Tag: email

The renewed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails

The renewed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails

On Friday, October 28th, the political world of the US was shocked to read that the Director Jim Comey was investigating new emails in the Hillary Clinton investigation.

As you may remember, Director Comey ended this investigation several months ago. It is utterly amazing that he would announce a renewed interest in more emails. This could easily affect the vote for the President of the United States, and surely Director Comey understands this implication.

And therein gives us our first understanding of what is going on with the investigation. It is very doubtful that these emails have anything to do with Ms. Clinton’s yoga classes or seating arrangements at her daughter’s wedding. The emails, numbering more than 1,000, were found on a computer used by both disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and his wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, according to law enforcement officials with knowledge of the inquiry who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity.

In short, as famed reporter Carl Bernstein hypothesizes, I think we can assume that Director Comey already knows enough about these emails to suspect that this is a significant and major problem. To put the American electorate into a frenzy on a whim would be irresponsible of Director Comey. While I disagreed with Dir. Comey on his earlier conclusions, I do think that he is smart enough to know that he just caused Ms. Clinton a lot of pain and possibly destroyed her chances of being elected.

We probably will not get a solid explanation from the FBI in time for the election. We probably will have to choose our next President of the United States without knowing if the FBI thinks that she is a traitor. We definitely will not have a trial by a jury of her peers in time for the election.

What will the American electorate do in a world of uncertain choices and incomplete information and significant innuendo? We will know in just a few days.

Clinton’s Email Evasions

Clinton’s Email Evasions

The FBI is finally looking into Hillary Clinton’s handling of email as Secretary of State, but her campaign says not to worry because it’s not a “criminal referral” and she followed “appropriate practices.” The relevant question is why isn’t it a criminal probe?

Congress asked Charles McCullough III, Inspector General for the intelligence community, to evaluate whether classified information was transmitted or received by State Department employees over personal email systems. His office sampled 40 of Mrs. Clinton’s emails, determined that four contained classified intelligence, and passed that finding to Justice for review. This was merely a first step, and now we know the FBI is investigating the security of Mrs. Clinton’s private server.

The McCullough findings at a minimum rebut Mrs. Clinton’s claim in March that there was “no classified material” in her personal email. Extrapolate the McCullough finding of four of 40 classified emails to the 30,000 emails Mrs. Clinton gave to State, and thousands could contain classified information. State has already redacted and withheld dozens of Mrs. Clinton’s emails from its monthly, court-ordered email releases, having deemed them confidential.

She knew the rules, yet she chose to break them for her own political benefit. In the process she put state secrets at risk. This is gross negligence in the pursuit of gross self-interest.

Source: Clinton’s Email Evasions

So now the Lois Lerner emails are not missing?

So now the Lois Lerner emails are not missing?

lois lerner photoIf you have been following me here on this site or on Facebook, you know that I am quite upset about the IRS targeting of groups that disagree with the administration. I honestly believe that the government should NEVER pick sides in politics. When politicians win, it should be a requirement that they cannot use their governmental power to hamper the criticism of them. Remember those Lois Lerner emails that conveniently went missing in a “hard-drive crash”? Judicial Watch, which is suing the Internal Revenue Service under the Freedom of Information Act, says they still exist.

It seems to me that the hijacking of the IRS to suppress grass-roots opposition to the administration in power would qualify as a “government-wide catastrophe,” but I am sure the government would disagree. That notwithstanding, if the backups are “too onerous to search” now, what good would they be in an undisputed catastrophe? One can never rule out incompetence as an explanation, but this does have the feel of a deliberate effort to keep the truth concealed.

From their press release:

Department of Justice attorneys for the Internal Revenue Service told Judicial Watch on Friday that Lois Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The Obama administration attorneys said that this back-up system would be too onerous to search. The DOJ attorneys also acknowledged that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is investigating this back-up system.

