Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with contact

Keep bottle closed at all times

swrittenb — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:32:46 -0800

What are the risks of leaving a bottle of contact lens solution open on the counter regularly? The bottle itself says to "keep bottle tightly closed at all times," and not to touch the tip to any surfaces. We've been doing the latter, but leaving the lid off for convenience during the day. The bottle has a small tip, with a tiny hole, though it is a big bottle of solution. After borrowing a friend's bottle in a pinch, we found that the next morning, it seemed like our lenses were soaking in stinky swamp water. That was a bit of a scare! Ours has never been noticeably bad, and we didn't even give it a second thought until that scare. Now I'm paranoid, and imagining a slimy coating running over my eyes every time they go in.

Please help us convince ourselves to keep that dang bottle closed during the time we're not using it, or let us know why we're actually not at that much risk! Scary infected eye images and bacteria pictures are welcome. Eek!

Estranged pieces of metal in an Organ from the 1960s are the topic of the day

tmcw — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:33:36 -0800

Fixing an old transistor organ: how do I fix these switches that seem to rely on the springiness of metal in order to make contact? So, I'm working on fixing this big ol' Doric organ (previously), and I stumbled upon a big break: it appears that the voices, as well as the vibrato, may not be broken, but just the switch activating them. However, this switch seems to rely on the exact same principle as the key contacts, and that principle is failing hard fourty-something years after this thing was built.

See this picture for a quick hint.

Basically, two wires, one which is the contact and stays at a certain place, and the second which is supposed to spring onto that contact when the key is depressed. Unfortunately, the second one is no longer very springy and I believe that these contacts are a bit rusty/bad.

So, contact cleaner is obvious solution #1, but the other problem is that with a few of these buttons, the piece of metal which is supposed to move onto the other just doesn't, and I don't have much of a way of bending it, since the furthest it can travel right now is the other contact. Also, just rebending this wire is a temporary fix, I'd guess, since, after all, it'll bend back like it has over all these years, leaving the next aspiring electrician thinking that the vibrato circuit is broken.

So, please let me know your thoughts! I am not even sure what the term for this 'keying system' is called, so my google-powers are weak. And any help would be so, so appreciated!

Thanks!

Online client/contact management for Dummy

mojoworkin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:43:33 -0800

One-man businessman looking for good online client/contact task/follow-up system. Everything I've found is geared for big business and large collaborative groups. I am a full-time wedding DJ who needs to track a lot of inquiries and sales related activity - usually lots of phone and email contact. Some of this will result in people going elsewhere, some will yeild a face to face meeting, more email and hopefully an agreement to provide services.

From there, I would like to keep tabs on my communication with clients as we progress through the planning phase to make sure I am timely answering their questions and also make sure I have everything I need by the time the wedding comes along.

It's not really all that much to keep track of, but keep in mind I am a DJ - all the things that make me really good at what do is borne out of my total inability to lead a regular life - But at least I know I have to fake it well, which leads me to my query.

Also, all my clients and potential clients have different needs, schedules, degrees of organization, so I always adjusting my process to make life simpler for them (planning a wedding is like a second job for some people!)

Does anybody have a suggestion for an online solution for this kind of thing? If it ties into an iPhone app, I will kiss your feet!

Don't it make your brown eyes blue...

amro — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:39:32 -0800

Do colored contacts on brown-eyed people look just as fakey now as they did 20 years ago? I have dark brown eyes, and about 20 years ago I had green colored contact lenses. In retrospect, they looked totally weird and fake. They just didn't have the depth to them that real irises have. Has colored contact technology moved forward any in the last two decades? Are there any colored contacts out there for brown-eyed folks that look convincingly like the real thing?

Do contact lenses that compensate for color blindness work?

Elmore — Sun, 17 May 2009 10:36:35 -0800

Are those contact lenses that compensate for red/green colour blindness actually any use? I had a long overdue appointment with the optician today. When I told them I was red/green colour blind, the optician then told me that there are contact lenses available that have a red dot that covers the pupil on the dominant eye. She gave me a test lens to try and it did make a difference on the test cards with all the coloured dots where you have to say (guess!) the number.

