The Stand-up Philosopher

Gmail Will Allow Users To Turn off Conversation View

From the “I Didn’t Realize This Was A Problem” department: Gmail will soon allow users to turn off conversation view.

Apparently, some people hate the conversation view. Are you one of them? I actually like it. I used it in Outlook too. Sometimes it’s easier to follow an email train in conversation view.

Who Hacked My Facebook Account?

Somebody has apparently hacked into my Facebook account and sent nasty messages to my wife as me. I’m trying to imagine who has the skill to pull this off, plus the time to bother to do it. I’m also wondering who could consider me important enough to mess with like this.

If you happen to know who has done this, please let me know. If a similar thing has happened to you, let me know how you dealt with it. It happened last year, which caused me to change my password. My password has apparently already been hacked again.

___________________________________________________

Upon further investigation, these messages aren't coming from my account.

Google Is On A Roll This Week

Lots of good things came out of Google recently. OK, 2 things. One is interesting, and the other should be highly useful.

One of the reasons I stick with gmail is for the storage space and the world-class spam filter. I rarely have a problem with spam thanks to gmail. I also like that I can get my mail just about anywhere: on the web, in Outlook, on my iPhone, or on just about any other device I might have. The convenience is great.

The interesting thing Google rolled out is the ability to make calls from gmail. I say it’s interesting because I’m not sure I’ll use it much. I can’t get Christina to test it with me. I called my iPhone from gmail and had the boys take it into another room, but they started fighting over who was going to hold the phone and ruined the experiment.

The next thing Google rolled out is called Priority Inbox. This is based on gmail’s spam filter and addresses a very real problem: email overload.

Gmail already has a heavy filtering system built in. You can create folders (or labels) and then filters based on those labels. I probably have 200 filters already, and it seems like I’m creating several more each week. I hate when I’m out, and expecting an email. Every time my iPhone tells me I have a new email, I rip it out of my pocket, enter the passcode, go to email, and find the whole experience anti-climactic. Rather than the important email I’m waiting for, it’s only  the 14th special offer GoDaddy has sent me this afternoon. Like I buy that many websites from them. Or it’s the AFA whining about another secular news organ being biased against Christian interests. Or it’s an automated reminder telling me my cable or cell phone bill is due in 3 weeks. Nothing important, and definitely not the email I was waiting for.

It seems that no matter how aggressively I filter my email, I still have to deal with tons of non-important “bac’n” in my inbox taking up time. I prefer to filter those into other folders then deal with them when I feel like it.

Because I handle email similar to the principles taught in “Getting Things Done”, I don’t mark an email as read or delete it (gmail archive) unless all actions required by that email have been completed. So while I’m out for a while, I can build up a ton of email in my inbox until I get home and can set up new filters so those kinds of emails will skip my inbox in the future.

I’m looking forward to the Priority Inbox. It would be nice to spend less time setting up filters in gmail.

The Key Word in Social Media is Social

Social media is a double edged sword. Through social media, I’ve reconnected with high school friends and Navy buddies I thought I’d never see again. I’ve even kept in touch with family, and formed closer relationships even with those in driving distance. I’ve been able to get a glimpse into the minds of business leaders I respect and admire. I’ve been able to see what celebrities I like are doing, like the Ghost Hunters and the Deadliest Catch fishermen.

Social media provides a business advantage. I can promote my listings a lot easier through social media. I can broadcast a lot farther and a lot faster about open houses and new listings. It’s a great business tool.

But I can also be spammed relentlessly by others promoting their own businesses and interests, who have no filter between their mind and keyboard. I routinely get friend requests from people, only to have my status stream and messages filled up with “business opportunities”, webinars, demands for information, and other distractions. All this from people who totally ignore the social aspect of social media.

Just now, I cleaned out 8 messages from my Facebook inbox. All were from people who “friended” me only for business promotion purposes. One guy sent two messages about a video of a friend who is supposedly making $1000 a day.Great. Believable. Somebody else sent out 3 messages about how he’s looking for short sales. That’s just the Real Estate and “Internet Marketers”.

I’m all for using social media for business. But I think you need to form a relationship. The founder of the company I’m affiliated with says “people buy people before they buy (anything else)”. So if you’re expecting me to buy your product through Facebook, then who are you? What are you thinking about? What are you doing? What do you like to do? What books are you reading?

I don’t turn down friend requests unless they’re obvious spam, but I tend to ignore those people who do nothing but shamelessly market.

What about you? Do you run into shameless promoters on social media? Do you think it’s OK?

Finally, Social Media Expert Defined

From Jason Dunn. I’d say this video sums it up nicely.

I need to find out what program is being used to create these things. 

Why Do People Waste So Much Energy Worrying Their (fill in the blank) Makes Them Dumber?

I'm starting to think there is something wrong with me. Am I missing something?

I don't spend any time worrying that my (iPhone, Dell, netbook, nook, TV, DVR, refrigerator, washing machine, GPS, reading lamp, stand-up shower, power mirrors, RSS Reader, or whatever the heck else) is making me dumb.

None. I don't waste any energy worrying about it.

Yet I read tons of content from other people worrying that such and such is killing their brains. Consider this from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): Is My iPhone Making Me Dumber?

I don't get it. But I see these things as very useful tools. I enjoy them while I have them. If they all disappeared some day, I'd find a way to get by. I'd really miss my broadband Internet and air conditioning though.

Do you worry about these things making you dumb? Destroying your ability to think? Why? Do you have any objective evidence for this, or are you just following "conventional wisdom"?

The Last Barrier To Me Using Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer has come a long was over the years. Version 6 was one of the most insecure and painful web browsers I've ever used. I still can't believe some organizations (like the United States Navy) still use it exclusively. As in, they actually design websites that will not work in any other browser but Internet Explorer 6. This is despite the fact that Microsoft has released 2 newer versions of the browser, both of which work a lot better. 

I've been using IE8 a little more lately. I actually like it. It starts VERY slow. It's one of the slower browsers to start. But once it's running, it runs pretty well. It finally has a session manager, so if I have a lot of tabs open and have to restart my computer, I can pick up where I left off. I don't have to set a lot of bookmarks.

