Lonnie Knows Everything

I don’t normally review films but I had to in this instance .. I’m a huge fan of street art and I’ve been following Banksy news for a number of years. When I heard news of this documentary I just had to check it out but strangely, forgot about it..  I was browsing netflix and saw it, I got excited and immediately checked it out not having a clue what I was in for.

Ultimately the film maker “Mr. Brainwash” himself focuses less on street art and more on himself which is frustrating to me, but you still get quite a few interesting glimpses… you watch the film really kind of bothered by what you see… you see a guy who seems somewhat egocentric and who obviously has loads of cash to just throw away at a whim .. traveling for years on end leaving his wife behind to tend to the children, hiring scores of people to do the artwork credited to him… you kind of don’t know whether or not you should love him or hate him… he ultimately seems like a bit of a dick, using those around him to gain fame… and he ultimately seems to be someone who’s used extremely talented people to forge a name .. but it was at the end of the film when I was thinking .. “f*ck that guy” .. that a realization hit .. perhaps this film is in it’s own way a piece of art ..

One has to consider that the street artists did appear in the film and obviously ok’d their interviews and image to be used, and even the bits where they put the filmmake down are included.. when you realize that.. either it is a raw and brave bit of work, or it’s a finely crafted bit of art in and of itself..  I prefer to believe the latter… These guys are brilliant and I really think they’ve chosen to use this medium to the full potential .. otherwise…  the film maker is nuts and they just didn’t realize what they’d gotten into.

Nevertheless! .. check it out.. it’s an entertaining look into the brilliant street artists out there.. and if you’re reading Banksy … good on ya… and Mr. Brainwash, I’m glad your site didn’t have an active contact form.. I was going to write to tell you how deplorable it is to just copy other’s style, but given time to think.. made me realize I perhaps looked at things entirely wrong.

Incoming search terms:

• quotes exit through the gift shop
• exit through the gift shop
• avoid dumped
• get over guy cheated
• get over your ex husband
• getting over a spouse affair
• how do i get over my ex
• quick ways to forget your ex
• quotes from exit through the gift shop
• quotes getting over your ex

Previously I posted a perl script who’s job was to clear out your wall posts, it worked but was slow and with the recent facebook updates.. it may no longer function.

I was browsing for an alternative that was simple and stumbled on a greasemonkey script to clear recent activity,  adapted that code to suit my needs and the result is my greasemonkey wall cleaner.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/92664

Incoming search terms:

• facebook wall cleaner
• clean facebook wall
• CLEAR FACEBOOK WALL
• facebook clear wall
• greasemonkey facebook wall
• greasemonkey delete facebook wall
• greasemonkey facebook wall cleaner
• greasemonkey clear facebook wall
• clear facebook wall greasemonkey
• wall cleaner facebook

A client contacted me to tell me that customers were complaining that they hadn’t been getting their order confirmations in e-mail and a few also complained that they hadn’t been getting the lost password e-mails either.. it was more than just one or two so they notified me and I in turn contacted SiteLink support..

The result was nearly a full week long exchange of messages back and forth, MOM support telling me to re-publish all of the data and SiteLink asking for order numbers to investigate the situation ..

The frustration came to a head when I myself noticed a pattern, all of the customers who were complaining had aol e-mail addresses.. so I asked SiteLink support to check to see if they were blocked by AOL for spamming ( AOL is quite trigger happy about spam blocking, to a fault ) .. the response I got back from SiteLink just made me upset… indeed AOL was the issue, but not because AOL blocked SiteLink… but because SiteLink blocked AOL!

Specifically .. SiteLink has excluded AOL from all e-mail messages because AOL kept tagging them as a spammer, so their reaction was foolishly to simply stop sending e-mail to AOL .. period ..  They did this and didn’t notify any one about it, so none of the SiteLink businesses know about it and the customers who place orders and never get a confirmation have no clue.. also if you are on AOL and you request your password because you legitimately lost it, it will tell you it e-mailed you.. even when it did not! .. this lead to a load of wasted time.