I imagine these lenses are pretty expensive, and I'm not sure that apart from getting through those test cards it would actually make any difference to my experience of the world. My level of colour blindness isn't very bad, it doesn't impact on my ability to make a living or enjoy life in any way - it's only trivial things that can be a bit frustrating (playing board games and computer games in particular). But, that said, part of me would love to see the world the way most people do.

While I know that my colour blindness is not a big deal, when I used vizcheck (website is gone it seems, but it was a photoshop plugin that converted images to how they would be seen by people with different types of colour blindness) on some photos to show my girlfriend how things look to me (sort of) she got pretty upset and explained to me that the colour red was supposed to be bright the way that yellow is bright. That was a bit of a shock, and while I'd like something as simple as a contact lens that would show this to me... I'm dubious.

Does anyone have first hand experience of using these lenses that compensate for red/green colour blindness? Do they actually make a difference to you when you use them, or is it just a scam, or a device that lets people determined to get their pilot's license pass the test?

Wordpress Plugins / Addons: Looking for Product viewer (non ecommerce) module + contact form.

spinko — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:52:30 -0800

Wordpress Plugins / Addons: Looking for Product viewer (non ecommerce) module + contact form. A friend wants a site, wants to showcase products like on ecommerce sites but without the payment terminal. Just showing the product information.

Is their a plugin for Wordpres that will allow this.

Show products in a category
Upload product picture (auto thumbnail + normal image)
Contact us form

Need a contract written - Who can do this cheaply?

yoyo_nyc — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:59:33 -0800

Need a contract written - Who can do this cheaply? I need at least two contracts written.

* One for a person who will become my business partner
* One how to share profits with distributors.

Since I am in the start-up phase my financial resources are very limited. I know that this is an important thing but I can't spend much.

* How can I find someone to write these contracts for a decent amount for me? I guess a law student would do.

* Are the websites that sell templates that I could modify?

contacting legislators who aren't mine?

dlugoczaj — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:17:46 -0800

Etiquette for contacting state legislators (not necessarily my own)? A few days ago, my house was burglarized and the burglars took some jewelry. Today a policeman brought me some photocopies to identify, and the items were absolutely mine. Unfortunately, he said, the burglars pawned them on the day of the theft, and by the time the cops got to the pawnshop near the end of the day, the pawnshop had already sold the jewelry to a scrap dealer for meltdown.

The policeman told me that there was currently a bill in the state legislature requiring pawnshop dealers to hold jewelry for seven days before selling to a third party. Even though there's no way for me to benefit from it personally at this point, I would really like this legislation to be passed!

I found the bill on the state website, and currently it's in a joint committee. I checked the membership and my elected officials are not on it. I would still really like to contact someone at the legislature about this bill. What is the appropriate way to go about it? Do I write to my legislator anyway and ask her to convey testimony to the committee? Can I contact the members of the committee directly?

Even though they are not strictly my elected representatives, I think this bill would benefit crime victims statewide, and I'd like them to hear about it before brushing the bill off to potentially die in committee.

My contacts are driving me crazy!!

mingodingo — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:01:47 -0800

How long should it take to get used to a new brand of contacts? I've been wearing the same brand of contact lenses ever since I started wearing contacts (about 6 years ago). I went to the eye doctor this morning for the first time in a few years, and my prescription had changed fairly substantially--plus she noticed that the type of contacts my old doctor had prescribed do not correct for my astigmatism.

So she prescribed me some different ones. They are not toric lenses (she said my astigmatism wasn't bad enough to benefit from those) but they are a bit more rigid than my old ones, which she said should help with it. The biggest difference, in my mind, is that according to the doctor they are the most "breathable" contacts on the market.

I don't know what it is--maybe more air getting to my eyes thanks to the enhanced "breathability"--but I've been having to blink a lot more today than I'm used to in order to be able to focus clearly on things; otherwise there's a bit of a blur--and sometimes blinking doesn't entirely fix that. Am I being impatient? I have a follow up appointment at the end of the month, so I was planning to try these at least until then. Is there an "adjustment period" for new types of contacts like this?