Photo by SuperSleuther

RANT: The networks are being jerks about the iPad

RANT: The networks are being jerks about the iPad

Time Warner cable may not be available in your neighborhood so you may not have a dog in this hunt. To catch you up, TWC offers a free iPad app that allows you to stream live video TV feed to your device. You would think that the networks would have no problem with this. Let’s list the reasons:

  • You must be a Time Warner customer to use the service.
  • You must be a RoadRunner customer to use the service (RoadRunner is the brand name for TWC’s cable modem service).
  • You can only use this service at the specific IP address of your RoadRunner account.  You cannot be at the Starbuck’s down the street. You cannot be at your neighbors house that also has TWC and RoadRunner but a different IP address.  You cannot be traveling to a hotel in a far off city.
  • TWC’s terms of conditions on their service already allows me to plug as many TVs into my cable feed as I would like. I can have a TV in every room and closet in my house.

Evidently, some networks don’t get it. They won’t let me have a TV called “iPad” in my house.  I can plug a TV made by Mitsibushi or Sony into my living room but I cannot stream that same content to my iPad.

Therefore, if my wife wants to watch an evening soap opera such as “Desperate Housewives” I cannot go into my living room and watch the Discovery Channel. To make matters just as bad (so that ABC doesn’t get a break here), we cannot do the reverse and have her watch Desperate Housewives on her iPad while I hog the TV in the family room for Discovery.  Instead we have to record one of the shows on our DVR and watch it later.

Let’s build on that last point. Instead of watching live TV that forces me to sit through commercials, the content providers are forcing me to record the show on DVR where I am certain to fast forward through the commercials.  So by enforcing this rule that costs them no money, they make less money.

RANT: TO ALL OF THE CONTENT PROVIDERS ON TIME WARNER CABLE, WHY DON’T YOU THINK JUST A LITTLE BIT BEFORE YOU MAKE A STUPID RULE THAT HURTS YOUR ADVERTISERS AND YOUR CONSUMERS AND COSTS YOU ZERO MONEY!

Below is the email from Time Warner Cable explaining the situation.

TWCable TV App For iPad View Web Version Time Warner Cable
IMPORTANT UPDATE TO YOUR                    TWCABLE TV APP FOR IPAD(TM)
As you know, since launching our TWCable TV App for iPad on March 15th, you and hundreds of thousands of other Time Warner Cable customers have enjoyed the flexibility and freedom of being able to turn any room in your house into a TV room by using your iPad.

And, while most TV network owners agree with us that this is a great convenience for our customers and their viewers, a few networks disagree. As a result, for the time being, we have decided to focus our iPad efforts on other enlightened programmers who understand the benefit and importance of allowing our subscribers – and their viewers – to watch their programming on any screen in their homes.

Unfortunately, that means that channels from network groups Discovery Communications, Fox Cable, and Viacom will be removed from your iPad lineup, effective immediately.

•  Discovery channels: Animal Planet, Discovery, TLC
•  Fox channels: FX, National Geographic
•  Viacom channels: BET, CMT, Comedy, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike, VH1
This means that you will temporarily have a new lineup on your iPad consisting of the following channels:

A&E E! HLN
ABC Family Food Network Lifetime Movie Network
AMC Fox News MSNBC
Bravo Galavision SyFy
CNBC Hallmark Channel Travel Channel
CNN HGTV USA
Disney Channel History
We will be providing replacement channels as quickly as we can, perhaps as early as tomorrow. You won’t need to change anything or update your App in any way to receive these or the additional channels.

In the meantime, we will pursue all of our legal rights against the programmers who don’t share our vision. Your enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm of the programming partners who have embraced the App – rather than those who are solely focused on finding additional ways to reach into wallets of their own viewers – has convinced us more than ever that we are on the right path. We will continue to fight to ensure that you have access to the content you pay for, no matter which screen in your home you choose to view it on.

For up-to-the-minute information on what’s happening, please visit:
www.IWantMyTWCableTVApp.com
.

Why are these channels going away from the TWCable TV App for iPad?
Unfortunately, the owners of those channels don’t yet share our vision for making it easy for consumers to view the content they’ve already paid for on different screens within the home. We would rather use our technical resources to distribute the channels of programmers who agree that their content should be seen on any screen inside your home, while we pursue legal solutions that would let us continue deploying this Application.

Will other channels be put up in their place?
We’re working to add new channels to the lineup as quickly as possible.

Will more channels be dropped?
At this time, we don’t expect any additional TV network owners to to demand that we remove their channels from the iPad App.

Why didn’t Time Warner Cable anticipate this before launching the iPad App?
We firmly believe that this App is no different than delivering our signals to another TV in the home, and are surprised and disappointed that some TV networks see it differently.

