When it comes to being orderly and efficient, I am a bit of a nut. And when it comes to paying bills, I am a bit obsessed.

When I get a bill in the mail, both for my business or my personal life - I have just about same process. With my business, I enter in the bills into my accounting system that day. 10 days prior to them being due, I get a reminder to pay them in my accounting system. I then typically (99% of my bills that are not on the credit card) login to my bank's bill pay system and schedule the payment to be paid on or before the date it is due. With my personal bills, I actually first use my bank's bill pay system and then enter the check as a line item in my Quicken file with the date being the date the check is sent out by my bank.

This lets me file the bill away immediately and not have to look at it again. That is unless the company I am paying has not set up their accounts receivables correctly.

There are some vendors I must pay several days in advance because I know they have checks sitting on their desk which they do not process the same day or even within two days. Since they do not process them right away, they get entered into their system a few days after they are due and I get a penalty of some sort. To avoid the phone calls to the vendor, I typically pay them a few days in advance so they have time to let the check sit on their desk the necessary waiting period. I think it is wrong and inefficient, but it is what I do to avoid phone calls and more wasted time.

I guess I should not judge.

Which leads me to another pet peeve. Why do some people feel that they are doing you a favor by paying your bills on time? If I do work for your and we agree to payment terms, pay it on time and that is it. Don't act like you are doing me a favor for paying me, when you owe that money. I don't feel like I am doing my vendors a favor by paying them what I agreed to pay them, on time. It is what I agreed to do in exchange for a service or product. Ehh, I am going off on a tangent, I can leave this for another blog post.

Posted at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (0)

My Verizon FiOS Router died last week, Verizon shipped me a new one overnight and I installed it last night. There was an issue where the router was not connecting to the Internet. I tried to kick it myself but I needed tech support.

I called Verizon last night on my main home phone. I was on hold for 30 minutes when I decided to try calling from my cell phone. I called via my cell phone and within a minute or two of hold time, a tech support representative answered. I told the support guy that I am still on hold for 30 minutes on my main line. Of course he had no response to that. There must have been a glitch in the phone support routing, which put me in some endless hold pattern. Who knows if anyone would have ever picked up.

That type of stuff upsets me. How can that happen!

Anyway, the issue was resolved after a hard reset, which I should of done myself. But since I am too tech savvy, I likely skipped some troubleshooting tips where I could have avoided calling anyone.

How the heck can I get in a hold line for 30 minutes and then call back and get an answer (while on hold on the other line) within minutes? I don't get it!

Posted at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (6)

You know what really bugs me related to getting phone calls? It really really really bugs me. It is...

Getting phone calls from people who clearly do not have the time or ability to have a conversation with you. You know what I mean...

Someone calls you, you answer and either there is a ton of noise around them or they are always being pulled away by others or they just cannot focus at the moment.

Why would you call someone, when you clearly cannot speak to that person? This happens both with business and personal phone calls. I often simply want to hang up, because it is a waste of both our time.

Of course, if I call someone and they sound busy, I would say, "is this a good time?" But for someone to call me and then not be able to communicate with me due to distractions - well, that is just annoying.

Overall, I dislike using phones in most cases. Yea, I know, there are some places where it is necessary.

But do not call me when you simply cannot communicate with me properly - it really bugs me. Did I say how much it annoys me? It really really really really bugs me.

Posted at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (1)

In May, we went to Englewood Hospital to deliver our first baby. I was all ready to prepare for insurance woes, trust me - I heard crazy horror stories. We did the pre-registration bit, made sure they accepted our insurance (which is a very good one) and spoke to all the doctors to make sure they accepted our insurance as well.

When we arrived at the hospital and my wife was settled in the delivery area, they asked me to check her in with registration. When I did that, I asked over and over again, will my insurance be accepted, do I have to worry about specific doctors not accepting our insurance and so on. The person there reassured me that any doctor who sees my wife or child will accept my insurance. Of course, I was skeptical.

In any event, as people came into the delivery room - I questioned them, in terms of insurance questions. They all accepted the insurance and assured me of that. So I thought I was pretty good, until a month or so later where I got hit with a bunch of bills that I owed money. Most turned out okay after I had to hound either the hospital, doctor or insurance company to get on the same page. I paid my deductibles and the insurance company covered the rest. I said most...

