Greener Living thru Technology

What Political Affiliation are You?

Joe — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:44:00 +0000

I found this comparison of political philosophies and think it describes my leaning pretty well. How do you compare?

More Star Trek Awesomeness for your Home

Joe — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:55:00 +0000

(Via http://blogs.laweekly.com/style_council/art/star-trek-tng-light-switch-pla/)

If you like Star Trek: The Next Generation, you owe it to yourself to check out the LCARS outlet and switch covers available at Roddenberry.com.

Wow… Geeky. This would go great with my Star Trek Cologne.

And if you’re one of the people that likes putting little fishes on your car, they’ve got this, too.

If Carl Sagan made music Videos, A Glorious Dawn

Joe — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:50:00 +0000

Utah’s Governor Opposes Concealed Carry Reciprocity & Out-of-State Applicants

Joe — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:01:00 +0000

During his Thursday taping of his monthly news conference for public television station KUED Governor Gary Herbert’s showed his true stripes regarding the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

According to the KSL article (link below), “In the fiscal year that ended in June, just over 50 percent of the state’s concealed weapons applicants were from outside Utah. Utah’s permit is considered one of the most valuable in the country because it allows the holder to carry a hidden weapon in nearly three dozen states.”

Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist about how the tax-payers of Utah shouldn’t have to subsidize out-of-stater’s permits, the Utah CFP system is totally self-funding (which all government programs should be, IMHO).

Obviously, this kind of message from the leader of the State doesn’t bode well for us freedom-loving types. I decided to write the Governor to see what his response would be. I urge you to do the same.

I don’t expect a response, back when he was Lt. Governor and in charge of voting throughout the State, I wrote him voicing my concern that he was buying electronic voting machines that had been deemed “too insecure” (and illegal to use by in future elections) by those that we were trying to sell them. His response: silence.

Hopefully now that he’s Governor he’ll take the time to reply. But I’m not getting my hopes up, I’ll just remember how he responds the next time he’s up for nomination and re-election.

My Letter to Governor Herbert

Governor Herbert:

Regarding the Thursday taping of your monthly news conference (as reported by KSL) concerning the Utah Concealed Firearm Permit, you stated

“I don’t want to be a wholesale clearinghouse for anybody who comes to Utah that we don’t have the ability to kind of track … that they then go some place else outside of our borders and conduct themselves inappropriately.”

You miss the point of the permit system.

In short, you don’t know why non-residents apply for Utah CFPs (nor does anyone but the person applying).

These people may travel frequently through the state, or spend time here as tourists/vacationers, or have relatives here. You simply don’t know.

You go on to state “I’m not much into reciprocity…” comparing a CFP to a real-estate license. We have “reciprocity” with every single state and District regarding driver’s licenses and marriage licenses, yet NEITHER of these are Constitutionally protected nor defined as “rights” in either the Utah or the U.S. Constitutions.

I’m sorry, but your comparison between CFP’s and real-estate licenses shows either an elitist attitude toward people who choose to protect themselves with a sidearm — or complete ignorance regarding the subject.

I welcome your response clarifying which category you feel this falls into.

I look forward to your reply.

- Joe Levi

What others have to say on the subject¹

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)

"The great object is that every man be armed . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.)

"The advantage of being armed . . . the Americans possess over the people of all other nations . . . Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several Kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."(James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in his Federalist Paper No. 46.)

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." (Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.)

Android: Save CyanogenMod

Joe — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:07:00 +0000

Google has done a very silly thing: they served Cyanogen, ordering him to cease and desist distribution of his CyanogenMod roms for Android phones.

CyanogenMod is an unofficial modification of the Android OS. Where Cyanogen (aka Steve Kondik ) went afoul with Google was by his inclusion of their closed-source applications (Market, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk).

Of course, Google was well within their rights to tell Cyanogen to stop, but this defeats the very nature of what Google is attempting to do: compete in an already crowded market.

CyanogenMods have been very fast, very stable, and fixed a lot of the core “bugginess” that naturally come with a young operating system and platform. In short, he’s been helping Google play catch-up with Windows Mobile and iPhone.

If you have an Android phone (or have been considering one), or if you think Google should encourage development of the Android platform by enthusiasts, please help by:

Downloading the (free) “Save CyanogenMod” app from the Android Market via this link:
Donating to Cyanogen via PayPal:

Thank you, Cyanogen, for all your work. I stand with you.

Church-Owned Newspaper Runs Racy Ad Across Woman’s Breasts

Joe — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:28:00 +0000

While reading a news article I was forced to read the following ad (it interrupted the flow of the article).

The ad features an attractive young woman in front of a laptop wearing a t-shirt with “I’m a HOTSPOT” written across her breasts.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with people drawing attention to intimate parts of their bodies, inviting you to read messages scrawled across them, where I hesitate is when the message carries a double-entendre.

What’s ironic: this ad appeared in an article on a website owned and operated by the Deseret News, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (a Christian religion which teaches chastity and values the sanctity of womanhood).

Though it is not realistic for a website to pre-screen all ads that it runs, one would imagine that a Church-owned newspaper would have a slightly higher bar.

Honda rips off Prius?

Frugal Tip: When “Saving” isn’t really “Saving”

Joe — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:46:00 +0000

This might come off as more of a rant than a “tip”, but please try and look past the “rantyness” and get to the core of the issue…

We’re bombarded with messages about sales when you can save 10% off with this coupon, or save 20% if you sign up for that credit card, or save $1.00 off a cake…

The cake is a lie!

Sure, that sounds nice, but the cake is a lie!

“Saving” money is not the same as “spending less money”. Sure, “spending less money” is a good thing, as long as you’re spending that money on things you actually need. “Spending less money” on something you don’t really need, well, that’s just silly. Why not donate it toward my mortgage instead?

“Saving” money means putting money into a savings account, a CD, an IRA/401(k), an envelope under the mattress, a jar buried in the back yard, etc.

In short, “saving” money is the opposite of “spending” money. When you “save” money, you haven’t spent it, it still exists somewhere that you can go and get at a later time. When you went shopping for that piece of clothing and “saved” 40%, where is that 40%? If it cost $100 and you “saved” 40%, you spent $60 AND you put $40 away for later.

But, if you didn’t put that $40 away for later, you haven’t saved anything. You simply spent less.

