An unintentional mistake, or abuse of social media? Jawbone and Netflix in trouble?

Hardly minutes ago I received the email you'll find below. It simple and clearly states that if I tweet a particular messages that mentions @Jawbone and @Netflix, I will receive 1 year of Netflix and a Jawbone Jambox for no further cost, effort, or lottery. Who can say no to free? Not I when it's this easy so I tweeted then hit the link to see what else @Jawbone had to say and noticed an interesting tweet from them:

"@tnisly See our Twitter feed--it's for a chance...." even as I write this, I just found a new one, "@slambthelamb This opportunity is for a chance to win one year of Netflix Streaming and a Red Jawbone Jambox."

When you understand that you can't truly "undo" a tweet, that makes for an interesting situation. The email from JawBone reads as a promise to trade a service (a tweet from me) for goods and services (Netflix and the Jambox), but their tweets say that my service was actually only for an entry into a lottery. In the end, they get their nearly free advertising (mass-emailing does have a cost associated with it) while Twitter bares the larger expense and those of us duped by Jawbone/Netflix have nothing to show for it.

I'd say that qualifies as misleading at the least and of interest to the FTC at most. I'll be interested to see how they try to back peddle their way out of this one.

Hi friends, one last special gift for Valentine's Day. Jawbone has teamed up with Netflix to offer a FREE year of Netflix streaming and a RED JAMBOX. All you have to do is tell us what your Valentine's Day guilty pleasure movie is by tweeting: "Yo @Jawbone @Netflix, my VDay guilty pleasure movie is_____." >>>Tweet Now The contest ends 12:00 PM PST on 2/14.

	To contact us, please click here.
	This email was sent to: rainabba@gmail.com
	If you have any questions about how we collect, use and protect your personal information, please visit our Privacy Policy at http://www.jawbone.com/privacy.
	If you no longer wish to receive future advertising emails from us, please unsubscribe.

This email was sent by: Jawbone 99 Rhode Island Street, 3rd Floor San Francisco, CA, 94103, USA

Memory = Storage?

Now I'll admit that it's been a while since I last looked up the definition of "memory" in the context of computing. In fact, the last time I had to do that, you could likely have earned your A+ certification if you knew what RAM meant. Back then as i recall, "memory" was synonymous with "RAM" which is volatile and a major factor in a computers performance. Storage is non-volatile and generally MUCH slower than RAM. Apparently Dell has grown so large that they now hire "sales staff" that will deal in computer/technology equipment, but that doesn't need to know even the most basic terminology. I love Dell, use their equipment (or branded equipment they sell anyhow) and this really isn't to bash them, but to share a laugh with you.

