The FuzzyBlog!
Marketing 101. Consulting 101. PHP Consulting. Random geeky stuff. I Blog Therefore I Am.

Thursday, June 06, 2002

Yup.  We Did Collaborate on this Blog Posting -- But Large SPAM Attachments are Evil When you see that I blogged this about 1 minute after www.natrak.net posted it, and you know he's a friend, you have to think we collaborated on this one.  Yup.  We did.  He saw my post yesterday on being spammed by PC Connection where I got an unsolicited 700K attachment.  Now he just got a 1.2 mb attachment set from Dell.  When, oh when, will companies learn ?  Here's my solution: I'm emailing this post and the last post to jplemoine@pcconnection.com (and this seems to be a real email address).  If you too don't want large spam then email her too.  Sample letter below. Natrak To: jplemoine@pcconnection.com  Subject: The Microsoft Upgrade Hi Jacqueline, I read about PC Connection spamming my friend Scott with 700 K attachments in your recent Microsoft Upgrade campaign.  This is really uncalled for -- a simple text email would be just as effective and be cheaper and less offensive.  Something to think about. Thanks, YOUR NAME HERE Reference: http://radio.weblogs.com/0103807/2002/06/05.html#a234 6:45:22 PM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

As I write this, it's pouring rain outside, just pouring.  And, best of all, I'm at home rather than in transit to a client's site.  This is all too often NOT the case.  We've all seen it time and again.  Even though it's better for you and better for the client, they still want you at their location.  This essay talks about why this matters to them and how you can combat it or: How do I code with my cat in my lap while looking at my girlfriend?  And get paid for it?   ==> Read Story <== 12:58:43 PM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

A Really Stupid Way for Slashdot To Make More Money: SlashSurnace I love www.slashdot.com.  I truly do.  Say what you want about it but it remains a premier geek web site.  But I am so damn tired of the "Slashdot Effect" i.e. when your site gets slashdotted and then it all stops working --- just when you need it most.  Here's an example: Example They got slashdotted today and now I can't read it.  Tomorrow?  I'll have forgotten, moved on, etc.  They do call this the "Attention Economy", don't they?  And, to an extent, don't all of us suffer from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)? Anyway, if I was Cmdr Taco or Hemos or anyone at VA, I would introduce "SlashSurance: Insurance Against the Slashdot Effect".  This would be something like this: $10 annually for a single notification email sent no more than 1 hour before reference to your url is posted.  And, if we detect that you promote this before it goes up on Slashdot then we reserve the right to pull the story (or any future coverage of you). $25 annually for a days worth of automatic mirroring to a server of our own REQUIRED: Absolutely 0 conflict of interest with the editorial process.  Ideally no one on the editorial side should even know who signed up. Low key marketing effort I'm not sure about anyone else but I would have no objection to paying $25 or $10 just for the piece of mind that this would bring me. SlashSurnace: There are lots of dumb ways to make money.  Is this dumb or not? And, no, I didn't register the domain name (in case you are wondering). Metrics on the Slashdot effect. Here (Warning: same PDF you might have already seen) 12:27:45 PM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Yet Another Comment on Real Names I keep following the fascinating Real Names story on www.teare.com.  Interesting.  Yesterday Keith (ex-ceo) posted this (mirrored here for convenience and to make a point): Mozilla 1.0 has been released. It can be modified to use RealNames. The URL's below [in blue] need to replace the standard URL's for the network.search.url and the keyword.URL properties, and false needs to be changed to true in the keyword.enabled property in the file named all.js which is in the prefs directory under the Mozilla application. You can edit this file using Notepad or any text editor. // SYNTAX HINTS:  dashes are delimiters.  Use underscores instead. // ;; The first character after a period must be alphabetic. pref("network.search.url","http://navigation.realnames.com/resolver.dll?realname=lookup+"); pref("keyword.URL", "http://navigation.realnames.com/resolver.dll?realname="); pref("keyword.enabled", true); This is a great tip -- until this server: http://navigation.realnames.com goes away.  Since Real Names is shutting down, can this become an open source thing?  Now given that there are investors the answer is probably no.  How about this approach then: Form a new company, call it Real Names2 Move the technology to Linux (reason in a sec). Make the new company self service, close to 0 overhead, and mirror the approach of Google's Adwords i.e. quick, light and fast. Operate this not as a big data center thing but as a small, compact distributed engine.  Think of it as keyword resolution like a DNS system. Allow geeks all over the world to participate by hosting it  AND getting a piece of the transaction revenue. Donate 10% back to the open source community either by sponsoring a project or donating to the EFF. Organize a campaign in the Asian countries around Mozilla.  How about "Mozilla NOT Microsoft".  or "Mozilla Speaks Your Language". I'm not saying here that Real Names is or isn't good.  This is purely an alternative strategy.  There are lots of ways to run an Internet company and it seems like the previous Real Names was a traditional dot com -- high cost, high budget.  What I am proposing could be done in a matter of weeks (less if you just run the .DLL natively for a bit of time).  The only hard part is a central redirector that forks to different instances of resolver.dll -- and that's easy.  Heck I could write it... 12:07:52 PM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Marketing 101 Entrepreneurial Resources and Other Oddments Writing one of my essays on business (the hows and whys of VARs), I just ran into this: http://www.softwareceo.com/.  Not sure it's worth the cost but it's an amusing detour if you like this sort of thing.  According to Blogzilla, Mozilla 1.0 is now released!  Congrats guys!  There's a Boston Mozilla launch party next week and it's currently bogged down in the Goth Club versus Non Goth club debate.  Sigh.  Thankfully a voice of reason stepped in and suggested we "fork" the party at the point of going to the Goth club.  Brilliant.  Cool web site too. Smart: Analyzing the state of the tech collapse via the number of print ads.  Damn smart.  Definitely read this one. 9:59:48 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

I Just Graduated with a Computer Science Degree And Please, Please Don't Make Me Work at the Mall This article was inspired by Carole, who emailed me out of the blue, and pointed out to me just how hard it is to launch a career when you just graduated -- and the economy basically stinks (at least for high technology).  Thanks Carole.  I hope this helps.  So, here it goes: 12 Recommendations for the New Computer Science Graduate. ==> Read Story <==  8:47:19 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Consulting 101: Computers for Consultants -- Laptop versus Desktop Revisited I had an age old discussion via IM last night with my buddy Ray (the satellite guy).  He's now working onsite for a company (www.digitalglobe.com) and, worse, working far from home.  He needs a remote machine for personal use (he has computers at the office, company provided) and is in the "Do I Desktop It or Laptop It ?" quandry.  Boy.... Nothing really changes, does it?  I've been in this one so many times it's not funny.   I tend to almost always go for the laptop but not at all for the reason that you think.  Here's the quick and dirty pros and cons as I see them -- and it's a very different slant on it -- (yes there's even a table, in a blog no less,  ...): ==> Read Story <== 6:46:26 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Ye Olde Random Links Catching up on stuff I haven't had time to post, some from blogs, some just out of the blue. Funny - http://campuscgi.princeton.edu/~eszter/weblog/archives/00000023.html  and from Natrak: Even More... Good Entrepreneurial Stuff Here -- http://www.pelagodesign.com/intervals/ There are times I just can't believe what people study -- http://www.sirc.org/publik/flirt.html Yoda on Sex -- http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~ravenben/humor/yodasex  Winner of the Google Programming Contest (very cool) -- http://www.google.com/programming-contest/winner.html I'll rarely be the first one to endorse flash but this is cool -- http://www.illogicz.com/flashmx/texteditor/ -- Thanks Dave, Thanks Jon   6:09:49 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This