A moment to ponder…

Joe — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:25:00 +0000

Birds of a feather flock together and then poop on your car.
A penny saved is a government oversight.
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends.
The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.
He who hesitates is probably right.
Did you ever notice the Roman Numerals for forty (40) are XL.
If you think there is good in everybody, you haven’t met everybody.
If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.
The sole purpose of a child’s middle name is so he can tell when he’s really in trouble.
There’s always a lot to be thankful for if you take time to look for it. For example I am sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don’t hurt.
Did you ever notice when you put the words “The” and “IRS” together it spells “Theirs”
Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.
The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.
Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know why I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.
When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to your youth, think of Algebra.
You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.
One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.
Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

HOWTO: Partition your Android SDCARD

Joe — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:44:00 +0000

So, you’ve gone and gotten yourself an Android phone (good on ya!) but you want to make it faster, or reduce Force Close errors (FC’s for short).

You’ll want to set up your SDCARD so that Android can use it more efficiently. Trust me, you’ll want to do this. Here’s how.

Get a fast microsdhc card

Class4/6 cards are fast, MUCH faster than “regular” cards. They not much more expensive, either! You can pick up an OCZ 8GB Class 6 for under $30!

Make sure you’re getting what you’re paying for, both cards will sport a C with a 4 or 6 inside it printed right on the card. If you don’t see it, don’t buy it!

Partition your card

Linux likes partitions. Windows 7 likes partitions. Partitions are your friend. Why? You’re logically segmenting your card into areas (which reduces fragmentation) and applying different file systems for each partition based on that partition’s role. Sounds complicated, right? Yup, sure is. But lucky for you, geeks like to help each other out.

I didn’t write these tools, but I highly recommend them. They were written by other geeks.

First you’ll want to make sure you’ve backed up everything you want to save from your card (this process will wipe the contents entirely – you’ve been warned).

Next, you’re going to want to make sure you’re running Cyanogen’s latest recovery ROM (1.4 at the time of this writing). This means that you’re running an unlocked phone. If you’re not, time to stop reading this article, and go read this article in Maximum PC (start with page 1).

Download sdparted.txt and copy it to the root of your SD card (the link in the Maximum PC article is broken, so use this instead: http://bit.ly/sdparted).
Shut down, then reboot holding the Home and Power buttons. (This will boot you into Recovery Mode, make sure you’re running Cyanogen’s recovery ROM.)
Open the Console [Alt+X]. You should see / # prompt.
Type mount /sdcard and press enter.
Type mv /sdcard/sdparted.txt /sbin/sdparted and press enter. (This assumes you have sdparted.txt on the root of your sdcard.)
Type chmod 755 /sbin/sdparted and press enter.
Type sdparted -efs ext4 and follow the prompts. (Remember this is case sensitive, the prompts ask for a Capital Y, if you type a lowercase y, it will abort the script.)
When the script finishes, type reboot and press enter. (This will, as you’d expect, reboot your phone.)

If your ROM supports swap partitions and app partitions, you’re good to go, enjoy the extra speed. If it doesn’t not to worry, that’s just a little more space that’s not going to be available for storage on your sdcard, but it’ll be ready for apps/swap when you install a ROM that supports ‘em.

What are some ROMs that support all this goodness?

Obviously I’m not going to be able to list all the ROMs, but one’s that I know of for sure are Cyanogen 4.0.4 (stable) and 4.1.10.1 (experiMENTAL), which are available from http://www.cyanogenmod.com. xROM (mentioned in the article) will also work, as well as most Hero ROMs that I’ve tried.

Once I set up my sdcard my performance improved notably and FCs were reduced to near non-existent.

Test

Joe — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:10:22 +0000

This is only a test…

BLACKHAWK! Remembers 9/11

Joe — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:13:00 +0000

Today I got an email from BLACKHAWK! (one of the companies that I do business with) which simply said

Never forget 9.11.01

Blackhawk! would like to thank all of those who work tirelessly to keep us safe everyday.

I don’t think anyone could have said it better, nor sent a more strikingly succinct email.

Thank you, Blackhawk! for sending this message. And to all those who work thanklessly to protect us, military, police, reserves, fire, EMS, and to their families, thank you.

To all those who give supporting services to these people, thank you for supporting them.

To my friends and fellow patriots, thank you for your reverence and remembrance of the tragic cost of freedom.

(Copyright note: permission to redistribute was encouraged in the email from which the photo and quote were taken.)

Remembering 9/11

Joe — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:44:00 +0000

Today, rather that writing about technology or tips or finances or gardening, I’d like everyone who comes to visit to pause for a moment and remember where they were and what they were doing when the tragic events of 9/11 unfolded before us.

I had been recently “down-sized” and was at home with a very young child, watching early morning cartoons when the programming was interrupted with “breaking news”. We spent the remainder of the morning glued to the television set.

The days that followed

In the days that followed I don’t think I’ve ever in my life seen more American Flags. It seemed that every house on every street had at least one flag flying. Cars had stickers and window-flags flying. Every store in the county was sold-out of flags.

As terrible as the events of 9/11 were, seeing everyone come together under one flag and one purpose moved me to the core. I miss that feeling.

Not long after

I landed a job building computers in a warehouse in an industrial park near a small municipal airport and the local Air Force base.

The skies were eerily silent. No commercial jets were in the air flying high over head. No small planes were taking off or landing at the local airport. Even the Air Force flights were grounded.

Later the AFB began training runs again – unlike any I’d seen before. Pairs of fighters would fly North from the base, then turn and head East… in what I can only describe as a “interwoven slalom”.

What are your memories of 9/11?

Now it’s your turn… what were you doing when you heard the news? What do you remember about the patriotism that followed?

Pandora for Android

Joe — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:41:00 +0000

The last reason to choose an iPhone over an Android phone just became moot now that Pandora is now available for Google’s Android.

Complete with application and desktop widget FTW!

How to get it:

Download Pandora from the Android Market
Visit Pandora.com from your phone
Use one of the available barcode scanner
apps on your phone to scan this QR code:

(Hat tip to Mike Dopp for pointing this out via Twitter.)

