Ads -- Do you trust them?

Many sites today have ads on them. Some appear in banners, some on sidebars, some appear as popups, some are video popups. But are they real or tricky fakes to lure in those that aren't as skeptical or suspicious?

So there I was wanting to browse the web. I launched Internet Explorer that in-turn launched the default URL, http://hp-laptop.aol.com/, which showed me some news articles that peaked my interest.

So I'm reading this article about '9 unexpected things found in drinking water' from Sphere via AOL's page for HP. And Sphere has this section with 'Sponsored Links'. Sponsor means someone paid Sphere to post Ad Links on their web page. I labeled the image below with a red circle and zoomed-in portion of the page to show the example:

Clicking the link took me to this page that looked like the following:

Since I'm a frequent web user, I've seen this page before and recognized this as a possible phishing scam as highlighted by a blog posting showing the following scam page:

It seems that the original 'social phishing' scam has morphed to try to lure in those that are unemployed or looking for a job change in this low economy.

My point of this is awareness -- be very aware of these types of phishing scam attacks through ads.

The best we can do is blog about them, report them to McAfee and others that try to flag sites as possible phishing scams (appearing in your web browser toolbar), and report complains to the hosting web sites with these 'sponsored links' section.

Passion + Teamwork + Support = Success + Happiness?

I ran across this really great article, '5 Tips for Enjoying the Software Development Profession', by Dennis Forbes. As I read the article, I thought about my career as a software developer over the past 18 years. I also thought about 'what makes me happy' at work. I remember several times in my career where I was often pushing myself to new levels I never achieved before. Telling myself I wouldn't settle for me or someone else telling me I couldn't do something. I was successful in every case to a degree, but was I happy?

It depends. Forbes's article asks the important questions to help answer this while also determining if I had a true passion for my profession. I honestly have a true passion for software development. What often I miss is the camaraderie of knowing someone 'has my back'. This combination is essential for my happiness at work.

I remember early in my career when I worked really hard to help out one team. I was assigned to 'eye ball' data and load the data into a database manually based on that 'eye balling' for matching datasets. I saw this work as dull and at the current rate, it would take me all year to populate this database. I decided to write an app to do the 'eye balling' for me. This cut down the workload for a month into only a day, ensured accuracy, and completed the work in 2 weeks that would have taken 10 months. I was proud of my creation, but a senior developer said,

"You're a bad penny that doesn't know when to go away."

I was in shock. I didn't understand what I had done wrong. Later, I was cut from the team due to a RIF and that crushed my spirit. I felt that no matter what I did, I would not be happy there. So I left.

It seems that what I wanted was to be part of a team of people who cared about me as much as I cared about them. To feel like I was part of the group that created something cool and celebrated the success together. One of my managers, John Bonamico, once said,

"It's more fun to share success and money than to celebrate alone."

I strongly believe that to be true. We as people need others to be successful. I wonder if Ernest Hemingway, despite his successful writings, committed suicide because of the aloneness it took to continue to be a successful writer. Although Hemingway was a writer of words, I could see this being similar to a writer of software. I'm not saying we're literally suicidal if we like to work alone, but I feel there is something missing in our lives and our work accomplishments if we work alone all the time.