But there is one thing that is stopping me from using Internet Explorer more than Google's Chrome or Mozilla's Firefox: this stupid dialog. I wrote that blog post more than 3 years ago, and that prompt is still a part of Internet Explorer.

If Microsoft could either get rid of that prompt, or at least let me click "Don't ever bother me with this again", I would probably make the jump to using IE8 a lot more often.

Are you using IE8 more than another browser? 

How I Decide Who To Follow Back on Twitter

I've been on Twitter for a couple of years now. I've been active for at least 2 years. I have over 200 followers now. I have no idea how many people have unfollowed me. I've unfollowed quite a few.

When it comes to social media, I tend to want to emphasize the social part. I want to know what people are thinking about and what they're doing. I want to interact with them. I'm especially interested if I'm following somebody successful that I want to be like someday. Make sure it's actually the person you're following though. Thanks to the rise of ghost blogging, some people don't even write their own tweets anymore. They pay someone to do it. Robert Kiyosaki is a case in point. He uses a “ghost” to tweet for him. So do John Maxwell and Dave Ramsey, although they are open about it and will occasionally write their own tweets. No matter how successful I get, any tweets you see with my name on them will come from me.

[UPDATE 6 Feb 2012: Here is the link I should have included in the first place to back up my claim about people hiring ghosts to tweet for them: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/204592 ]

Interesting Social Media Statistics

I’m curious to know what this means. I pick up followers on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t know. That’s not unusual; I routinely find people through social media that I don’t know. I’m interested in what they have to say and in what they’re doing. I follow them.

The types of people most likely to follow me on Twitter that I don’t know are pastors and Internet marketers.

The types of people most likely to follow me on Facebook that I don’t already know are Real Estate investors.

What about you? What kinds of people, besides friends and family, follow you on the social media sites?

How To Use A Daily Capture Mind Map

Way back in September, I wrote a post about using a concept called a Daily Capture Mind Map. It was to address a serious vulnerability in my own productivity system.

For the most part, it worked really well. I began using Mind Manger for iPhone. I kept this map on it. I treated this as a dashboard and used it to park information that I needed access to quickly. Prior to buying Mind Manager for iPhone, I was using Mind Meister, an online mind mapping service with a free plan. At the time I had two computers for work on two different networks, so I could access my dashboard at either, plus at home.

With Mind Manager for iPhone, if I was out and about, and came up with a new idea, or an action item, I would park it on this mind map until I could get to it later. If somebody committed to get something to me, it went on here. And, if I committed something to somebody else, it went on here. I referred to it several times a day.

It worked really well for a while. At least, it worked until I didn’t have a job anymore. For some reason, I’m a lot better at tracking lots of information than I am very little information. Once I was removed from my position in November, I didn’t have anything else to track. I haven’t really used this map much since then.

I’m going to dust this map back off as I go about my job search.

How Wrong Is This?

I used to have a Google AdSense account. It got suspended for “click fraud”. Basically, one day while I was looking at my own blog, I noticed some Google ads that interested me, so I clicked on them. Google then suspended my account for click fraud. I appealed, Google denied my appeal.

So, imagine my surprise when I uploaded a new blog post and saw the following:

Figure 1. Ads By Google

So, let me get this straight. Google suspended my AdSense account because I clicked on two or three ads on my page. But Google is still running ads on my blog through a 3rd party (Addify).

I’m not entirely opposed to it. One thing I like about Google ads is that they are targeted. That’s why I clicked on the two or three ads that got me banned for “click fraud”. They were targeted to the posts I was writing, therefore obviously I was interested in them.

Finally, The Differences Between Web Browsers Explained

If you ever wondered what the differences were between the major web browsers, this should help.

Lately, I've been using Firefox portable on a hard drive that I carry with me. At home, I use Google's Chrome on my computers. I started having problems with Firefox on my desktop, and it's memory leaks are just too much for my netbook to handle.

I never got the point to Opera. I like Safari on Mac, but until the Windows version gets a session manager, I'm not using it.

I use Internet Explorer only in extreme emergencies. I hate Internet Exploder. It's slow and clunky.

Hard To Find Seminars: A Site Rich In Free Content

I can’t remember when it was. I think it was within the last year. I was looking for something, and I stumbled across a site called “Hard To Find Seminars.” I got on the email list (which is hard to avoid doing) and then largely ignored it. I would glance over the emails, but didn’t really have the time to do much with them. I recently came back to it.

Hard To Find Seminars is run by Michael Senoff. Michael is a salesman, but this site is rich in free content. Michael interviews people, and places the interviews online WITH transcripts. They’re freely available.

Check the site out if you’re looking for this kind of information. As I write this, I’m listening to an interview about the inside of the motivational tape industry.

Why Are Job Descriptions So Poorly Written?

This is something that has always baffled me. When companies need to hire somebody, don’t they want to hire an experienced and talented person? If so, why do they make it so darn hard to figure out what the job actually is?

I like to keep an eye on what opportunities are out there. I wish I’d lived in a time when an employee could expect to stay with one company for an entire career. I don’t. While I do appreciate the company I currently work for, I’m under no illusions that their relationship with me can’t end at any time and for any reason on their part. Loyalty is a wonderful quality, but should not be misplaced.

Google Buzz Should Be Google Mana: "What Is It?"

Last week while I was snowed in, Google rolled out their new service, Buzz. I immediately enabled it and have been trying to figure out the point ever since.

At one point, I told Christina they should call it "Mana", because people look at it and ask "What is it?" For those of you who are not studied in the exodus, that's what mana means: "What is it?"

I think Buzz has a lot of promise, if I can figure out the point. What is it supposed to be? Is it a social network? Is it an aggregator? I don't know. 

Twitter was very easy to figure out. Twitter's heuristic (that is design philosophy) was "In 140 characters or less, what are you doing right now?" That's really easy to figure out and people found some very creative ways to use Twitter before the "Social Media/Web 2.0 Consultants" showed up.

To this point, I've centered my personal social media strategy around Twitter. I run almost everything through Twitter (you can follow me here.) Most other social networks (including Buzz) can pick up your Twitter feed. Mine goes to Facebook, LinkedIn, and now Buzz. I'm sure it goes to a few other places, but I've forgotten then.