How Lifetime Products Uses Data Feeds on the Web

Joe — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:59:42 +0000

@markmathson made a simple comment on Twitter. He said “I agree […], RSS is not dead. […]” I replied that Lifetime Products (my employer) is using data feeds today more than ever. He wanted to know more…

What are Feeds? (RSS, ATOM, RDF)

“Feeds” (for the purpose of this article) are an alternately formatted view of some set of data. Take this blog, for example. You can read it in your web browser (like many of you are doing now), but hidden just behind the scenes is a link to an “alternate” way to view the same data.

I’ve written about this before in more detail, but, in short, a “feed” presents the raw information (or “data”) rather than the data dropped on the page. Feeds are especially useful when information can be logically organized onto blocks (articles, products, calendar events, contacts, etc.).

Most people out there “subscribe” to other’s feeds via a “feed reader”. Feed readers these days typically come bundled with your Web Browser and Email clients, but you can get a dedicated program if you’d like.

Subscribing to feeds via a feed reader makes keeping up with blogs and sites easier because your feed reader will go out and grab the new posts every so often and bring them to you, freeing you up so you don’t have to visit all those sites individually.

And, without feeds, video and audio podcasts wouldn’t exist. Yup, feeds are the technology that drive them, too!

How has Lifetime used RSS?

When you’re talking about data feeds, you can do two two things with them:

publish (converting or formatting your data in a specific data format)
consume (taking a data feed, reading it, and doing something with it)

We started playing around with publishing feeds on our “current employment openings” page and our “press release” page.

Shortly thereafter we launched our corporate blog, and published its RSS feed as well.

http://blog.lifetime.com/lifetime365/rss.aspx

We then published an update to our flagship website (http://www.Lifetime.com) to consume and reformat our blog articles in various positions on the site, filtering by category and keywords. We put a feed panel on our home page, our product pages, and on almost every other page on the site. This helps us build cross-site links for SEO purposes, and helps our customers see articles related to the product that they’re researching that they might not have seen otherwise.

We began to think “outside the box” and decided to throw in RSS feeds on our B2C e-commerce site as well.

All products: http://www.BuyLifetime.com/feeds/rss.ashx
Each of our product categories, such as Sheds and Organization: http://www.BuyLifetime.com/feeds/rss.ashx?category=outdoorSheds
And even specialty pages, like our Clearance Items: http://www.buylifetime.com/feeds/rss.ashx?category=Clearance

We didn’t stop there, we used the same code which transforms the product data so that we can turn it into RSS and added additional transforms to publish GoogleBase, PriceGrabber, PowerReviews, and other product feeds to help “push” our products into other’s databases, expanding the breadth of reach. We even wrote a transform to publish a sitemap.xml file for Google, Bing, and Yahoo! (et. al.) to grab whenever we add, remove, or change product data.

While those aren’t RSS per se, they serve to underscore the importance of presenting your data in alternate formats.

Your turn!

What are you doing with RSS (and other data) feeds?

Require Your Child’s School to offer Alternative to Obama’s Propaganda

Joe — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:16:00 +0000

I pledge…

I pledge… to let my children’s school know that I require they have an alternative to Obama’s speech.

I pledge… to keep my children free from partisan politics and propaganda.

Background

On September 8th, 2009, President Obama will make a speech to the Nation’s school children. Obama has not provided the text of his speech, nor has he provided an outline of topics to cover. This leads parents to believe that this speech is nothing more than partisan propaganda. The Obama Administration hasn’t responded to parent’s concern yet, and the date of the speech is coming up quickly.

Therefore, I, along with Dana Loesch (Nationwide spokesperson for the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition) are suggesting “several action steps parents can take if they do not approve of their children participating in a partisan presentation conducted without their consent.”

Contact the child’s school to find out whether or not your school is participating in the president’s September 8th program.
If your child’s school is participating, ask what alternatives there are for the children of families who wish their students learn about the establishment of the country respective to the Founding Father’s intentions. Discussion can focus on the Constitution, the definition and actions of a republic, and the responsibility of elected leaders to their constituents.
Ask if the school can excuse your child from the presentation and instead receive a DVD of the address and copy of the activity directives to be evaluated by parents at a later date.
Request meeting with the school board, superintendent, and principal to inquire as to why parents were excluded from the decision-making process of this event.

To this end, I have contacted the administration at Syracuse Elementary (my children’s school) and asked if they will be participating in this speech. As of this writing the decision has not yet been made.

I requested that the school offer an alternative (such as a video on the founding of the country) be offered for those parents who wish their children not participate.

I followed up with a statement that if the school participates and there is no suitable substitute that I will be keeping my children home that day.

I requested that I be called back by the principal as soon as a decision is made, or to discuss the topic further. When I get that phone call I will try to post it here.

Your turn!

Have you contacted your children’s school yet? What was their response?

VIDEO: The truth about Gun Laws

Joe — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:19:00 +0000

Regardless of which side of the debate you’re on, the following video is a must-see. It delves into the history of gun laws in The United States of America, how other leaders through history have applied gun logic to their agendas, the history of gun control in the States, and more recent court decisions.

Watch the video, then tell me what side of the debate you’re on, and why.

TRON

Joe — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:38:00 +0000

I don’t know how I missed this trailer… but I don’t think it needs more introduction than one word: TRON.

Bank of the West Phishing Scam

Joe — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:01:00 +0000

There’re coming quickly these days! Phishing scams that is.

The second scam I’ve gotten today is allegedly from Bank of the West with a subject line of Official update [message id: 0646866141].

Dear Bank of the West customer,

As part of the new security measures, all Bank of the West WebDirect users are required to complete WebDirect Customer Form. Please complete the form as soon as possible.

To access the form please click on the following link:

http://cib.bankofthewest.com/K1/WT.ac/WebDirect/index.php?fid=[long string of numbers]&email=[your email address]

Sincerely,

Bank of the West Customer Service

=====================================================================
This email was sent to [your email address] as part of the services of Bank of the West.
If you do not have a relationship with Bank of the West or have received this email in error, please forward this email to onli...@bankofthewest.com.

Email ID: AO928.3

As you probably guessed, I’m not (nor have I ever been) a Bank of the West customer. This is yet another attempt to drain your bank account of all your hard earned money.

This time, the domain name is registered to Christo Velkov, ironically, it shares one of the same nameservers with the Bank of America phishing scam I wrote about earlier:

ns1.hop-quic.com
ns1.studi-video.net

What should you do?

