Archive for August 2006

Jason talked about Disney showing up in his blog stats. The same thing happened to me around the time of his posting. Now, instead I’m seeing a flood of poker this, poker that, poker all the time showing up all over my stats. They showed up before, but it’s getting worse.

Also sprinkled throughout the stats are referrers from pr0n sites. Oy. I like Russell’s idea for handling this garbage.

Great. I’m posting an entry about poker and search engines are gonna come after me, but it needed to be said. This wikipedia entry explains referrer spam.

Ohh, this could be why I’m seeing a lot more referrer spam. I use WP-ShortStat. ColdForged provides ways to kill referrer spam.

Jump drive, thumb drive… whatever you call those portable drives are the floppies of today. They hold more data, they’re more portable, and they’re less likely to stop working. We learned about their indestructibility by accident, and I don’t recommend testing yours unless you don’t care what happens to it.

Paul forgot to empty his pockets before throwing his pants into the wash. My eyes widened when I pulled out the USB drive from the wash. Paul wasn’t mad as he uses the drive like a floppy — to move data from PC to PC. He plugged it in and the PC found the data on the drive! Lucky.

What do you know? He didn’t learn anything from that lesson as he did it again — except not with one — but TWO USB drives. One was the same from the previous incident and they both worked! So how many washes can a USB drive survive before it stops working? That’s not a theory we plan to test. Well, you can say he has the cleanest USB drives in town.

I finally bought a copy of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity with a bookstore birthday gift card that I’ve had since January. Now I just need to read it… yeah, in my free reading time between writing abstracts and reviews, or playing Chuzzle.

I like to be organized and in a clutter-free environment. Clutter feels noisy and that interferes with my thinking process. Of course, clutter doesn’t bug my kids.

Lifehack offers first-rate tips for productivity and getting things done. The name suits the web site as it shows how to hack things in life. Hacking sounds like a bad term, but it can also be a trick or add-on for adding more power to a program or system, only in this case — it’s life.

I’ve created and collected a few life hacks and have a note to blog about it. One of these days…

Popcap Games and Astraware did it again. This time in the form of cute little fuzzballs known as Chuzzle. Most of the games on my handheld devices come from Popcap — Astraware adopts them for handheld devices. You can tickle the furballs by repeatedly tapping (or clicking) them. Eventually, something happens after a few tickles — including the big Chuzzles. If you leave your mouse over a chuzzle(non-fat), it will get angry.

Darn game is eating into my reading time! Check out Chuzzle.

The game comes with Zen Mode. This version can go on and on as there are no locks, no running out of moves. It was boring at first, but then I earned a charm and that motivated me to keep playing to earn more charms.

The instructions for the game don’t say much. So I went to Astraware’s forums and learned more about the game. The instructions come from the forum and my experience. Some are specific to the PC version and others to the handheld version.

You can get one scramble at at 150,000, 300,000 and 600,000 points. But you can’t have more than three scrambles. You need double score in Expert mode.

Trophies:

If you go into the scores menu, and go into trophies, you will see all the trophies that are possible (NOTE: there is an arrow at the top to go to the next screen), if you tap on each of the un-hilighted trophies, it shows you what you need to do to get the trophy.

Page 1 of Trophy Screen (handheld version has two pages)

Seven At Once – for popping seven Chuzzles as one group (you need 7 Chuzzles of the same color (different sizes are OK) all connected.
Eleven At Once – V1.0 for popping eleven or more Chuzzles as one group
Eight At Once – V1.10 for popping eight or more Chuzzles as one group (To get 8-at-once you need 8 Chuzzles of the same color all connected.)
Chuzzle Bingo – for popping across the whole board with one color
Hundred Grand – for popping 100,000 Chuzzles
Ten Grand – for popping 10,000 Chuzzles
Big Boy – for sparing all fat Chuzzles in a game. I play Speed Expert to get the Fat Boy trophy. Once a fat chuzzle appears on the screen I just let the time run out.
Million Chuzzel Man – for popping 1,000,000 Chuzzles
Reactor – for causing a seven-step cascade
Brainiac – for playing an entire game without using hints
Trophy Collector – for obtaining every other trophy
Puzzler – for reaching level 10 in Mind Binder
Flawless – for playing one level without a bad move. Use speed expert and let time run out.
Quad Combo – for making a quadruple combo
Triple Combo – for making a triple combo