Twitter is a nice place to get your thoughts out there, but discussing them on Twitter is a little cumbersome. I tend to discuss things on Facebook, which allows commenting on posts. I also have a lot of online friends who aren't on Twitter, but are on Facebook, so I interact with them on Facebook.

This has a little confusion. People on Facebook don't seem to understand the Retweet function, so I'll retweet somebody else's comment and people on Facebook think it's my original thought, even if it includes the via @otherperson that Twitterific adds. 

My Twitter feed gets automatically scooped to Buzz, which is good. I wonder why Buzz doesn't interact with Facebook.

Are you using Buzz? What do you think about it? 

Happy New Year From Google

I was happy to check Google Reader today and find my wish list fulfilled. Now only does Google Reader show up on the iPhone more like on the desktop, but posts now show up from oldest to newest, rather than from newest to oldest. Thank you, Google.

If you're looking for an easy way to keep up with blogs, like mine, I highly recommend Google Reader. I've been using it for years.

Steve Ballmer (Apparently) Fires Microsoft Employee For Not Being Excited Enough About Bing

I'm testing Typepad's new microblogging feature. OK, it's not that new, but I've never tried it.

Steve Ballmer at Microsoft apparently fired an employee for not being excited enough about Bing, Microsoft's latest attempt at a search engine that can't find anything.

http://mashable.com/2009/12/19/bing-youre-fired/

I have no enthusiasm for Bing. I think I tried it once, and it didn't return any useful results, so I went back to Google.

I Can Haz Cheezeburger: Hand Wash

One of the many sites I scoop through RSS into my Google Reader feeds is I Can Haz Cheezeburger. They post pictures of “LOL Cats”, or cats doing funny things with captions. The captions are usually written in poor English; sort of like how a small child would talk.

Today’s picture should produce an “aww!” moment in just about anyone. I’m sure there will be exceptions, but most of us should have a hard time resisting this. “Hand Wash With Like Colors Only”.

Seth Godin: If Craig's List Cost $1

Seth Godin posted an interesting idea to his blog: what if Craig's List cost $1 to post?

Seth argues that the number of scams and bogus postings would go down, and the site's revenue would soar. He adds:

Money creates a sort of friction. In the digital economy, magical things can happen when there is no friction. You can scale to infinity. On the other hand, sometimes you want friction.

$1 isn't a big deal, but as Seth says, it would create some friction that might be beneficial.

When Caleb was born, my wife and I had 2 dogs and 3 cats. The dogs and one of the cats were mine. I decided that with two children, I couldn't give the animals the attention they needed. I posted Wiggles the dog and "Evil Cat" on Craig's List. It was a very hard decision. Both animals really did love me, but as I said, I couldn't give them the attention they needed at that point. I read an article somewhere that you should never give an animal away for free. You should always put a nominal charge of around $25 or $50 on the animal. The charge helps create an emotional connection in the person to the animal. It's easy to pick up a free animal, but if you've had to pay a small amount of money from the animal, you're more likely to take better care of the animal. As Seth says, it creates friction.

Check out Item Not As Described for some real-life examples of ways Craig's List could benefit from a $1 listing fee.

Do you think Craig's List would change if it charged a nominal fee for posting? Would it be better, or worse? Would it change the way you use Craig's List? (Please, don't direct angry comments at me. I carry no influence with the direction of Craig's List. I'm not even sure what position I'd take on this issue if I did.)

Symantec Video Highlights the Dangers of Shortened URLs

Lifehacker linked to a Symantec video showing the dangers of shortened URLs. What is a shortened URL? When using an application like Twitter with a character limit, it's not always possible to include a long link to a website, video, or article that you'd like to share with others. You then go through a URL shortener to create a shorter link that can be shared with a brief comment in under 140 characters. URL shorteners have been around for years, but I didn't start using them until Twitter came along.

Picture by ShiYali

URL shorteners can be convenient and useful. The problem is, they can also be used to hide malicious sites. How can you tell a malicious site?

If you click on a link, and immediately get what looks like a Windows notification telling you that your computer has a virus, GET OUT OF THERE! If the virus notification recommends a specific program to take care of the problem, GET OUT OF THERE! Just close the windows. If they won't go away, restart your computer.

Web Worker Daily: Twitter Expectations

Web Worker Daily had a post about Twitter Expectations the other day. I figured it would give me a good chance to post a rant about Twitter. You can follow me on Twitter here.

Julian Smith posted a video called 25 Things I Hate About Facebook.

I find Twitter to be a useful service. All kinds of API's (Application Programming Interfaces) have popped up on Twitter and Facebook and other social networks, so things are starting to integrate nicely. My Twitter feed also goes to Facebook (you can follow me in Facebook here). I think that works out nicely. I can post to Twitter and then discuss my tweets on Facebook. I have several friends on Facebook who are not on Twitter, so it works out nicely.

That said, there are a few things about Twitter that annoy me.

You're Not Going To Get Free Stuff For Forwarding An Email

I got an email from a friend today. That’s normally a good thing, and it gave us a chance to catch up on a few things. The email had the subject of “Laptop”. The text inside the email said “Hey it’s worth a shot and snopes said it was legit” (sic).

I figured he put that last line in there for me. I’m known to within seconds of getting one of these things to search Snopes.com and utilize one of the few reasons I think a “reply-to-all” is legitimate. I do this to let everybody know that the email they sent promising free stuff or riches for simply spamming all of their friends is a hoax. Nothing but a hoax perpetrated by somebody with nothing else to do with his, her, or their life (lives) but try to see how easy it is to get sheople to spam their friends and family with stupid stuff.

The email contained one attachment, an image file, appropriately named “image001.jpg (76KB)”. I attached the image below:

Figure 1- Free Laptop- How Many Things Can You Find Wrong In This Picture?

As soon as I saw that, it took me less than 30 seconds to go to Snopes.com, close the pop-up ads they have, enter “Sony Ericsson Laptop” in the search box, hit this page, and discover that this whole this is a hoax just like I suspected.

Video- The Guild: Do You Want To Date My Avatar

This is hilarious. I’d never heard of this group before. I also don’t play MMORPGs. It’s not that I’m not interested, but a man’s gotta know his limitations. The last two games I got seriously into were The Sims (1st one) and Diablo II. Both of them took up a lot of time, which I don’t want to have to spend on World of Warcraft at this point in my life. I’m also wary about playing with people I don’t know and don’t yet trust. I’ve heard a few stories of people being ripped off and attacked in games. I’m sure they’re the exception, but still. I used to play Diablo II with my wife across our LAN.