02/02/2011 08:57:28PM	Session Started with Agent (Maricel G)
02/02/2011 08:57:34PM	Agent (Maricel G): "Welcome to Dell US Chat! My name is Maricel and I will be your Dell.com Sales Chat Expert. I can be reached at us_con_sl_apos_chat or via phone at 1-800-289-3355 ext. 7284516. How can I help you today?"
02/02/2011 08:57:37PM	Agent (Maricel G): "By the way, the number provided above is our team's voice mail box and the message box to type in is on the bottom portion of the chat, just to the left of the send button if you are having trouble finding it."
02/02/2011 08:58:18PM	Rainabba: "I wanted to find out how much memory the Dell Streak 7 has and if there's any release date on the Streak 10. Can you answer either?"
02/02/2011 08:59:19PM	Agent (Maricel G): "Hi Michael :D"
02/02/2011 08:59:59PM	Agent (Maricel G): "Glad you chatted in today and I'll be happy to assist you."
02/02/2011 09:00:12PM	Rainabba: ":)"
02/02/2011 09:00:46PM	Agent (Maricel G): "The memory of Dell Streak 7 can be expanded up to 32 gb. :D"
02/02/2011 09:01:12PM	Agent (Maricel G): "As of the moment we don't have an update for Streak 10 yet. :)"
02/02/2011 09:01:23PM	Agent (Maricel G): "Are you planning to get the Streak 7 today?"
02/02/2011 09:01:33PM	Rainabba: "I'm sorry, by memory I mean RAM, not storage."
02/02/2011 09:02:07PM	Agent (Maricel G): "yeah, it is the same thing Michael :D"
02/02/2011 09:02:24PM	Agent (Maricel G): "The storage is the ram of the unit. :D"
02/02/2011 09:02:29PM	Rainabba: "I'm considering the steak 7. I'd really like a tablet soon, but I'd rather have a 10" one. I'm having trouble finding a 10" one that has all the other specs I'd like (which only the Galaxy and Streak 7 seem to have so far)."
02/02/2011 09:04:30PM	Rainabba: "Actually Maricel, Memory/RAM is nothing like storage. RAM=Random Access Memory and is nearly always volitile. Storage is persistent and by definition not volitile. I wouldn't have started this chat to ask if I didn't know the difference and knew how signi"
&nbsp	ficant it is.Too many 1GHz and dual-core devices exist now running Android which have too little ram and this creates a bottleneck because of how Android manages memory.
02/02/2011 09:06:00PM	Agent (Maricel G): "Oh I see :D" (Notice the 1.5 minute delay here while she looks up the definitions)
02/02/2011 09:06:16PM	Rainabba: ":)"
02/02/2011 09:06:32PM	Rainabba: "I'm surprised that's not listed on the Tech Specs."
02/02/2011 09:07:05PM	Agent (Maricel G): "Sorry about that, I am actually referring to the internal memory or how big is the capacity of the memory to save information."
02/02/2011 09:07:14PM	Agent (Maricel G): "That is right."
02/02/2011 09:08:00PM	Agent (Maricel G): "Well, if your looking for more information about that Michael i would recommend you to call our technical support department."
02/02/2011 09:08:26PM	Agent (Maricel G): "I wish I could further help you but as you've reached the Sales parts and accessories department, I can only place an order."
02/02/2011 09:08:39PM	Agent (Maricel G): "You can call them at 800-624-9896"
02/02/2011 09:09:01PM	Rainabba: "Thank you."
02/02/2011 09:09:05PM	Rainabba: "Have a nice evening."
02/02/2011 09:09:32PM	Agent (Maricel G): "Same to you Michael, I am sorry about this, I wasn't able to help you."
02/02/2011 09:09:41PM	Agent (Maricel G): "Thank you for your time today. Would there be anything else I can help you with?"
02/02/2011 09:09:48PM	Rainabba: "No problem. Take care. That's it."

A long standing issue finally brought to closure regarding B16

I write this in response to B16 and a blog post he directed me to HERE.

The original post contents (in case they become otherwise unavailable) can be found below:

Life is crazy and unprecedented, but I am taking the time to write this for some insight on whats going on. So far life has been crazy outside the Marine Corps, college is going great, I am currently going for a bachelors of computer science, more less the business side of the house. Anyways, enough of the boring stuff lets get crackin’!
What happened to the drama with that guy from AllDroid? Well let me be exactly clear: Some of my actions were completely filtered by anger/frustration/purely not thinking ahead. I had noticed the owner, (Rain) was very voiced. If he sees something that he sees not fit or great to his liking, for example his quarrels with certain developers (I will not disclose names because that is the past and drama is not needed). Those actions infuriated me and almost became the demise of my involvement in the android community. I made a decision to post root instructions on another site, (also I will not disclose due to the lack of real intelligence that user base seems to flaunt), I was very involved in helping my friend figure out how to root the damn phone, some how I ran across the blogspot before Bird did, but never mentioned because I thought it was old news and for earlier versions of android. Failure on my part, so far my score is negative 2, unconsciously I screwed Rain over and in all reality I just wanted out, there is informants, networkers like Phoxus, Users, Developers and last but not least – TROLLS, oh god the trolls, anyways, I wanted out and the entire scene was getting messy.
Here is the hard part, I have embedded myself in this community, and have met some of the coolest people I have ever met in my life without ever shaking their hand. Rainabba, as much of an asshole I think he can be, he is actually a very cool person aside from his eccentric style of leadership, I am writing this to get a lot of this off my chest, and I recently contacted him and talked a little to him, letting him know I see where I went wrong and that I apologize, I am not taking on the burden of saying I am/was responsible for the failure or damage to the website. I will say though, the effect of my actions were far from positive, they were obviously negative. That being said, I am sorry for those actions and decisions I have made in the past. Anyone who knows me can tell you, or if your a close person to me you know I am a genuine person and veer away from malice in my heart due to the crazy things I have witnessed in previous events in the middle east. For the results of my actions, Mike I am sorry and I apologize, am I owed an apology for the way things have been conveyed to me? No. I don’t request those, except from my daughter. What I did was morally wrong and I didn’t think all things through, I am just saying some of your actions drove me very far and fast away from the foundation of the site. Leading me to leave. Like I said I apologize, sorry for the mess made, and I hope this somehow relieves you of some of the tension, turmoil and stress from the entire chain of events leading up to and thereafter of my actions and correlations with you.
In the other news it feels a quite bit better to let that out. I will be signing up for Google I/O 2011 when the registration opens and I will be getting with Mr Birdman (Steve) and hopefully a few others, I have a hotel on standby and ready for habitation, so yes parties will entail. If you want to get involved and hang out please feel free to let us know on twitter @b16a2smith and @_mrbirdman_.
Also, I now have a nook color, and will probably be doing some work on it, I like the device, so yes it deserves attention. I will fill you guys in on more stuff including the crazy ventures I have chosen in life. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment, no trolls please, I paid my toll.
B16

