In September 2010 my step-son and myself both purchased the Samsung Vibrant phone through T-Mobile.  I had used several other Android based phones and found I really enjoyed the features of the OS and enjoyed the premise behind Android.  When I seen the Vibrant, the rich screen, numerous features and hardware specs had me sold.

Little did I know that there were numerous issues with the phone.  My particular device had a non-functional GPS, was “hardware locked” – meaning the volume +/- and power buttons didn’t take it into the recovery screen (which meant no master reset could be performed).  After installing a custom ROM (one of Eugene’s – though I can’t remember which one I first installed), I attempted to Odin back to stock JFD – it bricked my phone.  Had the hardware issue not been present, it would not have happened.  Luckily, T-Mobile replaced my phone due to this known issue.  Unfortunately my replacement had the same GPS and hardware lock  issues.

I was able to install a fix for the hardware lock thanks to the XDA Developer Forums.  At this point, I installed a custom ROM and left it at that in Oct 2010.  Since then, I have installed Bionix 1.2 and 1.3.1 and MIUI with great success on GPS and no issues with the hardware lock.

Enter Ice Cream Sandwhich

The Vibrant was a dead phone less than a year after it was released.  T-Mobile new the issues and it seems updates for the phone ceased.  With MIUI being a Gingerbread based ROM it led to smoothness on the phone that had not existed prior.

But me being me, that’s not good enough – I wanted Ice Cream Sandwhich – Google’s latest release of the Android OS.  Having several other Android devices, some of which had ICS updates from the manufacturers, I knew I liked the newer version of the OS and wanted it on my phone.

Welcome Team Passion!

They have several variants of ICS ported to the Vibrant and I chose the Euphoria port.  Primarily, as their site states, it’s more customizable, but less stable.  Below is a short review of the ROM – some features, some settings and the setup with the Kernel/Modem combination I have found to be the best in my area and usage patterns.

 First Things First

Keep in mind, changing to a non-standard ROM can void warranties, brick your phone and cause you many numerous headaches if you don’t properly research the process first; even then, it can still cause all of those issues and then some.

To use ICS Euphoria the Vibrant needed the Gingerbread bootloader, luckily since I had been running Bionix and MIUI prior, the bootloader had already been updated properly.  Also, some custom ROMs will require you to Odin back to the Stock Vibrant ROM – which can be simple if proper steps are followed.  One last thing to point out, to avoid issues I did not use any restored apps – meaning even though I had Titanium Backup versions of my apps, I did a clean install to avoid any data restore issues causing force closes.

The install was painless and relatively quick after performing Data wipe and Cache wipe and Dalvik cache wipes, as well as a format of the System.  Yes, this does erase your phone, and at this point your phone will not boot.  That’s okay though, as at this point you go back into the recovery and install the ROM Zip from the SD card.  I did end in a bootlooop, where in the phone would get to the ICS Euphoria boot animation and reboot continuously.  To remedy this, per the instructions on the Team Passion web site, I simply rebooted into the recovery and installed the ROM Zip again.

At this point, it installed, booted and I let it sit for about 20 minutes so that all the file writes, file changes and other first boot processes could finish uninterrupted.  I did one final reboot and this time began to setup the system, which is like any other first time Android setup – you connect your Google account, set some preferences and the like and start using the phone.

In Part 2, I will go over some of the settings I have found most useful, modem binaries that have provided the best reception and data speed in my area and some nifty features that you just won’t find on a pure stock Android phone or a manufacturer modified Android version phone.

Reading several articles and seeing numerous Facebook posts about this situation:  You’re looking for a job.  Maybe you have aced the initial resume screen, phone screen and are in the face-to-face interview.  Maybe you’re not quite that far in the process yet.  It doesn’t matter.  What does matter is you know employers are searching you out on your social media outlets – Facebook, Twitter, LinkeIN, YouTube, [insert social network of the day here].  What you may not know, is they are asking for your login credentials these days.

Say What?

Yes.  Read the articles: CBS Money Watch, Boston Globe, Information Week.

Say What?

