Rants
USB Drives are not for working data
0This is a topic that comes up every so often when someone comes to me saying that their USB memory stick has stopped working or that they broke it. I usually reply with “ah well you’ll have to get a new one” to which I get “but my files…”. Do we all see the problem here? People are using their memory sticks as their main storage device, which is not their intended function.
A memory stick is a backup and file transfer device. It should be used to save copies of files on your computer or transfer files from one computer to another. The files on a memory stick should never be the only ones because guess what? these things die, get lost/stolen or get broken.
Why I’m writing this post today is that I was given one such memory stick yesterday. The stick was in 2 pieces, the USB connection had been broken away from the body of the stick. I figured this was a lost cause but I enjoy a challenge so I set about seeing what I could do. I removed the inner workings from the memory stick body to see that the USB connection had broken cleanly away and caused no damage to the circuitry. Now I thought there might be a chance of getting something off the stick if I could somehow connect the two parts together again. To do this I got a short strip of CAT5 cable and soldered it to each part to once again connect them. Plugging the new device in my PC I got nothing and thought that was that but just on the off chance I thought I’d try it in my MacBook. Plugging it into the MacBook suddenly it lit up and appeared on the desktop. I quickly copied everything I could from the drive in case it decided to disappear but no the device stayed and actually seems to be preforming normally.
Now ok I managed to save the data on this USB memory stick but please people only use these devices to backup or transfer your files, always have a copy of any work on a computer somewhere to avoid any future panic when something happens to your memory stick.
Vodafone need to learn how things work before using them
0Today Vodafone Ireland lunched a competition on their facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/vodafoneireland
The competition is there are 5 images at the top of their page which make up a bit.ly URL.
The idea is for people to put the images in the right order so that the address will take them to a secert page where they can enter the competition.
Now anyone that knows how bit.ly works can look at the images and see that there are 2 possibilities
Now as it turns out the correct URL is the second one http://bit.ly/hoTT4r so everything is fine right? Well no because what happens when people put in the other address?? Go on try it…. oh look it takes you to my twitter page 
Now what this shows is that the people at Vodafone are obviously not thinking things through. I could have quiet easily pointed that address at the o2.ie website or worse some adult site then how bad would that look for vodafone, but what’s more frightening is that if I had spent and bit of time and effort I could have put together a dummy Vodafone competition page that collected people’s details.
On top of that, bit.ly is also case sensetitive so the following addresses also come into play
http://bit.ly/t4rhoT – points to my twitter
http://bit.ly/t4rhot – points to my twitter
http://bit.ly/T4rhot – points to my blog
http://bit.ly/hotT4r – points to my twitter
http://bit.ly/hoTt4r – points to a formspring page
http://bit.ly/hott4r – points to an iJuntine video on Justin.tv
So currently there are more variations of the URL pointing to me than there are pointing to the competition page.
This is becoming common place for companies now trying to use social media but not having a clue of what they’re doing. Can someone please teach these companies how to use some of the websites before they cause some serious damage.
On a side note my links have pulled in 110 clicks so far in 2 hours and I’ve gained 3 new twitter followers.
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