Anyway, the video:

Social Media Overload

I’m getting tired of invites to new social media sites. I have nothing against new sites popping up. I’m a great fan of competition. The more competition, the more everybody wins. But I’m getting tired of getting spammed with tons and tons of copycat social media sites. One of my Plaxo contacts keeps sending me invites to something called ecademy. It’s supposed to be a place for professionals to hook up. Oh, you mean, like, LINKEDIN?

I got the following just now:

Hey Eric,
Have you heard of Faves? It's an easy way to save and share links to the stuff you find on the web - stuff like videos, articles, music and just about anything else. You just click a button when you see something you want to share, and you've created a Fave that all your friends can see.
It's really easy to sign up, and it's completely free! Come check out the cool stuff I've been sharing.

If you'd like, check out some of my top interests at Faves: onlywire, money, business

I’m not sure what this is supposed to be. “an easy way to save and share links to the stuff you find on the web”. I already have that. It’s called Delicious. You can follow the stuff I save and want to share here. Oh, and I can “click a button when I see something I want to share” using delicious. I’ve been doing it for years. I can also save and share videos on Twitter, my blog right here, YouTube, and several others that I can’t think of right now.

Come on, Faves, you’re late to the party. I know this wasn’t personal. This email came through a contact that I have on another social network. It’s somebody I don’t really know. Somehow we became “friends” on that network, so he signs up for Faves, they access his address book, and I get an email.

I would like to see somebody come up with a concept that is truly unique. Then I might be interested. Twitter was new, MySpace was new, FaceBook was new, and I jumped on all of them. I’m honestly not very excited to get an invitation to yet another copycat of the stuff that already works and I’m already using. This is almost as bad and unoriginal as another distribution of Linux. I will, however, give points to Hannah Montana Linux. That’s unique.

Fix YouTube Jumpiness in Firefox

I’m going to experiment with this fix. I’ve avoided watching YouTube videos on my Acer Netbook because the videos jump. I figured it was the limited hardware of my netbook, although I’ve watched YouTube on much lesser hardware with Windows XP. Heck, it’s a 1.6Ghz processor with 1GB of RAM. Even if I am running several programs, this computer should be able to handle a YouTube video.

Apparently, it has to do with the session restore feature in Firefox. It’s set to a default save of 10 seconds. Even I am not that paranoid.

When my wife got me this Acer for my birthday (yes, I sort of asked for it since I needed a new laptop and it fit within our budget), I was wary. I push my computers pretty hard. So far, this Acer AspireOne is a pretty respectable little computer.

Why Do I Keep Using Firefox?

Firefox drives me nuts. I’m starting this blog entry after yet another crash. Why did Firefox crash? I tried to load a page. One web page. Seth Godin’s blog. And Firefox crashed. Why do I continue to subject myself to this kind of instability?

Honestly, because as much as Firefox raises my blood pressure, there are a few things it can do that other browsers can’t match.

Any Indication That This is True: How A Millionaire’s Brain Works?

This is one of those apocryphal stories that pop up from time to time. This time it’s on Fortune Watch, although under a humor and stories set of categories. It’s the famous story of the millionaire who, on his way out of town, borrows $5000 from a bank and uses his Ferrari as collateral. Upon return, he picks up his car and pays approximately $15 in interest. When asked why he would use a $250,000 (although I’ve seen the value of the car vary in retellings) for a $5000 loan, he replies “Where else can I park my car in this city (usually NYC) for $15 and expect it to be there when I get back?”

It’s a nice story, and a nice illustration that most wealthy people get to be wealthy by not making the overpriced mistakes of the “poor” and “middle class”, but does anybody know if this story is actually true?

I’m not a fan of unverifiable illustrations. I don’t like them in sermons, in motivational material, and even in drinking stories. They’re fine in jokes. If this millionaire parking story came from a joke book, that’s fine, but I’m getting worried about it being passed off as unverifiable fact like the “train bridge operator” story. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that sermon illustration about the train bridge operator who brought his son to work with him, and when the train was approaching, he saw his son playing in the gears, and was forced to kill his son to put the bridge down as the express train was fast approaching, and as the train went by, he screamed “Don’t you people know that I just killed my son for you!” followed by a Gospel invitation. Yeah, nice story, but let’s have some names, and dates, and maybe some CPS or DYFS investigations, or some railroad investigations. It sounds more like negligence and parenting failure to me than a comparison to the cross. I’ve probably heard this millionaire parking story more than I’ve heard the idiot train bridge operator kills son for express train sermon illustration. (Yes, I’ve heard that train story from the pulpit in my own church several times, and in podcast sermons, and I’ve probably read it in books.)

I can’t find anything on Snopes, which is my go-to site for any stupid email that I get. Actually, nobody sends them to me anymore. It’s far more likely that I was just taken off distribution lists rather than I convinced people to verify that Bill Gates is in fact testing an email tracking program and will pay you $1000 for every idiot you can spam.

If you can provide any details about this millionaire parking story (or the train-bridge guy story for that matter), please leave them in the comments.

Want to Spit Coffee on your Monitor and Beat Your Head Against the Wall? Follow Casey Serin

I blogged about Casey Serin last year when he launched one of his comebacks. Now he's back again. You can read my previous post or any of the 700+ articles at Caseypedia for most of the details rather than me creating a massive link-laden post.

In March of '07, I read an article called "The World's Most Hated Blogger". It got me into a train wreck watching phase that I can't break out of. Casey is about the weirdest Internet denizen I've ever seen. He's alternately open and totally evasive at the same time. I can't figure out if he's lazy, stupid, manic depressive, bi-polar, NPD (narcissistic personality disorder), sociopathic, or just completely brainwashed by Real Estate Guru and MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) and motivational material. All I know is that waiting to see what he'll do or say next for many becomes an obsession. I am no exception.

One commentor on his now-defuct "True Casey" blog (formerly at http://www.truecasey.com ) accused Casey of have a "cargo-cult" mentality over entreprenuership. He seems obsessed with being an Internet marketer, Real Estate Investor, and of course holder of "sweet passive income", but like the cargo cults all he seems to do is shuffle papers around and talk.