Sorry, just annoyed by the slight vision issues today and needed some reassurance as to whether this is normal. Thanks!

Stumped on contact for interview

arniec — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:10:10 -0800

I need help finding contact information for author Matthew Stover. My Google-fu has failed...is your Shaolin google-fu better than my Dragon Claw? I am trying to contact Matthew Woodring Stover, author of Star Wars novels as well as many others, to request an interview. This is not some fan-crazy stalking, I have interviewed over 20 authors for a podcast I run (link not provided lest it be seen as advertising but MeFi Mail me if you want a link).

I know Stover has a blog at Blogspot but I see no way to contact him through there.

Anyone able to find a link for e-mail or some other publicly available contact info that I cannot?

Will I test positive for MJ if my neighbors smoke pot but I don't?

agentsarahjane — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:34:30 -0800

Do you think that I will pop positive for my neighbor's party and do you have any suggestions that would help me with this possibility? I can tell them about my neighbors but will that be enough? I really want this job and would be totally mad if their party kept me from getting back to being paid what I used to make Hi! This is my first question ever and I tried to see if it was asked before but no one has ever asked this in the way I am looking for an answer: My neighbors smoke pot and we live in a house that was converted into apartments. Although the heating systems are separate, I know they smoke pot from the smell... hubby didn't believe me until yesterday when he found a baggie with sticky icky on the ground next to their car in the garage we share with them so we stuck it under their doormat so they would find it. I am no nark and he and I used to smoke a looooong time ago but neither I wish to take it up now since the smell of pot brings up unhappy memories of my long-gone ex, nor hubby who smoked it a couple of times recreationally before we met however we decided to stick to the stoner code.

My concern is that I am looking into a new job, one of which is with insurance and they are notorious test poppers. I have no doubt I'll do okay with the prescriptions I have since I can prove I have been prescribed for Xanax to be taken PRN and for vicodin due to a severe drug reaction I had 2 weeks ago also taken PRN ... but my concern is the party that is taking place downstairs now and the interview I have monday and probably will be asked to take a pee test since I have no doubt I will do well on the interview :)

Automatic contact sheets?

sandra_s — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:11:11 -0800

I have to create a bunch of contact sheets (actually like 600) of photos in different directories. This sounds like it should be easy, but of course there's... "Automatic" is the solution I'm looking for :-)

For years, I have been using the Automate>Web Photo Gallery function is various versions of Photoshop to create these photo galleries. On my local drive’s backup for the website, I have around 600 directories/folders of photos (each directory containing anywhere up to 100 photos, but the average will be about 30).

They are very organized. All the folders are located in the following directory structure:

…members\Galleries\Gallery001\
…members\Galleries\Gallery002\
…members\Galleries\Gallery003\
up to
…members\Galleries\Gallery600\

A typical GalleryXXX folder contains:
images (folder)
pages (folder)
thumbnails (folder)
index.html

I need to make hard-copy contact sheets for the contents of all 600 “thumbnails” folders located at:

…members\Galleries\GalleryXXX\thumbnails\

Each of the contact sheets must only have one directory’s images on it, although each contact sheet can have multiple pages. Each image must also be labeled with it’s filename somewhere near or on it.

The “contact sheet” option in the Windows Vista explorer photo wizard works great (I pick “ADOBE PDF DISTILLER” as the printer, but I’d have to do it 600 times, name each one… ) so other software options are being looked for.

Since the directory structure is so regular, and the actions needed are so regular, there has GOT to be an automated way for me to generate something like contactsheet001.pdf through contactsheet600.pdf automatically.

Any thoughts?

Oh, I have PhotoshoCS2, Illustrator CS2, Acrobat Pro 6 Available if that helps, but Im not married to using those programs.

Thanks in advance!!

Obamaddress?

rbs — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 16:42:58 -0800

How can I mail a letter to the Obama transition team? I think I'd be an ideal hire for some of the initiatives that the Obama team has recently announced. I've already filled out their web form where you give basic info about yourself. I want to send them a letter. I'd like to target the folks involved in the education transition, such as Darling-Hammond, in addition to the president-elect and his chief of staff.