Top 5 Ways To Accidentally Become a Spammer

Top 5 Ways To Accidentally Become a Spammer

I just read a great article over at The Marketing Tech Blog that I think anyone in sales or marketing should read. In fact, I think everyone in business should pay attention to number 3!  I am not going to quote the entire article on this site but I will give the 5 bullet points. You can jump over to the original site and enjoy the full article.

  1. The generic private message
  2. Preemptive Disclaimers
  3. Abuse of carbon copy
  4. The Soft Opt-In
  5. The Random Cause Invitation

Number 3 is most interesting as so many people violate the simple rule:

Only use carbon-copy if you are 100% sure that 100% of the people on the list know each other well AND would appreciate the chance to immediately Reply-All AND would immediately appreciate any Reply-Alls.

Have you ever violated the principle of #3?  I know that I have and I know that I get at least 5 work emails a day that violate this rule!

How to handle 200 emails a day

How to handle 200 emails a day

Mastering Technical Sales has a great article on their site explaining how to handle 200 emails a day. It is purposely written for suggestions to their target audience which is the pre-sales technical folks that are the brains in the IT sales world.

I pulled out a few of the more relevant paragraphs that were relevant to all regarding of profession but I suggest that you read the entire article.

I will start this suggestion list by sharing one of my habits. “Don’t file – SEARCH”.  Install one of the several desktop search indexing tools such as Google Desktop Search, Windows Desktop Search, or Copernic Desktop Search. Then, when you have read and are finished with an email, move it to a “Done” folder and forget about it.  Don’t try to figure out if you should file the email in the customer folder, the folder of the person that sent you the email, the folder for product problems or whatever.  Most people end up spending way to much time worrying about their filing system or trying to find an email in the file system.  Don’t worry about it – just search for the email in one of the above systems let the engine do the heavy lifting for you.

Unplug the machine. Almost every email system has a setting for receiving mail which says “poll every xx minutes”. Either set xx to something like 60, or turn it off completely and only synchronize your mail manually. You will be amazed how much time this saves you, as many problems will get fixed by other people and you don’t have to needlessly, and constantly, switch thought processes from one task to another and back again.

Train the people who email you the most. Especially if you are in a customer-facing position, they (the righteous emailers) have no right to expect you to respond inside 30 minutes. So, even if you can respond rapidly to these folks, don’t do it – wait for a couple of hours when appropriate. Should you decide to start answering emails between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon you are on the slippery road to electronic assimilation by the machine. Can you say CrackBerry?

Make your inbox a real inbox. It is a place where new mail arrives and waits to be processed. It is not a place to store pending tasks/to-dos or even to keep emails you don’t know what to do with. Your working inbox should be less than a screen full of messages, which equates to 20-25 emails for most of us.

Color up your world. Microsoft Outlook has a nifty feature which allows you to color code messages based upon who sent them. If you are a high email individual or a visual learner this can prove to be very useful. My system does the following:

  1. Red – My boss, his boss, executives and my primary HR contact.
  2. Green – My direct reports
  3. Purple – Anyone else in my department/division
  4. Grey – My peers within the company
  5. Brown – My “watch list” – typically Sales Directors and Area Managers
  6. Yellow – Automated Expense, HR, Purchasing and other approval requests

Take a trip to OHIO. The acronym stands for Only Handle It Once. When you do perform your hourly check of your inbox – take immediate action whenever you can. Either respond if it is a quick item, read and file if it is an FYI, delete it whenever possible (unless of course it is from a customer and you are the primary recipient), delegate it if appropriate or flag it as a task/to-do and move it to a “Take Action” folder. Just don’t let it sit in your inbox once you
have read it.

Your Mother was wrong! You do not have to send back a thank you every time someone helps you out. Reserve the thanks for special occasions, and responding to the nice people in HR, Finance and the office manager. Better yet, if you are in the same office, get off your rear and go say it in person.

Make your boss more efficient. Assume that your direct supervisor is even busier than you are, and if you can save her from thinking too hard it will reflect well upon you. So try phrases like “Julie – please read through point #3 below and reply with your approval or any questions by Thursday”. 95% of bosses will love this, and for the other 5% it gives you an opening to find out exactly what they do want. Once again, less room for misunderstandings and fewer last minute panics and reworks.

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