Should I just whack it?

I’ve had a couple of reports today that my voicemail isn’t working right. Two callers wrote to me and said that they just got a fast busy signal.

I asked some folks to call me to test voicemail, and for them, it worked. “Go figure.” I’ll call the phone company, in my copious spare time, and submit a trouble report.

Alternatively, I could just get rid of voicemail. I really don’t like it. I’d much rather get e-mail.

That reminds me of an interesting story that came out last month in the New York Times, “You’ve Got Voice Mail, but Do You Care?“

What do you think?

When a company promotes its CFO to acting CEO, instead of advancing a sales or product executive, that’s a good sign that the company’s going to be sold soon.

That’s what I wrote on Jan. 8, in “Borland back in the frying pan,” after the news that CEO Todd Nielsen had jumped ship to join VMware. It took merely four months for that predication to come true.

The news today: Micro Focus, known for its COBOL tools, is buying Borland for about $75 million. That’s a dollar per share, a juicy premium over the company’s average-day closing price of 60 cents per share.

Ted Bahr, my partner at BZ Media, summed it up nicely in a tweet: “Don’t mourn the sale to Micro Focus. Borland has been dead for years, and the products you loved were bought by Embarcadero a few months ago.”

The Embarcadero connection is that Borland sold its tools subsidiary, CodeGear, to the database tool maker back in May 2008.

Micro Focus will be a good steward of Borland’s mish-mash of application lifecycle management, mainly cobbled together from acquisitions. It will be a better steward than Borland’s previous chief executives, Neilsen and former CFO Erik Prusch. The question is, of course, how much impact these products will have in the marketplace, even under new management. Borland had become a very minor player in ALM.

Also today, Micro Focus purchased some products from Compuware. To quote from Compuware’s press release, Compuware “has signed an agreement for Micro Focus to acquire assets from Compuware’s Quality Solutions product line, including development, sales and customer-support teams, as well as specific technologies. The $80 million transaction is expected to close this quarter and will impact about 330 employees.”

Bottom line: Borland is gone, and good riddance. Ted Bahr is right: few should mourn its passing. The differentiation is now clear: If you want ALM suites, go to Micro Focus. If you want application performance management tools, go to Compuware. And if you want developer tools, go to Embarcadero.

It sure does pay to tweet when you’ve got a complaint, because it can get someone’s attention in a hurry.

On Wednesday, I posted a blog entry about the unwanted spam that I receive from the Vocus PR service, “Can we vaporize Vocus with a medical laser? Please?“

I also tweeted it, as “How can I get #vocuspr to stop spamming me?”

That got a response, in the form of a direct message from user @vocus_robinlane, saying, “Hi Alan, I am with vocus, DM me and I can help you.”

I did, and then shortly received a polite email from a lady named Rebecca:

Dear Mr. Zeichick,

Your contact information has been removed from the Vocus Media Database. Our apologies for any inconvenience you may have been caused.

Regards,
The Vocus Media Research Team

Am I satisfied? Of course not! I responded to the Vocus Media Research Team asking,

Thank you, Rebecca, for your response.

I have a more general question: How do journalists and analysts control how their information is used in your database of over 800,000 records — without using Twitter and their blog to make a fuss, and thus provoke a response from your company?

And yes, that’s why I made the fuss — because I couldn’t find any other way to get your company’s attention. Several polite messages that I sent to email hidden; JavaScript is required went unanswered.

I’ve spent time searching your website, and haven’t seen a place where a journalist or analyst can see if they’re in that huge database, and if so, decide to remove him/herself, or choose which types of contacts they would receive, and make sure that the contact information in that database is accurate and up-to-date.

It’s not that I’m opposed to receiving press releases. I like finding out about things that are relevant to the technologies that I cover. What I don’t like is being in media directories where I don’t have control over my information and how it’s used, and thus I’m flooded with irrelevant information. You wouldn’t believe some of the press releases I’ve received via Vocus!