Page 2 of Trophy Screen

Lockmaster – for removing three or more locks in one sweep
Chuzz 10 – For reaching level 10 in Classic or Speed Chuzzel
Mentalist Master – for reachingg level 20 in Mind Bender
Fat Blaster – for popping 1,000 fat Chuzzles.
Mentalist Supremo – for solving all Mind Bender puzzles
Psychic – for solving all puzzles through level 10 in mindbender
Chuzzlebomer – for popping 1,000 Super Chuzzles
Speed Freak – for clearing two Speed Levels without getting a lock
Quad Boomer – for exploding four supper Chuzzels at once
Speed Demon – for passin speed level 5 without getting a lock
Speed Master – for clearing two Speed Levels without a warning
Triple Boomer – for exploding three Super Chuzzles at once

BeChuzzled

It’s the special mode of Chuzzle that you can unlock; it’s different from the other Chuzzle modes (Speed, Zen, etc.). Not going to spoil the surprise.

To get BeChuzzled, first be sure to get the following five trophies so that they appear in the trophy room.

Triple Combo
Brainiac
Puzzler
Ten Grand
7 at Once

Then click them following the above sequence, from top to bottom. You can see a yellow star appears each time you click on a trophy on the upper left corner. So when you get 5 yellow stars. TADA! BeChuzzled unlocks. It’s accessible via a small round button on the Astraware logo at the main game screen. You only need one Mind Bender trophy: “Puzzler” and that’s achieved by reaching level 10 in Mind Bender.

Scoring

The more Chuzzles you can pop at once, the higher the score – combinations and cascades are best, every subsequent match in a cascade gains you higher points for the same number of Chuzzles – you’ll see a 2x, 3x etc..

Rainbow chuzzles are worth more, if you can get those to pop during a cascade you can get some serious points on that. I wonder if that’s how you got your 300,000…

Try to set them up so you can get 2 sets to match at once, or a cascade – it’s not easy, but you get the hang of it after a while.

General Notes

In Mind Bender, you only need to solve three of the puzzles on any given level to unlock the next level.

Mind Bender Mode doesn’t count since you don’t pop any Chuzzles. But Zen, Classic or Speed Modes count towards your total popped Chuzzle count.

For fun, tickle the Chuzzles by tapping or clicking on them multiple times including the fat ones. Repeated taps on the Chuzzles and their funny faces and sounds are just for fun and don’t affect game play (unless you’re doing it in Time mode while time is running out). Same for those with sunglasses.

If you pop a Chuzzle in Zen Mode it counts the same as if you pop them in Classic Mode…

Hint on the Speed Level 5 trophy for Chuzzle PC users… Go to:

C:Program FilesPopCap GamesChuzzle DeluxeProfiles[your profile name]

Find the file named SAVEGAME-SPEEDCHUZZLE.DAT (if, of course, you have a saved game in this mode). When you pass level 4, copy this file on your desktop for example, and then overwrite it. This way you’ll play only level 5, you won’t need to pass the other levels. It’s easier.

So I’ve figured out how to check your Chuzzle count for those working towards a million Chuzzle. Go into the Chuzzle Directory in the c drive. There is a folder named profiles. Open up your profile and there will be a file called INFO.CFG. Open that file up with notepad or word and the first 3 lines will tell you how many Chuzzles, fat Chuzzles and super Chuzzles you have popped. Also all charms up top have become gold, they turn into rainbow.

Big Chuzzles Formed: If you pop 4 Chuzzles in a square then you get a big Chuzzles. There are some exceptions to this rule, so it doesn’t always happen.

Glowing Chuzzles Formed: If you pop 5 Chuzzles of one color in a single group, one of them turns into a glowing Chuzzle instead of disappearing.

When Locked Chuzzles Appear: In speed mode, they appear when the bar at the bottom fills. In classic mode, they appear randomly, but more often as you progress up the levels.

