Daily Dose of Common Sense

Netflix may be a great service but I’ll never subscribe. The reason? Pop-under ads. If you are a web surfer, you’ve seen these ads come up and then disappear quickly as you visit various sites. Then, as you’re closing windows, there’s a stupid Netflix ad taking up space.

I know you can block them with a pop-up blocker, but that doesn’t work all of the time. For some sneaky reason, the pop-under ads sometimes get around it.

If you’re fed up like me, here are a few sites that can help: How to Block Netflix Popup in Firefox, How Can I Get Rid of Netflix Popups?, Netflix Pop-ups in IE8.

Netflix should STOP advertising like this. It doesn’t win them any friends, only enemies.

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OK, I admit that we have a Slap Chop in my house. You’ve seen this product advertised, as well as many others, on late-night TV. Sham Wow, Snuggie, Flobee, Shoedini, Topsy Turvy…the list goes on and on. Do they work? Are they worth the money? Well, Boston.com tested a few of these products for you.

(In case you’re wondering, I think the Slap Chop is a fine product. It’s great for nuts, and other things that are a bitch to chop. Not an easy product to clean, though. Still, it works.)

Infomercials are big business. Even though we’re in a recession, infomercial sales are still booming to the tune of $150 million per year. Even the pitchmen have become famous in recent years. The purpose of the infomercial is to make the product look fun, easy to use, and indispensable. And let’s not forget a sense of urgency. “Order now and we’ll throw in….” But, what you see isn’t always what you get.

Don’t let yourself get sucked in at 3AM! It’s probably just your insomnia talking, but you don’t really need a Magic Bullet. It’s important to read the reviews and do some research before you buy these products. There are several web sites that have already done the heavy lifting for you, such as Consumer Reports, Good Housekeeping, and Honest Infomercial Reviews.

[Via the fine folks at Pat's Papers.]

Huffington Post has a great slideshow of the most frivolous lawsuits of all time. The stupidity is mind-numbing, and makes you wonder about humanity in general. The woman who sued McDonald’s for hot coffee is there, but there are plenty more where that came from. Like the woman who sued a haunted house because it was scary. Ummm….duh. Didn’t anyone on this list have a person who could talk some sense in him or her?

Yes, Lindsay, you made the list, too.

An Illinois woman has just been convicted of reckless homicide because she was painting her nails while driving, during which she hit and killed a motorcyclist. I’m all for multi-tasking, but who would think it’s a good idea to disable your hands while trying to drive? Like the prosecutor said, “It is not the same as biting a sandwich … it’s a voluntary disablement. She might as well have been in the back seat making a sandwich.”

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[Via the fine folks at Pat's Papers.]

At the top of the “Things I Better Not Ever Receive as a Gift” list is the Better Marriage Blanket. While the name may imply a blanket that gives you more hours in the day or more patience for your spouse, the real purpose is to absorb farts. I know you’re thinking this is an SNL commercial parody, but it’s a real product to eliminate bedtime odors.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxVhqkF9KgU

If your intestinal distress is so awful that you need to buy this blanket, then you need to sleep alone.

[Via the fine folks at AdWeek]

I know it’s not very PC to say this right now, but I’m one of those parents that occasionally let my kids eat fast food. We eat the majority of our meals at home where I can watch fat, salt, and sugar intake. But, as a fun outing, we take the two little ones to eat at McDonalds and then play on the indoor playground.

And, sometimes my kids get a toy with the meal that they are mildly interested in. For a minute.

Well, Santa Clara, California wants to take those toys away. They have passed an ordinance where meals sold to children have to meet certain nutritional guidelines in order to include a toy.

Any meal that has more than more than 485 calories, more than 600 milligrams of sodium, more than 35 percent of total calories from fat or more than 10 percent of calories from added sugar, or any individual food item more than 200 calories cannot include a toy under the ordinance. Violations would be punishable by fines of as much as $1,000 for each meal sold with a toy.

Now, I know there is a childhood obesity epidemic in this country. No one can deny that U.S. kids need to eat better. I have watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution in West Virginia with interest, and I’m encouraged by the idea of National Salt Reduction Initiative. It seems like a ball is rolling that will improve the quality and quantity of our kids’ food. But…the toys? Really? Talk about taking your eye off the big picture.

Should we take away the crayons and color books at the sit-down chains? Their food isn’t much healthier for kids:

For example, popular choices on the Kid’s Menu at Chili’s Grill & Bar might get your child anywhere from 210 to 890 calories just for the entree and a side dish, even before you add on a drink, dressing (like a side of ranch dressing for the Chicken Crispers – 240 calories), and dessert.

Do you really think that our kids are fat because of the Avatar figurines included in a Happy Meal? The toys aren’t the lure; it’s the FOOD. Deep-fried and salty, the food is what most kids really want. And, that’s not the end of the world every now and again.

Even when served with a toy.

This post originally appeared on RationalMoms on Monday, May 3, 2010.

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They say that in real-estate, location is (at least almost) everything. The same can be said about the files on your computer. To put the issue in a more metaphysical light, if you don’t bother to know where you put something, how can you expect to find it?

When PCs first became available, the concept of location was easy for most users to understand, as there was usually a floppy disk involved, with (theoretically, at least) a label on it. Location was tangible, physical.

Now, we use increasingly large hard drives where we can create a virtually limitless collection of “nested” (one inside the other) folders to store our files in.

Just as it was incumbent on us to label and organize our storage when it was in small physical containers like floppies, it’s even more important to do so now, at least if we want to find our stuff.

When someone can’t locate a file and they ask me for help, nine times out of ten their answer to the question “Where did you put it?” is either “Huh?” or “I don’t know.”

Here’s one common scenario: Someone gets an email attachment and they open it (usually by double-clicking) without saving it in a known location first. They make some edits, then something goes wrong. The power goes out, the computer hangs, the reply email with the edited file doesn’t get sent or saved, etc. Poof…gone.

The way to avoid heartache like this is to NEVER open a file from an external source (email, a web site or application, etc.) without saving it to a location of your choosing first. It usually just takes one extra click (choose Save instead of Open, for instance) to make sure that you know where the file is being saved instead of just relying on the default setting of whichever program you are using.

I’ll end with an example of how crazy it is to do anything else. If you handed a clerk a piece of paper and said “Just file it anywhere,” would you ever expect to find it again?

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