Author Archives: jik

Lowe’s pulls a Home Depot on me

Dear Lowe’s, I like you better than Home Depot because your customer service is better than theirs. Or, at least, I thought it was. Perhaps I was wrong. When a customer orders a product through your web site, it is not OK to wait nine days before calling to inform the customer that the product… Read More »

PayFlex gone bad?

In 2009, I wrote about my positive experience with PayFlex, the company administering my FSA at a former employer. By that time I had experienced several FSA administrators, and PayFlex was in my opinion by far the best. This blog posting is a retraction of that earlier review, which I believe is no longer accurate.

My current take on Boston’s mayoral candidates

I’ve spent some time taking a look at all of the declared candidates for Boston’s mayoral election. Here are my initial reactions, for those who might be curious. People worth considering All of these are people I’d be happy to see elected. John Connolly (Web site.) Current City Councillor. I very much liked what he… Read More »

Dilbert was broken, now fixed in comics aggregator

Yesterday, the folks over at Dilbert.com changed their RSS feed, which is what the comics aggregator was using before to fetch Dilbert, so that method no longer works. Therefore, I had to refactor the Dilbert support in the aggregator. It should be working again. Please let me know if it isn’t. And please consider supporting… Read More »

UPDATED: Awesome flash charger for portable device power on the road

UPDATE [2013-07-31]: I have withdrawn my recommendation for No More Rack, and I discourage you from patronizing them. It’s rare for me to be so pleased with a particular merchant that I feel compelled to rave about them on my blog, and even rarer for me to feel that way about a particular product, but… Read More »

Fumes in MBTA buses: significant progress

I met several months ago with MBTA management to present my concerns about toxic fumes in certain MBTA buses. Thank you, again, to State Senator Will Brownsberger and his  Legislative Counsel and Policy Advisor, Michael Buckley, for making that meeting happen. I am pleased to report that the MBTA took my concerns seriously, investigated them, and… Read More »

Mamadou Diallo still, inexplicably, using my email address all over the internet

For some inexplicable reason, some guy who identifies himself as Mamadou Diallo, a.k.a. Bouba Diallo, has been creating accounts all over the internet using my email address for over two years now. I’ve written about this several times before. It’s still going on… I just got email indicating that he created a Yahoo! account (“m.diallo76”)… Read More »

Dyn jumps the shark, tries to strong-arm free accounts into paying

I’ve used Dyn, Inc.‘s free dynamic service for many years to maintain a DNS entry for my home internet connection. Their free account allows you to create one or two dynamic DNS entries underneath those domains. They provide software that updates your dynamic DNS record automatically when your IP address changes, usually because your ISP… Read More »

MA Supervisor of Records denies my appeal based on specious legal reasoning

To: Shawn Williams, Massachusetts Supervisor of Records Cc: Lori Sullivan,  the staff attorney in Williams’s office who research my appeal Cc: Susan Krupanski, the MBTA employee who denied my legitimate public records request Cc: Will Brownsberger, my state senator and an all-around good guy Cc: On the Media Cc: The Boston Globe Cc: The Boston… Read More »