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February 19, 2007

I am #2!

I am happy to see that I am now the number two listing when a search is made for womendesignerclothes.com The nice thing about the internet is that the consumer has a loud and credible voice when discussing their experience doing business.

As I detailed in my previous post. Chase Hayes, the proprietor, has been absolutely unprofessional in the way he runs his business. He intentionally delivered a product that was the wrong size, then failed to honor his promise to provide a refund.

It has been a couple of months now, and he intentionally avoids answering calls from my Mom or my sister. He answers when we call from phone numbers that he doesn't recognize.

He still has not provided the refund that is owed.

For all of you folks smart enough to Google this outfit before doing business, Do not do business with this guy! Until further notice, he should be regarded as a liar and a crook. Womensdesignerclothes.com should be treated as a fraudulent website.

I promise to update this post if anything changes.


February 4, 2007

www.womendesignerclothes.com fraud? incompetant?

I highly recommend that everyone avoid doing business with http://www.womendesignerclothes.com/. Chris Hayes, the proprietor of that outfit appears to be a man who fails to keep his word.

My mom ordered an item as a gift for my sister from womendesignerclothes.com. When they received it, it came with a note acknowledging that although they ordered one size, he was out of stock, and sent a different size. Of course the wrong sized clothing didn't fit. They returned it within the time frame allowed by his return policy. Initially Mr Hayes told them that a refund had been issued, but when they called back to follow up, he said that they hadn't returned it in time and he could only offer them a store credit.

They have delivery confirmation that the Jeans where returned within the specified 14 day time frame. It has been a month or so since this transaction and they still have not received their refund, and the business has been unresponsive about resolving the matter.

I will update this post when if they receive their refund. In the mean time, you would be wise to consider http://www.womendesignerclothes.com/ to be a incompetent outfit at best, and a criminal outfit at worst.

January 29, 2007

I wondered why I needed that!

My car is broken... The door handle on the drivers side does not open the door from the outside. I have to go around the car, open the passenger side door, lean accross, open the driver side door from the inside, then close the passenger side door and run around the car to get in.

Needless to say, I went shopping for a new door handle. The sales pitch had me laughing pretty hard.


Buick Regal Door Handle - 88 89 2.8L 6 Cylinder Regal Coupe - Front Driver Side Door Handle, Outer, Black

Your Buick Regal door handles are surprisingly important to your vehicle. You may not notice them very often, but a broken door handle can become a serious inconvenience in just a short time. Since they are moving parts that see a lot of daily use, it stands to reason that eventually your door handles are going to become problematic. You may be all right for a short while with getting around doors that won’t open, but soon you are going to want a Regal replacement door handle to restore your vehicle to good working order. After all, it can get tedious to keep crawling over your seats because you can’t open the driver’s side door from the outside, or having to stand out in the rain while you take the extra time to jiggle that dangling door handle into the right position. It does not cost a lot to get a new Buick 1988 - 1989 door handle, so there is no reason to suffer the hassle or inconvenience of inoperable doors. You might also choose to replace your door handles with a brand new set to enhance your vehicle’s appearance, since over time your stock door handles will become scratched, scuffed, and faded with use.

Sold!

May 10, 2006

Fedex arrival video.

Wow, this is pretty darn cool:

via: Robinson House

April 16, 2006

Relief

I sure am glad this is fake!!!

April 13, 2006

Revolutionary?

The Scuderi Group, LLC - The Technology Studies showed engine efficiency increases from 33% to almost 40% while toxic emissions are reduced by as much as 80%. Engine Efficiency The impact of this technology is simply staggering:
  • This technology not only saves energy but also increases the power of an engine while significantly reducing its cost.
  • Vehicles will be able to exceed all current mileage and emission standards without compromising size or performance.
  • Consumers would save billions of dollars in fuel costs. Reduction in emissions would be in the hundreds of millions of tons per year.
This looks like pretty cool technology. Although I was also quite impressed by the Compressed air powered engines.