If you're looking for a source of free amusement, follow his new blog, Blogger Casey. Don't try to offer him advice though, even if he asks. Casey never follows advice. It only gets you frustrated. It's much more fun to watch other people get angry at Casey for not taking their advice, especially if that advice is tempered by decades in the industry or field from which he's asking for advice.

Also, if you're going to follow Casey, don't correct any spelling thereby revealing yourself as a n00b. Some people have been following Casey since September of 2006 when his I Am Facing Foreclosure blog went live, and some of his famous misspellings have become legend and have entered into the lexicon of those who find themselves both frustrated and amused by Casey. Don't correct words like "looser" and "advise" (especially when used in the context for which "advice" would be correct). Those who use them know what they're doing.

What Is A Community? How Is A Community Lead? (AONC)

I came across a great post this morning by Chris Gullibeau about communities. This is probably the best, most concise definition I've read of what it means to have and to lead a community.

I think it also helps me to understand partly why my blog has never managed to go anywhere. Sure, I've written almost 600 posts and gained some valuable experience, but my readership never took off. I think the reason why is because this blog has always been about me. That's fine, because it's my blog. But then again, who are "we" in the context of my blog? What community could I write for?

I better figure that out. In the meantime, read Chris' awesome post.

On Social Media

We all know that Social Media is the new buzzword. It also makes a great business tool. I use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Plaxo in addition to my blog. I’m sure I have a few others here and there, like MySpace, which I don’t use much anymore. I find social media to be useful and fun. At least, there are some aspects of social media I enjoy. If my wife sends me one more “buy a round” thing on Facebook… I’d rather she just make me the darn drink and bring it up to me. I honestly have no use for those silly Facebook games. I enjoy commenting on other people’s statuses, or having mine commented on. That’s the social part that I enjoy.

This isn’t backed up by any objective data or research, but it often seems like new fields in computers are pioneered by people who just want to have fun, or do something new. Sometimes there is a profit motive and there’s nothing wrong with that. But after the people who are having fun are through, then along come the sharks and the vultures. These are the people who want to make money, and do it in any way possible. Then along come the “I’ll teach you how to get rich using (EBay, Facebook, Twitter, Blue Mountain Cards, etc) buttholes. It seems to me that there is much more money to be made in selling products that claim people can make money within a system than there is money to actually be made within that system.

Social media is little different. I’m a firm believer that it can be a useful business tool. I briefly contemplated starting a small consulting business for social media. I figured I could market myself to small businesses looking to expand their influence in the community. This would be a useful service for Realtors and restaurants and Karate studios and coffee shops and even bands. A local band, Queen Anne's Revenge, followed me on Twitter. I followed them back. I’m sure their music isn’t exactly my style and I really don’t like going to crowded places with loud music anyway (never been to a real concert and proud of it!), but they don’t post a lot of annoying tweets and I’m happy to support a local band. Also, I can’t help but be fascinated by Blackbeard (Edward Teach) and his ship, so I happily followed Queen Anne’s Revenge.

I also follow a local coffee shop and our Realtor. Our attempt to sell our house has had a lot of ups and downs and no resolution as yet, but Karen has earned a “spot” as the family Realtor and as a friend.

This past week I reached a breaking point with a couple of people I had followed on Twitter. Normally, I’m pretty good about following people who follow me. I have a few minor criteria. I have no problem with people using Twitter for their businesses, as long as they don’t become jerks. This week, I came across two who I felt were abusing the point to Twitter and I un-followed them.

We were on a vacation using our timeshare exchange. Because I mentioned “timeshare” several times in my tweets, I picked up some “timeshare experts” as followers. I figured it could be useful to follow people who are knowledgeable in this field, and I followed them. Two in particular got really annoying. Since I was away from a computer a lot, I was using my iPhone almost exclusively. I use Twitterific on the iPhone as my Twitter client. I noticed that two of the “timeshare experts” I was following kept running the same tweets over and over and over again. It was like I was back to my pre-podcasting days listening to talk radio and having to hear that damn Sea Silver commercial 20 times in a one mile stretch of road. (I think Sea Silver was WFIL’s only advertiser for a while). I follow a few people who Tweet about their blog posts or thoughts or products, but they usually keep it interesting. I’d never come across people who acted like they were running talk radio commercial spots. I un-followed both of them. I should note that I’m still following other timeshare experts who do post interesting tweets.

For what it’s worth, here’s my perspective on the use of Twitter: it’s SOCIAL MEDIA. That means that, even in business, it needs to be SOCIAL. I can understand using a bot (or a script that monitors for certain keywords) to find people on Twitter, but people who use bots on Twitter are outside the point.

When somebody follows me on Twitter, or I’m looking for somebody to follow, I look for a few criteria. People that I follow don’t have to fall into all of them, but I use them as informal guidelines for myself.

1. Who are you?

2. What do you do?

3. (if business) What business are you in or what services do you offer?

4. What unique challenges do you face in your business?

5. How do you solve or handle those challenges?

6. What unique knowledge or perspective do you have in your field?

7. If you’re willing to share, what is your family like? What hobbies do you have? What funny or frustrating things do your kids do?

8. If I post a question on Twitter about problems I’m having, are you open to responding?

Those are fairly simple. I follow quite a few interesting people. I follow pastors, writers, business leaders, a few artists, museums, entrepreneurs, publishers, and all kinds of other people and organizations that I find interesting. I occasionally interact with them on Twitter.

I’m getting tired of advertisers and people who “link-blog” exclusively. Twitter is a great place to share information, but in my opinion, the social aspect should not be overlooked.

I hope the people selling advice on how to use Twitter to make “lots of money” and those who pay for those courses don’t ruin it.

Failblog: Animal WTF's

I recently discovered a new time black hole: Fail Blog. I better get a grip or it's going to show up on my weekly status report and disrupt my family life.

I couldn't resist linking to this one about Animal WTF's. Pardon the acronym if you don't use it in your daily communications. I love the one about the Lobster Knife Fight, but the cat and watermelon are interesting enough.

