I fixed the problem with del.icio.us not auto posting my links here. Sorry it took so long. It ended up being a problem with Dreamhost’s custom compilation of PHP. All is well now after adding a small snippet of code to a Wordpress file.

I’ve been working on writing an Amazon.com scanner in Ruby on Rails which will scan particular keywords on Amazon and drop the results in a local database for later analysis.

It’s to a point where it will email me results that meet certain critieria.

I’ve added keywords for products that we use, as well as keywords from some family members who have been unwitting beta participants.  I’m almost ready to release a site to the public but wanted to ask you, my friends a couple questions as I try to figure out exactly how to launch it.

1. How much would you pay to be alerted to sales at Amazon on keywords you are interested in?
2. Would you prefer a one time fee or a monthy fee?
3. What categories and keywords interest you?
4. Would you prefer to come to the site when you needed, or would you prefer to be alerted via elctronic means?
5. Do you prefer SMS, IM, email, or text to speech over your phone for electronic alerts?
6. Any comments you wish to add that I didn’t think to ask?

Sorry for the vaugeries, but an idea to help us save money took off in my head and is growing every weekend.  Feel free to either comment or send me email (it’s on the top left of every page).  I’ll post next a sample of something I just found in my latest scan.

If you’re just interested in the final product, stay tuned for an announcement of sorts in several months.

The good news is I finally hit zero at work - both my Inbox and my to followup folders are clean!

The bad news (well for you at least) is that I did so by pumping lots of emailed URLS into my del.icio.us bookmarks… *blush*

So, if you’re not very development or Ruby inclined, I’d skip my linkpost that’ll come up later today from del.icio.us…

Have a good weekend!!!

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!!!

I was having trouble with my latest project quite a while back in that I couldn’t get LogineEngine’s UserNotify model to correctly send HTML emails.  I would keep setting the Content-type header to “text/html” but it would always revert back to “text/plain”.  Grrrr!

Well, the issue lies in its use of Rails’ ActionMailer gem. It seems there is a particularly annoying bug in that ActionMailer unassumedly gobbles up certain common headers, even if properly set and replaces them with default settings (or rather, ignores them.)  There’s a patch in the bug, but we prefer to keep as clean a version of Rails as possible to make upgrading and versioning much easier for our production environment.  Note that even though the referenced bug may not seem to apply, the root problem causes both this issue and the one described in the bug (and another for using the proper headers to help thread conversations using In-Reply-To headers).
The solution lies in the RDocs for ActionMailer, so I’m very surprised that no one else has mentioned this solution yet.  It’s so easy of one I kicked myself for taking so long to find it.  Basically, instead of trying to set the Content-Type header, you need to set the @content-type variable equal to “text/html” in the action you have which sets up your email before it gets sent.  Don’t forget that SMTP RFCs say you need a “Mime-Version: 1.0″ header when setting the content-type header.  Below is the code to insert into your setup action, or the action you use to send the mail if you don’t have an action to setup from, etc…

@content_type = “text/html”
@headers[’Mime-Version’] = 1.0

As an additonal tip, don’t forget to make sure your from address is properly formatted.  It should include a name AND email address of the form:

@from = “My Email Address Name <user@domain.com>”

This will make sure that your email is less readily identified as spam.

I’m in San Francisco for Mashup University and Mashup Camp. Mashups are basically the conjucntion of two or more disparate data sources being aggregated into one application. Think Google Maps meets customer data for example. I’ll be here the whole week if you’re in the area and want to meet up. Check my details in the upper left and get a hold of me.

I have a couple of posts RE: Gnomedex in the back of my brain, but I wanted to throw out some contact information now if anyone wants to meet up.

Best way to reach me the whole weekend (or anytime for that matter) is to call my SkypeIn number @ (206) 855-5578.  If I’m on wifi and logged into Skype, I’ll get your call there; if not, it will forward to my cell phone.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that my name is Myk (pronounced “Mike”), I live in the Seattle area (Maple Valley to be exact), and that I’m a web application developer.  I have serious interests/leanings towards content and information sharing and retrieval.
I’m representing the company I work for (Pure Networks) and our product (Network Magic) and want to focus in on network usage, content sharing, and community/social networking environments.  I’ll be a bit more explicit in a followup post tonight after I get home from the registration party; right now I need to hammer out some bug fixes!

This "presentation" was made at Barcamp this past weekend and  epitomizes the economy surrounding Web 2.0.  It’s a really good comedic look at what makes up this trend.  Don’t get me wrong, there are good things associated with Web 2.0 (Circular Linking, Community, Asyncrous Content, etc…); but I’m tired of hearing people spout off about the success of 2.0 w/o really knowing what it is about that is successful.  That and it’s funny.

Ingredients for Web 2.0 Success

technorati tags: web2.0, comedy, barcampboston, boston, barcamp

I’ve been confirmed for and RSVP’d to attend Mashup Camp 2.0.  It’s July 12-13 in Mountain View, CA at the Computer History Museum.  They’re also looking to have Mashup University for two days prior to the Camp.

The whole family is coming for this one - we’re taking the opportunity to make this a vacation to San Francisco.  We were able to book into the Trendwest downtown.  If you want to get together while I’m in town shoot me an e-mail.

BTW - anybody from the area have any commuting tips for the soutbound trip from SF to Mountain View on a weekday??

As a developer, it’s hard to admit having given up caffeine.  I feel like I’m a faker; however, I just felt like I needed to get healthy again.  The hardest part is the morning cup of coffee.  I miss it. A lot. The penguins I can do without, but coffee (and the occasional soda) are such a mainstay its hard to say goodbye.

The good side of our company is that we have all the free coffee you can drink.  The bad side (for me) is that there is no decaf, nor will there ever be.  Here’s where the dilemna comes in.  I much prefer to support local coffee shops, but I have yet to find ANY that offer up drip decaf.  I can get all the decaf Americanos for the price of drip that I want, but I don’t like Americanos.

What do all of you prefer - French Press or a coffee steeper (a la tea)?  I won’t go instant, and I want to do my best to avoid Starbucks even though they are the only place that offers drip decaf.

In regards to soda - caffeine avoiders have more choices than you would think.  See below for all the caffeine free soda drinks.

How Much Caffeine in Drinks — Coffee, Tea, Soft Drinks — Caffeine Content

Diet Rite Cola, Sprite, 7-Up, Mug Root Beer, Diet Barq’s Root Beer, Sundrop Orange, Minute Maid Orange, A&W Root Beer, Slice, Sierra Mist, Fresca

My current alternative is water - lots and lots of water.  I’m talking like 9-12 cups a day.  I need to get some more variety.

technorati tags: coffee, caffeine, soda