March 23, 2006

Local nostalgia

ICKS?
ICKS?,
originally uploaded by Patrick Q.
I bet every town has a place like Dicks. I was browsing through flickr the other day, and I ran across this photo, which triggers a river of memories.

Dicks is a hamburger stand that sits right at the heart of Spokane. It is an old fashioned place. You have to park your car and walk up to the window and place your order. Often it is very busy, and there are long lines. The cashiers take long orders from multiple customer at once, and don't seem to write anything down, but you seem to get your food. The parking lot is always overflowing with seagulls. There may be a picnic table or two, but for the most part I think people eat in their cars or get their food to go. There is no indoor or covered seating.

The food isn't anything to write home about. it is your typical greasy burger and fries. I don't think the food is the attraction.

I haven't eaten at Dick's in ages. Usually the only time I go there is when I am with friends from out of town. Everyone seems to have a Spokane memory revolving around this place for one reason or another.

So, open discussion time. What is the Dick's of your hometown? I am pretty sure every town has one!

March 1, 2006

Making internet money

I have never focused on making my blog profitable. (Rarely do I invest enough time to spell correctly) But as my budget tightens, I may try a little harder.

The first step is to get traffic to your site. I think the key to doing this is to say interesting things. If you want traffic, it is also wise to fill in the keywords section of your blogging software if it is available. I believe you get better attention from search engines if your blog is at the base of your domain. i.e. http://www.fingertoe.com Not http://www.fingertoe.com/jreighley/blog/ I am not certain about this, but It seems to hold true for my sites. You can do a ton of search engine optimization if you want, but I would start with the basics. Make sure that the words that people might be searching for are in your post.

I use google sitemap on this blog, and it seems to help them find my webpages. Basically you add a template to your Movable type Installation that generates a sitemap.xml file for google, so it knows what to look for on your webpage.

I believe that what makes the internet so outstanding, is that it serves markets that are too niche for traditional media to reach. It fills the role that magazines served in the past, but is more responsive, not having to wait for a publishing cycle to get information to the audience. As such, generally the audience of a webpage is going to have pretty narrow interests, and it is fairly easy to sell them stuff. For example people who search for and find a page about building bat houses are very likely to want to know how to build a bat house. If you can point them to a inexpensive resource that will help them do it, they are quite likely to check it out. If someone is searching for methods to solve sudoku puzzles, and they see an ad for how to solve sudoku puzzles, then they are fairly likely to check it out.

Amazon.com's associate's program is pretty effective for this. Basically you sign up and include your associates code in URL's linking to any page on Amazon.com's website. Anytime somebody follows one of your links, you get a commision on anything that they purchase. I prefer to use a simple text link when possible. If it looks like an ad, you lose credibility. If your content is really compelling, then your audience will want to explore more.

Google's adsense is also quite effective because they often serve ads that are quite relevant to your blog entry. I only include these ads on my individual entry pages, as I think that the topics on my blog are too diverse to draw the right niche. If I ran a Niche topic blog about VoIP or Asterisk or the like, I would be more inclined to put Ads on my frontpage. Unless they are relevant, Ads are annoying.

There are folks who make a living off of their blogs. I never expect or intend to do that. It would be nice to offset some of the costs however. I spend about 20 bucks per month on internet hosting, plus 55 bucks per month for High speed access. Based on my past experiences I am quite confident that enough revenue could be generated to offset a good chunk of that.

December 20, 2005

It pays to pay attention to your customers.

My Buick has been a bit sick lately. It sprung a leak in the coolant system just before Thanksgiving, and I have not driven it since.

Saturday, I took it into my Shop. The mechanic immediately came out and presurized the system and showed me the problem. He asked if It would be okay if he waited until today to fix it. I assured him that since I work graveyard, I have not needed the car, and he was welcome to take his time on it.

Today about 4 PM he called me. Let me know that the car was finished. He said he finished it in the morning, but hadn't called because he didn't want to wake me up.

I wouldn't have minded if he had called me in the morning, but it still made my day that he cared enough to hear what I said, and think about it.

Also helps that his bill was less than the quote. How often does that happen?