How can I do that? The website says that they only accept #10 envelopes, but I couldn't find an address. Ideally, I'd send them an electronic copy too, so specific email addresses and whatnot would be good.

Ok, so, in summary. I want to send a letter to Obama, Darling-Hammond, and Emanuel. One hard copy each, in addition to email. How do I do that?

help me manage my contacts

luriete — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:49:02 -0800

I accidentally synced my mac's contacts with gmail, and added 4000 unwanted contacts. I manually stripped them out, turned off gmail syncing, and now I get an "unknown error" from itunes when syncing with my iphone, and a "syncing contacts will add 4000 (or so) contacts" message ... even though those people weren't showing up in my contacts app. Post-sync, those people are back in my contacts app, after I spent an hour cleaning it up and deleting them ... and they're on my iphone too, even though I got the error message.

How do I just nuke all contacts from my iphone and start fresh?

Should I kick her out?

cincinnatus c — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:08:36 -0800

I have a really messed-up break-up situation. Is what I am about to do fair? I'll try to describe it as briefly as possible, but it is complicated.

I love her madly, but she is totally messed up with depression, anxiety, insecurity, indecision and inaction.

We broke up, got back together, broke up again. It's three years since we started going out. The first break up, at the beginning of this year, lasted three months, and we have been split up now for two.

We broke up and got back together for reasons to do with us. But before we broke up she'd become close to some guy she works with. While we broke up she kind of started going out with him. When we got back together she continued to hang around with him in a way that made me insanely jealous. And when we broke up recently she started seeing him again immediately.

In about three weeks she is moving hundreds of miles away to do an MA. We were supposed to be moving together. Though she wanted to do the MA, her depression meant she hadn't got round to even applying to do it. (She said that in the time we split up originally she had wanted to show that she could do things on her own, and the fact that when we got back together she'd done nothing made her feel like a failure.) I had to literally sit down next to her and make her fill in the forms. I had to write the emails requesting references, and check her email for her during the whole process. Her feeling dependent on me contributed to both our break ups.

She is moving hundreds of miles away in three weeks, and she hasn't arranged a place to stay, or worked out how she's going to move her stuff, or arranged funding, though she is getting round to these things. She is stressed and talks about it constantly, which is kind of annoying since my own plans are now in disarray.

Anyway, here's where the messed-up stuff begins: we were supposed to be moving together. The lease on her flat ended in the middle of July, and the plan had been that she was going to stay at mine until we moved. But we broke up at the beginning of July. She didn't get around to arranging a place to stay, and madly I offered to let her stay at mine anyway. I thought it might be unhealthy, that it could make me miserable, but I thought that after being so miserable for so long I could take another couple of months of it in the worst case. She accepted.

I live in one room. She moved all her stuff in boxes into mine, and they fill up half the room. We sleep in the same bed. We sleep in each other's arms. Sometimes we have sex, but she is trying to keep a distance between us so mostly she's quite cold about that, which does drive me crazy. It's been a surprisingly nice time together, mostly. We're happy when we're together. But then I find myself falling in love again, daily, and sometimes we fall into talking about resentments about the past and the future. Often she's said that we shouldn't be living together, and often she's said that she is still thinking about whether she wants us to be together, even though I say (only half truthfully) that I don't want to be with her because of all that's happened.

Yesterday, Saturday, morning, she went away for a couple of days to look after the flat of a friend who was going away and to have some space to think about things. The night before we'd had a conversation we shouldn't have had, a pretty bad one, and in the morning she'd again said that this situation wasn't healthy. She comes back tomorrow, Monday, night.

In the month she's been living with me she hasn't seen much of this other guy, except at work, I think to be tactful to me. But they were going to be hanging out yesterday, and then, I know, inevitably they would spend the night together. And, after everything, I can't take it. I tried to go out last night and have fun, but I couldn't think of anything else, and came home early to write her an email saying that she had to move out, and move her stuff out, and that I wanted no contact with her after that. I haven't sent this email yet.