One network of doctors did not accept my insurance. The Englewood Hospital Pediatricians or the group Englewood outsources to for the pediatrics work, did not accept my insurance. So when I get this bill and it says something like we do not accept your insurance, I was upset - to say the least. To be fair, it wasn't tens of thousands, but it wasn't a few bucks - so it didn't break me.

I called the insurance company and they explained that they put the amount towards my out of network. As per my contract, they can't do much more than that. I then call the hospital and ask them why these out of network doctors saw my daughter. The hospital told me, there were no in-hospital doctors available, so they used this group. The hospital told me to take it up with the insurance company or the doctors. Since the insurance company couldn't help me, I tried to call the doctors. Instead, I get a billing service, hired by the doctors, who can't do anything but tell me I owe the doctors money.

The conversation with the billing company was interesting... I'll try to describe how it went, but keep in mind, this was months ago.

* I ask what can be done about this charge, I was told no doctor would see us if they didn't accept insurance.
* They say, the doctor saw you and we had to bill. Take it up with the hospital or insurance company (see the finger pointing).
* But I asked again, why did they see us if they didn't accept our insurance.
* They reply that they have to see all patients, no matter what insurance they take.
* I then asked, do you get these complaints often?
* They reply, all the time, every day, non-stop.
* I then ask, do the doctors know you get these complaints? If not, you should tell them, and maybe they can do something about it in the future?
* We can't tell them, they responded.
* Okay, so can I call them, what is their number?
* They reply, "we can't give you that information."
* So how do I complain about this invoice and their service? I ask.
* They say, "you complain to us."

At this point, I take a step back and try to understand this. I ask them... If you get these questions all the time, why won't you tell them this? They have thousands of unhappy "customers" and they don't care? In fact, three different pediatricians saw my daughter. First one saw her when we didn't even know (i.e. I didn't approve it). The other two introduced themselves as "doctors who work for the hospital." That was on day two and three, so I wasn't thinking straight and I thought, they were employed by the hospital and not outsourced.

* I asked, why do the doctors say they work for the hospital? It makes it sound like they would accept my insurance.

By this time, the person on the other end of the phone is really not happy with me and begins to get short with me. I try to calm her down and explain my situation. I try to get her to understand how evil this sounds. A doctor(s) knows that virtually everyone they see (I think they don't accept any insurance) will have a complaint about the bill. The doctors either (a) see your daughter without your knowledge and (b) imply they are with the hospital so you think they accept your insurance and they bill you. They know you will have an issue with the bill, so they hide it from the onset. I explain this to the billing company and they finally agree with me but say they cannot do anything. Nor can they give me the information for these doctors.

So I do some searching and cannot get a real phone number or address. Of course, I have the doctor's names, but I really am too kind and I decide not to call them at home (yea, I can get that info if I wanted). I can also name the doctor group here and their personal names, but I won't.

I decide to go back to the insurance company and file an appeal or something.

This week, I get another bill from the billing company for these evil doctors. I decide to call, ask if they are willing to accept the amount my insurance company believes they should pay. They do and I pay them in full.

The doctors who checked the health of my new baby, also take advantage of people when they are in a very unpredictable place.

Thankfully, my bill wasn't too bad. I have heard stories of bills for tens of thousands of dollars.

It is just so evil.

(Oh, and if you knew how much I paid for insurance it would make you sick.

Posted at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (8)

Whenever I go places these days and the people I see know who I am and know I had a kid about three months ago, I get requests to see pictures of her. It is a common request, because I don't post pictures of her publicly.

But one interesting observation is that the majority of the time, the people requesting to see the pictures are women, females. It is actually extremely rare for a guy (male) to ask me to see a picture of my daughter, they just wish me congrats and ask me how I am sleeping. But women, they want to see cute pictures of my kid. Of course, I enjoy showing the pictures.

It is just interesting that 99% of the time, those who ask me to see pictures are women and not men.

You see the image at the right top of this blog post? Well, I did a Flickr search for [looking at pictures] and the first result was of five people looking at pictures of "ellen's niece." The funny part, they are all women, no men.

Posted at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (2)

This morning, I got to my office and went through the back entrance. I noticed that one of the two large glass doors was smashed in. It appears like someone tried to break it. Here is a picture of it a bit later, after a maintenance guy tapped it up.

When I initially saw it, I was upset, but not really fully upset. It was first a feeling of why would someone do that, that is not nice, etc. But I then thought, if this happened to my house, I would be incredibly upset. Why am I not more upset about the vandalized property here, then I would be at my own home?