If you're interested in keeping up with my journeys around the Internet, you can follow me on Delicious. I've recently started posting sites that I find interesting there. For years, I've used it merely as a way to synchronize bookmarks across multiple computers. It is a social bookmarking system though, so join me there and socially bookmark stuff.

Tech Support Through Social Media

Last night I ran into a problem, and today I remain amazed at the power of social media. I’m also amazed at how effectively companies can be by monitoring it.

Last night I was trying to install some Bible software on my netbook. I normally run into trouble with Libronix. I can usually get through it with help from Google. Last night was different. I went through the usual error. I downloaded MSXML 4.0. Then I got another error. Then I ran Libronix Update. Then Libronix would start, but not load. Then I downloaded the latest version. Then it would load, but somehow most of my books didn’t show up.

For those of you who know me (those who don’t should pray it remains that way), I don’t always handle frustration well. I especially fail to handle frustration when I have an ear to listen, or better yet an entire platform like Twitter. I can be somewhat of an ass when I’m frustrated, have a target, and a platform. I made a few frustrated tweets asking why Thomas Nelson doesn’t fix Libronix so it works right the first time. I also left a few frustrated tweets about Laridian, which decided to delete 500 of my Bible notes.

I'm Going to Become a Windows Mobile "Hater"

I’ve decided that I”m going to become a Windows Mobile “Hater”. That will probably seem unreasonable and illogical to many, but so be it.

That does not mean I am going to become a Microsoft “Hater”. I won’t become a mobile device “hater". I won’t become a Windows “Hater”. My “hating” is going to be specifically directed at Windows Mobile. That includes Microsoft’s Windows Mobile team, their “partners”, and the telcos, at least in regards to Windows Mobile.

I am going to become overly critical of the platform to the point where I do NOT recommend it. If you’re considering a Windows Mobile device, please, to preserve your sanity, don’t get one. Get a BlackBerry or an iPhone instead, or just get a plain old dumbphone.

I’ve had several Windows Mobile devices over the years. I’m tired of the same annoyances and performance issues that are common to every device I’ve had. Here is my device history:

Scheduling Contact Annoyances

While I’m on an annoyances kick this afternoon, I wanted to add one more. Today, I realized that my eyeglass prescription had changed. Because this is affecting my ability to read, I decided to see if I could move up my eye appointment. I logged onto my eye doctor’s website and found an earlier appointment that I could use. I got a confirmation message.

The next thing that happened is that I got an email from the website stating that I had an important message from my eye doctor. Obviously, the message couldn’t be contained in the email because that would be too efficient. I clicked on the link, to be taken to a page telling me that I rescheduled my appointment and should print that page for my records. Didn’t I already see that page when I rescheduled?

Don’t systems analysts think about these things when they design systems? I could see getting an email confirming my appointment reschedule, but an email that has me click on a link to get to a web page that tells me I rescheduled which I already knew is a little inefficient.

Technorati Tags: Email,email notifications,email annoyances

Text Messaging Annoyances

I have no idea if this is limited to Windows Mobile or not, as I’ve only used text messaging on two phones. I will occasionally get a text message that is informational. The pop-up toast will come up to tell me the text, which is short enough to read in the preview. I’ll read it, and hit Dismiss. However, my today screen will still show an unread text message. I have to open my text message in order for it to be marked as read. This is annoying.

Sometimes when I’m texting with my wife, I’ll have to close out the chat, then reopen it to clear out her last unread message from my unread message count. Again, annoying.

Technorati Tags: Texting,Text Messaging,Annoyances

Social Network Annoyances

Don’t get me wrong, I like social networks. At the very least, I like the social networks that I’ve already joined and still use, such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Plaxo. Needless to say, each has it’s own unique annoyances that drive me nuts. Here are some of the biggest:

• Facebook- 3rd party application requests. I like the fact that Facebook has 3rd party APIs, that is, Application Programming Interfaces. It’s easy for somebody with a great idea to write a program that can then be integrated into Facebook. However, every single one of these programs feeds on constantly asking your friends to join (separate annoyance). Some of these programs are games which I don’t have time for, but I have one friend who does and every time I log onto Facebook I get tons of requests to participate. When I ignore them all, I get a text from my friend asking me to “join my tribe, man” from whatever game he’s playing now.

I Thought This Was a Joke: Mike Rowe Soft

I came across something interesting today that I honestly thought was a joke. Apparently, a Canadian teenager (not the Dirty Jobs guy) named Mike Rowe set up a website with the URL http://www.mikerowesoft.com . Mic-ro-soft apparently had an issue with that and “defended” their trademark. A settlement was reached. The wikipedia article is here and the archived version of the page is here. The original URL brings up a search page.

Dude, the White House Goes Web 2.0!

This is an interesting surprise. The White House now has a blog, already complete with RSS. President Obama (please bear with me while I adjust to that as I wasn’t as enthusiastic as some of you) plans to have an open and transparent government. That will be interesting. I’m fairly cynical, and when I read that line in the White House’s first blog post, I immediately thought of former-President Clinton’s promise to have the most ethical administration in history.

I didn’t agree with the new President in many of his policies and proposed solutions, but now that he’s in office, it is my duty to support him as I am able, and of course to pray for him.

At this point, the best we can do is watch. I will say that while I don’t agree with many of his policies and proposed solutions, I do respect the man in many ways.

Anyway, I’ve already got the White House blog in my Google Reader feeds. I’ll pray for the new President as he goes through BlackBerry withdrawals. That would hurt me.

Technorati Tags: White House Blog,White House Tech,Presidential tech

Customer Service Redemption

Due to the frustration I went through in May when my cable modem stopped working in my computer room and my seeming inability to get the situation corrected through Comcast’s 1-800 number, I’ve been ranting on my blog about the situation. Last week when I linked the original post, a Comcast representative invited me to email the details of my situation to her. It took me through the Christmas weekend to get the email put together, but when I did, it was sent up to corporate. Corporate scheduled a technician to visit my house and investigate the problem. The tech came, replaced some coax and splitters, and checked the signal strength. I am now able to keep my cable modem and router upstairs in my computer room, safe from the kids and our Borg cat that likes to eat wires. Seriously, we had no lights on our Christmas tree because the cat ate some bulbs and the power cord.

