Compromised

Ah, yesterday. How I don’t miss you.

My day started by going through all the comments made on our on-line Learning Management System (LMS) survey. For those of you who don’t already know, I work for this university and we use this LMS. We’re in a year-long process of evaluating the current LMS and alternatives, as our product line won’t be supported after 2013. We started by having this on-line survey – on SurveyMonkey.com, awesome service! – and after last Sunday’s deadline was met it was time to start compiling data and reading the comments. The 39 pages of comments. After two hours of this, i didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people made very valid points and expressed extremely valid opinions, and getting the users’ opinions is the whole point of the survey but there’s always a handful of comments that make absolutely no sense.

I was shocked that a lot of our users don’t know what the LMS is – even if it was explained on the first page. Then there’s the few people who complained bitterly about some other application that we manage that is not the LMS, and then the users who complained about some other application that we don’t manage, or that is not even managed by anyone in Canada (Newsflash: GoogleDocs? Facebook? Twitter? They’re not managed by me). A lot of users commented that we should offer workshops when we already do. One person suggested that a way to make the LMS better was to offer food during the workshops. An equal amount of users suggested we got rid of the LMS or that we forced all professors to use it.

One guy left a 649 word-long comment, making a few good points and a few wisecracks but didn’t leave a way for me to contact him.

Anyways, this left me completely drained when I got this phone call from LovelyWife:

“You have to call the bank. Your bank card has been compromised, there was an automated message left on the answering machine at home.” After getting the number, I Googled it and landed on a few pages that said this was a hoax, not to call back, etc. So I simply ignored the message. But it kept nagging at me, so I decided to call the main customer service number. After a few minutes, I was told that the message left at my house was legit, and that my card had been flagged (not compromised) because it was recently swiped somewhere that was under investigation for skimming. I told the guy on the phone that the automated message sounded very suspicious, and that Googling the number led me to sites that said this call was a scam. Bottom line was that I had to get a new card, so out I went over lunch to the closest branch to get a replacement card.

So after an hour I got back to the office and started to write a FAQ to answer some of the comments left on the surveys. Massive headache. Stuffed up. Yuck.

By 4 pm I was pretty tired but I focused on my planned date with my friend Peter. He was picking me up at 5 pm for some food, beer, and just chatting. I think I hadn’t seen him in 6 months so I was really looking forward to this. Around a quarter to five, I started doubting that when Peter said Wednesday, he might have meant next Wednesday. Long story short he picked me up around 5:10 and we had a great time. We should really do this more often than once every six months.

Zazzle

A quick word on Zazzle. I use their store to sell a few t-shirts. They recently pulled one of my designs for copyright infringement. This is the design they pulled:

It was pulled because of the cube. I had sold 3 t-shirts with that design in the last 6 months. So I did a new design and put it up on Zazzle.

And I sold 10 t-shirts within hours. I wish there was a way for me to know who bought the t-shirts so I could send them a thank you not. Since I can’t: Thank you buyers!