December 16, 2005

New tv show idea

I don't think anyone could make this up:

United Press International - NewsTrack - Reality TV crew indicted for assault

I think someone should start a new reality show: "Reality Show Crews Gone Wild"

December 13, 2005

This is too much!

Yuck! This belongs in US magazine... Not on the sports page!

T.O.'s Party Guest List Includes NFL Stars - Yahoo! News

I feel a little creepy after reading this. Yech!

November 15, 2005

Simplicity

I have always been impressed with simple websites. Here is a good example:EuroFox

When I visit a website like that, it draws my focus to one thing: their product. I don't have to worry about navigating through multiple pages. It is all right there. Everything you would ever like to know about this plane, all in one place. I did have to use google to figure out the currency exchange. It seems like a lot of Airplane related websites are pretty simple in design. I would suppose this comes out of the mindset of aircraft design. Most airplanes seem to have a "Keep it Simple" design. Less to go wrong I would suppose.

In case you didn't notice, I am still fighting the airplane obsession.

October 1, 2005

Go Vandals

Apparently somebody still loves my 0-4 Idaho Vandals!

Sports - The Idaho Statesman - Always Idaho

July 23, 2005

Time is money

I think the common wisdom "Time is money" is wrong.

Knowlege is money. The loss of time is just a symptom of your lack of knowlege.

Many companies go out of their way to micromangage the flow of their employee's time. They can actually hurt themselves in doing so, because their policies often intefere with the formation of networks of knowlege.

Time goes away weather you manage it or not. Healthy companies have employees with significant amounts of idle time. Unhealthy companies have employees with no idle time. Each time murphy strikes, there is no extra capacity to spend on solving the problem, and as a result things fall further an further behind schedule.

Employees should be encouraged to use thier idle time to expand their knowlege network. Learning about their co-workers. Learning about the technologies of their industry. Learn about internet resources available to provide knowlege on demand.

There are a lot of healthy companies that are being driven to become unhealthy companies based on this common knowlege that "time is money".

Disclaimer for my boss: This thought pattern entered my head after a discussion with a friend who works somewhere else. It is not a commentary on the management of any company that I work for. Probably good advice the same. ;-)

June 5, 2005

Hollywood losing streak

Every Sunday for the last several 10 weeks, the media bemoans the now 15 week losing streak at the box office. For the last 15 weeks people spent less money on movies than they did this time last year.

The reason for this is pretty simple. Last year, "The Passion of the Christ" was out, and brought in a ton of money from people who likely do not frequent the theaters.

I don't think the media gets it. Obviously there is a sizable market that was tapped last year. If Hollywood would produce some movies that exhibited some traditional values, perhaps they could tap that market.

As it is, culture tends to follow the movies. Our culture is arriving at the violent, sexually motivated, drug using, God ignoring self centered destination that has been portrayed in so many movies. Why go to the theater, when you already have all of that drama your own home?

I suspect this is why some of the seeker-sensitive growing so quickly in some areas. They offer simular entertainment value, but offer a new destination. I pray that they are as effective at adjusting the culture's course as Holywood has been in the past. I also pray that they stand first for Christ. Entertainment is fine in church so long as it brings glory to Him.

May 23, 2005

All of my humble opinions about God in one place.

Christianity Survey

Created by thesurveyplace and taken 107 times on bzoink!