I know the answers are obvious:

• It is not my home
• My personal space was not vandalized
• This wont cost me money directly
• It didnt happen to me

But the truth is, someone owns the building. It will cost someone money (I am sure my rent covers things like this, if not insurance).

There are certain things that upset me tremendously, even when I am not directly impacted. When I hear of people losing their jobs, I get incredibly upset and disappointed. I work for myself, so I don't think I will "lose my job" but knowing that people have families to support and not having a paycheck to count on. Well, honestly, that is very upsetting. If I hear of someone I know that lost their job, it honestly ruins my day. Yea, big deal - it ruins my day, but this guys future can be in serious trouble. But it upsets me way more than seeing vandalized property. In fact, I think hearing about people losing their jobs would upset me more than if my own glass door was smashed in.

Anyway - this is just a rant, cause I haven't talked about virtually nothing in a while. ;-)

Posted at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (2)

This guy named Adam Fogle wrote a blog post named Why the iPhone should die in his new blog. The post explains how my iPhone New Years horn is one of the many reasons the iPhone should die.

Okay, so he doesn't like the new years horn. Personally, I think it is a nice free thing for new years. In fact, ZDNet, who covered it over here and said, it "is a fun little iPhone app to help you ring in 2009." He then added it is "the perfect combination of silly and free."

Okay, so I have no problem with someone blogging that they find the app annoying or pointless. I understand that you can't win them all. So why should Adam stop blogging? Well, he went as far as to write, "some jackass went and created..." People need to learn, learn big time, how to earn trust and gain subscribers. Get some integrity and then some intelligence.

Posted at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

Email, email, email... We just get too many of them. I am struggling with the decision on if I should send out a "Happy Holidays" email to my email list.

I mean, on the one hand, it is a nice gesture but on the other hand, I cannot stand getting all these Happy Holidays emails. I get like 20 each day now, at least the ones that get through my spam filter.

So on one hand, I feel that if I send out a card to my list, I will be contributing to the spam out there.

On the other hand, I feel it is not nice for me to not send out a e-card.

Should I have sent cards in the snail mail? I guess that is even nicer but then you run into the whole green thing. I mean, that piece of paper goes right into the trash and then what?

So should I do it? Take the poll below, that is if you are still around to take the poll and not on your way to your party or family:

Posted at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

I just posted the Search Engine Roundtable's 2008 Election Day theme, as a reminder to get people out and to vote tomorrow.

So, if you are voting for who I want to win, then go vote. Otherwise, stay at home. ;-) Just kidding, go vote no matter who you are voting for.

Posted at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

I received an email from Kana at LinkedIn, saying my photo is in violation of LinkedIn's profile photo guidelines. Thus they have removed my photo and asked me to upload a new one.

See, here is a screen capture of my photo being removed:

This is a copy of their email they sent me:

The photo has been removed for the following reason: The picture is in violation of the LinkedIn Photo Policy.

LinkedIn provides the opportunity for users to upload a photograph to assist other members in recognizing that person. As a professional networking site, there are guidelines to determine which types of photos are appropriate. We consider a photo appropriate as long as it does not contain content that is copyrighted or unauthorized for public distribution and does not contain offensive content. Additionally, if your photo is not an image of yourself or does not contain an actual photograph, it is considered inappropriate. Your photo has been flagged for inappropriate elements and has been removed from your profile.

You are certainly welcome to upload a different photo of yourself to remedy this situation. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact us at customer_service@linkedin.com.

So, my photo is not an actual photograph of myself and that is "inappropriate."

I guess I can understand that, but my cartoon image is my "icon." I use it for all my social profiles. What a shame.

If you haven't connected with me on LinkedIn, please do so - here is my profile link.

Posted at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

I cannot stand receiving email forwards, you know, those joke emails that people send to each other. Chain emails with jokes or things you must do for good luck. I can't stand them!

In fact, I am the type of guy that has the nerve to email anyone back who sends it to me with the short and to the point:

Take me off your list please.

But there is something about some of these political email forwards that I enjoy. I have even been guilty of forwarding on these emails to a select few, that I thought would enjoy the forward. There has definitely been a rise of political based emails going around. I wonder why....

In any event, I hate all email forwards 99% of the time. So don't start putting me on your list. If you do have a political email joke and you know who I am voting for, then feel free to forward it directly to me. ;-)

Posted at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Funny , Rambling | Comments (0)

The other day, I polled you guys and asked, Should I Share My Political Views?

