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Arm yourselves!
It turns out that we’re not the only ones who despise this practice (not the people, mind, they’re just doing what they do because they couldn’t get a job at Maccas...) and a couple of organisations are trying to mobilise an opposing force. It’s simply a door version of the good old No Junkmail sticker.
The Consumer Action Law Centre in Victoria is trying to push for door-to-door badgering to be discontinued, and the good people at ShopAround will even send a sticker out to you free (I’m guessing Australia only.) In case you’re thinking that’s too much like a free lunch, it makes sense when you realise that they’re in the electricity and gas supply comparison game, and guess what sort of companies most frequently doorknock? Sounds like a more than fair deal to me.
It’ll be interesting to see how effective it is.
This post brought to you by the letter R.
The Audacity!
Read today in the state tabloid (and it is a tabloid
these days) that the Office of Fair Scamming
Trading is going to allow door to door sales critters to knock on
doors until 8pm. Why? Because businesses are
whining that the Do Not Call register (which
doesn’t work anyway, yes I’m looking at you, 02
8xxx xxxx spammers) is hampering their efforts to
get in our face.
Hey Marketards. Listen. If we want to buy something,
if we want to consider buying something,
we’ll do our own research and make the call. Want to
rule yourself out of that process, fine, send your
door to door critters and start your badgering. Be
sure to tell us your company name when the door is
closing so we know not to conduct business with you.
Our home is sanctuary. It’s where we spend time
relaxing, letting the world go on without us. I’m
sure we’re not the only ones.
Don’t. Just, don’t.
It's probably nothing.
Mighty Mouse cleaning tip.
That’s a wireless
Mighty Mouse right there. One of
the most handy and yet frustrating peripherals
Apple came out with. IMHO it beats the pants of
any Logitech mouse1. It’s wireless,
it’s really miserly on batteries, it’ll
track on pretty much any surface, it has squeeze
buttons (cuteness would be if someone did an app
that made a mouse squeak when you squeezed them!)
and a really nifty - and very smooth - two axis
scrollball.
And there, [both of] my dear readers, is the angst.
See how small that thing is and how close the
tolerances are? Well, you could just imagine how
sensitive it is to grease and grit. Things start out
okay but after a few weeks I found myself having to
clean it more and more often. Oh, and cursing at it
for being recalcitrant in scrolling. I’d followed
Apple’s recommended cleaning procedure, which would work for a
short time, but it was always a case of doing
battle with it the very next day. Kei Ishii on
TidBITS Talk recommended a simple, and yet
very effective technique. Flip the mouse
over, then rub the scrollball all kinds of
directions on plain white paper. What this does is
leave nice greasy tracks on the paper, but more
importantly, the scrollball feels like new
afterwards. Seriously, like new.
Thank you, Kei!
Unwilling to comment on relationship with
paper.
1. Yes, I know, Logitech do nice kit too, but until
they start producing grown-up,
non-receiver-dongle-needing bluetooth
rodents, I’ll pass. If you have to take up a USB port
for a receiver dongle, you may as well just stick
with a wired mouse. All current Macs have bluetooth
built-in, use it.
Ahem. Sorry. Pet peeve. 