Do you think Jesus should be depicted with a darker complexion?Probably so.
Should alcohol sales be allowed on Sundays?Yes
How many people attend your church?175-300
Your opinion of premarital sex?Nothing enduring and good comes from it. It feels good at the time, but leaves a wake of destruction that can never be repaired by man.
Jesus is:God in flesh, who came so that he could free us from our sin. He humbled himself by becoming human and paying the price for our sins He is my Savior and my Master.
Should women/girls have bare midriffs in church?I would rather have bare midriffs in church than out of church, but it does make me a bit uncomfortable
President Bush is:A sinner just like me doing his best to do what is right. He might be right, He might be wrong, I trust him over the altermatives proposed.
Would you change your denomination if they allowed gay people?Christ died for their sins just like he died for mine. I think they should be invited in, not chased out.
My membership status at church is: I have commited to being an active participant in the Church. Membership is not a word that we use in my congregation, but that could be a whole sermon.
How often do you doubt the truth of Christianity?All of the time. Every time I am tempted to sin, I am questioning God's promises over the promises of this world. I make the right choices more often these days, but I still make the wrong one sometimes.
My salvation is determined by:My faith in the atoning work of Christ
The Christian Bible, in it's original form, is:The inerrant Word of God.
I believe that predestination is:True, but we cannot see it through our free will. Even though God knows in advance what choices we will make, we still have to make the choices.
Why do you think God has not allowed Christ to return?God has a plan and he is following it. There are still more that will choose him.
Once in heaven we will have memory of our life on earth, true or false?Probably so.
Should women be allowed to be pastors (or priests)?Yes, although my definiton of Pastor/Priest may be different than the norm.
Christian music, when compared to secular music, is:Both serve totally different goals, so it is kinda like comparing a hammer to an ice cream cone.
God says the death penalty is:A worldly concern. He condones it. Even Pilate was given his power by God. It serves a purpose that he can use for good.
Is abortion wrong?Yes. It is sacrificing one of God's greatest gifts on the alter of selfishness. Christ wants to restore those involved in this sin just as he restored me.
Do the unsaved suffer in hell?Yes, but I don't know how to describe that suffering. Where God is not bad things happen.
What's your opinion on evolution?Even the simplest organism is too complicated to be created by chance. There is an intelligent design. Evolution happens, but doesn't create, just refines
What happens after you die?We are held accountable. Our works will be tested by fire, and only those built on the foundation of Christ will survive to see heaven. We will be transformed to perfection.

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April 7, 2005

Still employed

Here are some good tips on how not to get fired for blogging...

EFF:How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)

I haven't had a problem yet. My stratagy has been to promote my blog all of the time at work. This insures that everyone is annoyed enough with me that they will never read it. ;-)

Actually I am careful with what I say, I just ran a seach for my employer's name and it doesn't return any entries. I ran a search for 'boss', and I only find one entry, and it is generic, and applies to my behavior, not theirs.

Business is such a fun topic to discuss, it is a bummer that it can be so dangerous. I would guess that there is a little bit of 'Dilbert' or 'Office Space' in every workplace. It is a bummer that many companies don't have a sense of humor about it.

March 24, 2005

Lost and found

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Horrors (Finger Food)

The following day, Santa Clara County health officials announced at a press conference that they had confirmed the object found in the bowl of Wendy's chili was indeed a human finger, and they were planning to trace the ingredients back to the source to determine where it came from, whose it was, and how it got into the chili. The Associated Press reported that officials believe the contamination did not pose any health danger:
Officials said the fingertip was about 1-1/2 inches long and contained part of a manicured nail. The woman, who asked officials not to identify her, immediately spit it out, Santa Clara County Health Officer Martin Fenstersheib said.

My Question is, Who loses a finger and doesn't try to track it down? Seems a bit odd that Wendy's would have to backtrack their supply chain to figure out where this came from. Weird. Sounds like something from a Mob movie.

January 19, 2005

Rolling stone doesn't want Zondervan's money

USATODAY.com - Ad for a Bible doesn't fit


Zondervan executives say the entertainment magazine was key in its $1 million campaign to reach young adults who have rarely, if ever, seen Bible ads before. Surveys show that 53% of this age group read the Bible less than once a year or never, although they are huge buyers of books on spiritual and religious themes.

January 14, 2005

Aim Low!

My P.E. teachers used to get really mad at me because I would try to implement stratagies like this:

Times Argus


Game score: 5-2.

Yes, 5-2. Yes, basketball.

"I've never had a player hit a game-winner in the second quarter before," BFA-Fairfax coach Glen Button Jr. said after the Wednesday night game.

"It was the ultimate deliberate stalemate," Milton coach Jim Smith said. "They didn't come out after us and we didn't go in against them."