But is this fair? Should I send the email or wait until she comes tomorrow and talk about it with her then? I think it is likely that she's gonna come back having decided that she wants to go stay somewhere else anyway, but then I fear that it's gonna happen in a compromised way, with her keeping her stuff at mine, and us seeing each other now and then, and for the sake of my own sanity I don't think I can take it. (At the same time, I want her to stay here, because I am happy when she's around, even in this stupid situation, and it delays the inevitable final heartbreak.)

She is very messed up, and I don't want to mess her up further, but I feel used, duped (though I don't think she has consciously done these things) and taken for granted. I feel like a total doormat. And I suppose, selfishly, I don't want to have her disappear anyway with me in this role. I want her to experience losing me fully now, rather than just as a vague loss in the middle of her big move. And I don't think another three weeks of this is healthy for me, and I want her to go be fucking dependent on this other guy for a change.

At the same time, it is only three weeks, and I knew what I was getting into, I suppose. So even if she goes to stay somewhere else, maybe I should be there for her when she needs me, maybe I shouldn't make her move her stuff out of mine when she's gonna have to move it again so soon. A lot of her friends have moved away in the last year, which helped to make her so dependent on me, and she has no friend in town that she is genuinely close to. I don't want to mess her up any more, as I said, and I absolutely don't want to sabotage her move. Should I be totally selfish finally or just suck it up for a bit longer? And if I'm going to be selfish, should I do it now, by email, or wait to talk to her, knowing that I might not be so certain when I see her?

If this terrible ramble makes sense at all, all opinions appreciated.

Are all contact lens solutions created equal?

iamisaid — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:11:23 -0800

Is there any evidence (scientific, anecdotal or otherwise) to suggest that cheap store-brand contact lens solution is inferior to name brands like Opti-Free or Renu? I'm specifically referring to multi-purpose solution for disposable soft contact lenses. What are your solution experiences? Now that I'm wearing contacts again, I'm reminded of the fact that solution can get expensive and store brands are usually around half the price of the name brands. So I'm wondering -- is there really any difference?

I did find this somewhat related question in the archives, where someone mentions the Target brand is (was?) made by the same company as Opti-Free and someone else mentions differences among the name brands, but I'm wondering more about store brands in general. The particular brand I bought last night came from a grocery store and lists no manufacturer aside from the fact that it was made in the UK (and I'm in the US).

I tried comparing ingredients from a trial bottle of Opti-Free I had on hand, but it's quite difficult because the Opti-Free lists "proprietary" ingredients with trademarked names like TETRONIC and POLYQUAD, which perhaps is done by design.

Is it possible that the ingredients could be vastly different and the name brands actually worth the extra price? Is this a case where you would not risk buying a generic brand to save a few dollars?

How to get in touch with Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey?

razorfrog — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:35:24 -0800

How to get in touch with Richard Branson and/or Oprah Winfrey? (For a pretty good purpose) I just did some web design for a client who wants to do a army-related USO tour of sorts focusing on inspiring the troops. I'm not sure of the specifics exactly, but her goal is to get in touch with Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey to get support for the project. Any ideas on how to contact these two folks? Six degrees of separation time, right? Or was that just proved to be seven...?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Help with Yahoo Small Business

seeminglee — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:37:24 -0800

Need help with Yahoo Small Business / Premium Services support: is there a way to update payment information at once? Tried their UI but to no avail. Also seek email to customer service--phone call got dropped after hours on hold. Last year I registered 200+ domain names with Yahoo. It was cheap and efficient, and all is well... until last week.

I had changed my American Express card number and as a result, when the domain names are up for renewal this year, the system alerted me on outdated information. I tried to update my payment information, and to my surprise there is no way to update all the payment methods at once. Domains' payment information can be updated one at a time only, which is a fundamental UI flaw.

To make matters worse, when I clicked on the link to update my information, the site would consistently return a blank page that leads to no where, and I am unable to update anything. I tried refreshing the page but again nothing happens.

In my frustration, I tried contacting support on the phone, and had been on hold for two hours without any assistance, and the call will then be terminated by the system. There are no email support available, and all the meanwhile I am receiving account suspension notices and my domains are failing one by one, a truly frustrating experience.