I’ve written before about how smart businesses will monitor the web for negative incidents. I’m glad that Comcast did that. To be honest, as long as my cable modem and TV work, I am perfectly happy to stay with Comcast. There really isn’t a viable alternative to Comcast high-speed internet, but as long as it works I’m happy. I don’t have any complaints about our cable package, which is honestly a very low price. Several years ago we dumped our expanded cable to try to save money. This was right after Joshua was born in 2004, the same time we switched to DSL. After 3 weeks with a newborn baby and only basic cable, our sanity was stretched to the limits. We’d spend Saturday mornings in a half-catatonic state watching those used car commercials. I found out about a $5 value package and asked for that. Our cable and internet bill is under $60 or $70. We don’t at present see a need for a several hundred dollar a month digital package. I don’t watch sports, and as long as I have the History and Discovery Channels and my wife has Food TV and the kids have Nickelodian, we’re happy. I also recently discovered that we have Speed, which was a nice surprise. Maybe I should channel flip more often.

I know that customer service is one of the most expensive and time consuming functions of business, and no business can expect to please everybody. I was very happy to see that Comcast monitors blogs.

Service and Support: Evernote Resolution

I wrote last week about service and support, and I used Evernote as an example, though I was not trying to cast them in a negative light; I only wanted to point out using their webpage how companies attempt to deflect wasting time on stupid questions versus people with real problems trying to get through.

I contacted Evernote’s customer support. It took most of the week, but exchanging email back and forth with Evernote lead to a resolution of my problem. I can now sync Evernote from my work laptop to the web client, which will increase my efficiency and my ability to record, file, and retrieve information. I highly recommend Evernote if you’re looking for a way to keep track of your electronic notes.

Google Introduces Tasks

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-in-labs-tasks.html

This is very cool. I’ve been having problems lately with the Outlook tasks that I’ve somehow convinced myself are so integral to my productivity. For some reason I’ve had some drop on me lately, and Outlook notes just won’t sync to my Epix at all. I have no idea why. Depending on what Google does with Gmail tasks, this might be a good way for me to move my task tracking into “the cloud”, or the internet.

A Total Inside Joke

I was reading Tim Challies’ blog yesterday and came across this post explaining why the T4G (Together for the Gospel) blog had fallen silent, with it’s last post being April 25. Tim attempted to explain the silence. If you don’t know any of the personalities involved, you may not get the humor. If you do, I almost fell out of my chair yesterday trying to imagine these theologians and ministers having a falling out over Dungeons and Dragons rules.

On the bright side, it looks like he got them started blogging again.

Why Didn't I Just Get An iPhone?

I do like my Samsung Epix, but I am starting to wish I'd just gotten an iPhone instead.I ended up hard resetting my Epix a couple days ago, after barely 3 weeks of operation. Then I started the process of syncing with my laptop at work. The next day, for whatever reason, my organization decided to ban the use of all removable media and demand we scan our computers, and leave them connected and turned on. Even if we take them home with us, we were told to leave them for the rest of the week unless a mission critical reason exists. I'm not sure what the big deal is, but apparently it's organization wide (this is a very, very large organization). OK, I'd gotten tired of all the hassles with synchronizing a Windows Mobile device with 2 computers, but even though I had a good sync at work, I had to delete that relationship and sync at home. Of course, in the process, a whole buttload of appointments duplicated, but to top it all off, a bunch of my tasks deleted themselves.

I'm going to work on decentralizing my workflow away from Windows Mobile and Microsoft Outlook so that the next time I get a phone, I don't have to talk myself into a Windows Mobile device again. I've used every version of Windows Mobile from 2002 to 6.1, and the amount of progress on this platform is not impressive at all. Yeah, I know, the iPhone got a non-recessed headset jack, 3G, and GPS along with a Stalinistic app store, but at least you don't have to hard reset the darn thing every 3 weeks.

New Thoughts Media Community Site: Apple Thoughts

I first stumbled onto Pocket PC Thoughts 4 years ago this month. It was started by Jason Dunn 8 years ago and has become a media empire of sorts, with community sites dedicated to Smartphones, the Zune, Digital Media, and now Apple. Apple Thoughts just launched. If you happen to have a Thoughts Media account already, it is good on the new site.

It Should Be Harder to “Reply to All” Than to Start a Nuclear War

I’m not going to deny that the “Reply To All” function in email clients is a useful and sometimes necessary function. However; I would like to submit that “Reply to All” is abused more often than any single function of any communications platform.

I have several methods to communicate, and quite a few email account, especially for work. I’ve got most of my personal email going through my gmail account, but for work I have two main accounts. I am a contractor to another organization, so I have to be on their email domain. That one is particularly annoying. Who, in an enterprise environment working on large programs can survive with a 50 MB email limit? Well, we’re supposed to, and I am constantly hitting it, especially on travel. I can access through the webmail client, but most of my functionality comes through one workstation devoted entirely to that network. I also have another email account through the company I work for, which my BlackBerry is tied to.

Somebody in my company had a baby today. Good for her; having babies is a wonderful thing. But it seems that everybody in the company had to “Reply to All” to say “Congratulations!” It seems that, while I was supposed to be in a meeting this morning, I spent the entire day deleting replies to the announcement of the birth of the baby. This drives me nuts.

I especially am annoyed when a meeting announcement is sent out to hundreds or more people in varying locations around the country and that one “impotent” jackass has to “Reply to All” to say “I shouldn’t be on this list.” That makes me want to reply to that person to say “I shouldn’t be receiving this.”

It’s even worse on my personal account when an email for a group I belong to goes out and other members of the group start a conversation using “Reply to All” that goes on for days, leaving me to spend the better part of my life deleting this stuff from my inbox. I just went though another aggressive filtering campaign in my gmail account so that I don’t get new message warnings for much of this “bac’n”.

Here is the solution that I propose. Obviously, there will be those times when every single person on an email message really does have a serious NEED for one person to Reply to All, but those are few and far between. I propose that if you want to send a response to an entire distribution list of people, you are welcome to individually type each and every one of their names into the address fields of your mail client. OK, I’m not that anal. You can select them from your address book, but you MUST select them individually. If you have a serious need to use the Reply to All function of your email client so that each person on the list has to see your reply, then you can go before a judge and state your case.

