Expedient MEANS

Notes on Film, Art, Writing, Technology and other things by Steve A Furman

  • The Dark Knight – Film Review

    The Dark Knight is relentless at wanting to tell a very big story. Director and co-writer Christopher Nolan scrims the silver screen, then abruptly pulls it back, as if a grifter, conning us into a high stakes game of three-card Monte. Batman, played again by the chiseled Christian Bale, has evolved into a commercial franchise Read more

  • WordPress iPhone 2.0 Application

    I’m writing this post on my iPhone using the just released WordPress application. Seamless install, and access to all my categories. Allows you to insert a photo from your iPhone library or take one with its camera. You can preview your work and when ready set a publish date and time. If you are browsing Read more

  • Mellon Odyssey Ends, I Think

    I set out to do the simple task of certifying my taxpayer identification number at the request of Mellon Investments, and ended up spending nearly an hour over three days and it’s still not done. You can see the earlier posts here and here. Today I tried again to log into my account. Couldn’t, but Read more

  • Pandora on iPhone 2.0 Applications

    Like millions of others, I was browsing the iPhone 2.0 applications on iTunes last Friday. I got my iPhone on June 30th, 2007, the first day it was available. I have been giddy over it ever since, but am comfortably encased in my talk and data plan, and don’t see enough of a benefit to Read more

  • Follow Up to Mellon Disaster

    Yesterday I wrote about the problems I encountered with the Mellon Investor web site. I was forced to call today to conduct my transaction. Got through to an agent quickly, but she couldn’t help. Couldn’t explain why I go the error message, confirmed my account was not locked, and informed me they were having problems Read more

  • Another Cross Channel Failure – Mellon

    I received a mailing from Mellon Investment today with a request to identify and certify my taxpayer information. I was provided with two ways to carry out this request; over the phone or through the Internet. I had already set up my account so online was an easy choice. I logged in and followed the Read more