January 11, 2005

Florida teaches the pain of Enterpenuership to a 10 year old

Yahoo! News - Girl Caught in Red Tape Over Tsunami Aid


All 10-year-old Carolyn Lipsick wanted to do was help kids hurt by the tsunami, because, she says, "you can't just think of yourself, you have to think of other people."

When her mom called the city of Miami Beach to find out what to do about getting a license, the answer wasn't promising: There is a roadside-vendor ban in Miami Beach.

December 31, 2004

Since we can't blame God, Blame the USA...

The Australian: Gerard Baker: Tsunami must be fault of the US [December 31, 2004]

INEVITABLY, confronted with a tragedy of unimaginable scale, the human mind looks for someone to blame. In the Dark Ages, disasters were ascribed to the wrath of God. Now, in an odd inversion that we like to think of as progress, they are adduced as evidence of no God.

In the absence of a deity to decry or appease when the earth moves in such devastating fashion, humankind reaches for the next best thing - worldly authority. Authority should have known it was coming. Authority didn't do enough to prevent it. Authority was too preoccupied with its own nefarious priorities to care.

How true is this in all aspects of life today? Society doesn't want an almighty to trust and obey, but they certainly want an almighty to Blame and sue when nature takes its course..

Life and death are outside of our hands. We all die. It is not a matter of if, but of when. It doesn't matter who built the ladder you fell off, or who built the car that you crashed, if you had not died from that, something else whould have gotten you later.

No matter how many companies or gaverments the lawyers put out of business, people are still going to die.. No company has power over human mortality.

November 22, 2004

Would somebody fire this guy?

It is alarming the kind of people that are idolized today.

Yahoo! News - Trump Casino Empire Files for Bankruptcy

Trump denied the bankruptcy was a setback.

"I don't think it's a failure, it's a success," he said in the interview. "In this case, it was just something that worked better than other alternatives. It's really just a technical thing, but it came together."

"We have one of the most powerful gaming companies the day it comes out (of bankruptcy). There's no way we could have done that without the 'B' word," he said.

In other words, his company made commitments that could not be kept, and are going to be stronger by breaking our promises to our creditors, and that is a good thing.

Gambling is an immoral activity. The people who engage in it for a living are immoral people. We shouldn't be looking up to them as businessmen. They are con-artists on a grand scale. Now we are raising an entire generation of Business students with this guy as a role model.

November 18, 2004

Okay, this guy has got it...

iowahawk: Sears/Kmart Acquires France

Twice in a week this iowahawk guy has had me rolling on the floor.... I wonder if he is getting big contract offers yet... Letterman will need a replacement someday...

September 24, 2004

What I love about blogging

I think it is very cool that consumers can have thier voices heard. It keeps the vendors accountable.

wingedpig.com: Seagate Has A Problem

Mark Fletcher is the Honcho at Bloglines.com, and his blog has at leaste 630 subscribers.

I notice that when I review products on my blog, I get hits.. I have had a ton of people find my site because I mentioned The Sipura SPA-3000 for example. I get hits from BasecampHQ.com.

In the future, companies will need to take good care of their customers in order to survive. Technology is enabling one mistake to be noticed by thousands of people. If you hurt a lot of your customers in the same way, you will have a tidal wave of negative word of mouth publicity.

September 20, 2004

Kerry campaign admits CBS works for them

Yahoo! News - Kerry Aide Talked to Retired Guard Officer

Apparently the Kerry campaign called Burkett regarding the Bush TANG story at the behest of CBS's Mary Mapes.

Joe Lockhart denied any connection between the presidential campaign and the papers. Lockhart, the second Kerry ally to confirm contact with retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, said he made the call at the suggestion of CBS producer Mary Mapes.

I would suspect that this is a pretty big breach of ethics. CBS refused to name their source to the public, but was happy to give that info to Joe Lockhart How can you claim to be unbiased when you are doing legwork for one of the campaigns?

September 15, 2004

Cluetrain alert

the cluetrain manifesto Is an aging book and website detailing how the Internet is allowing the consumers to gain a very powerful and credibible voice in the Marketing Discussion.

It contends that the consumers are quickly becoming deaf to the typical engineered propaganda that corporations tend to spew out in their attempt to impress customers .