So here's the short version from my perspective. B16 was at the time an admin at AllDroid.org. I was given instructions on how to root the DX from Birdman. I wrote a tutorial to share (of course with the intent of driving some traffic to AllDroid at the same time). B16 posted the same tutorial without credit or mention of me or AllDroid, but on another site, without saying a word to me. After confronting him, I found out that he was angry/upset/annoyed with me, but hadn't said anything. I took this very personally. I won't put words to how I felt because this post isn't meant to reignite old pain, but to explain things as I see them which includes why I feel this issue is now closed and I'm "at peace" about it. Anyway, I eventually got over the incident itself, but have continually found myself nearly enraged at the fact that so few people knew the truth of what happened and until today, B16 had not owned up to it all.

Today everything changed. B16 not only owned up to it, but apologized which is above and beyond. I would have considered it notable if he had done this privately with me, but he went a step further and posted publicly to his personal blog. I respect that and think it means a lot. It's my opinion that it takes courage to do something like that. I'm not here to say we're buddies and trust is hard to earn with me to begin with (thanks in large to me being too willing to give it in the past), but I'm willing now to put this behind us and move forward in at least a professional manner, if not more.

As a fellow Marine who has changed drastically from the time I stood on the yellow footprints to this day, I can understand how the Corps can invoke significant change and I didn't even see combat as he did. The culture shock (I hadn't even seen Full Metal Jacket or The DI) was insane for me and I can imagine what it would be like to multiply that effect a few times, but he's lived it so a drastic change in personality/attitude/outlook (what ever it might be) is something I could understand occurring and believe in. Anyway, not that I'm qualified to "shrink" him, I'm just saying that I believe his post was sincere and I have my suspicions as to why it occurred (he mentioned some of this).

As a result of my anger and resentment at B16, I'm sure I've hurt my image with the community and there's no taking much of this back, but I hope that with his post today, some people can at least come to see why I've taken the position I have with him up to this day and perhaps my humanity can be forgiven to some extent in light of this. I'm not asking to use this as an excuse and I will live with the consequences of my words. If I have stepped out of line at any point, you now have my apology B16.

The REAL CVPCS. A great developer, an ungrateful individual.

