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It is not every day where you see a neat geeky license plate - well, maybe I see one or two every day. But most people do not.
Yesterday, I was driving home from work and spotted a New Jersey license plate that read "ONLINE."
The person seemed lost, which was ironic, but it was nice to see a license plate like this in my neck of the woods.
On Sunday, Wikipedia made a HUGE change to one of their most important (sarcasm) entry pages, the Barry Schwartz page.
For as long as their was a Barry Schwartz page on Wikipedia it always lead to the well-known psychologist. He is very well know for his book named The Paradox of Choice and has spoken at Google about it.
But on Sunday, they changed his landing page from wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Schwartz to wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Schwartz_(psychologist).
Now the Barry Schwartz page is a landing page to a total of three Barry Schwartz individuals.
My Wikipedia page was created by myself, which is a huge no-no, but ultimately was approved to stick by the Wikipedia editors. Phew.
The other Barry Schwartz is a little unknown person who is the Cofounder & Chairman, Calvin Klein. :)
I am not a huge fan of recruiters. I use them because we need to find good people but at the same time, many feel like ruthless vultures to me.
In any event, I had an interesting and fun call today with a recruiter. It went like this, although not word for word:
Recruiter dials operator line, I answer.
Recruiter: Is Andrew there?
Barry: He is working from home today.
Recruiter: I am working on a project with him, is there any way I can reach him? We had a call for today...
Barry: What is your name?
Recruiter: [Says his name]
Barry: Really? What project? Maybe I can help you immediately... (I am thinking, I would know his name if he was working with this employee and figure he is a recruiter by now)
Recruiter: I cannot disclose that but I need to speak to him...
Barry: Why can't you tell me? I am the boss.
Recruiter: Can you have him call me?
Barry: Sure, what is your name and number.
Recruiter: [Says his name and phone number (it works, I tried it after the call)]
Barry: I'd love to help you now. Can you please tell me the project or are you a recruiter?
Recruiter: I'm a contractor
Barry: So then tell me the project, I like to help my clients.
Recruiter: How do I know if you are the boss?
Barry: Check the RustyBrick web site (I walk him through the process...)
Recruiter: I see, thanks.
Barry: So, can I help you now?
Recruiter: No, I really need to speak with him...
Barry: Really? Are you a recruiter?
Recruiter: I don't think I am a recruiter (yes, he said that word for word)
Barry: Really? Well, if you were a recruiter, I am hiring.
Recruiter: Um, what is your email?
Barry: So you are a recruiter?
Recruiter: Um?
Barry: Are you?
Then I hear him hang up the phone.
So I give the employee the recruiters number and tell the story to the team. I would never prevent recruiters from calling the people here. But at the same time, I hate it when the same recruiters turn around and try to then fill positions at my company. You CANNOT have it both ways. No way!
The employee then forwards me the email from this recruiter. I in turn email the recruiter with our job openings just to see. He has the nerve to reply:
You are a better man than I am! Thanks! Sorry ... but when I call into a firm I can't advertise that I'm a Recruiter, I hope you can understand.BTW, It's amazing how much the marketing has come back since 2 years ago. Sounds like you have open needs as well, are you working with a recruiter?
It is amazing, just amazing!
Oh, we are hiring and if your an iPhone developer, use the hire me app.
Yes, I did shave on Friday. I did not get a haircut yet, but hopefully some time this week.
Here is the new me:
Before:
I tried to get a haircut on Friday but the lines were out the door...
It has been about 3 weeks since I last shaved. And now I look like this:
Pretty - don't you think?
Why haven't I shaved? Well, there is this thing called Sefirat HaOmer in the Jewish world and during that time, or parts of the time (first 33 days) many Jewish people do not shave or get haircuts. Most do not get haircuts, while many still do shave, so they don't end up looking like what I look like right now.
Since I own my business and I was able to only have a couple early in person meetings that required shaving, I was able to not shave for most (not all) of Sefirat HaOmer. Something that is rare...
Another thing that is rare is that I am still counting. How so? Well, even if I miss evening prayers with a "minyan," I still get my handy reminder at 9pm via my Sefirat HaOmer iPhone App. It really made a difference.
Tomorrow, I should look a bit more presentable.
Back when I got FiOS I thought FiOS was amazingly fast. Back in 2007 I had 12Mbps download and 3Mbits upload speeds. But today, that same plan I have 18Mbps download and slightly over 5Mbps upload, not changing anything with FiOS or anything.
The other day I tested our network here at the office and was shocked to see only 2.23Mbps download and 4.46Mbps upload. I had been paying for Optimum Boost, which says I should be getting up to 50Mbps download and 8 Mbps upload.
So I decided to pay a little extra for the office for Optimum's fastest Internet, Optimum Ultra. It claims speeds up to 101Mbps download and 15Mbps upload. So we upgraded and then ordered new Gigabit hardware, switches, firewalls, VPNs, wireless, etc for our office. It was all installed yesterday.
Prior to getting Ultra, we made some tweaks to our old hardware running boost. It bumped us up to 5.8Mbps download and 5Mbps upload. Then prior to the install, running Ultra on our old network was 20Mbps download and 12.26Mbps upload.
Now with Ultra on our upgraded gigabit network we are running 55Mbps download and 15Mbps upload. The upload speed is good but I was expecting much closer to 101Mbps , not 55, maybe in the 70s or 80s. So I called CableVision Optimum and they are sending someone out tomorrow to tweak things.
Time will tell...
What is your speed? I used SpeakEasy's tool to test it.
So far, I asked some folks on Twitter, here are there responses:
@rustybrick 40mbit down, 35mbit up :)less than a minute ago via TweetDeck 
Favorite 
Retweet 
Reply
Jonathan Dingman
Dingman
@rustybrick 20mbit down, 6.3mbit up, Comcastless than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet Reply
Michael J. Kaye
eCommerceCircle
@rustybrick 5.25 MB Download and 1.93 MB Upload. I'm about 3 times faster at home then in this office :)less than a minute ago via RockMelt Favorite Retweet Reply
Bruce Rick
brucerick
@rustybrick - Mine is 109.84 mbps download and 10.28 mbps upload.less than a minute ago via Brizzly Favorite Retweet Reply
Vanessa Fox
vanessafox
@rustybrick For me: Download: 3073 kbps (384.1 KB/sec or 3.07 Mbps), Upload: 322 kbps (40.3 KB/sec or 0.32 Mbps)less than a minute ago via Seesmic Web Favorite Retweet Reply
Donna Fontenot
DonnaFontenot
@rustybrick 158.51 down, 5.84 up.less than a minute ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Reply
Thom Craver
thomcraver
@rustybrick Download Speed: 7408 kbps (926 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 681 kbps (85.1 KB/sec transfer rate) with NY selectedless than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet Reply
gabriel
gabs
So, Vanessa Fox and Thom Craver have some nice speeds there.
I want my 101!
Just got off with a prospect who called. It went like this:
Prospect: I'd like to schedule a meeting at your office.
Me: Our starting prices are $X.
Prospect: Why so expensive.
Me: We are really good.
Prospect: That is too expensive for me.
Me: Okay. Bye.
I should add two things:
(1) He started off the phone call talking to a friend of his and I sat there listening to it. I HATE when people do that. Why bother calling someone when you are in the middle of a conversation already. So I was annoyed already.
(2) I am a horrible sales man.
Anyway, that is how to weed out prospects really quickly.
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