Wow. That’s all I can say right now. I’ve been having an issue for months with my American Express card where about 40%-50% of my online orders with it just fail right out of the shoot. I haven’t been able to figure out why, and neither could they. I used the correct address, I used the correct phone number, and I was assured that leaving out the apostrophe in my last name when entering the cardholder name was not an issue. It was a huge giant mystery to everyone involved.

Thanks to crappy UI design by NewEgg.com, I was able to solve the mystery! See, unlike other stores who actually take the time to try to auth your credit card inline with the store flow, NewEgg does not. And to add to their crappiness, they also don’t email you when your credit card auth subsequently fails. You have to go to their site and wade through several screens to see an unexplained “Attention” link next to your order.  I was lucky enought to notice this, since I had ordered something I was pretty anxious to receive.

Oddly enough their crappy multi auth flow is what helped crack this nut.  Other sites I just switch cards upon failure chalking it up to the mystery.  They wouldn’t let me switch cards on the order, even after calling in…

They had also required that I create an account to order and apply a coupon code I received.  Somewhat fair if they want to limit the code, but I could just create another account, so that methoid is a really poor control.  Now, you all know me as Myk.  That’s how I spell my name.  My legal name is Michael, but when I create accounts, I use my common name, since that is how I prefer to be addressed.  That is what has been wreaking havoc.  I won’t go into details over the whole debacale about why I had to remove the apostrophe from my last name online due to even worse usability issues on major web sites (think SQL escaping folks…)
These stupid sites use my account information name (Myk OLeary) as the name they pass for the credit card authorization INSTEAD OF the specifically requested, and correctly filled out CARDHOLDER NAME (Michael OLeary) field I filled out in the order flow.  This abbreviated nickname is unfamiliar, and unused by more than about 6-10 people in the world.

So to all E-Commerce sites (especially large ones like NewEgg.com) – ask for and use the cardholder name provided during the order flow to get a credit card auth, not some randomly provided incorrect account name.  I mean, what if I was using my mom’s or my wife’s card to order???  Time to get your heads out of your butts and make your sites work FOR your customers instead of AGAINST them!!!

• Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services
  Want to print this out and read it old school style. Funny since it’s a web 3.0 article…
  (tags: toread)
• 10 day survival pack for your vehicle for just $25 by Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #104
  I’ve been working on an auto survival kit, this looks to have some good ideas in it.
  (tags: todo tobuy toprint survival kit auto camping emergency lifehacks travel)
• How I Became A Music Pirate – Consumerist
  A disgustingly tru and sad story about the truth of what DRM does to consumers. The only true version of DRM is consumer based -> “Don’t Rip off Musicians”. Let’s cut out the RIAA and record labels. Then maybe the artists will b e happy to start really
  (tags: drm RIAA Culture Music broken defectivebydesign)

• Custom T-shirts – Design, Buy and Sell Customized shirts: Spreadshirt
  Looks like a great custom tee store. American Apparel Ts? Forget Cafe Press eh?!
  (tags: todo t-shirt tee ecommerce personal cheap create custom design money web2.0 entrepreneur)

• Twittering Your Home – O’Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog
  This is so cool! I’m adding this to my list of future home automation proojects!!
  (tags: twitter HomeAutomation home automation project honeydo)
• AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA – INSTANT KARMA
  REM did a cover of Lennon’s #9 Dream for this project. Expect to see lots of other good music here.
  (tags: music mp3 free todo darfur save amnesty-international todownload)

• Moving Color Products
  Color shifting tiles under heat
  (tags: tobuy heat color shift tiles design house architecture)

• Aaron Brothers – Coupon
  We need some frames; now’s a good time to pick some up…
  (tags: toprint coupon framing picture photography aaron brothers)

• An Introduction to Making Money Selling Digital Photos ∞ Get Rich Slowly
  (tags: photography digital howto money toread reference business)
• softwall room divider screen – creating intimate space
  Amazing! Starts several CM thick and expands to about 6M!! We could have used this in our condo before we moved out, it is EXACTLY what we were looking for. I must see how much these are and what shipping to the US costs…
  (tags: tobuy design wall panel divider screen)
• Hike Of The Week: Close-to-home park is full of surprises
  Sounds like a fun hike to do with the kids once I get over this sickness that’s been lurking.
  (tags: tohike issaquah alps cougar mountain trail hike)

• The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!) – Joel on Software
  (tags: toread unicode utf8 joelonsoftware development i18n programming encoding)
• UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ
  (tags: toread unicode utf8 development i18n programming encoding)
• ongoing · Characters vs. Bytes
  (tags: toread unicode utf8 development i18n programming encoding)
• HowToUseUnicodeStrings in Ruby on Rails
  (tags: utf8 unicode i18n l10n RoR ruby rails encoding)
• Santana’s Tech Notes: Matching ISO-8859-1 strings with Ruby
  (tags: iso-8859-1 i18n l10n RoR rails ruby iconv utf-8)
• iconv: Ruby Standard Library Documentation
  (tags: iso-8859-1 i18n l10n RoR rails ruby iconv utf-8 rdoc webdocs)

• File Sharing from Windows Vista to OS X ~ Chris Pirillo
  Good grief this is ugly.
  (tags: osx vista file sharing share networking network windows mac apple microsoft)
• NCAA Basketball Men’s Printable Brackets
  March Madness Tourney bracket.
  (tags: ncaa basketball tournament march madness bracket 2007)

• artweb design – Get on Rails with Globalize: a comprehensive writeup in 6 parts
  Only part of it is really up, so this may not be the best resource at all, but it’s one of very few.
  (tags: i18n l10n rails ruby RoR Globalize tutorial plugin)
• A Roundup for “Developers, Developers, Developers…”
  Some good, some not. Not full as there are way too many sites, but an OK list for a starting point
  (tags: web2.0 entrepreneur development application webservices infrastructure bug tracking project management)
• Porchlight > Bug tracker, issue tracker for software development
  Take a look at this later.
  (tags: totry bug tracking web2.0)
• redMine – project management and issue tracking
  Open Source Project Management and Bug Tracking Software. Looks promising.
  (tags: todo project management bug tracking web2.0 oss open source gpl redmine ruby rails RoR project-management open-source infrastructure)
• Skype: Now you, too, can run a phone sex line (or even tech support!)
  WOW!! This is absolutely amazing!! Skype Prime allows you to setup fee based calling for Skype users who call you. Great for information providers, technical support, etc.
  (tags: skype fee money todo beta web2.0)
• Mighty Foods – Trend: Secret Menus (Jamba Juice)
  My wife has promised to bring a White Gummi Bear smoothie by the office later today, I’ll let you know how it goes, but I’ve heard elsewhere from many people that it is so good that it is as addictive as crack. (Insert Homer drool here……………..)
  (tags: todo food secret jambajuice jamba juice white gummi bear strawberry shortcake)