17 comments and 60 votes later, most of you said I should share my political views. 53% said I should, while 38% said I should not and 8% said it depends how I do it. Actually, one of the "other" responses was "who cares." :)

So, if I would go with popular vote, I would be sharing my political views in a tasteful manner. But my wife commented and voted that she doesn't want me to share my two cents on politics. So she outranks all of those who said I should. I am sorry.

I'll sit this one out.

Posted at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (10)

I have always been reluctant to post any of my political views, ever. I am of the feeling that my blogging influence, whatever that might be, should not have any influence on important matters, such as who should be our next president. Just because people may or may not like the way I write about search topics, does not give me the authority to influence how they vote.

I typically find it upsetting when I see famous people back a certain politician. I found it upsetting to see Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, use his celebrity status in the arena. I find it upsetting to see others in Hollywood or business or even religious areas influence ones vote. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe I should not feel this way?

Maybe it would be useful to myself or to my readers if I share my rational for who I support or who I don't support. Why I am leaning towards voting one way, versus another way. What matters are important to me and why... Maybe it would be useful?

At the same time, I don't feel I have the right to influence anyones decision on this matter.

Having said all of this, I think I'll leave the decision up to those of you who read here. Please vote and let me know if you want me to share my political views on the next president of the Unites State of America or not.

Here is the poll:

Posted at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (20)

I detest these types of calls.

Hey, how you doing today!?!!?

AHHH!!!HH!H!H!H!

A company named Magna Resources called me today to tell me that they can make my $40,000 into ~$350,000.

This guy asked, "are you interested?" So my response was similar to my response to the Do You Want To Improve Your Business & Profits? I said, "no." He asked again, I said, "no."

Then he asked if I know what they do. I said, "no."

Do you want to know what they do? I said, "no."

Why not, if we can make you so much money? Cause I don't believe you. I don't even know you.

But we can make you money? You don't want to make more money? I don't.

Good bye.

I hate these calls!!!!!!!

Posted at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

So I get a cold call from some type of company. Not this time it is not a programming outsourcing firm from India or a magazine subscription. The nice sounding woman asked if I have 15 minutes to learn how her company can improve my business, profits and team synergy.

I said, "no." Basically, no, I don't want to spend 15 minutes learning how they can help me.

She then questions me and this makes me angry...

You don't want to make more profit or improve your business?

I said, "what kind of question is that? Of course I do. But I don't want you to tell me how to." I guess I am having a bad day, cause I was a bit rude, but as nicely as I can be... I added, "comeon, your reading from a script, why would I think, honestly, that your company can improve my business? Are you not reading from a script?"

She said she memorized the script. At that point, I just waited, because whatever...

She then went on and asked me again, "You don't want to make more profit or improve your business?" I said, you can't ask me that. I said, "what do other people tell you?" I added, "seriously, what do they say, do they say "no" to that question? Do you ever hear no?"

She said, well - sometimes. Or people say "they are happy with where they are now."

So I said, "I am sorry for wasting your time but I am happy with where I am now."

That is it. I mean, please don't ask me a question like that. Ugh!

Posted at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (4)

I got an email from an avid reader of my personal blog. I won't say more about this person, outside of, this person is a nice guy, enjoy chatting with this individual and I take no offense to the email because I know it was meant with best intentions. In fact, it actually gave me something to write about, outside of iPhone or Siddur stuff I have been blogging about.

What was this person's issue with this blog recently? You guessed it, I am blogging way too much about the iPhone Siddur. Basically, this person is saying, we heard enough about it. Enough is Enough! Enough Already!

I hear you. I do.

Yes, there is a "but." But this is my blog, I write about what is on my mind. I started this blog so that I won't be held back from blogging things that I am afraid will be irrelevant to my professional blogs. I write here, what is on my mind, on any subject.

When it comes to the iPhone Siddur, I am writing about it so much because I honestly love talking about it. Heck, my wife is sick of me showing her the features, she is sick of it. So I have this blog as an avenue to share it with others. I love using the Siddur, I love showing it to people, I just love it.

In any event, that is why I am blogging about it here so much.

So I know, some of you may be sick of hearing it, but it is just a phase. Hang in there. I know enough is enough. But for me, is it enough already? I don't think so.

Posted at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (18)

I just have zero patience for sales calls. Overall, I am an impatient person, which is one of my many flaws. But when it comes to people trying to sell me something, when I don't request it - ugh... makes me angry.