Is there a better way? Of course. PR Newswire lets me select the types of press releases I want to receive. Your system appears to place all the control in the hands of the companies who access your database, and if they want to use your service to send me garbage, that’s totally up to them.

Please let me know how journalists and analysts can easily control the information in your database, and also control how it’s used — other than tweeting something nasty about #vocuspr — and I’ll share that info, in a polite way, in my blog for other journalists/analysts to see.

Thanks, -Alan Z

Am still waiting for a response. Will post the answer, if I get one.

Ten years ago, Ted Bahr and I decided to launch a company together. That company, of course, is BZ Media. Today is one of our two key anniversary dates.

April 30, 1999: We decide to start a publishing company. We didn’t know the name of the company. We didn’t know what we’d do — whether it would be print, online-only, events-focused, or what.

February 23, 2000: The cover date of the debut issue of our flagship publication (and first product), SD Times.

What a wonderful decade it’s been, and business keeps getting better. Here are some historical documents:

July 30, 1999: Experienced High-Tech Publishing Team Launches New Media Company

October 7, 1999: SD Times Brings Immediacy to the Software Development Marketplace

October 10, 2001: SD Times Honored for General Excellence

January 14, 2002: By Combining Print and Digital Versions, SD Times Makes Publishing History

The terrible picture is from March 6, 2000. (I’m the good-looking one.)

The press-release spam service, Vocus, pelts me with unwanted and irrelevant press releases nearly every day. There appears to be no way to get them to stop. Here’s their latest time-wasting message:

Subj: Dr. Khanna featured in highly respected trade journal

For Immediate Release

Recently M.D. Rajesh Khanna, founder of the Khanna Institute of LASIK, was featured in the highly respected trade journal, Cataract & refractive surgery today. In the article titled, “Advantageous in second-opinion patients.” Dr. Khanna discussed his newest technology PRELEX and his wavefront LASIK procedures.

PRELEX, one of the newest editions to medical vision advancements treats the condition of presbyopia. PRELEX can help eye patients with cataracts, nearsightedness, farsightedness, and those who don’t qualify for LASIK. The procedure is performed in the AAASC Khanna certified surgery center and takes just 15 minutes. The eye’s natural lens is replaced with an artificial lens. The natural lens is vaporized and replaced by FDA approved Crystalens or Restore Aspheric lenses. Through this procedure Dr. Khanna has restored sight to legally blind patients.

Dr. Khanna is also a skilled wavefront LASIK surgeon. Dr. Rajesh Khanna explains his thorough evaluation of the patient before surgery.” As a refractive specialist, I see a lot of patients who are seeking second opinions. I like to use the Galilei Dual Scheimpflug Analyzer (Ziemer Group, Port, Switzerland) to ensure that not only the patient’s central pachymetry spread is good, but also that the pachymetry spreads over the entire corneal surface. There are two subtle signs that LASIK may not be a viable option for a certain case: (1) there is a big difference in the pachymetric readings in the superior and inferior cornea; or (2) the thinnest point of the cornea is displaced inferiorly.”

Dr. Khanna is one of the top PRELEX and LASIK surgeons in Los Angeles. He has been recognized by the media and public for his top notch surgical skills. Among his clientele are many athletes and celebrities, most recently actor Corbin Bleu from High School Musical. He has been featured on the front cover of Life After 50, The Beverly Hills Times, Valley life and various publications, and newly awarded for his exceptional work by the Ventura County Star

Vocus’s pitch is that:

As part of our PR management solution, we provide an extensive database of over 800,000 records, including journalists, analysts, public officials, media outlets and publicity opportunities. Our database is integrated with our suite of on-demand modules that together address the communications life-cycle from identifying key contacts, to distributing information, to closing the loop with digitized feedback and management analytics.

The problem is, how can one get out of their stupid spam database? Doesn’t seem to be any way.