Mark the message as spam.
Do NOT click any link in the email.
If you really want to drain your bank account, why not consider using your funds to pay off my mortgage instead?
Forward the email to abuse@bankofthewest.com and marketing@easily.co.uk to report the abuse.

Bank of America Phishing Scam

Joe — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:38:00 +0000

Following almost immediately after the KeyBank Phishing Scam we talked about recently, now we have the Bank of America Phishing Scam to worry about.

This email appears to come from Bank of America’s Online Banking division as an Online Banking Alert with a subject of “our new security measures (message ref: 2328380178)”.

Message from Customer Service

To: [your email address]

Date: [some date near today]

We would like to inform you that we have released a new version of Bank of America Customer Form. This form is required to be completed by all Bank of America customers.

Please follow these steps:

Open the form at http://www.bankofamerica.com/srv_7769299/customerservice/securedirectory/cform.do/cform.php?id=[string of numbers].

2.Follow given instructions.

Because email is not a secure form of communication, please do not reply to this email.
If you have any questions about your account or need assistance, please call the phone number on your statement or go to Contact Us at www.bankofamerica.com.

Unfortunately, the form does not really reside on Bank of America’s servers, it actually lives at srv_7769299.sjilli.org. SJILLI.org is registered to the following person:

Name: Darlene Eckes
Company: N/A
Address: 74 Foxfire Estates Road
City: Middletown
State: New York
Country: US
Zip: 10940
Tel No: 1 8453556121
Email: kjumeh7216@hotmail.com

What can you do?

Obviously, don’t click the link!

Like I said last time, it’s much easier to donate donate your entire bank account to me than it is to let these phishers drain it for you.

You should report this particular phishing scam to the domain registrar using their form, but also forward the phishing email to domain.manager@publicdomainregistry.com and abuse@bankofamerica.com.

Be smart. Don’t fall for phishing scams. And if you do, consider it a “stupid tax” to help you learn.

KeyBank Key Total Treasury Phishing Scam

Joe — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:11:00 +0000

If you’re like me, you’re probably getting a whole bunch of phishing scams in your inbox regarding banks across the country “updating their records” or “validating your account” or “adding additional security” all in for “your protection”.

Today’s scam allegedly comes from Key Bank and says the following:

Dear Key Total Treasury User,

We have release new version of Key Total Treasury Form. Please complete this form as soon as possible.

In order to access KeyTotalTreasury Form, please follow the link below:

http://ktt.key.com/ktt/cmd/formFromKeyCom/updateprocedure/?id=(some long string)&email=(your email address)

Unfortunately, the link does not take you to the Key Bank website, it takes you to http://ktt.key.com.gek1fs.eu

As one would expect from a phishing site, the registrant is “not disclosed”, but the registrar of this domain is Ascio Technologies Inc. (www.ascio.com).

What can you do?

First, don’t follow the link! It’s much easier to donate donate your entire bank account to me than it is to let these phishers drain it for you.

Second, forward the email to sales@ascio.com and emailfraud@keybank.com to report the phishing scam.

You’ve been warned.

SEO Tip: An introduction to Search Engine Optimization, Placement, and Marketing; SEO

Joe — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:20:00 +0000

Many of you may already know, I’m involved with SEM (including SEO & SEP) with my employer.

First off, let me give you some background and define terms:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

What is SEO?

This term is almost universally used incorrectly.
Most SEO Strategists or “purists” call this “on-page” SEO; in other words, SEO is optimizing your sites, your pages, and your content in such a way that search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo!, et. al., ad nauseum) can easily “see” your content.
More specifically, they “see” the content that you want them to see in the order that you want them to see it.
SEO involves the proper use of language, grammar, and keywords (including keyword density).
SEO involves the proper use of valid markup and styling languages (html/xhtml, CSS, etc.).
SEO involves the proper use of meta-data to further (and accurately) describe your content (including, but not limited to; the title, description, and (although not used often these days) keywords meta tags; the values of the title attribute on anchor (hyperlink) elements; the values of the alternate (“alt”) attribute on image (“img”) elements; etc.
SEO involves the proper use of hyperlinks: intra-page links, intra-site links, and inter-site links (links from one of your sites to another of your sites).
SEO involves the use of “alternate presentations” of the data (sitemap.xml files, rss/atom feeds, etc.).
In short, SEO is entirely within your control and relies on absolutely no one else.

What isn’t SEO?

SEO doesn’t mean how high a given page ranks in any particular search engine for any particular term
SEO doesn’t involve anything external to what you have complete control over.
SEO is not getting incoming links from other sites.
SEO is not not submitting your pages to search engines or directories.
In short, SEO is not any kind of advertising or marketing.

Be forewarned, although to you and I the above statements may be factual and correct, to your boss or your client, SEO (incorrectly) means “ranking well in search engines.”

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

What’s SEM? That’s the topic for the next article in the series…

The truth about ObamaCare

Joe — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:53:00 +0000

Congressman Mike Rogers looks at ObamaCare and tells us in no uncertain terms what it’s all about.

Whichever side of the debate you’re on you owe it to yourself to watch this video, it’s the best 3:39 you’ll spend today.

Bill would give President power to “turn off” the internet, dispatch troops to civilian “threats”

Joe — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:01:11 +0000

First the Obama administration asked us to report report each other for sending emails about his Health Care Reform project – emails they referred to as “fishy”.

If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Now, apparently, Obama wants to be able to “turn off” the internet, or limit the content available on it to only government endorsed propaganda (dare I say “misinformation”).

“The [bill] would allow the president to ‘declare a cybersecurity emergency’ relating to ‘non-governmental’ computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for ‘cybersecurity professionals’, and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.”

On the surface, this would allow the President to unilaterally “turn off” civilian access to the internet to respond to a cyber-attack against the government, military, or even Wall Street.

But the bill doesn’t define what a “cybersecurity emergency” is. Perhaps it’s people sending “fishy” emails that expose the truths buried in bills that Obama wants to pass? Maybe it’s people posting Tea Party pictures and agenda’s on Facebook?

Oh, and it’s not just the internet, “’Cyber’ is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks”, which includes your telephones, too .

“Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to ‘direct the national response to the cyber threat’ if necessary for ‘the national defense and security.’ The White House is supposed to engage in ‘periodic mapping’ of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies ‘shall share’ requested information with the federal government.”