This book was written well before the Blogging revolution, but it is interesting how relevant it is to the CBS situation.

Investors business daily Is running an interesting article regarding the power of Bloggers, and the advantages and disadvatages that they have over traditional media. CBS is demonstrating the cost of ignoring the cluetrain.

Some choice points from "The Cluetrain Manifesto ":


"There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone."

"Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity."

"Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them."

If you haven't heard of the "Cluetrain manifesto" Check out their website, they have 93 other points like this, and slowly companies in every industry are going to learn that they are dead on.

UPDATE: The guys at Powerline blog seem to have a firm grasp on what is happening. People have information. People now have the power to share their information. The mainstream media needs to adapt fast. Or someone is going to innovate a replacement for them. It seems that CBS has been 3 days behind since this broke.. People notice, People talk, People laugh.

September 14, 2004

Wouldn't fit in my carport.

Wow, I don't even know what to say about this...
(I don't have to ask. Andee will say no!)
7300 CXT SS.pdf (application/pdf Object)

I love the logo at the bottom "The Brilliance of Common Sense"

UPDATE: More details: Yahoo! News - New Pickup Makes Hummer Look Rather Puny

September 12, 2004

I love niche markets

Yahoo! News - Company Making Fake Urine for Research

You have to wonder, what makes somebody decide to go into the Urine manufacturing business. Sheer genious!

A good investment

This is a pretty neat idea:

FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Institution Lends on Faith

I remember my college days. I worked in factories to pay my way through school. I was astounded at the some of the highly talented, brilliant people that you would find wielding a soldering iron for a living. Many of these people could make a big difference in their community if somebody believed in them enough to give them a chance.

September 8, 2004

Take a year off...

This is a repost of a entry I made in January on my old blog... This topic came up again recently and I thought it may make for an interesting topic. Sorry if you have seen it before:

So, I have this strange habit of taking what most people would think of as a 'harebrained' idea, and trying to sell it to as many people as I can. Here is this weeks attempt:

I think that sabbaticals should be an encouraged benefit within more companies. I have been asking around, and a sizable portion of the people I unscientifically polled said that they would be willing to accept a reduction in pay in order to have 6 to 12 months off every few years.

So many people define their lives based on there employment. I think we quickly become slaves to the paycheck, and our true passions get buried or subordinated to advancing our career. Our vision becomes so focused on one very small part of the world that we lose a substantial amount of are capability to be creative. How can somebody be asked to think outside of the box when they have been trapped inside the box for years and years?

Today's businesses have to be extremely agile in order to be successful. When people do the same thing year in and year out, they get comfortable with it. They resist change. Commonly, there is such narrow perspective that an organization may not be able to see the big picture to even understand that change is necessary.

If we want people to think outside the box, we need to let them out of the box once in a while.

I see very good benefits to both parties in an organization where sabbatical are commonplace.

The employee gains the ability to spend time serving the real passions in their lives. Their family, churches, charities, Learning more, Relating to people more. They will feel like they are working for a company that is enabling them to do what they love, not a company that is preventing them from doing what they love.

The employer gains a workforce that has a better perspective on the world that they are serving. They gain a workforce that is used to change, The common absence of key people makes the rest of the team stronger, and more understanding of the whole operation. Infrastructure will naturally develop to adapt quickly to changes that need to happen.. Their employees will be better known in the community, and the company will gain goodwill from the community involvement as well as a more healthy community to draw its workforce from. Employees will also be more loyal, and less susceptible to burnout. .

The costs exist, but they probably could be split between the employee and employer, and both parties would feel that they where getting a pretty good deal.

What do you think of that idea? God made a similar 'suggestion' to Israel, but I don't believe they followed it. They didn't follow many of God's rules.

September 4, 2004

Placing a dollar amount on life

I always find studies that say "this problem costs the economy X billion dollars" Cost accountants must have way too much time on their hands.

