Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Signature

Thumbprint as signature y/n?

gomichild — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:02:15 -0800

Pros & Cons of using thumbprint as signature? My bank here in Japan recently gave me a lot of trouble over my signature which they claimed didn't look exactly the same as the one they had scanned into the system (although it's plainly the same one on my passport). Really though I'm not particularly attached to my signature, but I can't use a hanko (stamp) on my Australian documents (or technically legally my Japanese ones as I did not register under my husbands name and can't use his hanko or the unregistered one I do have).

I'm thinking I want to say bugger it all and use my thumbprint as my signature as it seems to me to really be the most secure authentification available.

What are the pros and cons about changing over from a signature to a thumbprint? Has anyone done it? What problems will arise?

Some context - I live here in Japan now but only my bank needs a signature. The other documentation is based on my Australian passport so that's probably where any issues are going to crop up.

Has anyone successfully negotiated the Medallion Signature Guarantee process?

ackptui — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:40:29 -0800

What exactly is a Medallion Signature Guarantee, and how is it supposed to work? I have been working on transferring assets for an estate, and have been amazed at how complex and redundant all of this has become. Our bank supposedly offers this as a free service to their customers, but makes the process so onerous as to drive said customers away. The amount of copied paperwork generated by the bank manager (obvious ass covering for her and the bank) was staggering next even to that for the stock-transfer agents. She bitched and moaned the entire time about how much of her time we were taking, yet she obviously did not know what she was doing, and from my perspective that was the time-killer. I tried my best to make sure that the i's were dotted and the t's crossed in the right places, but I have no confidence that it will not all come back again with requests for scads more documentation and signoffs. Is there any way to make this a little more foolproof?

How to protect Werner Herzog's signature on a pair of Chuck's?

barfmann — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:21:56 -0800

I got Werner Herzog to sign one of my Chuck's. He used a permanent Sharpie. I'd like to continue wearing the shoes (it's just a signature), but I'd like the sig to fade as slowly as possible (it's Werner Herzog's signature OMG!) What is the best way to protect Werner Herzog's signature (in Sharpie) on a pair of Chuck's?

Why can't people just use their thumb and a sharpie?

shoebox — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:32:48 -0800

I dislike my signature and would like to completely change it. Would this lead to any problems down the road concerning credit cards/legal documents etc.? Does it even matter? I was 10 or so when I started using my current sig, which is basically a ripoff of my dad's style but with my name. I first tried to change it around when I got my licence, but was advised against it and warned that I would be 'in trouble' if my signatures did not match all the others I had signed on identification up till then. Now, several years later my wallet contains at least 5 things at all times with my signature on it, and that doesn't cover things like my passport etc.

So if I were to just abruptly alter my signature radically tomorrow and just sign the new way on important documents as they get updated, would that cause problems? Do I even need to get all my documents updated with my new sig.? Or would a better approach be to stick with my current signature for legal documents and mess around elsewhere? Thanks in advance!

Do you add a suffix to your name in your email signature?

dudleybdawson — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:46:07 -0800

Do you add a suffix after your name in your email signature? For example, if you are a certified project manager, do you add PMP after your name? Or if you have your MBA, do you add 'MBA' after your name? If so, why? I ask because I believe in 99% of the cases where I've seen a suffix, it is unnecessary and not used within the right context or it just simply isn't worthy of being added after a name. I would be interested in some responses arguing both sides of the issue.

How to witness a will signing?

raisingsand — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:25:59 -0800

Does the order matter when a will is witnessed and notarized? I've written our wills, using legal software. They're printed out, ready to go. The software says they need to be witnessed by three people and notarized. I can get three friends here for dinner to witness the signatures. Or I can get the unsigned will and ourselves to a notary. I can't quite figure out how to get three witnesses and a notary in the same place at the same time. Must the signatures be notarized for the will to be valid? Can our signatures just be witnessed? Or vice versa, can the signatures be notarized and we ask our friends to witness the signatures after the fact? We are in Tennessee.

"No kings," ok, sure, but wtf?

mercredi — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:15:36 -0800

what does the sign off "no kings," mean? I've seen on a couple of letters the sign off

No kings,

Name

And couldn't figure out the meaning/origin. Any ideas?