You know I am not nice to India and don't give them the time of day, but now it is worse.

Yesterday, the operator line rings from an "unknown" number. I answer it, which I typically do, cause I like to answer the phone calls (new post on that later). The person starts by saying...

Hi, my name is ABC, I am from XYZ... Before she goes on, I cut her off and say, I am not interested. Honestly, it could have been someone asking me to sell them my services. I just had this hunch from the voice and the intro that it was leading into them selling me something. So I cut it off and then thought, what if they wanted info on our services. Oh well...

Then this morning, we got two calls. One from a man with an Indian accent, who I shut down immediately. The next from a really nice sounding female, who seemed really nice. I tried to tell her no nicely, but she wouldn't accept it. So I had to be more bold in my "no" and she finally got the message.

I so hate sales calls, hate them, hate them, hate them.

Please do not call to sell me something or pitch me something, please!

Posted at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (2)

I am not the type of person to ask people for discounts. I just feel ashamed to ask people to give me a discount on the price they gave me. Why? Level of respect? Someone gives you a price, you would hope they give you the best possible price they can. This doesn't mean I never ever ask for a "best price," I do on occasion, depending on the situation, but I would say I rarely ever do that.

Do I have look down to people who always ask for discounts? No way! In fact, my mom is great at it. I think it is great. But it isn't for me - not my personality.

How about when clients or prospects ask me for a discount? I can tell you that I never discount my prices to prospects. I give a prospect a price and I stick with it. I believe I am giving them the best possible price. Some prospects ask if I can come down on price and I 99.9999% always say no, this is the best price. If I can do better on the price, why would I have not done that from the start? I don't believe on getting more money out of people who won't ask for discounts. I believe in giving everyone a fair price.

There is a whole part two to this post, but I don't think I will write that now. Maybe later...

Posted at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (6)

Happy Tax Day everyone! We have a special theme live at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Doesn't it rock!

Posted at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (1)

I guess I got nothing better to write about, but this is the first time (at least I noticed), that my Twitter account was displayed on TechCrunch. TechCrunch wrote a post on Seesmic Acquires Popular Twitter AIR Client Twhirl, the post has a screen capture of the client and up comes my icon, as the last one there.

I guess it helps me build my personal brand (ahem, Lisa).

In any event, it was then that I got confirmation that Michael at TechCrunch follows me along with almost 300 others.

Don't worry, I got other things to blog about today.

Posted at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (2)

Yesterday I went to see a prospect about building out a web based application to help automate the company's processes. The company has lots of inefficiencies, from an application stand point, and I get excited about the opportunities available to automate and document the processes. In short, a company may use five different applications, some online and some offline, not tied together, to get their job done. I love when I can tell them, we can make one application that does it all or ties them all together.

I seriously enjoy learning a business's processes and figuring out a way to set up systems to help those processes from a business perspective. That includes helping automate certain tasks, documenting the workflow, streamlining the operation, making it accessible via a web browser, dynamic reporting, user/group access and so much more.

I come out of those meetings, smiling.

When it comes to SEO, at least today - I get a bit bored. Listen, if I was building applications to turn out spam, maybe I wouldn't. If I was building out a search engine or helping build a better search engine, then maybe I wouldn't. But talking about SEO, honestly, doesn't make me as excited as when I talk about building web applications.

A company can come to me and say... "Hey, I have this site, I want to get it more visibility in the search engine." I would actually be upset with a call like that. But if a company comes to me and says... "Hey, I have these operational deficiencies, I need help building a system to tie it all together," I would be excited.

Maybe its a stage I am going through - but right now I am less about driving sales and more about lower costs.

I am just happy we can do both, I just like talking about one over the other. Or maybe it is because I blog all day about one and not the other. Maybe I should start a blog about using the web to become more efficient?

Posted at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (1)

Tamar tagged in on a 4x4 meme. I like the idea. You answer four questions, with four answers and then tag four additional people. So here it goes:

4 Things I Have Done in the Past 4 Years
(1) I got married
(2) Bought a new house
(3) I helped launch Search Engine Land
(4) I hosted SphinnCon Israel

4 Jobs I've Had
(1) I run RustyBrick, duh...
(2) I worked for a company named MediVault, which is no longer around, they were a WebMD competitor of some sorts back in 1996
(3) In High School I worked at a local tax agency that also sold insurance
(4) I guess my jobs at Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Land and so on.

