Archive for January 2006

This entry is prompted by the recent flurry of emails requesting a link exchange. I don’t do link exchanges period. They’re meaningless. Well, except that it helps search engine optimization for both sites, they’re meaningless as content. People exchange them without thought to the quality of each other’s sites. So you’re wasting your Web page space and visitors’ time with links that most likely are not useful.

Furthermore, I think it affects the professionalism of a site. I hear some of you saying, “But, you have ads on your site!” Yes, I do and for obvious reasons. But I don’t accept just any ad. It can’t blink, move, pop up, or appear over content. I mainly use text ads and do my best to keep them out of your way without disappearing from your sight.

When I tested taking the ad outside of the content and putting it at the end of the entry, the clickthrus went down. Isn’t that awful? I was trying to be respectful of readers by putting the ad at the end of the article yet it becomes a “No good deed goes unpunished.”

I was going to create a separate site for things, products, people, and sites that I recommend. But as usual… it’s on the back burner as more important things come first.

I’ve submitted a ChangeThis Proposal and the votes decide who gets to write a manifesto. I hope you take a look and find the proposal worthy of your vote.

ChangeThis has superb manifestos (articles, if you will) and some that bored me. It’s all about whether or not the manifesto is relevant to you. Tom Peters has contributed a few, and other contributors include Craig Newmark (as in Craig’s List), and Mark Cuban. Topics range from being more creative to the world’s population.

Also for a short time, you can read this article about who shouldn’t blog.

Came across this site during my massive blog surfing research. Japanese Lesson has excellent tips on pronunciation, conversation, and info about Japan. While the blog is very new, if the author keeps up the good work — people who interact with those from Japan or entrenched in the Japanese culture will appreciate this resource.

With the Internet making it possible for us to work without boundaries, having resources like this one would help us ensure we communicate better with each other while ensuring we respect cultural differences and rules.

For example, Paul met with people from Korea. When they handed business cards to him, he took it with both hands. I didn’t know about this. Please share any rules or traditions you know about.

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Brand Autopsy: Forget RSS, We Got Bigger Issues posted this last November and I’ve been sitting on it since because I didn’t want the valuable data to get lost during the holidays. Some people are working hard to promote feeds and RSS when we really need to step back and promote blogs first.

Of course, we want news and other information rich sites to add RSS feeds so we can read them along with all of our favorite feeds. Evidence suggests most of these sites are aware of feeds as I rarely find such sites without one.

While feeds work with any kind of Web site and not just blogs, businesses need to learn about the value of blogs and that’s why blogs need to reach a bigger audience. Blogs can affect a company’s business and provide incredible insight into an industry. Learning to listen to those conversations can help a company succeed. After all, look at what happened to Kryptonite.

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Think I’ll let today pass by without saying something about Paul who turns 40 today? Obviously not. A little about the guy…

Paul is a Star Trek fan. Guess what year Star Trek debuted? 1966, the year he was born. He also likes the ’61 Corvette from Animal House.

He loved playing AD&D and video games in the ’80s. When we met, he had a C64 (Commodore 64). He played the trombone and was on the amazing Aggie Band. He served in the USAF for nine years and we met while he was stationed at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth, my home town.

Happy 40th Birthday, Paul!

From the sponsor:
He’s not old enough to use vioxx and be part of the vioxx lawsuit , but it won’t stop me from teasing him about his age. Thank goodness he robbed the cradle [grin].

I’ve had this book since my daughter was a baby. In 1994, my childhood tutor gave it to her as a gift when she was born. All three of my kids loved it at some point — in fact, the youngest has been taking it out a lot lately. It’s worn and has been through a few things. So I wanted to get a cleaner and newer copy of the book, but no such luck! It’s the first thing I can’t find on the Internet.

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Yes, I tried eBay and even have it emailing me whenever the author or the book title is posted. I tried the publisher and even got a reply. Tried to find the author. Tried used book stores, both online and off. Tried its ISBN. Even learned that Grange Books PLC published through Binky Books and La Coccinella Editrice. The book was printed in Italy, but in written English.

Title: What Can I See?
Author: Stewart Cowley
ISBN: 1856274748
Illustrator: Roberta Pagnoni
Printed in Italy – 1993
La Coccinella Editrice – 1988
Grange Books PLC – London SEI

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It’s a basic book that talks about the things a child uses from when bottles as a baby to when she becomes independent. Yet, it has drawn all of us. I find the UK English writing endearing.