So, your ISP and their backbone provider(s) MUST share the details of their networks and connectivity, maybe even requiring them to give up subscriber information and IP/MAC addresses, no warrant needed.

And, if the President decides to do so (no oversight) he can “direct national response” which is to say that he can deploy the military to come and “neutralize the threat” if it’s necessary for “the national defense and security”.

Contact your Senators and Representative NOW and tell them you oppose Sen Rockefeller’s bill, S.773 Cybersecurity Act of 2009.

Is silver money better than paper money?

Joe — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:56:00 +0000

In 1964…

In 1964 a quarter would buy you about a gallon of gas, about a gallon of milk, or about a loaf of bread.

In 2009, that same quarter will buy you about a gallon of gas, about a gallon of milk, or about a loaf of bread.

I can hear you now, you’re thinking “Joe, you’ve lost it, you’re off your rocker. You can’t buy a gallon of gas or those other things for a quarter. Are you mental?” Nope, I’m not mental, I’m just using the same 1964 quarter in both scenarios. You see, a 1964 quarter is made of 90% silver and is worth around $3.00 in 2009 dollars.

In 1964 (and earlier), most silver-colored coins that we used for currency (or “legal tender”) in These United States of America used to be made with silver (they were anywhere from 40% to 90% silver).

What if you decided to put $1,000 into an emergency fund in paper bills, and keep them in a safe or under your mattress? In today’s money you’d still have $1,000.

But what if, instead of bills, you decided to save the same $1,000, but this time did it in silver quarters? Today that emergency fund would be worth $3,000 $12,000.

That’s where things get confusing. Would the quarters that you saved way back then be “worth” more today? After all they were “worth” $1,000 dollars then, and are “worth” $3,000 now. But are they “worth” more?

Not really. You see, the coin could buy you the same amount of “stuff” back then as it does now. So the coin hasn’t gone up in value, it’s not really “worth” more.

But, the dollar, on the other hand, is “worth” less. Quite a bit less. It’s gone down in “worth” by about $2.75 in this example.

Now, I’m not here dolling out financial or investing advice, I’m just making observations about in the past when our money was actually “worth” something, versus now, where it’s worth a somewhat empty promise. Dave Ramsey might not agree with me on this one, but I want to walk you through the logic.

That leads me to the topic of this article

How can legal tender be illegal?

A man named Robert Kahre is facing up to 296 years in prison because the Justice Department feels that paying employees with “legal tender” is a tax-evasion scam.

No, I’m not making that up.

If, all of a sudden, $50 bills (Federal Reserve notes) could be traded in for, say, 1,000 $1 bills, what is the $50 bill “worth”? Is it “worth” fifty dollars, or one-thousand dollars? What do you have to pay taxes on? If your employer paid your wages with a $50 bills that you turned around and exchanged for $1,000 worth of goods or services (or other, smaller bills), what do you pay taxes on? What does your employer pay taxes on? Just the $50 bill, right?

But what if instead of a piece of paper with “$50” printed on it, your employer paid you a coin with “$50” stamped on it. Same thing, right? One would think.

What was Robert Kahre’s crime? He hired workers (on mutually-agreed terms), and paid them in gold and silver coins rather than in the paper dollars.

Some background:

The face value of the U.S. Mint’s gold and silver coins are “legal tender”, meaning they must be accepted in payment of debt, just like a dollar bill
A “Gold Eagle” coin has “$50” printed on it, meaning it is “worth” $50 as legal tender; its “market value” in gold content is “worth” about $1,000 in paper money (Federal Reserve notes)
A “Silver Eagle” coin has “One Dollar” printed on it, meaning it is “worth” $1 as legal tender; its “market value” in silver content is “worth” about $20 in paper money (Federal Reserve notes)
No law or IRS regulation that I know of requires that receivers of Gold or Silver Eagles (or other U.S. Mint coins) must report the “market value” of the coins instead of the “legal tender” value

After extensively researching the issue, Robert Kahre:

hired workers as independent contractors, so he would not pay the payroll tax for their labor (nothing wrong with that)
paid them in coins, rather than in paper dollars (again, nothing wrong with that)
the coins he paid them with are minted by the U.S. Mint, and have a face value stamped on them in
the face value (the legal tender value) of those coins was so low that the workers legally didn’t have to report it as income to the IRS (also, nothing wrong here)

For instance, if a worker was annually paid in gold coins with a legal tender face value of $2,000, the market value of the gold content in those coins could be $40,000, but only the legal tender face value of $2,000 would theoretically count as taxable income. That face value of $2,000 is low enough to be non-reportable to the IRS.

But, even though the coins Kahre used were legal tender, the Justice Department alleged that Kahre’s system was a fraudulent, tax-evading scam. Said another way, the Justice Department thinks that paying someone the “legal tender” value of a legal currency is a tax-evading scam become someone else is willing to trade that coin for more than its face value.

LUNACY!

The government called three accountants to testify. The defense asked each one, “What is the proper way to calculate income for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code if you are paid in a gold coin that has a $50 face value on it?” All three of them responded, “I do not know; I’ll have to research that.” — Mike Zigler, reporting on the 2007 case against Robert Kahre that ended in a hung jury

DownsizeDC.org and I agree with Jacob Hornberger who asserts that the federal government’s prosecution of Kahre is self-contradictory!

If you owe $100 in taxes and pay with gold coins with face values totaling $100, the IRS will accept the payment at its face value of $100; it could then sell the coins on the market for twenty times that amount and keep the difference. The government will accept your payment as “legal tender”, as it is required by law to do.
But if YOU receive gold coins from someone else in a private transaction, the IRS says you must report the “market value” of the coins, not the “face value”. In other words, the IRS says that YOU CANNOT TREAT THE COINS AS LEGAL TENDER.

Why is this a big deal?

I can only assume that the government fears that if more people took the law at its word and behaved like Kahre:

people would demand payment in the U.S. Mint’s gold and silver coins and have far fewer reportable “dollars” in income, meaning fewer people would pay income taxes
the market would soon prefer the coins produced by the Treasury Department’s Mint that are regulated by law – not the inflated dollars created by order of the independent Federal Reserve Board
good money (gold and silver) would drive out the bad (paper Federal Reserve Notes and electronic keyboard strokes), whereas the federal government needs inflated, deficit-driven money to pay for itself

No wonder the government views Kahre as a threat, and is willing to made a mockery of its own legal tender laws to destroy him!