4 Websites I Visit Daily
(1) Google Reader (like several times an hour)
(2) RustyBudget
(3) My RustyBrick web based software for managing company
(4) Tons of search forums

4 Favorite Foods
(1) Huge chicken/turkey fan
(2) Love chocolate exploding cake
(3) On the dairy side, I do like a good baked ziti
(4) I put ketchup on almost everything, so it deserves a mention

Oops, just realized I can answer any of the following questions: 4 Jobs I’ve had, 4 Favorite Foods, 4 TV Shows I DVR, 4 Movies I could watch Over & Over, 4 Places I’ve been, 4 Places I’ve lived, 4 Places I want to go, 4 Music Artists I’m listening to now, 4 All Time Favorite Musicians, 4 Shows I have been to, 4 Cars I have owned, 4 Things I have done in the past 4 years, 4 websites I visit daily, 4 places I’d rather be right now, 4 People I think will respond, 4 Things I look forward to this year, or 4 Underrated conversational topics. Oh well.

Tagging 4 People to answer any of the above questions:
(1) Danny Sullivan
(2) Greg Sterling
(3) Patrick Gavin
(4) Judah Gutwein

Posted at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (1)

Here is a rant...

I do everything extremely quickly. I eat fast, I blog fast, I work fast, I talk fast, and so on.

So when I get someone trying to sell me something, I want them to talk fast or not talk at all. I'll give you two examples from today...

(1) Renew a Free Magazine Subscription: Someone calls and says they want to know if I would like to renew my magazine subscription to some place. I said, "depends, how long will it take." They said a minute, so I said, okay. I look at the time on the phone and he begins asking me questions. I continue working, half listening and responding. Then I look at the phone and it is at almost 2 minutes of talk time. I say, "I am sorry, but your minute is over. Thank you." I then hang up.

Does that make me evil? If I don't get the subscription, I don't care. I was upfront and told them a minute. Oh well.

(2) A recruiting company calls because I have been posting job opening for PHP positions. Yes, we are hiring! So, I said, "we use a recruiter already, here are my terms and conditions, send me your contract if you can match them." Two weeks later she calls me back and asks me for the job description. But she is talking so slowing and keeps dragging out the call. I am quickly loosing patience. I told her I would email it to her, but I got to go. She keeps dragging out the call, saying things she could say in a few seconds, in like minutes. Anyway, we hang up. She emails me, with the contract. The contract has terms we did not agree to. I email her back saying these aren't the terms and I add what the terms were. She then calls, one of my guys answer and I tell him to tell her to email me. She asks my guy to have me call her back. I told my guy to tell her to email me and I won't call her back. I don't think she will email me, seems like she will only do phone. Ughhh.

Yea, I know, I am crazy, but I rather not have a 4 minute phone call when it could be 30 seconds. Knowing that the call will take a while, when it doesn't have to, kinda irks me.

Let me add that I do have many long phone conversations throughout the week. Some of my calls are over two hours long. But there is a dragged out conversation and a conversation that gets to the point. Two hours of getting to the point is fine with me, 2 minutes of dragging out your words is not.

Rant over.

Posted at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (6)

Been busy with this conference stuff. If I didn't have the traveling, I think I wouldn't have an issue updating here during the week. So if you miss me - I am sure you all do, then watch me on YouTube.

Here is my latest video, I made it on Sunday and I even slipped in a prop. You tell me what the prop is....

The first person who comments with the correct answer to what physical prop I used during the video wins a prize (either an RB bag or SER yo-yo (I need to decide which)).

Posted at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (4)

I just had a surge of energy, after being up since 4am PST or 7 EST yesterday. So that is 31 hours of up time, with a little nap on the plane.

I am up until at least 8:30pm, so that would make it almost 40 hours of up time.

About 20 minutes ago I felt very awake and alive. As I began writing this entry, I started to get sleepy.

I can't believe I said okay to flying back to San Jose in less than two weeks and red eye'ing back the night after.

Posted at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (0)

Last week I ran a poll on which Cartoon Barry you prefer and the overwhelming majority (88%) prefer the original version.

Personally, I do to because it has the accessories (bag, kipah, RB shirt, etc.).

Here are the results from PollDaddy:

	Answer	Votes	%
	Original	38	88%
	New	5	12%
		43

Posted at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (1)

There are now two different cartoons of me. Which one do you like better?

Original	New

Here is a poll:

Thank you.

Posted at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (13)

Friday I was doing some domestic work in the late afternoon and I broke a nail.