Our friends at Hkitos are back with yet another domain spam scam. (See my post, “Domain scam pirates strike again.”) The spammer will make sure that bad guys don’t seize our domain names and Internet keywords. And golly gosh, they offer professional IT services too. Who’d have thought it?

I’ve substituted the word BRAND for the domain name in their email. Don’t respond, don’t be fooled, by these types of emails.

Subject: BRAND-About Intellectual property rights (TO Principal)

Dear Principal,

Super day for you!

We get your email address from the Internet . It is glad to write to you with keen hope to open a business relationship with you in the future.

We are professional IT outsourcing service company in HongKong. On the Apr.26, 2009, we received an application formally from our client. its name is Bristol lines Co. Ltd. They want to apply for the registration of the domain name and Internet keyword ” BRAND ” from us

After our initial examination, we found that the brand name and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it. We need to know the comment of your company because the domain names and Internet keyword may relate to the copyright of brand name on internet. Now we have not finished the registration of them yet, in order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.

If you want to need professional IT outsourcing service, please kindly visit our website: www.hkitos.com

Have a nice working day !

Best regards,
Max.Wong

TEL:00852 – 30723948
FAX:00852 – 30723948
Email:max.wong@hkitos.net
Web:www.hkitos.com

LinkedIn has great customer service, but needs to fix its software.

I’m a heavy LinkedIn user, finding it invaluable for tracking down people when I don’t have their current contact information. In our industry, people move around a lot!

Every couple of months, something gets screwed up in LinkedIn-Land, and my address book disappears.

Each time, I report the same problem, they send me back the same workaround, and then a few days later, they fix the problem. (I’ve just compared the responses they’ve sent each time, and it’s the same workaround.)

Oddly, this workaround doesn’t seem to be in their user-searchable knowledge-base. I’m guessing that the “nojs” at the end of the URL means “no JavaScript.”

I’m sharing this in the hopes that it’s helpful for you. By the way, kudos to their customer support team: They responded in less an hour.

Today’s problem report:

Hi, folks,

For the past several days, attempting to look at my contacts brings up the error message:

We are sorry, the address book is unavailable. Please try again later.

Can you please fix it? (This problem occurs frequently in my account.)

Thanks! -A

Today’s reply:

Dear Alan,

Thank you for contacting LinkedIn Customer Support. We apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced. We are aware of the issue you are currently experiencing and we are working diligently to resolve it. In the mean time, please use the following link to access your connections and contact list: http://www.linkedin.com/connectionsnojs.

We appreciate your patience.

Thank you for being a valued member of our LinkedIn community!

Regards,

Donne
LinkedIn Customer Support

The common “419” scams generally try to help you smuggle money out of a foreign country, in exchange for a hefty percentage. The writer often pretends to be the wife of a former dictator, a military officer, or a rogue bank executive looking to cash in on a huge pile of loot. A popular variation is where you are “identified” as the next of kin for a deceased relative, and the scammer offers to help you recover your inheritance.

This scam is different, because it pretends to be an official bank document. It even embedded a Bank of America logo. However, it’s a 100% scam. It is not from Bank of America. Don’t reply, don’t be fooled!

(I love the reference to the Telex department, how the author seems confused about the difference between Bank of America and Citibank, and the fact that the email originated at Polish host, onet.pl.)

Subject: CONTRACT SETTLEMENT

FOR THE KIND ATTENTION OF: THE BENEFICIARY

RFE: CONTRACT SETTLEMENT BY ELECTRONIC TRANSFER SYSTEM

This is to confirm the remittance advice received from the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) through the Citibank Nigeria (CBN), Foreign Remittance Department to Debit the Federal Government Account and Credit your Account with your Contract Entitlement. This is in line with our verifications and auditing exercise carried out by the TELEX DEPARTMENT of the Bank of America. It has been brought to the knowledge of the TELEX DEPARTMENT that your outstanding payment is presently On-Hold in our International Financial Instrument Facilities.