Here's when the nightmare begin: when I signed up for the service, the domains were 9.95/year. I just received emails telling me that starting on 2008-07-01, the renewals will cost me 34.95/year. If I were unable to cancel my accounts by that date, I will be paying upwards of close to $10,000 for domain names.

Do you have any suggestions as to what I might do? Alternatively, do you know if there is an email where I can reach customer support?

What kind of CRM-like software can manage contacts via a building layout?

unformatt — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:07:01 -0800

I'm looking for software to manage contact information in a way that may be similar to how a landlord might manage an apartment building. My friend has a job where he meets with a lot of people so he has to manage a lot of contact information. He often enters into a building (e.g. a college or hospital) and there are several offices he may want to stop at. He finds searching through a spreadsheet for certain people/rooms/phone numbers unbearable - he wants a different kind of interface for information. So he presented to me an idea about how he would ideally manage his contacts. He had the idea of being able to create a map of a building with rooms and he would be able to place contact info in the corresponding room. Its kind of like CRM software meets tenant-management software - or something like that. Has anyone heard of anything like this or know what this category of software is called?

Is there a Yellow Pages for blogs?

Kibbutz — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:09:20 -0800

What's an easy way to efficiently find and contact many different bloggers at once? I have a web app/site that may be of interest to bloggers/sites, both to write about and to use on their respective sites. I'd like to let them know about it, but I'm not sure how to get the information to them. I'm familiar with Technorati's Top 100, but I'd like to find a scalable way to reach them and the next 900 or so on the list.

How do i contact chinese web design people

peshay9000 — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:45:54 -0800

How do I find and contact people in China (students/professionals) to discuss web design topics with? - For a while now i have been wondering what the chinese internet business/usage is like but it is hard to get right impression. It would be nice to have someone knowledgable to discuss this with. ... I dont speak chinese

shareable contact management solution?

nerdcore — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:18:01 -0800

I'm looking for a shareable/collaborative Contact and Calendar Management program. I work for a small business but we have a lot of contacts to manage. I've been using Highrise but honestly, the lack of several key features is getting to me: calendaring function,editing people/tags in batches, etc. My boss is leaning towards exchange server, I am hoping to find a better, more inclusive solution. My boss doesn't want to pay a monthly fee, but is cool with buying something on a 1 time basis. The things we need most are:

- A good contact management system with the ability to tag/group people into different categories, and the ability to add notes to people.

- A shareable calendar with tasks/meetings/whatever which can be linked back to a client.

Browser or desktop based solutions are good. An ideal solution would probably be something browser based which we could install on our own server. Pony-filter wishlist items include: ability to send bulk emails to specific groups and project management functionality with time tracking and milestones.

Recommend me a good contact manager for phone numbers and names?

jacobean — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:41:56 -0800

I'm looking for a "lite" contact manager for my PC? I am tired of losing scraps of paper with temporary phone numbers on them...I do not want to enter them into my Outlook contacts manager. Is there any no "bells and whistles" application out there that I can quickly tap in the details into my PC? Even better would be an application that syncs with a Palm device?

Donde esta Ed Naylor: Pedal Steel Guitar Refurbisher?

billtron — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 08:54:44 -0800

I want to buy a pedal steel guitar, and preferably I would like to buy one from Ed Naylor. I visited his shop in Portsmouth, Ohio, a few years ago and almost got one for US$500. His shop isn't there any more. Anyone know where I can find him? If not, anyone know where I can get a basic beginner's pedal steel guitar for under $1000?

If you travel through space at lightspeed, will the stars in the background appear to move relatively slow?

paulinsanjuan — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:50:31 -0800

If you travel through space at lightspeed, will the stars in the background appear to move relatively slow? I am watching The Fountain (after the FPP about it the other day) and I noticed while traveling through space, the background of stars "moves" fairly slow. Wouldn't Hugh Jackman and his tree have to be traveling at lightspeed to get to his destination within a lifetime?

Or is it more like Star Trek / Star Wars where everything becomes a streak? (I think in Star Trek warp speeds are faster than light.)

So, let's say we're traveling at lightspeed from Earth to Vega (like in Contact), a total of 24.3 light years away, will the stars in the background appear to move relatively slow?

Also, will going any slower change the "speed" of the passing stars?