The Primary Problems With Requesting Login Credentials

1. It’s Wrong
2. It’s Unethical
3. It Violates Most Services’ Terms of Service
4. It’s Wrong
5. It’s Unethical
6. It’s Illegal
7. Did I mention, IT’S WRONG?
8. Did I mention, IT’S UNETHICAL?

Sharing Credentials Is Fundamentally Wrong For Security

As an Information Technology student, instructor, system administrator, web developer, mobile app developer by education and work history and trade, there is absolutely nothing that is proper about asking someone else for their user credentials for ANY service, even if the Business asking OWNS the service!  If the business owns the service, there should be tools to reset the user credentials and/or remove them when it is necessary to do so.  So it should never be asked of from anyone!

Anyone who has been in the industry absolutely without a doubt knows the first and foremost security precaution is to NEVER share your credentials.  EVER.

Sharing Credentials Is Unethical

By sharing credentials, any individual is essentially compromising their self ethic, work ethic and not to mention, in the case of social media, the family, friend and acquaintances ethics.  How?  Well, if one knows it is wrong to share credentials, yet do so anyway, that person is forgoing any self ethic he or she may have.  If someone is willing to do that for themselves, which in all rights self is generally more important than the business in question just based upon what I have witnessed firsthand, why would he or she not then, compromise any work ethic, should the job be offered and accepted?  If a person is willing to compromise themself, would the chances be greater or lesser that that same person would compromise the employer’s security by sharing credentials?

What about my family and friends on social networks?  How would you feel if your friends or family provided 100% full access to someone barley known for a job interview – yes 15-30 minute phone interview, maybe an hour or two in person interview does not mean  the prospective employer’s representative can be trusted –  and trusted them with the most valuable circle of family and friends.  Well, by compromising ethics, if a person allows this access, that person has now put family and friends’ information into hands of what is a complete stranger to them.  You see, family and friends may have their sharing set to “Private” which means only family and friends can see their information. In sense, it’s possible the person trying to find a job to provide for their family just ruined one of the most valuable assets – the family and friend network, and ruined any trust placed in them by that network.

Sharing Credentials Is Usually A Violation of Services’ ToS

One service for sure, Facebook, spells out this very clearly.  In their Terms of Service or ToS, they clearly define the following:

3. Safety

We do our best to keep Facebook safe, but we cannot guarantee it. We need your help to do that, which includes the following commitments:

1. You will not send or otherwise post unauthorized commercial communications (such as spam) on Facebook.
2. You will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.
3. You will not engage in unlawful multi-level marketing, such as a pyramid scheme, on Facebook.
4. You will not upload viruses or other malicious code.
5. You will not solicit login information or access an account belonging to someone else.
6. You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.
7. You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
8. You will not develop or operate a third-party application containing alcohol-related or other mature content (including advertisements) without appropriate age-based restrictions.
9. You will follow our Promotions Guidelines and all applicable laws if you publicize or offer any contest, giveaway, or sweepstakes (“promotion”) on Facebook.
10. You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.
11. You will not do anything that could disable, overburden, or impair the proper working of Facebook, such as a denial of service attack.
12. You will not facilitate or encourage any violations of this Statement.

Plain, simple English that states one will not solicit login information or access an account belonging to someone else.  Can it be made any plainer?  Can it be made any simpler?  No.

Look at number 10!  According to the article, it is a FEDERAL CRIME  to access and use a social network as someone else.  Right there, that is UNLAWFUL.  You don’t have to worry though, because it seems the powers that be would rather prosecute Grandpa for a grandchild sharing some music on the Internet than prosecute someone impersonating someone else and accessing a social network as someone else.

Finally, number 12 explicitly states that one will not facilitate or encourage violations of this Statement.  So if someone were to allow a prospective employer to access their personal account, he or she is facilitating a violation of number 5, 10 and 12.  Thus, is it possible the employer could be absolved in a case on this and it fall on to the person who “facilitated” the violation, by sharing login credentials.

Yes, that is likely how it would play out, and even if not, is there anything that strikes you as any of this being okay to do yet?  I didn’t think so.

Discriminatory Potential

I felt it necessary to separate out the potential for Discrimination.  Why?  It is unlawful for a prospective employers in the United States to deny employment based upon religious affiliation/orientation/denomination, sexual orientation, race or creed.  They cannot even legally ask these types questions on an application or during the interview process.