“Your honor, I got this meeting request from xxx organization to attend xxx meeting at xxx location. The problem is that I don’t work on that project anymore, and I have not been removed from the distribution list. I’m tired of spending the better part of my days deleting non-relevant email for a project that I am not involved in anymore. My current project generates at least as much traffic through my inbox, and 50 more messages just piled up while I’m talking to you. Crap, there go another 50. I simply do not have time to look at the “From” field to see who is sending these meeting invitations. I need to Reply to All to say I’m not involved and shouldn’t be getting these emails anymore.”

“Motion denied. You think those people have time to delete your whiny reply? Let 10 or 15 emails pile up while you’re looking at the “From” field, use “Reply” and ask to be removed from distribution. Then mark any emails sent from that distribution list as spam and ignore them.”

In the event that the judge is moved to grant your plea to Reply to All, then a nuclear launch-like cipher code will be broken apart by both yourself and the judge (think Crimson Tide), the two parts of the code will be joined together, and you will enter the entire code in the box that pops up when you hit Reply to All, but don’t wait too long or the code will expire and you’ll have to go back to court to get another one.

Please don’t bother to comment about how difficult this would be to implement. I’m a geek and I’ve already thought that through. This would never happen, but I find it a refreshing outlet for my frustration at the amount of self-important or inconsiderate people who think I (and others like me) have nothing better to do than delete their emails. Please, before using “Reply to All”, THINK. THINK about whether everybody needs to see your response.

Technorati Tags: email ettiqute,reply to all,email,spam,bac'n,consideration,email common courtesy

I Could Cry

Out of 25,667 Twitter users, I rank 23,123. Which percentile is that?

You can follow my Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/emuelle1.

Technorati Tags: Twitter,rank

Microsoft Can’t Do Search to Save It’s Life

When it comes to search engines, my choice has always been Google. Well, not always. I can remember the days before Google really took off when I was forced to stumble in the dark with inept search engines and portals like Alta-Vista, Yahoo, Excite, Snap.com, and some others. Google is far from perfect, but for the most part, when I need to find anything other than a solution to a technical problem. Google will find it fast and right away.

Because the Delaware River Port Authority raised it’s bridge toll rates, I decided that maybe it’s time to get EZ Pass. I know from previous attempts to sign up that I have to go to the EZ Pass NJ site. I’m used to using the built-in search box on my browser, but I keep forgetting that IE on my work laptop is still set to Microsoft’s Live Search, which for all purposes is worthless. I went to the search box in the upper right-hand corner and typed in “EZ Pass NJ”. This is what I got:

OK, the main EZ Pass site was the first response, and I could have navigated my way to where I needed to go, but EZ Pass is some kind of “public private partnership”, which means that it has no competition and has no burning need to make things easy for a consumer to use it’s services.

Since I realized at this point that this was NOT Google, I opened another browser tab to Google just to see what the difference is. Here it is:

Wow, look at that! www.ezpassnj.com was the FIRST response. It was so easy I could have guessed it, yet Microsoft’s Live Search algorithm didn’t return it.

I do think that Microsoft does some things right, but search is not one. It’s probably too late considering public perception of Microsoft to adopt some kind of mirror of Google’s “Don’t be evil” creed, but I have a suggestion if they’re interested: “Just be useful.” Stop getting into areas that you’re no good at just because other companies are raking in the money. Just because Google is making billions on search and advertising doesn’t mean that Microsoft will mirror their success. As I recall, there is an area that Microsoft has made billions at. Oh, that’s right, it’s SOFTWARE. It’s making software.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,search,google,search engines,EZ Pass

I Like Solutions to Real Problems

Last week, I echoed Real Dan Lyons’ assessment that Google’s Android as “A solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.” This week, I am happy to be able to link to a solution to a problem that does exist.

I came across the Joel on Software blog during my days working on my degree at the University of Phoenix. I used several of Joel’s articles as references for my papers. I cannot attest to Joel’s ability to program, but his ability to write about programming is amazing. When I was in my programming classes, I would often come across a problem that wasn’t addressed by the textbooks, and my instructors weren’t meeting their requirement to answer student questions. I was left with search engines, which didn’t turn up anything useful.

Joel, together with some of his contacts, is addressing that problem with Stack Overflow. I wish this had been around two years ago.

Technorati Tags: Programming,Answers

Lifehacker: Does Your Computer’s Operating System Still Matter?

This is a discussion I’m honestly getting sick of. Two terms I’m tired of reading about are “cloud computing” and “netbooks.” “Cloud computing” is a term that comes from network drawings which show the Internet as a cloud, especially network drawings that show a data flow going to the Internet as a medium of transfer to another part of the network.

A netbook is essentially a device that is smaller than a laptop but larger than a handheld. The Asus Eee PC is an example of a netbook. These usually run Windows XP (because the hardware is a little bit short of Vista, which could say more about the hardware than it does about Vista but that’s a matter of perspective.) Typically these will have a 7-10 inch screen, a 4-16 GB hard drive, and maybe a Gig of RAM in the higher end configurations. These are designed to provide a small but capable device that can be carried around, giving some of the power of a laptop without all the weight. For work, I have a 15.4” Toshiba laptop, so I can definitely understand not having to lug the darn thing around. However, when I have to work on Excel spreadsheets or Visio drawings in a hotel room, I’m darn glad to have a 15.4” screen and Office installed rather than trying to use Zoho or Google docs.

Is The Internet A Help or a Hindrance to Businesses and Artists?

This is a discussion I’d love to have. Yesterday, Michael Hyatt posted a message about Building a Brand Online. In it, he discussed how a bad business experience can within minutes make it’s way onto the Internet and be read and commented on by thousands. I follow his blog and Twitter feed, so I read through in near real-time his experiences at a Hyatt hotel in Dallas. If not real-time, within a few hours or whatever interval in which I checked my Twitter feeds I knew about it.

Michael Hyatt also discussed how he uses services like Google Alerts to keep tabs on what’s happening with Thomas Nelson or his own name. He can tell when a blogger posts something good or negative about him or his company, and act on it, especially if it’s negative. If it’s bad enough, he can respond personally. If only other company executives would take such an active role in public relations perhaps negative experiences wouldn’t have to wound so deep.