Are there smart Outlook signatures that can choose to be displayed as an image or plain text depending on the receiver?

schindyguy — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:49:36 -0800

Is there a way to have a image signature in Outlook that will display predefined plain text in the event the receiver can only receive plain text emails? I am using Outlook 2007 signatures and I currently have a couple different signature profiles setup. One is an image footer that has all my information as an image on the footer. The other is the same info as plain text. I wanted to send out only one considering I have no idea if the receiver is using plain text or html email that has image support.

Is there a way to have a image signature in Outlook that will display predefined plain text in the event they only can receive plain text emails (like a backup or embedded html code that will display the plain text if the image doesnt show up?)

Beautiful and/or clever and/or goofy signatures.

EnormousTalkingOnion — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:04:40 -0800

What's the coolest signature you've ever seen (pen, not email)?

Who painted this?

esunshine — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:45:49 -0800

Translation filter: Can you help me ID this artist signature? A few years ago I bought a painting on Ebay that I love love. I do not, however, know who the artist is, as it is signed in Kanji or Kana/Hiragana. Can anyone out there tease out a name for me?
Image of signature

Should I get letters of recommendation signed across the envelope?

GPF — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:31:37 -0800

In applying to grad school, the folks writing letters of recommendation didn't sign the flap of the envelope and one doesn't have a postmark because it was sent via FedEx. How big of a deal is this? I don't know what happened. They had a form that indicated they should sign across the flap of the envelope. I mentioned it in an email and letter. I talked to two of them in person, yet none of them did it (!).

They sent the letters to me as I am to include them with my application. The signature requirement is obviously a check against dishonest applicants, which I am not. The first one that came in I didn't worry about because it had a postmark from a distant place so I thought that might be good enough. But another arrived overnighted from FedEx, so the stamped envelope that I provided didn't get postmarked.

The deadline is December 1 (16 days). Should I resend these envelopes for their signatures - with a return envelope? Ask them to print them out again and send them to me? Chill out, and send the admissions committee what I have? Ask my recommenders if I may sign their name by permission?

I guess I'm curious if the admissions committee is going to really treat them as suspect without the signatures? I suppose they should.

My first thought is to send them back for signatures ASAP.

Mildly stressful as the deadline approaches...

Sex Pistols signing?

MrMustard — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 01:28:20 -0800

Is this really Sex Pistols' drummer, Paul Cook's autograph? An acquaintance recently purchased a copy of the Big Issue from a seller in Finchley Road. Said seller then claimed to be Sex Pistols' drummer, Paul Cook, stating that he was selling the Big Issue for larks and giving the money to other sellers, before insisting on signing the mag. There are further pictures of the autograph here and here. Comparisons with stuff on the web (here and here) are, to my mind, inconclusive. The acquaintance also claims that the seller looked enough like Paul Cook to not rule it out. So can anyone confirm the truth or otherwise of this unlikely tale?

What does it say on the back of my painting?

iconomy — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:56:58 -0800

Could you tell me what's written on the back of my painting? The canvas is stretched and stapled onto wood, and there are some characters on it which I can't read. It's partially pen and partially marker. pen marker whole back

I'd like a dynamic signature in Gmail. Possible?

wordsmith — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:51:38 -0800

I'd like a dynamic signature in Gmail. Possible? I'd like my signature to display how long it takes me to respond to the email I'm replying to. Possible? Pipe dream? I'm not a programmer, so a custom solution isn't possible.

Why bother trying to sign electronic signature pads?

J-Garr — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:10:16 -0800

Electronic signature capture devices are not designed to allow someone to accurately sign them. So why not switch from using my signature to an easy to draw secret symbol? Many stores now have electronic signature capture devices on their Point of Sale devices. I find it silly to try and use my actual signature on these devices because normally they're at a funny angle, there is no where to rest your hand, the stylus pen does not accurately track, etc. Over the last few years as I see more and more of these my signature has transformed from something slightly resembling my actual chicken-scratch of a signature to some random squiggly lines.