DownsizeDC.org, however, believes Kahre was on to something. That’s why they endorse the “Honest Money Act”, which would repeal the legal tender law that gives the Federal Reserve a monopoly over the money supply. This bill, along with the “Tax-Free Gold Act” and the “Free Competition in Currency Act”, is a plank in our End the Inflation Tax Campaign.

Repealing the legal tender law would foster the creation of HONEST free market money, and protect people from the Federal Reserve’s endless onslaught of legalized counterfeiting, which constantly reduces the value of your money.

Star Trek Cologne?!

Joe — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:05:00 +0000

You knew it was only a matter of time… After the Original Series, the Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and several movies, Star Trek fans can now boldly say they have their own colognes.

No, I’m not making this up!

Political Correctness is the problem; the Signal is the answer

Joe — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:54:00 +0000

“You can’t stop the signal, Mal.”

There’s a problem that’s been brewing since long before I was born. A problem that today we call “Political Correctness”.

Just because something is “Politically Correct” doesn’t mean it’s correct at all. In most cases, if something is “Politically Correct” it’s a lie.

Let me say that again

Anything that is “Politically Correct” is a lie.

Take, for example, a recent story run by MSNBC. In this story a well-dressed man in a white shirt is filmed (from the shoulders down) wearing a pistol in a holster on his left hip and a rifle slung over his right shoulder. The media was covering a town-hall meeting. The man was approached by law enforcement and found to be doing nothing illegal. The let him remain with the admonition to say out of the “secure bubble”. Fair enough. He was a law-abiding civilian and assured his compliance.

Here’s where MSNBC outright lied

Yes, I realize those are strong words, but they’re accurate.

In a story run at 10:45am on August 18th 2009, an MSNBC reporter says about this story:

“Also there are questions whether this has racial overtones. I mean here you have a man of color in the Presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists or to their legs.”

The problem?

Well, I’m not a racist, but I’m fairly certain that guy isn’t a “white person”. How can a black man showing up with a gun (which was perfectly legal) have “racial overtones” because we have a “man of color in the Presidency”?!

But there is the problem, MSNBC never showed anyone that it was a black man with a gun (why should it matter?), they had an agenda and wanted to paint this not as a free man exercising an Individual Right, rather as a stereotypical “right-wing conservative gun-toting nut-case”.

Only he wasn’t that at all.

But admitting that would defeat their agenda. You see, a black man that brings a gun (legally) to a rally doesn’t fit into their divisive agenda. They have to lie to make this story into something “newsworthy”.

Who was this black man exercising his rights? We don’t know, the media never reported his name, nor much of his message. MSNBC didn’t even want us to know his skin color (again, why does color matter?).

The solution?

You and I. Yes, you and I are the solution.

You see, big media is quickly becoming irrelevant. Services like Twitter and Facebook are enabling regular people like you and me to publish our blogs and podcasts to the world – and much faster than they can.

They’re not ignorant to these facts, which is why they’re quick to dismiss us as disjointed, amateur, inaccurate, or just as “noise”.

But that’s all a “signal” is: organized “noise”. If you are listening, and know what to look for, you’ll find the signal in the noise – no matter how hard they try to block it, dismiss it, or diminutize it.

And like “Mister Universe” says in the movie Serenity: “You can’t stop the signal, Mal.”

Post Scripts

If you’ve got 13 minutes to spare, or care at all about the how the mainstream media cannot be trusted, check out the video on this page (after the commercial intro): http://bit.ly/3P4c7L
To the man in the video: Well done. Well played. If you happen to stumble across this “noise” and ever find yourself in Utah, drop me a line, I’d like to buy you dinner. I hope you’ll still have your sidearm on your hip, and me with mine, and we’ll have a polite meal and conversation. Even though we both have guns. Even though our skin isn’t the same color.

Dave Ramsey reads my tweet on the air

Joe — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:48:26 +0000

The other day on Twitter I replied to Dave Ramsey’s comment about the Cash for Clunkers program. I said “what we really need is a Cash For Clunker Politicians” program where we can trade in our incumbent politicians for new, more efficient models”. Sure enough, he read it on the air — .mp3!

New Android TV Ad

Joe — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:55:00 +0000

How much space is “()+///.*-”?

Joe — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:05:00 +0000

My buddy was using the Windows Disk Cleanup Wizard and was presented with this dialog box. That leaves us both wondering, exactly how much is “()+///.*-” worth of Temporary Internet Files?

Don’t Text and Drive: Graphic Public Service Announcement (England)

Joe — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:49:00 +0000

Texting while driving increases the risk of a negligent collision (note that it is NOT an “accident”) by 2,300 times.

Apparently people (especially young drivers) aren’t getting the message. So unconcerned and unwilling to comply with requests to “put the phone away” while operating a motor vehicle, that one English ad agency put out what critics are calling a “very graphically disturbing PSA”. I call it about damn time.

In a world surrounded by battling robots, vampires, runaway buses, car chases, explosions; email, IM, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed; video games, DVRs, Netflix Streaming, and all kinds of instant gratification it’s not difficult to understand why our younglings have an insatiable desire for “right now” and an altered state of reality. (Wow, I sound old!)

To that end, this PSA was created in the world that we live in today, with blood, gore, explosions, screaming… you get the point. For some reason when it’s “reality” it’s “graphically disturbing” but when it’s robots blowing up Los Angeles it’s “entertainment”.

Top the critics who say “it’s too much” or “it’s too violent” I say “shut up, it’s about time”. To all the parents out there I say “share this with your kids… before it’s too late”.

But be forewarned, the following video is a dramatization of what happens every day in real life. If you’re not able to handle this video, you aren’t able to handle real life either. Please check yourself into a mental health facility for the remainder of your life.

The Original PSA

MSNBC’s Take:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Frugal Tip: How to save $1.50/month by switching to Paperless Billing on T-Mobile

Joe — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:15:00 +0000

I just got my T-Mobile bill and was surprised to see an insert noting “Important Changes to your T-Mobile® bill.” Upon closer inspection, this note says that “Starting in September [2009], T-Mobile will begin charging $1.50 per month” if you receive a paper bill. “This fee will show on your bill as a “Paper Bill Charge”.