In order to release the fund and credit your bank account, you are hereby advice to contact the Citibank Nigeria, REMITTANCE DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR (MR. KALU E. KALU) on Telephone No: +234-805-9769414 Fax: 234-1-7592514. On your contact with the Citibank Nigeria, you should request them to issue you the RELEASE SOFT CODE of your transfer and also to reconfirm your receiving Bank Account to avoid Miss-Accreditation of your funds.

The Bank of America will not be responsible for any consequences arising from the inability of the Beneficiary to contact the CITIBANK REMITTANCE DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR. More so, we are convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that you are the rightful Beneficiary of the amount as witnessed in the Telex Instruction. The liabilities, which the BANK OF AMERICA may incur, are hereby lawfully limited and we therefore reserves the right to cancel funds if the receiver refuses or delay to contact the Ordering Customer (CITIBANK REMITTANCE DEPARTMENT).

The above request detail should be forwarded to this office within 24 hours upon the confirmation of receipt of this message.

We count on your co-operation and understanding

Yours faithfully,

CHRISTIAN SMITH, JR.
VICE CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER (F.C.M.)

I’m delighted that Smalltalk is still thriving. Back “in the day,” I experimented with Smalltalk, both in college and then later as the editor of AI Expert. Sadly, I never had the opportunity to build a production system using the platform. Too bad.

The news of the day is that Instantiations has updated VAST, its Smalltalk IDE, described below. If you’re not familiar with Smalltalk, visit Smalltalk.org or the Wikipedia.

The balloon is from the April 1981 issue of Byte devoted to the language. I was a subscriber in those days. Wish I’d kept my back issues, but they were tossed during a cross-country move.

If you find Instantiations’ Smalltalk a little pricey for experimentation, check out Squeak, a free, portable implementation.

Instantiations Releases VA Smalltalk Version 8.0

Incorporates new features and support for the latest Smalltalk technologies; modernizes the IDE; adds web services enhancements; new documentation; much more

Portland, Ore. —April 21, 2009 — Instantiations, Inc., a leading provider of software development and productivity solutions, today released VA Smalltalk™ Version 8.0. Updates in V8.0 include new, high-performance web application development functionality for Seaside Core 2.9, IDE enhancements including tabbed browsers and a new documentation delivery system, and enhanced support for industry-standard communications features such as web services to communicate with .NET and other non-Smalltalk-based systems.

“The new features in version 8.0 represent a major step forward in demonstrating Instantiations’ commitment to Smalltalk, and the team has done an excellent job in producing a very high quality and reliable product,” said Louis Andriese, Information Manager, Nationaal Spaarfonds (Delta Lloyd/Aviva PLC). “We are especially excited about the integration of Seaside. We have already developed a web application using v 8.0, and I was delighted to see the amount of functionality we could deliver within a short time. When it comes to serious enterprise development, VA Smalltalk provides the best balance between productivity, reliability and integration in today’s enterprise IT-landscape.”

VA Smalltalk V8.0 is a modern, high-productivity software development environment that is 100% IBM VisualAge® Smalltalk compatible. VA Smalltalk enables software engineers to quickly construct high quality software applications that are portable, high-performance, scalable, and simple to maintain. VA Smalltalk applications fit easily into existing infrastructures and support the latest web application, database and operating system technologies.

“Our customers are running mission critical systems on VA Smalltalk, and they demand world-class support and development to keep their applications operating at peak performance,” said Mike Taylor, Instantiations CEO and co-founder. “We frequently poll our customer base to understand their needs and they continue to tell us that their Smalltalk systems will be in production for years to come. Instantiations will be there to support their needs with continued innovation and strong support.”

Learn more about VA Smalltalk, and see interesting customer case studies during the 2009 VA Smalltalk Summit, a free web event going on today and tomorrow (April 21 – 22, 2009). See www.instantiations.com/VAST/more/st-news+events.html for more details and to register. Session recordings will also be available online after the conference.

