Need to write Hertz customer service (customer relations)? Their contact information was hard to track down (they appear to have moved, and even the BBB data is confusing).
The Hertz Corporation
PO Box 26120
Oklahoma City, OK 73126-0120
888-777-6095 x4036
405-290-2899 fax
[email protected]
Recently, I received an email from Nancy Pelosi:
Apparently no one explained to her (despite representing Internet central), that scanning your letterhead and pasting it in to your email is a bad idea. It looks worse when it’s on a funny angle.
Having text as images this must be some sort of ADA violation.
Finally, the message lacks an unsubscribe link.
Of course, Speaker Pelosi isn’t the only one with problems. Anna Eshoo, who represents the only slightly gerrymandered California 14th, home to none other than Google and Yahoo, can’t get her web presence together, either.
First, her mailing list is woefully out of date. I left her district almost three years ago, yet I still get emails from her. As with Pelosi, there’s no unsubscribe link. I’ve left her district office staff numerous emails and voicemails, but they won’t remove me from her list.
Second, when you visit her web site, you get an SSL error:
…this certainly doesn’t instill confidence her ability to keep constituent communications secure and private.
Once you submit the form, you get obtuse error messages like this one:
…1996 called, they want their form validation code back.
For those wondering what required-prefix means — that’s the formal prefix that precedes your name, such as “Ms” or “Mr.” Which, of course, shouldn’t be required in the first place.
Who needs an “SEO Mavin” anyway?
Health Beat has a terrific roundup of health care new:
Physicians and hospital leaders in Cedar Rapids began by counting how many CAT scans they were doing, only to find that in just one year 52,000 scans were done in a community of 300,000 people. “I was embarrassed for us,†confides Jim Levett, a cardiac surgeon and the head of a large physician group in Cedar Rapids. It’s just not likely that 1/6 of the population needed a CAT scan in a given year.
Via Mark Hurst: Garrison Keillor on golf:
The socially redeeming aspect of golf lies in the vast number of lawyers and bankers and managers who play it, and when you think of the damage they would do if they were at the job instead, you can see why golf courses are a wise investment for any municipality.
There are seven continents. But who’s counting?
I’ve proposed a panel for SXSW Interactive: Abort? Retry? Failwhale? Making Error Messages Suck Less.
Here’s how I described it:
An unknown error occurred. Call your system administrator. Abort/retry/fail? Bad errors are everywhere. Sure, complain on twitter. But how do we fix them? Through hilarious examples, we’ll explore the 12 ways errors fail us. Then, we’ll teach you to write lucid messages that won’t make you (or your users) cringe.
Please vote for my panel:
This year’s SXSW Music festival has joined the 21st century — they now have an interactive panel picker. That means you can vote for my panel Why Your Tour Needs House Concerts.
Here’s the official description:
Find out why house concerts make sense for your next tour. Learn how to successfully approach established house concert series, book and promote shows. Discover the key differences between a house concert and a club gig. We’ll show you what it takes to make each house concert a memorable experience.
I’ve been playing with the prerelease version of Chrome for Mac OS X and found a rather amusing bug:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg chats with the Times about the Supreme Court.
Ginsburg likes Canada.
Q: At your confirmation hearings in 1993, you talked about how you hoped to see three or four women on the court. How do you feel about how long it has taken to see simply one more woman nominated?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: My prediction was right for the Supreme Court of Canada. They have Beverley McLachlin as the chief justice, and they have at least three other women. The attrition rate is slow on this court.