They supply a link to answer your questions about Paper Bill charges. I won’t list the link here because at the time of this writing it doesn’t tell you HOW to opt out of Paper Bills. Lame.

So, if you want to save $1.50/month on your T-Mobile bill (that’s a little less than $20/year), here’s how you do it:

Head over to https://my.t-mobile.com/profile/profileLanding.aspx,
Log in to your T-Mobile account (or create one if you don’t already have one set up),
Go to Manage and Your Profile,
Check your Billing statement format, if it’s “paper bill” then click on the Edit link,
Here’s where you’d think you could click a checkbox to enable paperless billing (or disable paper billing, or something like that), but no, T-Mobile (apparently) doesn’t want to make it that easy for you (maybe they want to bilk their customers out of another $1.50/month), instead, under the “How Green is your account?” header, click the Green Account status link,
Your Paperless Billing Status should say “not registered”, click the Sign up button,
If you are not logged on using the “Primary Account Holder” account you’ll get a message telling you that only they can make the change, so make sure you’re logged in with the right privileges,
If you do have the right privileges check the Paperless Billing radio button,
Supply the email address (twice) where you want the e-bill to be sent

They DO NOT accept standard + addressing, so you’ll have to supply your raw email address. Lame.,

Read and check the Terms & Conditions (if you agree to them),

Then click Save Changes.

And now for the bad news

The Terms and Conditions are a bit “interesting” to say the least…

2. Payment.. I will pay my Bill (including any late fees) timely, whether or not I receive a Bill notice or am able to access my paperless Bill.

That’s right, even if T-Mobile’s site and servers are down and you can’t find out how much you owe, you still have to pay your Bill (including any late fees that you probably don’t even know about) in a timely manner. Lame.

Of course they’ll try to email you a copy of your paperless bill… ah, but there is another gotcha!

3. Not receiving a Bill notice.. T-Mobile will attempt to send me a Bill notice to my current e-mail address in T-Mobile’s records. It is my sole responsibility to contact T-Mobile directly if I do not receive my Bill notice. I agree to hold T-Mobile harmless for any delay or failure to deliver notice.

So, if T-Mobile doesn’t send you that email it’s your responsibility to contact them “directly”. Oh, and you hold them “harmless” for any delay or failure to deliver your bill. Lame.

When will it start? Apparently it might take “several months” after you ask T-Mobile to stop paper billing before they start. No word on whether or not they’ll charge you for the “several months” that it takes them to switch you over though.

6. Commencement.. If I choose this Paperless Billing service, I understand that it may take several months before I stop receiving a paper Bill and start receiving notices for my paperless Bill.

What’s worse, T-Mobile reserves the right to continue billing you for a paper bill. Of course the way they word this is that they “may accept or deny [your] request for Paperless Billing” at their sole discretion. “Sorry, we want to keep raking in $1.50/month to $3.49/month, so we’ll keep sending you a paper bill, it’s our ‘sole discretion’.”

T-Mobile may accept or deny my request for Paperless Billing in its sole discretion. While my paperless Bill service is being activated, it is my responsibility to keep my accounts current.

Of course, you can switch back to paper billing, and T-Mobile will be happy to charge you $1.50/month to $3.49/month for the privilege… oh, and they get to charge you an “administrative fee” for the privilege of switching back, too.

7. CANCELLATION.. I MAY CANCEL PAPERLESS BILLING AT ANY TIME AND REVERT TO RECEIVING A PAPER BILL BY GOING TO THE BILLING TAB OF THE PROFILE SECTION IN MY T-MOBILE OR BY CONTACTING CUSTOMER CARE. T-MOBILE MAY CHARGE ME AN ADMINISTRATIVE FEE FOR CANCELING PAPERLESS BILLING AND REVERTING TO PAPER BILLING.

Oh, and you can’t do this if you have applied to work for the City of Bozeman, Montana (or any other place that makes you give up your usernames & passwords).

8. Password.. Access to My T-Mobile is password protected, I understand that it is my responsibility to maintain and safeguard all user names and passwords for Paperless Billing. I will not give or make available my password or other means to access my account to any unauthorized individuals. If I permit another person to access my paperless Bill or my password I am responsible for any transactions they authorize.

Also, you can’t use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera to view your Paperless Bill.

12. System compatibility and blocking.. The ability to receive Bill notices is system and Internet Service Provider dependent. To accurately view your paperless Bill, your system must be running either Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, Netscape Navigator 6.1 or higher, or AOL 5.0 or higher.

And you should add T-Mobile to your email client’s address book (whitelist), allowing them to send you all the spam they want and bypass your spam filters.

Some ISPs may block e-mail from senders who are not on a "contacts" list, so I may not receive my notification unless I specifically add T-Mobile to my contacts or "people I know".

And to add insult to injury, the information that you get on your Paperless bill doesn’t even have to be “accurate, complete, useful, FUNCTIONAL, or bug-or error-free”!

And to that end, hopefully you’ll get through with the process, rather than getting an error message EVERY SINGLE TIME (like I did) when I tried to make the switch. Oh well, T-Mobile does not warrant that it will be useful, complete, or functional.

T-MOBILE DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE INFORMATION, PROCESSES, OR SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ACCURATE, COMPLETE, USEFUL, FUNCTIONAL, BUG- OR ERROR-FREE.

Lame. Lame. Lame.

Automatically insert a QRcode bookmark link on your Wordpress articles

Joe — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:06:00 +0000

Let’s say you want to put a QRcode (a form of 2D barcode) on your WordPress articles. Why? Because you can.

Here is how you can do just that utilizing Google’s Charts API:

   1: <a href="php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="php the_title(); ?>">   2:     <img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=250x250&chl=php the_permalink(); ?>" alt="php the_title(); ?>" style="float:right;border:0;height:250px;width:250px;" />   3: a>

Let’s break that down, shall we?

First off, we started out with an anchor tag. While that’s entirely optional, it gave us an opportunity to tag the QRcode as a bookmark (complete with url, rel, and title values), which is what it is.

Next, we insert an image element with the src value pointing to Google’s Charts API, and we pass is various parameters.