Only one secret mode: BeChuzzled.

Flawless Trophy: I used Speed Chuzzle [Expert] and did a minimum number of moves to finish the first level. If you get a few cascades the first level can be over quickly. Then once the 2nd level started, I cleared out a few bottom ones to get a Fat Chuzzle (cuz someone said in another forum that you need to see a fat chuzzle, so I figured it was worth a shot), then I just let it scramble out the rest of the game and I got the Flawless Trophy.

Zen Mode:

Charms appear in the upper right-hand corner after so many points beginning with the heart followed by star, moon, shamrock, musical note, and horseshoe. Each had its own color (blue, green, red, and so on) and then one by one, they turned gold (over a long period of time). Then they turn multi-colored, and reportedly don’t do anything else after this.

I checked the original PC version of the game, and the Astraware version is indeed slightly different. When you get all the rainbow charms they should all turn gold instead of not doing anything. Basically, you don’t get anything at the end of Zen mode, which confuses people because doing the same for Bejeweled 2 unlocked a secret mode. You have to find the secret mode for Chuzzle another way!

There are 20 levels in Mindbender, each containing 5 puzzles. If you don’t seem to be able to get any further, some people have not spotted the arrow buttons in the bottom left. These navigate between levels.

Eyeballs lining up in Zen mode from bottom left to right measure how far you have gotten. If you get enough eyes (or Chuzzles on Pocket PC) then you get a stripe. Get enough stripes, and you get a charm.

The last issue of eNewsletter Journal (eNJ) went out this week. We’re not quitting, but rather transitioning the newsletter to eFocus Journal (eFJ). eFJ has everything eNJ had and more. The more being customization and content.

One of the bigger themes of Web 2.0 is interactivity. Putting the control in the user’s hands. eFJ lets users choose what content they want to receive and we’ll continue expanding on this we’re still tweaking the newsletter and its functionality.

Help Potential Customers Remember You

Email newsletters offer an easy way to build relationships with clients and prospects while keeping your business in front of them. I’ve had people ask me, “Do you know someone who… ?” and I go blank. I’m sure I know someone who can do the job they’re asking about, but it doesn’t always come to me. Newsletters work the same way — they go to customers and prospects so they can think of the company when someone needs something.

Successful newsletters aim to provide valuable content that readers can use. Too many lousy newsletters have sales speak all over the page and readers struggle to find any content of value to them. A business isn’t going to make sales until its readers get to know the company and come to trust the company. Joan Stewart of Publicity Hound gets this. As a result, she’s making $10,000 a week (according to the August 15 issue of her newsletter).

The big number surprises me, but the fact it’s her… does not. I couldn’t do what she does — send out an email newsletter (ezine, enewsletter… ) packed solid with information readers can use to improve their publicity efforts. She works on each issue for about eight hours.

Every issue contains at least three original articles, “Help This Hound” advice column (readers write in with a problem or challenge, and readers and Stewart respond — the responses appear in the next issue), and a “Hound Joke of the Week.” Stewart’s newsletter is one of the few I recommend when people ask.

Introductions and Building the Relationship

Book Yourself Solid and marketing experts believe an email newsletter is the most effective tool for publicity, earning credibility and trust and building relationships. A newsletter goes out to many people at one time — so the few hours it takes to create one easily pays off with one client or project.

People don’t get married the first time they meet someone (except for a few rare instances). So why should businesses expect to land a client without getting to know each other first?

Start with a Small Offer

Having promotions and ads in a newsletter is OK as long as it takes up no more than 20 percent of the space. 80-20. 80 percent valuable content; 20 percent sales. A newsletter is also a good place to start with a small offer — could be free or low-priced. As a reader takes advantage of the offer and enjoys its benefits, the trust grows and he is willing to invest into a bigger product or service.

For example, a business leads a prospect to its web site where the prospect could sign up for a free newsletter (offer #1 — free). The business could set up an autoresponder that sends an email as soon as the prospect signs up and confirms a subscription. This email contains a surprise such as a a free report, white paper or some other beneficial document.

