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My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner


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  •        
    23 Jan 2008

    Best Buy Capitalizes on Actor's Death
    I stumbled upon this information today. The Best Buy in Mission Valley San Diego attempted to cash in on Heath Ledger's death mere hours after his passing. You can read all about it here.

    [/musings] [permanent link]

    22 Jan 2008

    Best Buy Charges Customers for Exchanges
    This weekend I witnessed a friend try to exchange an item at Best Buy. He had mistakenly purchased the full-screen version and wanted to exchange it for the wide-screen version. While he did not have his receipt, it still had the Best Buy sticker on the shrink wrap as well as the $19.99 price tag.

    The signs on the shelf indicated that the wide-screen version was also $19.99 and as of January 22, both versions are $19.99 on the Best Buy website.

    My friend waited online patiently for about 15 minutes to make his exchange. He handed the Blue Shirt both the full-screen version he had purchased and the wide-screen copy he picked up before going to the customer service line. The Blue Shirt asked if he had paid cash or credit and when my friend said credit, the Blue Shirt asked for his card.

    The Blue Shirt swiped the card and pushed a bunch of buttons then told my friend he'd have to pay $5.35 ($5 plus 7% sales tax) due to a "difference in price."

    When we questioned this "difference in price" we were told, "Wide-screen always costs more than full-screen."

    I am boycotting Best Buy and I urge others to do the same. This company has a long history of using underhanded tactics to increase profitability at the expense of its employees and its customers.

    [/musings] [permanent link]

    05 Jan 2008

    Google blocks browsers
    Netmeister has an interesting blurb about experience with Google blocking various UserAgents.

    From the posting:

    For example, perl's LWP::UserAgent sets the agent string per default to
    "libwww-perl/#.#". Google apparently doesn't like that and will not
    return results to you. Setting it to something like "Mozilla/5.0 (X11;
    U; NetBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3)" would work.
    
    Interestingly, they appear to whitelist agents, rather than blacklisting
    them.
    


    What was that about not being evil?

    [/musings] [permanent link]