I was actually helping put on sheets on a bed. When I reached down on the inner part of the head of the bed, my nail got caught somewhere. As I pulled my hand up, the nail got caught and teared a bit.

Now I know why girls get upset when they break a nail. It is an annoying inconvenience. So I kept a band aid on it for parts of the weekend and did my best to trim it last night.

It is healing great, so don't worry, I can still type away. ;-)

Posted at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

The other week, I was looking for a way to email private photos to a friend without requiring them to sign up with Flickr.

Remember I was upset in the past that there was no way to do this? And then the founder of Flickr told me it is on its way...

Well, it is here and has been here for a while now and I didn't even know!

On November 20, 2006, Flickr released a feature called Guest Pass.

Basically, you can email a photo set to up to 50 people, granting them access to that set or more for an unlimited or set time frame.

To share photos, you must add those photos to a set. After you do that, click on the set and click "Share this set."

Then it will take you to a page like this, simply fill it out.

Click send and presto. Yes, you can invite people to see pictures even if they are already contacts, which is nice for those who forget their passwords. :)

What is also nice is you can view your "guest passes" and send them again, see if they were used and also "expire" them so they no longer work.

You can do that at your Guest Pass History page.

I cannot believe I missed this feature until recently.

Flickr now totally rocks!

Posted at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Rambling | Comments (0)

At what point did Doctors become poor?

Many doctors that I know now, complain about not being able to make enough to pay for the things they need. Let me explain that these are general doctors, who have to pay for private school which costs upwards of $15,000 per kid per year (Jewish thing).

But in the past, Doctors did not worry. They went to medical school, opened a practice, paid off their loans and then started making tons of money.

Now all I hear is how the insurance companies are killing them. They are barely able to charge their patients and they are barely making a profit after purchasing office, machines, hiring help and then paying themselves enough of a salary to support their families.

Am I missing something?

Posted at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (9)

Literally, I have such a pain in the neck. I woke up this morning, went to the bathroom and after turning around to dry my face after brushing my teeth, I felt a share pain through my neck and back.

So, I woke up fine. But I must have moved the wrong way?

I managed to get to work without killing anyone on the road. This seems way more painful then a stiff neck. I have been keeping my head in one position the whole day (i.e. slightly down and forward).

It hurts from the lower neck, down the left side of my back and through my right hand's fingers.

I will give it a couple of days before phoning any technical support. But man, is this annoying.

Posted at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (2)

Some weirdo left a comment saying I need a haircut or something like that. Well, you are wrong!

As you can see by this picture taken at the SMX conference by Mr. McGee, I no longer need any haircut.

To look at me a week before, go here to see the hairy monster.

Posted at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

I am getting a bit worried about fearing people with serious fears. You see, I have a post named Scoleciphobia : Fear Of Worms, I did some research on what the legit name of such a fear was. I then wrote a post about it, because I found it interesting.

Thing is, people searching on scoleciphobia or fear of worms are landing on this page.

After reading some of the comments at the scoleciphobia post, I see that I am freaking out people with this fear of worms?

Image this. You are afraid of worms. You search for help with your scoleciphobia illness and find the first result at my blog. You click over and bam, you see a huge ugly green worm.

Now, if you look at the worm, to me, the worm looks kinda cute. Not even sure if it is a worm - people suggest in the comments it is a caterpillars, but it is cute anyway. But for those with the fear of worms, they don't find it too cute.

One person said the picture itself scared him or her. Others said since it is a caterpillar that it doesn't scare them.

Should I pull the image? My immature side kind of find it funny. They see a listing for scoleciphobia, they click over, they see a picture that makes them possibly jump. On the other hand, I love that picture and the post. It is both educational and informative.

Should I fear fearing someone with a fear?

Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (5)

OK, so now I am scared. First I dream about Matt Cutts and last night I had a dream about blogging. Let me describe the dream.

Some how I am in some type of dark airport. I am going through security to get my bags - I know, why do I go through security to get my bags after the flight? Behind the security desk are two friends but they insist on asking me questions to confirm I am who I am. I tell them, you know me, they say that they do but they need to ask these questions.

At that point, I am dreaming that this event would make for good blogging material. Yes, I am dreaming that what happened in a dream would be good blog material.

You know what is even crazier about dreaming about blogging. Is to use the dream as blog material.