In response to: http://www.droid-life.com/2011/01/21/cvpcs-a-letter-to-my-followers/


How I know CVPCSM isn't so "friendly and approachable" and why he lost support from AllDroid. This conversation was on July 30th, right after AllDroid's Twitter account was compromised and I make it clear to cvpcsm that he was NOT a suspect, but MDW as a whole was, why, and why I thought he should be careful associating himself with them:

cvpcsm: also, don't give me that crap about how hard you work. i know you work hard for the community mike. i get it, but i never asked you to purchase anything or spend your money, and i work hard as well and don't need you going on like i'm taking advantage of you
me: AllDroid didn't contribute to your ROMs popularity? Asking you not to link away was unreasonable when I PAY for the hosting you got to use for FREE? Warning you about the characters at MDW was bad/wrong? Ultimatum?
cvpcsm: what hosting did you pay for mike? NONE. you host a FORUM. you never ONCE hosted any of my data files
don't give me your crap about how you pay
you have no right to pin that on me any more than you do any other user that posts on your site
also, don't give me that crap about how hard you work. i know you work hard for the community mike. i get it, but i never asked you to purchase anything or spend your [or the money the community has donated towards developers like me] money ...

In a previous conversation - June 14, 2010: cvpcsm: i'll take a look soon. oh, just so you know, i have begun rolling out my release today, and as soon as alldroid comes up let me know so i can post it right away. i have a link to alldroid set on my wiki to link in there for the time being until we figure something else out. i'm eager to get some stuff posted and i have mayh3m already set to do basic teir 1 support an alldroid for anyone who needs it. i have a few posts going on some other forums (for press release purposes), but i'm going to basically state there that all support and whatnot will be either on my bug tracker or on alldroid's forums. i hope this is alright with you. me: I'm up and around man. AllDroid is up and flying. cvpcsm: sweet! :D cvpcsm: any chance i could get a subforum under droid releases to post my press release in? i mentioned it to BM but his internet is not doing so well. me: You want your forum name to be? cvpcsm: cvpcs i have big plans to support more devices one day, and each device's rom will be named after a different jewel. (incredible=ruby, evo=onyx, droid2=emerald, etc)

... , and i work hard as well and don't need you going on like i'm taking advantage of you

me: Where the hell do you think the forum runs?! You think the server is free? Forget I said anything. You've definately made your position known. I hope that someday you learn how to be more sensitive. Logic isn't always the ultimate "right". Quite often when dealing with people, there's more than sound logic.

Quite the change of heart in under 2 months ehh? Not too long after his rom (which was brought to the world via AllDroid) gained some real momentum and he became more concerned with exposure than showing some loyalty to those who helped get him there. This is how I see him. Later I was talking with a well-respected member of the community and brought them up to speed in case this became a larger issue and I clarified:

me: Just FYI. Not really an issue, but want you to have context in case it matters down the road. This is typical of someone younger, poorly raised, but VERY intelligent in my opinion. Life experience might teach him eventually.

Then I went on to quote the entire conversation so this individual was fully aware and so nothing would be taken out of context. I've only quoted the most relevant bits here because the rest isn't relevant to this post and I don't want to dredge up old crap more than needed to support my point here.

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I'm a very passionate person where my interest and support of Android is concerned. As a result I know I follow my heart too quickly at times. Given what I've endured, matters are made worse, but facts are still facts and nobody has the least bit of reason to call me one thing; dishonest. I always have and always will tell it like it is and admit my mistakes. In this case, it appears that my mistake was expending my efforts and limited resources towards a developer who would not return it even in the form of a thanks.

At least I can say I supported and helped make possible the work he has brought to the community and so I know it wasn't a waste. My opinion (as stated above) remains the same. I think CVPCS is a strong Android ROM developer, but as a person, I find him lacking and don't think it fair for the community to see only part of the truth.

In closing let me say that I'm still greateful (mostly for the sake of Droid owners) that he is still a part of this community, but I can't help but wonder if he'd seen more support (financial in particular) if he was an impressive a person as he is an Android developer. I expect there are plenty out there who are ready to jump up in his defense and tell me how helpful he's been for them. To those people I'd ask, "How far out of his way did he really go for you, and more importantly; you for him?"