The New York Times > Health > Sick of Work: Always on the Job, Employees Pay With Health

If everyone quit their stressful job, wouldn't that cost billions of dollars too? These studies always point out a cost, but they ignore the fact that just doing business has a lot of cost built into it. It is quite difficult to know where the baseline should start.

Computer viruses are another example. They always say it costs x billion dollars to deal with this virus... The problem with these figures is that it treats the employees and equipment as if they where variable costs, when they are not. You are going to pay the Security guy weather he is eradicating a virus or doing something else. Unless you lay him off whenever there is no virus, it is not really costing you any money. It is a hassle, and there are probably more productive things that your staff could be spending their time on, but there is no guarantee that the other activities will make your company any more money either.

The truth is that most cost is infrastructure... It is the cost of doing business. If you drive in a car, you will eventually experience and accident. If you go to work, you will eventually experience stress. If you buy something, eventually it will break. You can't say how much any one of these things cost, because if they didn't happen, something else would.

I think that putting a dollar amount on each and every facet of our lives causes us to make bad decisions. We ignore the spiritual and emotional side of the world, and make decisions based on imaginary figures. We try too much to make all of our decisions objective, when we actually live in an unquantifiable sea of simultaneous experiences.

August 22, 2004

Not creative at all

Sometimes you can call your product exactly what it is, and it will sell like crazy. Yahoo! News - Boudreaux's Butt Paste Sells Itself

We have gone though a few tubes in my household.

5 millon dollars per year with 3 employees is doing pretty good I think!

August 6, 2004

Successfully breaking all the rules

Gotta love a successful contrarian:

Fast Company | Inside the Mind of Jeff Bezos

If Bezos's personality is decidedly noncorporate, so are some of his ideas about how to run a large organization. One of Bezos's more memorable behind-the-scenes moments came during an off-site retreat, says Risher. "People were saying that groups needed to communicate more. Jeff got up and said, 'No, communication is terrible!' " The pronouncement shocked his managers. But Bezos pursued his idea of a decentralized, disentangled company where small groups can innovate and test their visions independently of everyone else. He came up with the notion of the "two-pizza team": If you can't feed a team with two pizzas, it's too large. That limits a task force to five to seven people, depending on their appetites.

July 29, 2004

Hell makes us rich?

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Countries that believe in hell are more prosporus and less corrupt.

Yahoo! News - Believing in Hell Has Its Benefits

July 20, 2004

Standing up for the truth.

Here is a good story. All too rare in today's world I am afraid.

Madeleines: Boomtime: Why Diversity Matters

I think that our corporate workplace mentality tends to value peace at the expense of truth.

Lies can quickly be transformed into the truth if the boss believes them. Without an agitator, management will believe most anything they are told. They do not have eyes and ears everywhere, and tend to only hear and see issues from the perspective of people who see things just like they see them.

Is cowardice a virtue? I have made several managers angry and uncomfortable, but I have yet to be fired for telling the truth. How am I to learn that I am wrong if I don't discuss my veiwpoint with management? How are they to learn they are wrong if nobody has the guts to talk to them?

The grumbing and gossip that is so common in the workplace today only demoralizes people
Having the courage to stand up for what you believe and discuss issues honestly helps us understand each other and move towards a common perspective.

July 2, 2004

Another global computer bug

I don't know why I like stories like this, but I do.

Too many cars, too few digits - 07/01/04

Hopefully someday we will learn. to ask questions like this way in advance.

July 1, 2004

A good product

I have been playing with Basecamp over the past couple of days. I am impressed. I love bang for the buck. Basecamp seems to be a fairly simple product that can really put the life back into a team.

Basecamp is a project collaboration tool. It allows you to basically run several blog style conversations about the projects that your team is working on. It features a calendar for putting up milestones, and events and the like. You can also set up to-do lists.

I am relatively cynical about project management in the workplace. I think that we make it quite a bit more complicated than it really is. There is a tendancy to manage people to their maximum effieciency, and often over-efficiency on a local scale breeds inefficiency on a global scale. If I am scheduled to be working on my projects for 90 percent of my time, then it will take me 9 days to catch up for a single sick day or day spent dealing with Murphy. In this environment every event impacts timelyness of completing what needs to be done.