Word from sponsor:
I went to the card store to get 40th birthday cards for Paul and saw a load of Valentine’s cards. Looks like it’s time to start thinking about Valentine’s Day flowers.

Robin Good reviews two audio transcription services to see how they pare up. He submitted the same 30-minute podcast two both services and shares the results in Audio Transcription For Podcasts.

I’m sure we’ll see more services pop up with the growing popularity of podcasting. Not only does it help those who want to have the text-based version, but also those who can’t hear or see. While people with visual impairments certainly can listen to a podcast, they might prefer to have a text-based version that is read with their text reader’s voice. I could be wrong.

If you know other transcription services, please post in the comments or email me, if comments are closed.

Word from sponsor:
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I didn’t know about the Diamond Pet Food recall and I subscribe to enough things to know about it until I heard about it from the Publicity Hound. Apparently, Diamond Pet Foods has recalled 19 brands of dog and cat food because they have aflatoxin, a toxic chemical.

The company has taken action to address this. When you go to its home page, it redirects you straight to the recall page. So that’s one point for the company because it doesn’t bury the information and makes it obvious. Any company that tries that is going to get trampled on.

Back to the recall page. It’s simple and easy to read and understand. If you’re affected, the link to get help is also visible. The Q&A clearly answers the important questions of what to do if you have the food, if the pet ate it, and so on.
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The Treo takes up one whole chapter of this book plus references in the communication-related. Still although the Treo is a popular PalmOS-based device, it rightfully doesn’t dominate the book. After all, many owners of PalmOS devices don’t need or want to have a powerful device like the Treo.

In spite of “hacks” in its name, the book isn’t as geeky or technical as it sounds. A hack is also known as a trick or add-on for adding more power to a program or system. However, not all of the tips are technically hacks because they provide how-to advice: annotate everything, find anything, get the most out of the date book, how to become a better student, and so on.

One caveat, when the book references another hack or figures, the light gray text barely appears and it is difficult to read. MacHaffie also refers to third-party software as a way to add more options, games, and functionality to the PalmOS device. It’s tough to please people with varying interests. It might’ve been better to refer to places where you can find and download software. Many people would appreciate these discoveries.

The games section, for example, has references to quite a few role-playing games (RPG) in comparison to other types of games. Most of the sections only take a few pages, so it’s not a big waste if the topic doesn’t catch your eye. Again, it’s tough to address a wide audience and there wouldn’t be enough material to create a separate book addressing only PalmOS games, student tips, and advice for business users.

Roughly about a fourth of the book covers communications, phone PDA hybrid tips, and multimedia. So those who have basic PDAs without any connections still get a bulk of information they can use. The 55 tips are listed in the table of contents listed on the book’s Web page (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/palmtreohks/toc.html) and checking it out should give you a good idea if you’ll find the book useful or not.

You won’t find much tech jargon so the hacks are easy to understand. The book has tips for beginners, moderate users, and experts and each hack is represented by thermometer’s temperature (high for expert and low for easy) for quick reference. Very few hacks are at the expert level, so beginners and moderates should have no trouble applying most or all of the hacks.

Title: Palm and Treo Hacks
Author: Scott MacHaffie
Publisher: O’Reilly
ISBN: 059610054X
Date: October 2005
Format: Paperback
Pages: 234
Cover Price: USD: $24.95 Amazon: $16.47

Lulu.com did a study of book titles and determined what makes a good title. The company looked at every title of nonfiction and fiction books from 1955 to 2004 and analyzed what works. But of course, the title doesn’t guarantee failure or success since the analysis says The DaVinci Code is considered less likely to produce a best seller.

As a result of the study, Lulu.com has a Title Scorer so you can test your title.

Another article shows we judge a book by its cover. An author whose book cover got a makeover saw her book sales double. I try to look beyond the book’s title and cover to judge it, but I admit some books turn me away with their bland titles or covers. Here’s another article on the topic.

Looking at my bookshelf, I see bland covers there, too. In reality, when we pick a book, many things come into play and it most likely varies with each purchase decision. Things that affect our decisions:

* How did you find out about the book?

* Do you know the author?

* How much does the book’s topic grab you?

Then the rest of the stuff like the title and cover helps us with our final decision, if we haven’t made one yet.