New Features in VA Smalltalk V8.0

• Support for Seaside — Support for the current Seaside 2.9 open source web application framework Core, including jQuery, Scriptaculous, RSS and development tools.
• Enhanced IDE — Includes tabbed browsers, use of native Windows widgets, inspector improvements and more.
• Expanded web services support — includes Document/literal wrapped WSDL style and a new web services “Cookbook.”
• New documentation delivery system (web and local) with improved navigation, search, formatting and updated content.
• Much more — VAST libraries have been updated to work with current IT industry technologies (such as Windows Vista®). The latest versions of popular mission-critical databases, such as Oracle 11 and DB2 9, are now supported.

Pricing and Availability

The price per developer for a new license of VA Smalltalk V8.0 is $6,995 and includes one year of support, maintenance, and new releases. Annual support renewals are $1,695 per license. Product upgrades are available at no cost to customers with current support agreements. For additional information and pricing please contact our sales department at (800) 808-3737 or +1-503-598-4900 (outside North America) or by email at email hidden; JavaScript is required. More information can be found on the company’s web site at www.instantiations.com/vast.

Sometimes a comment comes in that makes you feel good.

I’ve been asked by friends, “why do you keep blogging about spam?” Occasionally I wonder about that myself. After all, it’s not always very interesting (although it is often very funny).

Stephen from Maui posted a comment on my post “Domain scammers keep on scamming” that makes it all worthwhile:

Aloha Alan:

I received this e-mail today. Instead of responding I “Googled” it and saw your posting. As suggested I just trashed the e-mail. I never trust an e-mail that starts with the “Nigerian scam international greeting” of Dear Sir/Madam but since I have protected my domain name for many years I thought I would check.

Your posting validated my skepticism. There are good things happening on the internet!

Mahalo (thank you) for your vigilance & sense of community service.

Stephen
Maui, HI

Mahalo nui loa, Stephen.

Cable News Network believes that a Twitter contest constitutes important “breaking news” worthy of a special e-mail alert.

This is what journalism has devolved into? Stupid, stupid.

From: “CNN Breaking News”
Date: April 16, 2009 11:20:46 PM PDT
To: email hidden; JavaScript is required
Subject: CNN Breaking News

— Ashton Kutcher is first to reach 1 million followers in Twitter contest with CNN.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta follows a mother, a son, a daughter and a
husband — each an addict — on a journey through recovery and
relapse. Watch “Addiction: Life on the Edge,” Saturday and Sunday
8 p.m. ET, only on CNN. http://www.cnn.com/onair
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

One CNN Center Atlanta, GA 30303
(c) & (r) 2009 Cable News Network@mail.cnn.com>

We’re going to see a number of new desktop, server and hosted applications coming through from Microsoft in the next 14 months:

• Exchange Server 2010 entered public beta today, and should ship in 2H 2009.

• Office 2010, including SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010, should enter a “technical preview” period in 3Q 2009, and should “release to manufacturing” in 1H 2010.

Read the official press release about the Exchange Server 2010 public beta.

Also read an Office backgrounder Q&A with Chris Capossela, SVP of Microsoft’s Information Worker Product Management Group (pictured).

Oh, and there’s no more MOSS: The next rev of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server — code-named SharePoint 14 — is just SharePoint Server 2010. See the SharePoint Team Blog for the explanation.

Here’s the latest research from Evans. I’d say “Duh!” but of course it’s valuable to have primary research to back up the conventional wisdom.

SANTA CRUZ, CA – April 8, 2009 – Three-quarters of all software developers belong to at least one social network and two-thirds belong to multiple networks, according to the results of Evans Data’s Developer Relations Program Annual survey.

The survey of over 400 software developers was released to subscribers April 3 and examined the dynamics of evolving program sites for software developers.