My chat with Samsung regarding the Samsung Fascinate and Froyo

Kyle: Hi, thank you for contacting Samsung Technical Support. How may I help you today?
Michael: I have two issues. The first is that the product registration page is telling me that my serial number (hex IMEI) is invalid and won't let me register.
Michael: Are you familiar with this issue or could you help me confirm I'm providing the right information?
Kyle: I understand that you are trying to register the phone. Am I right?
Michael: Yes
Kyle: Thank you for confirming.
Kyle: Please let me know the model number of the device.
Michael: SCH-i500
Kyle: Okay.
Kyle: Thank you for the information.
Kyle: Are you getting any error message on the PC?
Kyle: It has been a while since I’ve received a message from you. Are you still with me?
Michael: Not from my computer. The site tells me: ... well, I just tried to submit again to get the error once more and it seems it took this time. Go figure.
Michael: I love buggy software (I'm a developer myself) :)
Michael: On to issue number two if we may.
Kyle: Is the issue resolved?
Michael: It appears that issue is, yes.
Kyle: Okay.
Kyle: Please let me know if you have any other questions for me.
Kyle: I don’t mean to rush you, but I haven't had a response from you. Are we connected?
Michael: Yes, can you tell me what the official reason, according to Samsung, that the Fascinate (SCH-I500) has not yet recieved an update to Android 2.2 or 2.3?
Kyle: I understand that you are looking for the Android 2.2 or 2.3 update for the phone. Am I right?
Michael: Yes, if it existed. To my knowledge it does not so I'm wondering why that is. If it does exist, I'd love to know where to find it.
Kyle: Thank you for confirming.
Kyle: Unfortunately there is no update available at this time for the phone, nor is there an estimated date of one being released. We are unable to speculate when/if a software revision might be available due to the fact that this might lead to inaccurate information and confusion.
Kyle: I apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you.
Michael: Understood. So back to my original question. Why hasn't an update been released already? We in the community (without the benefit of source code) nearly have it working so we know it's not a technical issue.
Kyle: I am sorry I couldn’t help you fix the issue over the chat. However, is there anything else I might be able to assist you with?
Michael: You haven't even come close to answering my 2nd question.
Michael: I didn't ask for the update, or if it was available, I asked why it is not.
Kyle: I am sorry, Samsung did not mentioned any information about the update.
Kyle: I apologize, I would have surely helped you if I had the information at my end.
Michael: Thank you. I didn't expect a more useful answer. I'm sorry you have to hear my attitude, but I am one of thousands who feel ripped off.
Michael: Have a good day.

My first consumer interaction with Lexar and why I won't do business directly afterwards

First of all, their site brags about how shipping is free for orders over $150. Guess how much their premier new item, a 32GB, Class 10, MicroSDHC card is? Here's a hint. If it was 2 pennies more it would qualify.

I'm sick of companies marketing like this. It's spineless, at best, dishonest at worst, and is insulting to me as a consumer either way.

As if that wasn't enough, my first attempt to purchase this item was canceled because my Visa Debit card showed up in their fraud system and they took their sweet time letting me know which delayed my order. They finally reached me on the phone and told me that I'd have to submit my order again, but if I "did it right now, it will be processed today", meaning that same day, yesterday. So I did, with another card, and again I received an online order confirmation just like the first time, one that made it appear as if they'd confirmed payment and the order was getting ready to ship.

Imagine my surprise when I got a call today telling me that my order had be further delayed because they needed to confirm some information (which was IDENTICAL to my first order so clearly it wasn't a mistake). When I sought to clarify that my order still hadn't been processed and would be further delayed, they told me that was the case and in fact the item was on back-order and wouldn't ship. That's something that any company with an e-commerce presence could tell you during checkout. If not then, in the email confirmation is reasonable and easier for them. Either way, I had been mislead the day before this last phone call because it had been said that my order would process the same day when in fact it couldn't process because the item was on back order.

When I asked how long the delay was expected to be, the person I was speaking with couldn't tell me and eventually she had to transfer me (to sit on hold for far too long) to someone who could say.

Lexar needs a serious audit of their order fulfillment system and how customers are informed. I'm very disappointed that such a large company performs so poorly.

---

UPDATE 2011-01-23: I've been contacted by Lexar with a request for my phone number as a result of this blog post. I've responded and am waiting to hear back. It appears they'd like to clear the air or perhaps do something to improve my opinion. I'm already impressed to some extent just because my post was found and someone is seeking me out as a result.