I think the trick to being successful is to make sure everyone knows what needs to be done, and keep everyone working on something that needs to be done. if you plan too much more than that, you are inviting Murphy to make the hours you put into planning totally wasted.

Basecamp looks like it will be quite effective at making sure that you have the tools to let your team know what is being done and what needs to be done. (The part of project management that I think is most effective) It is very reasonably priced, and is fully web hosted, so there is no software to install. They know that their product is addictive, so they give out the first hit for free. (one project at a time)

Check it out!

June 25, 2004

I guess I will be going downtown tommorow.

Downtown Spokane turned on their Wifi today. Sounds like they are offering 2 hours per day for free! My Way News

Spokane seems to be an interesting place for Technology. There are a lot of innovators here, and there have been some successful companies, but It doesn't seem like much sticks for long. Hopefully the aggressive broadband strategy will work. The Terabyte Triangle has been around for 7 or so years., and seems to be encouraging quite a few small tech businesses.

Bernard Daines has started several companies here in the last few years. He seems to have the ability to bring a lot of capital and a lot of experienced personel into the area.

Perhaps in 5-10 years, the tech industry will be red hot here..

June 20, 2004

Half right...

Yahoo! News - Bank Says Emphasize Sex, Sleep -- Not Money

A major investment bank is advising clients to have sex, get more sleep and stop equating happiness with money -- turning the industry image of hard-nosed dealmakers on its head.

Money can't buy happyness.. I don't think sex will do the trick either however. I think sex is a pretty stressful recreation. Especially outside of the marriage.

One of my high school teachers (in a public school I might add) used to say every friday "too much of a good thing is not a good thing -- Just ask Noah."

June 4, 2004

Oops!

Having just experienced a Loan accounting upgrade at my employer, I am very glad that I don't work at Royal Bank of Canada!

The Globe and Mail

If you are a bank, it is always a good idea to know how much money you are holding for each of your customers. Otherwise, your customers begin burying money in mason jars in the backyard.

May 17, 2004

Weblog Technology in Business

This article suggests using blogging software for managing information flow about projects in business. This seems like a very good idea to me. Often all of the info about projects are transmitted via email, and quickly lost in the mass of other emails. Instead, we could post all of the information that may be useful for further refrence to a weblog.
With very little work you could have a system set up where you could post and maintain general info. This also could be searchable by keyword, and catagorized by topic. Pretty slick

Welcome to the 'Plogging' World!

May 14, 2004

Movable Type 3.0 fiasco

Pretty interesting activity over at Movable Type. They have published a new pricing stucture and their clientbase is revolting. The interesting part of the deal is that the Trackback feature in the software that they are trying to sell is contributing to the revolt.

Trackback allows you to see all of the Blogs that have linked to an entry on a blog. Mena's Corner: It's About Time

There is a lesson for everyone here.. If you don't want to pay for software, then you should not run propriatary software. Run something under the GPL. If you want to sell software, think through your pricing and marketing strategy well in advance.

It will be interesting to see how MT reacts to the revolt. I don't think they will be able to miss the cluetrain on this one.

I think I will stick with the old version for a while.. Although I probably should heed my own advice and find a GPL alternative.. I have been thinking about sending a donation to MT with my next windfall. Their product is pretty darn good.

May 9, 2004

Sausage retirement

Looks like the "just a sausage" lady is getting another 15 minutes of fame Forgiveness is a undervalued virtue in today's culture. I hope she does well in her future pursuits.

April 30, 2004

Ignore the urgent

Today's interesting Contrarian idea of the day:Fast Company | If It's Urgent, Ignore It

"Smart organizations ignore the urgent. Smart organizations understand that important issues are the ones to deal with. If you focus on the important stuff, the urgent will take care of itself."

April 13, 2004

Is it possible to invest wisely?

I have been enjoying reading Mark Cuban's Blog lately. He is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and made a substantial amount of money in the internet boom.

His Blog is very straight-shooting, and brings up points that most people overlook. Anyway I found his piece about how the stock market works today quite interesting. Read it!