Yet, with most social networks such as Facebook (highlighted since they are the primary in the article and the primary network right now), people often share this information with their family and friends.  What?  Yes, often people will post a “Prayer” picture or a Gay Rights photo.  They may comment on an organization that they support that is affiliated with a specific religion or sexual orientation.  They may even support an organization that is racially oriented working on racial equality.

So how is it proper for an employer to ask for a level of information that is safe guarded by laws?  I don’t feel it is proper.  Not proper at all.

How it is proper for an employer to ask for a level of information that means the prospective employee and employer are both guilty of violating the service’s ToS?  I don’t feel it is proper to do that either.

How it is proper that an employer willingly ask a prospective employee to compromise their own personal and work ethic and share credentials for the employer to break the law?  Again, I don’t see it as being proper at all.

What if you are a Christian and the hiring manager has an aversion to Christianity.  Or if you are a Muslim or Atheist and the hiring manager has an aversion to that?

I know where I stand in my faith – but I do not feel ever that discriminating against someone is the right way to practice faith.  Same pretty goes with everything else – race, sex or whatever.  People should not have fates decided upon the basis of these beliefs, lifestyles or heritage.

A Very Bad Situation

Situations such as this compromise all groups of people, not a specific religion or sexual orientation.  They don’t exclude certain races or creeds.  Laws prevent this from being accessible during the interview and hiring process, yet by asking for unbridled access to a prospective employee’s accounts, the exact opposite is possible.

What I believe, support, think and share with my family and friends online or offline, is absolutely not the business of a prospective employer if I have chosen NOT to make it public.  If it is public, they can view it.  If it is not public, then the employer, who is likely neither family nor friend, doesn’t need access to it.

Above all, if a prospective employer is asking me to violate a service’s Terms of Service agreement or other “contract” of use, or to break the law, why would I want to work there in the first place?  Personally, I wouldn’t work for a company that asks this of me.

>>UPDATE<<

Seems Facebook is responding to this situation by urging users not to do this practice and urging employers not to ask for credentials.  This Denver Post article glazes their response, but specifically mentions, as I mentioned, the liability employers open up for discrimination by finding out otherwise protected information about potential employees.

You can read the Facebook Blog Post by Erin Egan, Chief Privacy Office, Policy and see their stance

What Do You Think?

What are your views on this?  Would you, in order to obtain employment, submit to handing over your Facebook or Twitter login?  Is one more valuable than the other?

Do you see any ethical, moral, or legal objections to stop you from handing over the information, if requested?

I was just thinking…yes as scary of a thought as that may be.  Of course, I don’t do scientific research into topics such as these, but base it off of my personal experience in life, experience of witnessing it happen to others and experience in different situations.

As such, take it as you will and enjoy the read.

The People Problem

You know the problem I see with businesses?

Nomenclature.

Human Resources.  Human Capital.

Businesses spend, use, abuse and burn through capital. They consume, waste and dry up resources. Though on the surface, it may not seem as such, many oft do this to their resources and capital. What, then, do they do with their Human Capital, or as more widely used term, Human Resources?

The same.

So often times, employees – thus referred to as Human Capital Resources – become spent, burned out, used and abused, wasted and dried up people.

Often times I see “people” problems that businesses face coming at a direct reflection of the business problems.  Operations, management, ownership and stakeholders are the decision makers, policy makers and overall responsible for the people of the business.  The employees.

Yes, each employee must choose who they are, how they conduct themselves.  Yet, as people of habit and people of reflectivity, your human capital does and reflects that which you, the owners, principles and management, do.

The Business Problem

Business wonder why productivity falters, turn-over rates are high or why they have a hard time attracting top talent. Likely, it is, that the business’ consumption and spending of human capital resources is performed in a manner that in the end their people become used, abused, wasted, dried up, spent or burned out employees.

A business with used, abused, wasted, dried up, spent or burned out employees is not competing at the level it should in their market.  The business is likely not attracting top talent.  It is also likely the business is not holding onto or retaining the top talent already present.