---

UPDATE 2011-02-23: Due to a significant personal loss, Jeff wasn't able to get right back with me, but he eventually did and he left an impression. The short of it is that he agrees the non-free shipping because the product was priced a couple pennies too low (to make the free shipping threshold) was silly. He's speaking with the appropriate people to see about getting free shipping for these drives. He also apologized for the experience I had. Though I'm not swayed much by apologies (I much prefer to see change), the fact is that he did find this blog entry, contact me, and in doing so, show that he was concerned at the least with the companies image. That's FAR more than most companies would do these days. More than that, he's compensated me for my time in writing the original entry to bring my experience to his attention. The compensation was an impressive new product they've introduced. It's called the Echo ZE and it's basically a 32GB USB drive that must be as small as a USB drive can get. Any smaller and you would have nothing to grip to get it back out. Just what I needed for my Exopc tablet project (porting Gingerbread over) to get another 32GB storage on board without a "thumb" drive sticking out that would get broken off or fall out. I want to thank Jeff and congratulate him making the most of a bad customer situation and showing that Lexar is far from typical where customer appreciation is concerned. Now if we could just get the other 1,000,000 consumer companies to think along similar terms.

More buck-passing from another major entertainment company.

I wish I could put words to how sick and tired I am of EA and their B*******. From "you can't go prone because that will slow down the gameplay [even though it's not a problem for anyone else publishing decent games]" to what brings me to this post.

"First off, we should clarify that it is the carriers (e.g. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile, etc) who are solely responsible for all billing related issues (purchases, refunds, pricing terms and conditions, etc) regarding applications on your phone. We should also note that we do not bill you ourselves. EA simply develops the games and makes them available to your carrier."

This is what I found HERE when I was trying to get support because NFS Shift on my Android device refused to download and I was directed to their support page.

First off, the phrase "first off" in the English language (at least in the United States) carries with it a connotation of attitude that's not very professional. Secondly, the paragraph is downright wrong. My "carrier" is not billing me for their application. They are billing me through Google Checkout. In fact, my receipt specifically says:

Your order is complete. Have questions? Contact Electronic Arts, Inc..
	Jan 11	Electronic Arts, Inc. charged your VISA xxx-xxxx for $1.05. "GOOGLE *Electronic Art" will appear on your billing statement.

So they're giving me attitude, then lying to me because their application or the supporting systems are buggy? Wow. Sounds like a company I've dealt with before. OH! Electronics Arts!

Google's new 15-minute return policy doesn't help matters either. I can't even get the download going in that period of time, let alone see if the app will run in that period of time.

---

So I opened a Google Checkout Ticket with the following:

When I open the application it tries to download 150MB of content to my phone, fails with an explanation, then leads me to the first step in a wild-goose chase that EA apparently calls "Customer Support". Can I get some real support please? Tell me how to get this application to download, or tell me it's broken and give me a refund instead of lying to me and trying to pass the buck (http://support.eamobile.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2345) ?

---

Their response was indicative of the very problem I'm pointing out. They point me back to their wild goose-chase:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting EA Mobile.

For questions about EA Mobile games on your Blackberry, please visit http://support.eamobile.com/appworldsupport
For questions about EA Mobile games on your iPhone/iPod/iPad, please visit http://support.eamobile.com/applesupport
Otherwise, please visit us Online at www.eamobile.com, and click "Mobile Support" (make sure to have your appropriate Country selected), so that we may provide you with the best support services possible.
Once there, you should be able to find answers to many of your questions within our Knowledge Base or FAQ sections. If you are unable to find the answer you?re looking for, you will need to create a free EA Account in order to email us your question directly.
Thanks again for your interest in EA Mobile, and we hope you continue to enjoy playing our games on your mobile phone!

Sincerely,

EA Mobile Customer Service

As if there's anything sincere about that AUTO-REPLY.

---

"First of all"... my phone is the SCH-i500 but that's not in the list I'm being given.

Secondly, this "support" is a joke. The hoops I've had to jump through are beyond comprehension for me in light of how large EA is and I've said as much on my blog (http://rainabba.blogspot.com though few subscribe there, I'm well heard on twitter with over 2,000 subscribers between my two accounts). You have ONE opportunity to change that perspective.

