Wheat-dogg’s world

Posts tagged email

A pox on Boxbe

JISHOU, HUNAN — There should be a special circle in Hell for people that purport to stop spam while creating it themselves. Witness, Boxbe.

Boxbe supposedly is a service that filters and prioritizes your email, which sounds really good to someone who gets a lot of email. So, some people have signed up for the service. A pox on them, too!

Last night, I got two very puzzling emails from the gmail addy of a fellow Picasa Web user, someone I don’t know at all and have never communicated with.

The first subject line said, “XXXXXX sent you a message from Picasa Web Albums.” The message included a thumbnail of this photo I took last May,

Z2 roommates and the elephant at August Moon Lake

and this text:

Hi John I would like to make the following request regarding this photo. Please don't share this with anyone Please contact me if you would like any additional information. Thank you for your consideration. XXXXXX - This email was sent by Picasa Web Albums on behalf of XXXXXX Note: You may change your notification settings regarding these emails by clicking on the Settings link on Picasa Web Albums

Of course, I went to XXXXXX’s Picasa Web album, to see who the hell he is. Nope, don’t know him at all. And, more importantly, unless he’s disguised as an elephant statue with a broken trunk, he is not in the photo I took. Besides that, he apparently lives in Detroit. The photo was taken near Jishou, Hunan, at August Moon Lake.

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July 19th, 2010 | Tags: Boxbe, email, Picasa Web, spam | Category: Commentary, General stuff | Comments (3)

“Wo! I feel good …

… I knew that wouldn’t have” … if I hadn’t voted today.

James Brown could sing it better than I can, but that’s how I felt this afternoon after I sent in my absentee ballot, all the way from Hunan, China. I had this mental picture of sticking it to Bush and Cheney, McCain and Palin. I hope it hurts. Ow!

An ex-pat, I discovered a few weeks ago that I could cast my vote in Indiana (my last US place of residence) by mail, fax or e-mail. All the necessary forms and instructions are right there on the Indiana state government website.

I want to extend a public thank you to Linda Moeller, the Floyd County Clerk, who in a very friendly manner immediately responded to my emails and faxes. (Linda’s a Democrat, by the way.)

While I could have preserved the secrecy of my vote by voting by mail, I chose the fax method. I wanted to be sure my vote arrived well within the Nov. 14 deadline. If Indiana is going to be a close race, I wanted to help decide the contest on Nov. 4.

Here’s the nuts and bolts, for anyone interested. If you are an ex-pat or someone in the uniformed services and are already registered to vote in Indiana, you fill in and fax form ABS-12 to your county clerk’s office. This form requests an absentee ballot be faxed back to you.

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October 30th, 2008 | Tags: absentee ballot, Barack Hussein Obama, email, fax, Indiana, John McCain | Category: Commentary, General stuff | Leave a comment