The Business of People

A business with employees is the sum of the employees.  Have you been to a restaurant that absolutely wowed you with service?  It is likely that the employees are truly genuine in wishing to serve you, the customer.  This, in turn, has a good chance to reflect that the business is genuine in engaging employees as people, rather than as capital or resources to be spent or consumed.

I imagine, just as likely everyone else, you have had a very poor experience at a business.  This was memorable to you, and may have been centered around an employee not providing service adequately.  It may be a poorly made product.  Whatever the case, in my experience, it can be traced back to a consumption of human resources or the spending of human capital.

Investment Opportunity

It is to an advantage that a business invests in its human capital.  To seek a return on that investment is expected.  Personally, many people make investments – whether financial, property or other types.  They nurture these investments, take care of them and expect a return on them.

Likewise, should a business invest in its people, its human resources and human capital.  The business should, just as an individual would, nurture this investment, take of it and expect the return from it.

Unfortunately, often times, the return is expected without much, if any, investment.  As well, without any nurturing or care taking, a return is expected, and sometimes demanded.  Performance is a requirement without building up.  One does not win an automobile race without performance, and performance of the automobile does not come without building up of the right parts.

Well, since it has been nearly two years since I have posted on here, I thought I should at least drop in and say “HI”.

Where did all that time go?  To work, travel and more work.

Unfortunately, not much of that time was spent with family or other enjoyable activities.  That is one of the reasons why I am no longer employed right now.  100 hour work weeks just are zero fun.  It wouldn’t be bad if there was a day off in there, but after 21 days straight, I could not continue.

Where To Now?

Well, I am working on a startup, fueling some fires in mobile development in terms of mobile web and native apps.  I am working with several recruiting firms to find the next gig/job/adventure.  Additionally, I have been spending time with my wife and children, in an attempt to make up some lost time, but also to refocus my priorities.

I still need to fix my Harley – it has an odd vibration in the front end and I haven’t figured out exactly what it is that is causing it yet.

Anyways, things are going ok, and I just wanted a quick update on here.  Maybe, just maybe, with my new found time I can begin posting more frequently.

Customer Service 101

I was always under the impression that Harley-Davidson Dealerships prided themselves on top notch customer service.  You know, when you buy a new Harley, you get a “Welcome to the Family” welcome pack.  Family?  Well, not exactly, at least not with my experiences recently with a prominent Southern Colorado Harley-Davidson Dealership.  The same dealership boasts in their email blast I received a few days after my experience that they were one of the top rated in the country.  Really?  Then, my only question is, Why?

Before, During and After the Sale

My experiences were never great to begin with.  I made them work for the sale, was not in a position to buy any “extras”, you know chrome, parts, add-ons, extended warranties and the like.  So yes, they got the bare minimum MSRP from from and not a dime more other than the standard dealership add-on costs.  To the sales guys, they did their work, made the sale and were good about it.  That was the only positive thing so far.

Now, I like to give the benefit of the doubt to everyone.  So I continued to go there, buying the parts and supplies necessary to perform the service on the bike.  Of course, I never had them perform the service – not when I can save anywhere from one to several hundred dollars and do it myself.  My family is full of bikers, gear heads and certified mechanics.  Good enough for me.  I guess maybe not for them.  Never were that friendly when I went to buy the oil and filters and what not.  Maybe I just don’t go there enough or spend enough money?

The Last Straw

I needed a new set of tires.  12,300+ miles on the original set of H-D Dunlops was WAY more than most get out of a set of tires.  Yes, they were very worn, and I was fully prepared to pay to get new ones.  The H-D web site listed the front tire at $119 and the rear tire at $165.  Sure I could have gone over to J&P Cycles or some other place and saved about $50 on the tires, but I figured the dealership had them, could put them on and balance them all in one package deal.

I called up and scheduled the appointment, it was for a Tuesday morning.  Was given a rough estimate of $460 for the whole deal.  I say rough so I account for about $50 above that just to be safe.  I drove to the dealership and got there just after 9:00 AM when the service tech said to be.  I went into the service department, and proceeded to watch 3 guys go past me several times without even an acknowledgment that I was standing at the counter.  I could hear some jokes being told in the office behind the counter and other conversation.  There was no “bell” or other device to indicate that “Hey, I am out here waiting.”