In the spirit of the ZUG credit card prank, why shouldn't I start drawing a little symbol instead of signing my name? I'd always draw the same thing. It'd be something I could accurately and easily replicate on the silly little pads. If someone actually did steal my credit/debit card and tried to forge my signature it'd be easy to show that I always draw a hash mark with a circle around it (or whatever) while the thief actually tried to sign my name.

To do such a thing would I need file a copy of "my official 'signature'" with my bank? This is all in theory of course. Though what possible issues might arise from using my squiggly line signature on electronic pads instead of making an attempt to actually sign my name as it looks (or at least at one time looked) on my card. Not that anyone could tell because the sig on my card is smeared and unreadable.

Any central signature managment tools for MS Exchange?

bartleby — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:33:56 -0800

ExchangeFilter: any centralized signature/logo/disclaimer management tools you can recommend? I'd rather not go desk to desk to add a logo. OK, so I asked basically the same question two years ago; I ended up going from workstation to workstation adding a disclaimer to 40 people's signatures in Outlook. (There's a policy that no one is allowed to modify their own signature, so any changes have to be made by IT, which is me.) That involves travelling to 5 different sites, and I'd rather not do it again.

But there's a request in the air to add a logo or some other doodads to the company email signatures. Since my question was asked the first time, perhaps some advancements have been made.
Can this be done by:
1) a new Active Directory feature in Server 2008?
2) a new feature in Exchange 2007?
[we're running Server/Ex 2003 now]
3) if not, and this is still a 3rd-party-software solution, can you recommend any products? Exclaimer seems to come up a lot - any reviews?

Creating a graphic email signature without attachment

buybelen — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:17:17 -0800

I have to a create graphic signature for an email. Usually the graphic is added as an attachment to the email. Is there a way to embed the graphic signature without showing it as an attachment? I have to a create graphic signature for an email. Usually the graphic is added as an attachment to the email. Is there a way to embed the graphic signature without showing it as an attachment?

The client mentioned something about "utilized an applet that creates html")

Any thoughts?

I tell him all the time, "Haste makes waste"...

missuswayne — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:06:37 -0800

In his haste to mail our tax return as early as is humanly possible, Misterwayne forgot to get my signature on it before sending it in. How screwed are we? He realized it as he drove out of the post office parking lot. :) He's tried to get through to the IRS on the phone and could not (shocking!). He's going to try the local office on Monday, but has this happened to you? Will they shred our return? Do we have to re-file? Will we now get our refund sometime in, say, November?

How to configure a PHP script that generates Twitter images?

empyrean — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 02:45:32 -0800

Need an assist from the PHP gurus. I'm trying to set up a PHP script that generates an image from the latest Twitter status. I'm working off an example here.

Followed the instructions there explicitly -- tried saving the script as a PHP file and got errors like this:

Warning: filemtime(): Stat failed for twitter.txt (errno=2 - No such file or directory) in [...] on line 30

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: simplexml_load_file() in [...] on line 34

I assigned the correct permissions to the file. When I tried renaming the file as a PNG (as suggested for using on forums that require an image extension), it just gives me a corrupt PNG file when I access it. Trying both versions of .htaccess suggested in the example did not fix this.

Other possibly relevant info: test site is hosted on GoDaddy and I'm not sure if there's any PHP issues with them.

So, is there something obvious I might be missing that isn't listed on the above linked site? Is there an easier way to generate an image of Twitter updates?

Book signature for a messy signer?

inthe80s — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:43:22 -0800

I have a small book coming out in a few months, and will most likely be asked to sign a number of them for family, friends, complete strangers. However, my signature is a indiscernible squiggle. Should I practice a special signature for the book, or maybe buy a small embosser to use with the signature? Any examples of out of the ordinary author signatures people have are welcome. My signature sucks. Normally not a big problem since I only use it for boring stuff like credit cards, legal documents, etc. However I know I'll be asked to sign some for people, and I think people I don't know personally will also be asking for signed copies (such as people from my website, or a worse horror, at a book signing).

I was thinking of one of those embossers like a notary public uses, but maybe with a custom logo from the website the book is based around. Another option was maybe have some end note labels printed that I could stick on a blank page and then sign that or next to it.