“This latest research shows that developers are like most active Internet users in terms of having a very healthy interest in social networks,” said John Andrews, President and CEO of Evans Data. “Consistent with this the primary motivations for joining a social network is the desire to locate old friends and the need for general communications.”

Additionally, the top three things developers look for in a social network are profiles, an active community and high quality content. Tagging and access from mobile phones were the least important attributes of a social networking site.

Other highlights from this in-depth survey include:

· Over 90 percent of developers look at blogs at least some time, and seventy percent feel that blogs are credible sources of information,

· Microsoft has the best developers website according to 27.4% of developers, followed by Sun with 12%. IBM and Google tie for third place with less than ten percent of developers mentioning their site as the best developer website.

· Developers prefer community moderated forums to vendor moderated ones, and 88% think that community moderated forums are important in a community website.

The report can be accessed here: http://evansdata.com/reports/viewRelease.php?reportID=11

It’s nice to know that the “Checking Department” is looking out for me. This is a scam: If you respond, they’ll hit you up for money to “protect” your domain. Just ignore them. Don’t be fooled!

Subj: Domain Dispute and Registration

Dear Sir/Madam 2009-4-13

We are a domain name registration service company in Asia,

Last week we received a formal application submited by Yadu Investment Co.,Ltd. which wanted to use the keyword “_____” to register the Internet Brand and with suffix such as .cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/ .asia/ domain names.

After our initial examination, we found that these domain names to be applied for registration are same as your domain name and trademark. We aren’t sure whether you have any relation with this company. Because these domain names would produce possible dispute, now we have hold down this registration, but if we do not get your company’s an reply in the next 5 working days, we will approve his application

In order to handle this issue better, Please contact us by Fax ,Telephone or Email as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Tina
Checking Department
Tel: 86 513 8532 2060
Fax: 86 513 8532 2065
Email:Tina@js-wifi.cn
Website: www.js-wifi.cn
Mail No.:1299807

Hey, everybody, United Airlines is inviting its customers to “treat yourself to a first class seat.”

Sounds like a great deal. The offer says, in big text, “Experience first class, fares from $189* each way.”

Uh oh. There’s a little footnote marker. Read the fine print. Golly, this wonderful offer makes me want to rush out and buy a first-class ticket for the 360-mile flight between Chicago and Minneapolis. Not.

Terms and conditions
*Fare is based on one segment between Chicago and Minneapolis. Fares are each way based on required roundtrip purchase for United First® travel on United Airlines®, and United Express® carriers. For tickets purchased through United reservation offices or at airport ticket counters, additional reservation fees will apply: $25 for United reservation office bookings and $30 for airport ticket counter bookings. No reservation fees are added for tickets purchased at united.com. Fees are subject to change without notice. Other restrictions may apply. Fares purchased through other distribution channels may also be higher. When purchasing from United, always go to united.com to find United’s lowest fares. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights/dates.

Additional Taxes/Fees: U.S./Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Islands fares do not include a $3.60 per flight segment tax. A flight segment is defined as one takeoff and one landing. Fares do not include the September 11th Security Fee of $2.50 per enplanement at a U.S. airport or Passenger Facility Charges of up to $18.00, which may be collected depending on the itinerary. Fares for Hawaii and Alaska do not include a $8.00 (each way) departure tax. For travel from Canada, fares do not include U.S. Inspection fees of $7, taxes/fees imposed by the Canadian government of up to $19.50, and a $32.20 international departure and arrival tax if outside of the 225 mile buffer zone. All international fares are subject to U.S. arrival and departure taxes and agricultural, immigrations and customs fees of up to $50. For travel to some countries, additional airport, transportation, embarkation, security, and passenger service taxes/surcharges of up to $250 (each way) will apply depending on destination. For return travel from some countries, fares do not include airport and/or departure taxes of up to $45, which may be collected by the foreign government. See complete terms and conditions.