Facebook banned at the office?

Perhaps you should send ManCom links to these three posts by that scholar and gentleman, JP, over at Confused of Calcutta.

If you're planning to start a blog..

Two from Blaugh:

Travel photography contest

OK Tata Byebye is hosting a travel photography contest.
Details here.

Caveat: you need to register on the site to participate.

Disclosure: For reasons best known to them (wethinks they think we are a Popular Blogger. heh), we have been asked to help judge the contest (and in a swollen-headed moment, we consented), and the organisers asked us to help spread the word.

See ya. Erm. Sorry. Oktatabyebye.

How to phish - 2

Offer helpful advice.

This post gets us the most Google love on a consistent basis. From the traffic logs, there are apparently many people who either want to learn how to hack a yahoo password, or want to know how to get back a hacked password. Every now and then, a comment pops up for moderation. This one appeared a week or so ago.

Heres away to hack a yahoo acount step by step
STEP 1:

You must have a Yahoo! email account. If you do not have, create the one at http://mail.yahoo.com.

Once created, Login using your account.

STEP 2:

I assume you have logged in. Now, click on "Compose" on the left hand frame.

In To: , type

pass_recov_bin@yahoo.com

This is the email account to which Yahoo! sends email when you request for lost password.

In the subject, type:

recov_request

In the body, type :

[ type EXACTLY AS IT IS , better copy-paste it]

We're breaking this up into two lines to preserve the column width

forgotpass?secretque=TRUE&username=VICTIM_USERNAME&
userauth=YOUR_USERNAME&pass=YOUR_PASSWORD&event=success

instructions continue, undedited.

Replace 'VICTIM_USERNAME' with the username of the person whose account you want to hack. Replace 'YOUR_USERNAME' with the username from which you logged on and 'YOUR_PASSWORD' with your account password from which you logged on. This is needed by Yahoo! for the account authentication and it assumes that this is the details of Yahoo Staff.

STEP 3:

Click Send.
You will get the password within 2 min to 2 hrs, depending on the load on the server. (I got it on next day! BUT AT LEAST I GOT IT !!!)
This is a fully tested method. But please, do not expect any support. I can just tell you that IT SHOULD WORK...

This truly ingenious. You set up a Yahoo account (pass_recov_bin@yahoo.com natch; or something similar), write out some seemingly well-intentioned advice, and wait for the mugs who want to hack into some chica's account to come along and do the hard work of setting up new yahoo accounts and then send you the user name and password to add to your set of anonymous spamming accounts. Even better, of course, if said mugs were to use their existing accounts to do this. You get a free set of the mug's friends' addresses!

How to phish - 1

Provide photographic evidence of employment.

Someone feel like telling Google?

Tomorrow we drone

Tomorrow, around 10:15am US East Coast Time, 7:45pm IST, we shall be making a 'remote presentation' to a bunch of US Government folks.

We shall be talking about our TsunamiHelp experience, as part of Collaborative Expedition Workshop #63. Our bit lasts about 45 minutes, and is part of a session called "Potentials and Realities: Opportunities and Challenges of Virtual Organizing for Humanitarian Response."

The page linked to has the schedule, and other speakers, as well as instructions on how to access the conference. We shall mainly riff on the stuff we covered in our Sarai essay (PDF), and answer questions the other participants may have.

What do you when you get a brand new iPhone? - 2

You—argh—blend it.



(You folks on the feed-readers will have to come on over to see the video. Sorry.)

And here's the bit that makes us go *toc toc* "These Americans are crazy!" The blended iPhone, which would have cost US$500 brand new, is up for sale on ebay. That's not all. The top bid, as of this posting, stands at US$ 1,058.33.

Escapist

We sent around the Guardian's Great Escape links, which feature various writers on the topic of the books they read while travelling. (Part 1, Part 2; and note that the links on the Guardian's page are bad - someone forgot t include the '.co.uk' bit, which we didn't notice until Divya pointed out the error.) Weighing in: Bill Bryson ("I read the Archer as well, of course, and am not too proud to say that I was grateful for it, too. In fact, after Pnin and the telephone directory, it was one of my favourite reads of the trip."), Kiran Desai, Dave Eggers, Pico Iyer, Ian McEwan, Jan Morris, DBC Pierre, Ian Rankin, Paul Theroux, and many others.

Naturally, we began thinking of books we have read while on the road. And found that none really came to mind. We tend to buy magazines when we travel, because we usually wind up looking out of windows, people-watching, sketching or writing when we travel. This despite packing in several books on each trip.

But perhaps your mileage (heh) varies. Care to leave a note?

(Cross-posted.)

The Perfect Day

This ad ran in 1997. I remember my then creative director sticking his head into my room, a DVD in hand, saying "You have to hear this." It was the disc that came with the latest D&AD Annual, and my PC was the only one with the software to play it (yes, yes, so very last century).

I loved it then for the fusion element—it brings together such an amazing range of musicians—and its simple brilliance as an ad; it's entertaining, and it delivers its message ("Whatever your musical taste, it is catered to by BBC Radio and Television") in no uncertain terms. Of course, the length (it's a full four minutes) wasn't a problem since the advertiser was running it on its own media. Heh.

The complete story from the YouTube page:

In 1997, the song "Perfect Day" by Lou Reed was featured by the BBC in a lengthy corporate advertisement of its own music coverage. The trailer was shown on BBC channels and in cinemas and won both awards and praise from commentators. This version was eventually released as a charity single in November of that year for Children In Need. The charity version features a host of well-known singers and performers, with Reed himself opening and closing the song, and was the UK's number one single for two weeks, selling over a million copies.

Right then. Here's your homework. Name all the singers and musicians.




Bonus videos

Lou Reed singing Perfect Day


Lou Reed singing Perfect Day with Luciano Pavarotti

Billy Collins (encore)

The good folk of JWT-NY mailed to say they had put up another poem in their series of Billy Collins Animated Poetry. So here it is.

The Country

What do you when you get a brand new iPhone?

Take the darn thing apart.