Eric Mason . net

According to the New York Times 12 people were killed in a shooting rampage in Britain.  How could this happen?  The article even states “Britain has some of the strongest gun control laws of any country in Europe.”  So how could this man have gotten a gun?

Also, the shooting spree reportedly went on for 3 hours.  Would this have gone on so long in one of the 38 US states that have “shall issue” concealed carry laws? Might the shooter have encountered an armed law-abiding citizen during these 3 hours if Britain’s government hadn’t made guns available only to criminals?

Maybe I’m the last person to find this out, but just in case you’re about to go through the hassle of signing up for eFax, let me save you the trouble.  eFax is crap! Here’s why:

Faxes Forced to be Included in Emails

There’s no way to have eFax just notify you of an incoming fax.  They HAVE to send you the whole fax as an attachment.  What if you’re receiving a credit card number in a fax? Well tough luck, it’s getting sent unencrypted.

Bad Customer Service

eFax won’t help you with most customer service issues on the phone.  Instead, they expect you to use their online chat.  And the reps are very slow and unhelpful.  When you try to cancel your account, they make you go through a long survey and your account won’t be canceled until you fully answer all their questions.  And forget about getting a refund for unused service.  If your account just renewed for a year (with no notice) and you try to cancel, too bad, you’re not getting your money back.

Can’t Keep Your Number

You put your fax number on your business cards, on your website, in your email signature, maybe company letterhead, etc.   For whatever reason, maybe one the ones listed here, you decide to switch from eFax.  Get your credit card out, because you’re going to need new business cards.  eFax’s customer agreement says

YOU FURTHER UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT YOU ARE NOT THE OWNER OF ANY eFAX NUMBER ASSIGNED TO YOU BY j2 GLOBAL … YOU ARE EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED FROM CAUSING OR ATTEMPTING TO CAUSE THE eFAX NUMBER ASSIGNED TO YOUR ACCOUNT TO BE TRANSFERRED TO ANY OTHER SERVICE PROVIDER, TELEPHONE CARRIER OR ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY (ALSO SOMETIMES REFERRED TO AS “PORTING” THE TELEPHONE NUMBER). IN THE EVENT YOU ARE FOUND TO HAVE VIOLATED THIS PROHIBITION YOU AGREE TO IMMEDIATELY RETURN THE NUMBER TO j2 GLOBAL AND PAY TO j2 GLOBAL AN AMOUNT EQUAL TO $500 (OR THE EQUIVALENT IN LOCAL CURRENCY). YOU AUTHORIZE j2 GLOBAL TO CHARGE YOUR ACCOUNT CREDIT CARD OR TAKE ANY OTHER MEASURES REQUIRED TO COLLECT THIS PAYMENT.

Other than that, eFax is OK.  :)

I caved and bought the Canon Rebel T2i with a 10% off coupon from Best Buy.  And I let them talk me into getting their 4 year accidental damage warranty for another $200.  Which actually seems like a pretty decent deal.  Think they’ll cover whatever lens I have attached if it breaks?

credit: chris runoff (flickr)

So yes, this is kind of a random post, but it serves a purpose.  I’ve embedded links to Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H to test out VigLink, which is supposed to make all your links into affiliate links.  They take a 25% cut but claim they negotiate better affiliate commissions to make up for it.  Sounds like a win-win and maybe a better way for bloggers to make money, as long as they don’t start shamelessly promoting products with stealth affiliate links.

Wow, the iPhone 3GS takes nice videos!  I recently made a quick video of Murphy at the dog park and noticed that it looks great even full-screen on my 20″ monitor at work.  I was curious how it would look on TV, but my Samsung BD-P3600 didn’t like the .mov file the iPhone created.  Here’s how I converted it:

ffmpeg -i IMG_0270.MOV -vcodec libxvid -aspect 4:3 -b 4000k -ab 128k mdog.avi

You will need ffmpeg for Windows.  I used FFmpeg svn rev 19159

By the way, here’s the video:

This is a message for the person who found my iPod Nano on an American Airlines plane in May, or otherwise ended up with it. Unless your name is also Eric Mason, you have to know it’s not yours, since it has “Eric Mason” engraved on the back of it. Please leave a comment here if you have it.

Shlomo Swidler has a great writeup on booting an EC2 instance from an EBS drive. In my case I wanted to run our development server only during business hours, and possibly only when someone actually needs it.  This way we can save both money and time by running a faster instance type (think Rails unit tests), but only for 1/3 of the time.  Since the EBS volume persists across instances, any software upgrades and configuration changes will persist as well.

I’ve been thinking I should figure this out for a while, but it seems Mr. Swidler figured it out for me.  Thanks!

We had a nice visit with Jen’s little cousin Samantha, who was on her first trip to Florida.