Here’s how we did that:

The base url for Google Charts is http://chart.apis.google.com/chart
Next, we specify that we want the result to be a QRcode by passing it ?cht=qr
Next, we need to tell the API what size we want in pixels, in our case 250px square, by passing it &chs=250×250
Next, we pass the permalink url as the value to encode into the barcode by passing it &chl= (of course you can pass a static URL, geocode, plain text, etc. to the API if you’d rather do that)

That’s all we need to do. Of course, you can specify the encoding, the data-redundancy/error-correction, margin values, and other stuff, but that’s all we have to have.

We then supply the alt value (in this case ) and some inline css to turn the border off and set the size and float. Then we close the anchor element.

Tada! Instant QRcode!

Of course, you can do this with other CMS’s, or even manually.

Try these out:

What have you found using QRcodes?

I read it on the Internet, it MUST be true!

Joe — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:05:00 +0000

The following are copies of newspaper clippings that were emailed to me. The email assured me that they were all found in actual newspapers, but didn’t mention which ones.

Whether true or not, they’re good for a laugh.

Half price requires less math than figuring out percentages.
That’s what she said.
I’d have thought teen pregnancy would drop-off significantly after age 19.
I don’t know what’s worse: that someone didn’t know what a millionaire was, that a branch manager at an investment back gave such a flawed response, or that the paper actually went through the process of asking someone then printing the response.
The editor who let this one though is now flipping burgers for a living.
Other than not being very “PC”, what’s wrong with that? I call the police every time my mail is delivered, too.
Now that’s some good cammo!
It’s not like that lady who tried to buy food at Wal-Mart with $50 Gold Eagles, and was told to go to the bank and “change them for real money”. What’s worse, the bank did “make change” for them, offering her face value for the coins. Who cares that they were worth just south of $1,000 each. That really happened in St. George, Utah.
She also has a warrant out for the Easter Bunny for skipping her house last spring.
Wow. And we pay these people?
It was only a matter of time.
“Prostitution” versus “failure to stop at a railroad crossing”, they’re pretty much the same.
For $250,000 Lane County can hire me to figure out where their funds are going.
Oh! I thought “mausoleum” was Italian for “lawn shed”.
Sometimes I’m extra proud to live in Utah.
File this one right up there with “Fish need water”.
He must be a plumber.
I’ve seen those movies, where mirrors are actually portals to Hell. Freaky! He needed to have called a Priest though, not the Police.
And? What did the police say? Come on, we all want to know the answer to this one!
Other words that you shouldn’t use for names: Fire, Rape, Police, Shootim, Pursesnatcher, and Carthief, to name a few.
The card-board cutout was ordered removed, but don’t worry, he’ll be back.
It’s not the dog’s fault, they grew up in the projects and it’s society that’s to blame. Under ObamaCare, the duck would have had to pay a fee to reject medical treatment.
He figured she went for groceries.
Criminals aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.
Yup, smells like urine, just like all the ones in that fancy mattress store downtown.
That dude’s going to make some serious change! Old people are a dime a dozen, but once you’ve got a bona fide collection, well, that’s something special!
Please note, he said weapons, that’s plural, not just one. Extra ammo is also advised.
Chances are it wasn’t used all that much, either.
He just wanted everyone to know that he has it, and that it’s worth almost five grand.
Awesome! I Aunt Grady needs one of those. I’d buy it just to put it in my front yard and see how many people freak out.

Now it’s your turn! Send me clippings of funny things you find in the paper!

6 things Android needs to do to upset the Apple cart

Joe — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:35:00 +0000

Background

Let’s admit it, iPhone was a game-changer. For another time Microsoft has been caught with their proverbial pants down:

Microsoft let things slide with Internet Explorer while Mozilla came out with Firefox,
Microsoft had a DRM-capable music format that worked cross-platform (read: multiple “MP3 Players”) and could tie in with any of a dozen online music stores BEFORE the iPod came out,
Microsoft had a mobile phone platform WAY before the iPhone came out,
Need I say more?

The funny thing is that Microsoft has tried to respond to each of these… and has failed each time:

When Firefox came out Microsoft responded withMSIE7… and failed. Then they started over again with MSI8… and failed again.
When iPod came out instead of shoring up their pre-existing fortified hold on multiple stores and hardware manufactures, Microsoft abandoned their position to try going it alone with Zune.
When iPhone came out Microsoft continued plugging along with the archaic Windows CE… or is it Pocket PC Phone Edition… or is it Windows Mobile… or is it Windows Phone? Who knows?

They’re doing so poorly that not only are they failing to Apple, but they’re letting Google nose in to their business, too: web browser, office programs, search engine, and now mobile phones.

So, with that as the background, let’s focus just on mobile phones, specifically Google’s Android.

What does Android need to do to upset the Apple cart?

We’ve already determined that Android doesn’t need to do much (if anything) to upset the Microsoft cart, so what does it need to do to upset Apple’s iPhone?

Android handsets need to be every bit as good as iPhone – in every way possible. This includes speed, operating system, functionality, user experience, marketplace, application offerings inside the marketplace, and hardware quality.

Once that foundation has been laid (and we’re not there yet, folks), Android needs to promote those features as far and wide as possible. Every Apple customer should know why their phone is eclipsed by Android, and they should feel either envy for those who have Android, or shame for the fact they have the second rate device. Let me say again, Android is not there yet.

Android needs to improve their over-the-air (OTA) capabilities for calendar, contact, and email syncing through Google services AND Exchange services. This experience needs to beat MobileMe hands down – and not just in price (MobileMe costs $100/year; Google’s services are free).
Android needs to emphasize that their apps are background-capable, you can literally run more than one application at once, and easily switch between them. Currently this needs polish, and faster hardware (including more RAM) to make it shine over Apple’s one-app-at-a-time pile of lameness.
Android should shout from the roof-tops that there is no centralized App Store under one company’s draconian control. This will lead to the fact that there are no horror stories of rejected Android apps – unlike apps in that other store.
Brand this puppy as its own entity, don’t slather it with carrier logos ANYWHERE (front or back). In fact, why limit it by carrier at all?
Sacrifice thinness for battery life, market it as a “serious, powerful tool” rather than a “casual toy”. If this means making the battery non-user-upgradable, so be it.
Don’t try and defeat Apple by selling more (cheaper and less expensive) devices, sell the best device out there so that others WANT to have yours – because it’s better and sexier than theirs.

Ever wonder how the Empire lost to a bunch of Ewoks?

Joe — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:11:14 +0000

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

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How has Lifetime used RSS?

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