogging platform. If it works out for this blog over the next month I'll start migrating the others. 

Getting up and running with BlogEngine.NET is easy enough - download the latest release and follow the getting started guide. I added the default install to a new Visual Studio web site project and was able to run it fine in the development server, no need to configure IIS. 

The challenge was moving posts and comments from Blogger into BlogEngine.NET. BlogEngine.NET happily imports and exports BlogML, Blogger spits out it's own Atom export format. 

Luckily Aaron Lerch has knocked up a PowerShell script to export Blogger to BlogML. This takes your Blogger ID as a parameter and exports all the blogs associated with that ID. You can just pull the <blog> element you need out of the export if necessary. If you use this tool follow the syntax closely from the example on the post. If you're new to PowerShell run this as administrator to start with and enter "Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned" to give permission to run the script. Then exit and run a non-admin instance of PowerShell to run the script.

After getting the export BlogEngine.NET refused to import it. I kept getting an invalid username or password error from the BlogML importer. Digging into the code a bit I found that a crash was occurring in api/BlogImporter.asmx when a blank category was passed to AddCategories(). I patched this function to skip blank/null categories and was then able to import successfully. I added a bug report for the problem so please vote for it if you hit the same issue.

The blog was in pretty good shape after the import. Categories were lost so I had to create them again in BlogEngine.NET and then apply them to each post. I also found that the date for comments had been set to the date they were imported. This can be fixed by editing each post directly (the files in App_Data\posts). I fixed the timestamps and also added back the URL for each comment where I had one from Blogger. I also edited my own comments to match my new BlogEngine.NET account so they got decorated as "by the author".

At this point the blog was good to go, but using the default template.

I've now whipped up a new template to match the old blog - I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this was to do. At this point I Thought He Came With You is going live on BlogEngine.NET. 

Almost everything is working at this point. I had a couple of user controls I need to move over - one shows the number of people who haven't visited the blog, the other figures out the most popular posts using the Google Analytics API. I'll see if I can implement at least the latter as a Widget so that other people can use it - watch this space (Update - now available here). 

Overall, I'm impressed. I resisted the urge to just write my own blogging platform which is a testament to how easy it is to both get BlogEngine.NET running and to customize the look and feel. Now I just need to work up the enthusiasm to do the same for my remaining four Blogger based blogs...

Add your comment...

Related Posts

• Converting Blogger ATOM export to BlogML
• Convert BlogML comments to WXR for Disqus
• Commentary
• Tedious Feed Update
• BlogEngine.NET most popular pages widget using Google Analytics

(All Code Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Migrating from Blogger to BlogEngine.NET #code #blogger #blogengine.net Moving a Blogger FTP published blog to BlogEngine.NET, converting Blogger to BlogML, fixing import problems. )

Does Facebook now hate MMS? For the past couple of weeks every time I tried to send a photo I got the following error message:

You have uploaded from an unrecognized address. For instructions on how to upload photos to Facebook, go to http://www.facebook.com/mobile"

I got this sending to both [email protected] and 32665. The referenced page is no help at all, and my phone number is registered with Facebook Mobile.

It turns out that there's a new secret email address. On the Facebook site click the icon to share a photo:

Then click Upload a Photo:

Then click upload via email:

Your personal email address is finally revealed and can be used to send a photo via MMS.

Facebook - update your error message to point this out!

Add your comment...

Related Posts

• I can't post a single photo
• Immature Gmail Exploit
• The end of Facebook
• Fight Facebook with Email
• Email marketing - don't shoot yourself in the foot

(All Etc Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: MMS Photo Upload to Facebook #etc #facebook #mms How to MMS photo Upload to Facebook via the hidden personal upload email address. )

The Ambient Orb is (was) an LED illuminated globe designed to display subtle information - stock market prices, weather, etc. Normally the Orb is controlled via the pager network but you can buy (or build) a developer module and connect the Orb via your serial port.



I've used my Orb via both pager and serial port for a number of applications. I've just released a library - Ambient Orb Controller - on GitHub that supports both methods of control. I wrote the library to make it easier for me to gin up new Orb applications. If you use an Orb let me know what you come up with. Two of my favorites are using the Orb for continuous integration and as a music visualizer.

Add your comment...

Related Posts

• CodePlex Shutdown: Shapefile, Orb, StackHash and Blogger2BlogML Migration
• Space Journey
• 3D Printing a discreet wall mount shelf for the Aura Carver Mat
• Mandelbrot Spin Zoom
• Moon on a Wire

(All Code Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Ambient Orb Controller .NET Library #code #random .NET library to control the Ambient Orb (available on GitHub). )

Software licensing is a tricky art - too little security and you leak revenue, too much and you leak customers. I worked on several license management systems at Ç-Dilla and Macrovision so I've spent far more time than is healthy thinking about this problem.

In general I think the best system is one that helps keep honest users honest. A speed bump that itches the conscience but doesn't get in the way of legitimate customers getting their job done.

I just migrated to a new computer and have finished several days of installing software and drivers. This is never a fun task, but I've been through it a few times and keep all my license information on a NAS drive to reduce the pain.

WinZip has a great trial model. The product is fully functional and nags you just enough that you'll eventually pay. I've been a customer for years, and as I moved to Windows 7 I emailed to ask about upgrade pricing. I got a prompt response and was up and running in no time.

I didn't need to upgrade. The old version of WinZip installed just fine using an existing license key.

ScanToPDF from O Imaging was a different story. The license is locked to a PC, and there's no way to move it automatically. You have to email them. It then gets worse - there's an "administration charge" to move a license. So as a paying customer I have to wait for the UK office to respond to email and even then I can't continue to use the product I've paid for.

I'm sure it's in the small print somewhere.

But the impact is that ScanToPDF has lost a customer, an advocate (I've suggested the product to others in the past, never again) and infuriated me enough to throw up a negative blog post. Is the administration charge really worth it?

At Catfood I use very simple license keys locked just to an email address. I'll refund any purchase with no questions asked. I'll issue new licenses as needed to keep customers happy. I have an online service to retrieve lost keys.

The products get pirated immediately, and finding a key generator doesn't take a lot of sleuthing. I don't care about this at all, because happy customers recommend products to their friends. Pain-free licensing is absolutely key to happy customers. Don't fall into the trap of putting your energy into complicated licensing and enforcing procedures. Add a new feature instead.

Add your comment...

Related Posts

• The Economics of Digital Rights Management
• More on breaking the Internet
• Catfood: WebCamSaver and PdfScan
• Installation: Early and Often
• State of the Micro-ISV-osphere

(All Marketing Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Licensing Fail: WinZip vs. ScanToPDF #marketing #licensing #drm ScanToPDF's painful licensing process makes me mad enough that I ultimately open sourced a free alternative. )