The newsletter begins building the relationship between publisher and reader. InternetVIZ offers a free (no obligation, no catch) prototype newsletter. This is the company’s way of demonstrating its expertise and what it can do while giving the prospect something in return. It could be a email course, report, ebook… anything your imagination might think of.

What about those who don’t want any more email newsletters? Simply provide the newsletter’s content with a feed and link to it from the web site.

My first issue as co-editor of Professional Service Journal went out this week, too. The feature talks about the ingredients found in a successful newsletter.

Just turned in another article, and this one provides tips for business blogging. Almost anyone who talks about business blogging recommends the blogger find a niche — I agree. The same applies to making a business stand out from others — why should you buy from ABC rather than XYZ? The answer needs to related to the customer’s point of view, not the company’s.

I mostly write about technology, web design, and grammar — hence, things geeky, webby, and wordy. This is too broad. Prolific and talented writer Bob Bly encourages those starting out in their business to go ahead and be general / broad and work toward a niche “after you become established.” OK. Tick tock. Where’s the niche?

A publisher asked me to propose ideas for an ebook. So I tossed him suggestions surrounding blogging. After a few email exchanges, he said there was enough on blogging (including business blogging) between books and ebooks. He’s right. That was my mistake… I discover something before the public does and I do nothing about it.

My blog started before most published authors’ on the topic started theirs (I hope that doesn’t sound snotty as it’s not meant to). I love writing about blogging — but now it’s an overcrowded field with established and respected experts, authors, and bloggers. However, I just received word that I’m doing a presentation at a tech organization’s regional conference in Dallas. The topic: Business blogging.

I guess I’m afraid of specialization. Can I talk about one topic all the time? Won’t it get old? I talked to a marketing expert and she suggested becoming a specialist in white papers. Do mostly white papers and nothing else? Stressful though. I like the diversity of work and clients.

Experts recommend thinking about the things you’re passionate about when searching for a niche. For me, that’s tech, web, and words, but these don’t qualify as a niche. Brian Kim wrote the popular and superb article, “How to Find What You Love to Do.” It’s a long one… so you might want to save the link for a long break.

Meanwhile, I continue my quest. How about you? Do you have a niche? If so, what is it and how did you choose it?

Spoiler alert warning: Sweet Charity, the musical.

When was the last time a movie or book took you by surprise? Did it also do something that made you unhappy — killing off a main character? Pretty Woman originally had a different ending in which Julia Robert’s character died at the end. The test audience expressed displeasure with the ending, so the producers wrote another ending. Seriously, though… a prostitute gets the man? Oh wait. This happens in Sweet Charity, too, but she loses the man at the end.

Paul always says that No Way Out got him the most of all movies. I couldn’t believe I didn’t figure out the big surprise in The Sixth Sense. My mom figured it out without seeing the movie. The Crying Game also shocked movie goers.

I’ve previously discussed Chronicles of Narnia and its drastic and unpopular ending. What would’ve become of Gone with the Wind had Rhett and Scarlett stayed together?

The challenge for writers is to find a balance between a surprise and satisfying the audience. I’m trying to recall books that did this. Perhaps, John Grisham’s The Firm qualifies. I’m sure James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark, Jeffrey Archer, and Patricia Cornwell surprised me (been too long for me to remember specifics). What movies or books surprised you in a good way? How about those that shocked, but disappointed you?

Digital Web is looking for an editorial assistant. Here’s the description:

As our editorial assistant, you’ll help maintain our schedule, keep tabs on authors, and assist us as we prepare each article for publication — performing many of the mundane, yet essential, behind-the-scenes tasks at one of the web standards community’s most important and widely-read magazines. You will be part of an all-volunteer team and must have a flexible schedule and a sense of humor. You must also be reliable, an excellent communicator, and obsessed with getting the details right. You’ll also need AIM or ichat, as well as Skype. Knowledge of Textile and Basecamp is a plus — or just learn it on the job.

I was a volunteer at Digital Web Magazine for over a year and it was a great experience because you get the opportunity to work with some of the most talented people in the web design industry and one of the premier magazines in web design. I also help behind-the-scenes on occasion. Basecamp is a breeze to use and Textile is simple text markup.