Finally, after about 15 minutes of shuffling, trying to be seen, knocking on the counter, coughing, clearing my throat and trying to get noticed, one of the techs sees me, for the second or third time, and tells the guy in the office, “Oh shit, there’s a guy out here.”  We finally discussed what was going to be done, and I was told I would receive a call when it was ready to be picked up.   At 5PM I finally called to find out what was going on.  8 hours is more than enough for two tires – and I was told, “Yeah, it’s ready.”

The Final Bill

A guy from work drove me up to the dealership since it was on his way home.  He hung around just to be sure I was good to go.  When I got there, again I waited for a few minutes, no big deal this time.  The service tech/sales guy (not sure which he was) takes me up front to enter in the service bill and complete the transaction.  He told me it was $574.  OUCH!  That is a far cry from $460.  So I asked to see the work order and/or itemized invoice.  That’s when I seen that there were charges for two tubes, two rim bands and a few other small items.  I asked, “Why did you put a tube and rim band on the back wheel?”  and continued to state, “It’s a solid rim, so it doesn’t need those.”

He asked me if I was sure, because he had inspected the bike and pulled the parts himself.  I told him to go back and look at the bike.  See a spoked rim needs the rim band, which helps prevent the spokes from rubbing the tube, and the tube is needed because the tire doesn’t seal with the spokes in the middle of it.  Fairly simple, right?  Not rocket science.

A few minutes later he comes back, shaking his head, “Sure enough, I guess we didn’t use those.  I thought for sure we did, I pulled it all myself and though for sure I pulled that for that bike.  May have been a different one we did.”

All total, it came to $517, $57 more than I was estimated, which I can live with.  But I wonder, if some newbie Harley rider who didn’t know their bike would have had this done, would they have even questioned it?  Sure it may have been an honest mistake on the service department.  However, after waiting and the morning fiasco, not getting called back, and then being over charged and charged for parts that were not even used, really makes me wonder.

Sometime ago I started thinking of a post series called Sunday Star.  I wrote the synopsis of what I wanted to do with it, created a Twitter hashtag for it (#sundaystar) and then wrote the first post and dropped it right there.  My bad.  No excuses other than laziness on this one.  I knew better too.  It was (and still is) a wonderful idea.

So as part of what I am trying to do in 2010, I will be revisiting the Sunday Star idea, developing it more, posting more short posts about people from Twitter that are Sunday Stars.  Maybe you can do the same, and just maybe together we can bring some feel good to those who have made an impact on us via Twitter.

Saturday SNAFU

With that in mind another idea for a series of posts came to mind this morning.  Saturday SNAFU.  What is this?  A look at a snafu moment of the week – whether something in my life or something I read, watch or otherwise find – you know the thing that was messed up that week.  Only instead of a gripe post, I am going to attempt to take the humorous view of it.  Why humorous?  Read here on my view for laughing more in 2010.

SNAFU?  If you go to Dictionary.com and read the entries for SNAFU you find it has origins in the 40′s, from a military background and if you compare to Information Technology, business and life in general – there are quite few snafus that we encounter.  I will pick the best of the week and post it out on Saturday, on this particular blog it will focus on the IT/business/marketing angle, on my other blog (billynab.com) it will focus on the general life snafus.

A Few Other Items Maybe?

On another note, I think my work schedule is getting back to a sense of normal.  For the past few months I have been putting in quite a bit of extra time in working out the Live Event Center for the Professional Bull Riders.  While it was hard work, took many hours away from my family, church and other normal life activities, if you go and check it out you will find a wealth of information during the PBR’s Built Ford Tough Series events.  It currently is 100% different than it was in January, is much faster on loading current ride score information, and has a completely new user interface.

In catching up with the photography (read about the Olympus E-420 I picked up in January) I have taken about 1500 photos in 2 months.  I don’t care that only about 20 of the are worth a darn, because it has been much fun learning about photography and figuring out the camera.