I probably wouldn't even think about this normally, but I have gotten "autographed" stuff from Kevin Smith's website and been a little underwhelmed when I saw how he signs his name. My cursive skills are non-existent after two decades of printing, I'd be better off picking up my calligraphy pens again than trying a "proper" signature I think.

Signatures and Law

Knigel — Sun, 13 May 2007 11:05:14 -0800

In Canada, is it illegal to post someone's signature on the internet without their consent?

Just a little macro to help me dominate the world!

Salmonberry — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:15:12 -0800

I have written a template with a macro for Word, which I would like to share with a bunch of other people. But I don't have a digital signature and I'm wondering if there's an easy or free way to get one, or a workaround? This macro will be used by designers who typically despise MS Office. The macro on has it's own toolbar & button and to try to send people through the steps needed to duplicate it on their machines would take forever. I'm aware of the selfcert.exe program and apparently each machine would need the certificate installed on it. I don't know how that gets done.

Has anyone gone through the process of getting a digital signature or used selfcert to create a signature, for a Word template that they will distribute to a number of other people? Many work at home, so there's no way I'm going around doing the installs for them!

This is for Word 2003 and beyond, it'll be used on both PC and Mac computers.

Letters to Leaders

CitrusFreak12 — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:56:47 -0800

How do I go about writing a letter to the leader of another country in hopes of getting a signed letter or photograph back? There is A few months ago I tried getting signed photographs of various internet personae, with very little success. Those behind BoingBoing flat out ignored my emails, while John Hodgman was willing to sign one if I could find one and send it to him (which I’ve yet to do. Damn procrastination).

Upon finding an old signed photo of Lyndon B Johnson in my basement, I thought I’d try and write Bush to see if I could get one from him. “Hell,” I thought, “Why stop there?” I decided I would try and write as many foreign dignitaries as I could in attempts to get signed photos (or at the very least, responses) from them.

What is the best way for me to go about this? Email? Snailmail? Preaddressed stamped envelopes (The one from LBJ came in a sizeable envelope with cardboard so I’m not sure I could provide one of those for every state leader I contact)? How do I figure out how much postage would be required to get there, or for one to be sent back (As sad as it is to say, I don’t think I’ve mailed more than ten letters in my life…)? Brown nosing or no? If so, to what degree? Should my letters have a point to them aside from asking for a signed picture or letter? How do I personalize each letter to correspond with each leader? What do I call them? If at first I don’t succeed, how many times do I try again? How do I just come out and say “I want a signed picture of you, could you send one?” anyway, without sounding rather demanding?

No, Amazon.com, I refuse to believe your entire market consists of unemployed bums.

electric_counterpoint — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 06:55:17 -0800

How can I decline/avoid UPS and Fedex's #$!@ing "signature required in person" deliveries? I don't want to drive to any more farflung warehouses just to get my stuff! Everybody knows the problem: you order something online, you track the package, and on the day it's "out for delivery," you come home not to find your merch, but instead a door tag. "Sorry we've missed you," it says; "We'll be back at the same time tomorrow. When you're at work."

For people like me who work outside the home with something like 9-5 hours, this sucks. The retailer's attempt at security costs me three days of extra wait time plus the time and gas to drive to the other side of Ann Arbor and stick my head into some ill-publicized warehouse in the few hours between when I get home and when they close. Clearly I'm not the only one with this problem.

So how do the rest of you deal? Is there a standard way you can let your merchant know that, hey, I'm not going to be around, so just save the cost of signature confirmation and I'll take my chances? Or is there at least a number you can call to tell the carrier to save his time and not bring the package by, but rather just hold it?

I've been screwed by UPS and FedEx in the last few weeks, and neither of their websites hint at any way around their policies.

To sign or not to sign?

starman — Sat, 20 May 2006 20:07:27 -0800

When you sign for your credit card, do they save the digital signature? (A little more to it, too) So, a friend of mine who works in retail had a customer that refused to sign a digital stylus after a credit card purchase. They would, on the other hand, sign a paper copy (after doing an "old-fashioned" slider machine with carbon copy).

Question is... your digital signature isn't saved in any way is it? Or does it vary from system to system? Wouldn't it be less secure (assuming they refused the digital stylus for security reasons) to sign a paper copy (that could be stolen and has all your credit card info on it minus security code)?