When I said I was bothered by this revelation, the SiteLink rep said “Well if AOL is spamming our emails, then they are excluding us actually” ..  which means to say if they are marking sitelink as spam, they are .. yadda yadda.. bad wording but the point was obvious .. my point to him in response was that.. no, in this instance they prevented the emails so they are to blame..  had AOL blocked the messages due to their nazi like spam filtering then I could say to our client that the issue was with AOL externally and that would be understood, but to now have to tell the client that their own hosting provider blocked all of AOL without notice?? not a pleasant bit of news.

They handled this foolishly and at very least should have notified their clients so hours upon hours of wasted time could be avoided.

Incoming search terms:

• sitelink sucks
• lonnie knows mom
• mom sitelink
• mom sitelink reviews
• clear facebook wall
• sitelink mom reviews
• SiteLINK M O M reviews
• sitelink M O M hosting
• sitelink departments vs mom departments
• sitelink complaints

Brennan himself told me about this a few days ago but I wasn’t sure about the air date and figured it would be a bit disrespectful to post about in in advance of a formal announcement.. but I’ve had several people write in to tell me so I figured I’d mention.

Incoming search terms:

• Brennan S Eden
• Brennan Eden
• brennan eden today show
• Brennan S Eden update
• brennan s eden today show
• brennan eden on the today show
• Brennan Eden today
• today show brennan eden
• brennan eden on today show
• today show with brennan eden

Let me start by stating for the record that I have no affiliation with Credit Karma ( www.creditkarma.com ) at all .. I found them using a google search while looking for an alternative to freecreditreport.com since I got stuck with them before and had a hard time cancelling. I was looking for something that was TRULY free..

I found Credit Karma when someone suggested it as an alternative via a yahoo question someone asked, so I decided to do my own research and read a few positive reviews before deciding to try it out for myself.. so without further delay..

Truly Free

During the signup process they don’t ask for any banking information or for a credit card, they do require you to give over your social security number, which is expected since that information is required in order to do a credit inquiry. They also asked a couple of questions to verify that I am who I claimed I was, some multiple choice questions based on information the gleaned from my credit history.

Intuitive Interface

It’s very simple to navigate the site, everything is pretty well self explanatory and the information is easy to find! While the site is indeed ad supported, the ads are not intrusive and there are no popups.

Useful Tools

The site provides a few useful tools such as the ability to compare credit cards, Auto Insurance, Banks.. etc .. But one of the most useful tools I found was the Credit Simulator that lets you see the results of certain actions on your credit score. I was able to see for example, what adding a new credit card would do to my credit … This was very useful to me in deciding what actions I would take to improve my score.

Unlimited Credit Queries

That’s right, you can go back every day and check your credit score if you like and it won’t hurt you because they are doing a soft check as opposed to a hard check. Basically they are just getting the basic information which is free.  When you go in for a loan or apply for a new credit card, the issuer will typically do a hard check and too many of those will damage your credit score.  Worth mentioning here is that one of the bits of information that Credit Karma provides, is the ability to show you how many hard checks have been made against you.

The Bad

There’s not much negative I can say about Credit Karma except that you don’t get specifics about what is knocking your score down, it showed that I have an auto loan but it doesn’t tell you who the loan is with.. so if there were some bad stuff on there I wouldn’t know where to go to correct it. With that said, Credit Karma is still immensely useful as an indicator that something is wrong..  When you sign up, you have the option to have a monthly e-mail go to you that will tell you your score..  If you notice a signifigant drop, you can take further action by going to www.myfico.com directly and pulling your credit information up for a fee.  www.myfico.com is as good as it gets for getting your credit score in detail because these are the people who created the algorythm that your score is based on.

Con or not?

I can’t say for sure, I can only say that nothing has happened to me.. they don’t ask for payment and I’ve not receieved any junk mail! the community seems helpful and the information / tools are useful .. I would recommend it to any of my friends!

Bottom Line: I strongly recommend Credit Karma ( www.creditkarma.com ) .. as with anything like this, always do your own research before handing over your personal information. I’m not responsible for you, only you are =)

Incoming search terms:

• credit karma scam
• creditkarma com review
• credit karma reviews 2010
• creditkarma com scam
• CreditKarma com reviews
• credit karma alternative
• credit karma review 2010
• is credit karma safe
• Search creditkarma
• credit score what if simulator