On February 2, 2010 I finally completed the server move to the new co-location facility. I had, in the prior weeks, backup all data and files, did a clean install of the operating system and restored all functionality to the server. The new facility will not only help achieve faster load times, but a much better environment for the server than sitting at my house under my desk. With this move you all should notice faster page load, better usability and the RSS feeds hopefully will load and refresh across the Net faster.

Sometime within the next week I will be taking this server offline so I may perform some system maintenance and upgrades. At that time, I will also be locating it in a new data center so the actual speed will be what it should be and the performance should be increased dramatically.

There will be many system updates taking place at that time – some of them will include a complete Linux upgrade, WordPress upgrades, database upgrades and more. Most of these items will be performed in multitude to lessen the down time.

Once all the upgrades are done, within a day or two after I will be moving the server to a new data center. This will allow the server to operate at a fast connection, with much more ability to serve the growing needs of several blogs and other sites hosted on it.

Where we left off

If the first part of this short Coldfusion AJAX series, we discussed using the CFDIV tag, along with the CFAJAXIMPORT tag to enable us to dynamically load content into a div (cfdiv) layout container on the fly.  The only custom javascript we made was to create a function that our href called to key the Coldfusion.navigate feature.

This time we will be discussing submitting forms asynchronously using Coldfusion, the CFDIV and CFFORM tags.  This nifty feature allows web developers to submit their form within a containing div, and have the results of that form appear directly back to the user without reloading the entire page.  In part three, the final installment, we will discuss how to build a search suggestion form control that dynamically populates a search text box as the user is typing.

CFDIV and CFFORM tags

We’ve already discussed the CFDIV tag, but now we discuss the CFFORM tag.  The CFFORM tag is specific to Coldfusion and inserts forms into the page with server and client side processing, including built in validation for the tags contained within the form.  Speaking of the tags within the form, they take on special characteristics and names, rather than using the input tag, we will be using the CFINPUT tag.

To ensure the form submits via AJAX we will simply enclose our form within a CFDIV container, keeping in mind that we need to include the proper tags via CFAJAXIMPORT.  The other thing to note is on the CFDIV we are including the the page that contains our form as the bind parameter this time. The listing below is the complete listing for the form, note I have omitted the rest of the standard page elements (head, title, body etc.) for brevity. Provided you have your form handler script setup properly, in this case I called it formprocess.cfm in the example, the form will submit within the div.

[quickcode]



[/quickcode]


In the form.cfm file we would have the following:

[quickcode]




[/quickcode]

External Library?

With Coldfusion 8 and 9, there are a full host of tools that you can use to enahnce user interactions and interfaces in your web apps.  One of those is the built in AJAX features.  While you can program your own, or even use an external javascript libarary, Coldfusion has it’s own, and it is very simple to use, cross-browser friendly and can be implemented in short order.

While you follow the rest of the post, do keep in mind that using the Coldfusion solution present, it does load files from your Coldfusion installation libraries.  These javascript files are sent to the browser just as any other javascript file.  Also remember that this is just one tag in the Coldfusion AJAX library – there are many others that support asynchronous form postings and much more.

Using CFDIV

The first thing you will want to do is import the necessary tag to use the cfdiv layout control.  You can do this by including [quickcode][/quickcode] The second thing is to ensure you have a .cfm file with the content you are loading into the cfdiv.  Say for this example we will call it content.cfm.

In your page, you simple call the cfdiv like you would a normal div layout container, with one exception – the bind parameter which tells it which .cfm page to load. Keep in mind, if you need to pass in url parameters, that is fully supported, making it that much more dynamic.

[quickcode]
[/quickcode]

Putting it together

To really make it work well, let’s show a sample page, complete with a simple javascript function that calls another Coldfusion ajax control, Coldfusion.navigate.  The Coldfusion.navigate function let’s us dynamically load the content into the cfdiv – so we could build a navigation menu and use that to dynamically load the content into our div.

[quickcode]

• Change Content

[/quickcode]
Now, we have a basic page that will load somestartercontent.cfm when the page loads, and when the visitor clicks on the change content link, it will run the javascript function that calls the Coldfusion.navigate function.  This will load the content.cfm page into the myDiv div.  Note the Coldfusion.navigate function takes two parameters in this scenario – the page to load and the div to load it in.