NFS Shift reports, "Unsupported Device", "an error has occured while downloading your game".... despite the fact that it IS supported (see http://ars.samsung.com/customer/usa/jsp/faqs/faqs_view_us.jsp?SITE_ID=22&PG_ID=2&PROD_SUB_ID=557&PROD_ID=561&AT_ID=337059) and the Android Market DID let me purchase it.

How do I download the content? If you are to tell me that it's not possible, then please proceed to a refund of my purchase (rainabba@gmail.com is my google user account).

It appears to me that this application is not designed per the Google Android API best practices otherwise it would recognize my phone and download, or give me the benefit of the doubt (since I WAS able to purchase it) and download.

How to remove the battery cover for a circa 2005 Timex Ironman Triathalon Watch

Yes, I'm serious. I have this very nice watch with 4 dials (3 sub dials below the main) that needed a new battery but EVERY article I found indicated that there should be 4 screws to remove or that I just "pop off the back" with a screw driver or knife and 99% were covered by the former.

There were no screws on my backing and NO popping it off either. I thought perhaps it would unscrew, but it was virtually impossible to get a grip to even try so I disregarded that idea. After what seemed like an eternity of googling for a solution (first by just trying to identify my exact watch, which turned out to be a waste of time because Timex has created exactly 1,723,962 variations of the Ironman), I grabbed a few pair of needle nose pliers and tried a few ways to unscrew the cover again. Once I found a pair that had a really good grip (I could squeeze hard and they didn't pop off), I got a good grip of the watch and rotated the cover counter-clockwise (from the rear view) and sure enough, it began opening!

I will add photos soon but it's late and my "easy" camera isn't handy so that will have to wait. I sincerely hope someone finds this completely obscure information useful because I only have 2 hours of sleep available now thanks to this watch and my persistence.  :)

We're not going to cook ourselves to death after all!

I've been arguing for some time that shy of nuclear armageddon, we'd have a hard time effecting the earth to the extent of devastation and even then, the earth would recover with or without us. This story lends a bit of credibility to my view.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Doubling of CO2 Not So Tragic After All?
|   from the let-the-flame-war-begin dept.
|   posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 09, @00:03 (Earth)
|   https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/12/09/0235246/Doubling-of-CO2-Not-So-Tragic-After-All?from=newsletter
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

carvalhao writes "The Register reports on a [0]study from NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that claims that new climate models that account for the effects of increased CO2 levels on plant growth result on a 1.64 C increase for a doubling of CO2 concentrations, [1]a far less gloomy scenario than previously considered."

Discuss this story at:
   https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/12/09/0235246/Doubling-of-CO2-Not-So-Tragic-After-All?from=newsletter#commentlisting

Links:
   0. http://europa.agu.org/?view=article&uri=/journals/gl/gl1023/2010GL045338/2010GL045338.xml&t=gl,bounoua
   1. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/08/new_model_doubled_co2_sub_2_degrees_warming/

Providing feedback to software developers ( taken from XDA-Developers.com )

I'm only reposting this article which I liked. It was found here and written by XDA user joe_coolish. Aside from just bringing attention to this article, I wanted to highlight a very important point he makes in the very beginning.

In the world of software development, applications pass through many phases before being released, some of which include designing, planning, coding, testing, Alpha Release, Beta Release, Release Candidate, and finally Release.This guide is intended to help the people involved in public/private beta tests that do not have experience programming, but would like to give valuable feedback to the developer.

Disclaimer

This guide is specific to programming for the Windows Mobile Operating System, specifically for the .net Compact Framework 3.5. However, the main concepts should translate over to other platforms and frameworks.

In the beginning...

First off, programming is hard. Building applications that run smoothly and are bug free require considerable amounts of time and energy. In short, software development is an emotional investment on behalf of the developer. 

Because software development is an emotional investment, developers will easily take offense to criticism [as would anyone else with their work when they too are emotionally invested]. This is where rule number one of giving constructive feedback comes in:

Rule number #1, When Giving feedback, be polite!

Read the rest of the article here.