TV trivia and history fans who enjoy summer-style reading will quickly devour this story and its references to TV shows: past, present, and fictional. Lehmann introduces us to Daphne Wells, a TV lover who has the perfect job: museum curator at the Museum of Television and Radio.

Daphne meets Charlie, also a TV aficionado, who has written several unsold TV show pilots. As their relationship develops, Charlie works as an English teacher and has the opportunity to buy his grandmother’s house in New Rochelle. He decides to buy the house and propose to Daphne.

After the proposal, Daphne struggles with the thought of living life like Rob and Laura Petrie in the quiet suburbs of New Rochelle, leaving her love of city life in New York behind. The move would shorten Charlie’s commute, but lengthen Daphne’s. Throughout the story, we watch Daphne grapple with decisions regarding the wedding, the move, and her life with stable and “good man” Charlie.

A good novel has several dimensions and in this one, we learn of the special relationship between Daphne and her older sister Billie — a bond created by the death of both of their parents in a plane crash.

Meanwhile, we follow her life at the museum and learn about the themes behind each decade of television. Jonathan Hill, the book’s version of Steven Boccho or David E. Kelley and television producer of the hot and shallow TV show Supermodels, stops by the museum to look at film from a past TV show for inspiration as he’s run out of creative juice.

As Daphne and Jonathan get to know each other, Daphne hopes to link him with her sister, Billie, who is in a relationship with a married man. In reading about the interactions of the characters, Daphne compares her life to TV shows and lets them get in the way of tuning in to Charlie.

Daphne and Charlie are likeable characters who sometimes disappoint the reader with their imperfect human behavior. Most of the book explores the “compromise” relationship between Daphne and Charlie, the bond between sisters Daphne and Billie, and figuring out what will happen with Jonathan Hill.

The last part of the book feels rushed in an attempt create a conflict, resolve it, and work its way to the ending. The book might do better by condensing the interactions between Daphne and Charlie and prolonging the last bit of the book.

The story contains people with professions that only a lucky few can enter; the tie in to TV history makes the story different from your average escapist novel. I appreciated Lehmann’s attention to details that you won’t find in most fiction books — like a character using Spybot to clean the computer. Though it’s a small detail, computer users and TV lovers relate to the little things that enhance the story.

The minor faults don’t affect the reader’s enjoyment of the story, a textbook poolside read that takes only a few hours. I don’t read much fiction, and You Could Do Better satisfied my need to read a fantasy especially since I have an interest in TV history.

Lehmann is also the author of previously reviewed book, The Art of Undressing.

Title: You Could Do Better
Author: Stephanie Lehmann
Publisher: NAL Trade
ISBN: 045121854X
Date: August 2006
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Cover Price: USD: $12.95 Amazon: $9.97

Derek Harding at ClickZ explores RSS, its good and bad points, and its impact on email marketing. Just like some people prefer to get pizza by delivery, by pick up, or by eating in the restaurant — RSS and email newsletters provide users with the choice of getting content delivered by email or by newsreader. Pizza delivery didn’t kill the pizza restaurant.

I remember when I first discovered feeds through Dave Winer’s Radio Userland. I was perplexed by the whole deal, but it was cool having content come to you. It’s much easier now as more sites have links to their feeds and we have a variety of choices in how we read the feeds.

I’ve used FeedDemon, Newsgator, Bloglines and tested out a few others. They’re great apps, but I use them occasionally. Yet, I almost always read the email newsletters that come to me. But when I’m searching for high quality articles for the newsletters I manage, I rely on a news reader more often as the list of newsletters grows.

Jason Dowdell of MarketingShift writes that RSS marketing is taking baby steps. He says one of the problem areas is registering feeds with sites, but we already have to register our web sites with search engines and directories. No different.

Sites also list a bunch of buttons linking to different feed readers including their own creations. It’s a shame to waste space in listing these buttons (see above image), but the art of feeding a basic link into a reader befuddles even the intermediate computer user and these buttons automatically load the feed into your reader of choice. At some point, readers and users will advance so that we can return to one button only links to add a new feed into a reader.

Hey, the fax still exists.

Feature on newsletters and RSS

Credit: Icon from bakkeldotcom