Posted at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (0)

Over the weekend, the Rabbi at the synagogue I attend gave a speech Friday night about integrity and intelligence. In the orthodox-Jewish world there is a principle that if someone who has very little or zero integrity says something intelligent, and you want to repeat it - you should not use the person's name. So if Mr. X said something smart, but also commits violations to the Jewish law, you typically should say, I heard this in the name of a person from city, state but not mention his name. It gets a bit more detailed then this, but this is a good enough introduction to where I am going with the rest of the post.

As a blogger, it is often very customary to link back to an other blogger when you are writing about the topic. But what if that blogger is someone who is someone with zero integrity? What if that blogger said something that was very wise?

Why would I not want to mention that blogger by name or link to him? Well, I can understand that if I linked to him or mentioned his name that people can also learn more from this individual, stuff that I may not think is appropriate. For example, let's say Blogger X said something smart but he also has a ton of things on his blog that I would find harmful to my readers. Would I want to introduce this blogger to my readers? Would I want my readers in harm?

Now, outside of that. Would I want my link to the blogger show a sign of my approval to that blogger without integrity? Would people feel that if I link to this blogger that I condone ALL of his actions or advice?

It then got me thinking. If I, as a blogger, did not have integrity (I hope I do), would people read this site or my search blog? I honestly, don't think so. As I wrote in my Search Engine Roundtable Code of Ethics; "Basically what it comes down to is a deep consideration of respect towards the industry and the people within the industry."

Do I not link to people I cannot respect in the industry? I do link to people who I may not respect. But would I link to someone that has zero integrity, and I knew the individual didn't have integrity? I honestly don't know. I would definitely think twice before doing so.

Obviously, the degree to how much integrity someone needs is important. Does the degree of intelligence impact the integrity of an individual, when it comes to offering credit? If so, what is that scale?

Now as a search engine, a site with negative integrity (possibly classified as a spam site) might be delisted and never cited for any of its work or it may just rank poorly. Can we use those algorithms to help with this problem? Maybe... OK, now I am seriously rambling... To be continued...

Posted at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

You know you have poorly designed your blog categories when the author of the blog entries can not easily find content they have written in the past, using the categories the blog author set up. That is me. With the Search Engine Roundtable, I normally find things through my categories fairly quickly. At this blog, I am lost!

I guess some blogs need to rethink their categories after a while. I did this way back with the Search Engine Roundtable, where I planned out new categories and then implemented it. Yes, it was a ton of work, but in the long run, it paid off big time. I just need to find a Sunday to do the same for this blog, hopefully soon.

The current categories for this blog are:

• Buddies
• Computers
  • Apple Macs
• Daily Grind
• Daily Link Finds
• Daily Search Coverage
• Family
• Homey
• Just Funny
• Just Interesting
• Just Weird
• Motor Vehicle
• Music
• Polls
• Rambling
• Religion
• RustyBrick
• SEO Tips
• Shopping
• Sports
• Travels
• Web Development

The next post you see on this topic will contain a list of revised categories. I will make sure to document the process I use to revise my category list, maybe it will help or possibly hurt someone.

Posted at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (0)

I walk outside this morning about 6am and I get in my car, turn it on and bam - it read 6 degrees Fahrenheit. As I drove to work, a bit later, it dropped down to 5 degrees. Brrrr.

Right now at 10 AM (EST) it is 10 degrees:

But honestly, I cannot complain, it has been like Fall most of the winter.

Posted at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling , Weather | Comments (0)

As I wrote at Search Engine Roundtable, I am completely delighted we won the Best Search Engine Marketing Blog Award from Search Engine Journal. I am also honored that Search Engine Watch (the site I wrote at all year) and Search Engine Roundtable have come in first and second place for Best Search Engine News Blog of 2006, it really meant a lot to see our hard work appreciated by the community.

I can't be greedy, but I honestly wanted to win the Best SEO Blog of 2006 but Rand's SEOMoz took that, and we took second place - after thinking about it, they do deserve it. The quality, advice, transparency and honesty of Rand and company's posts at SEOMoz go unprecedented in the SEO Blog community, they deserve it!

Now to the Best Search Blogger of 2006...

Honestly, coming in third place kinda upset me a bit. I know, I know, I came in third to Danny Sullivan (the non-disputted leader of the search community industry) and Matt Cutts (the face of Google to the SEO community). But counting my posts, I often write about 20 blog posts per day, most on search (i.e. 15+) at two of the most popular search sites out there. I lose a ton of sleep and other personal things to give this effort to the community.

Now that is how I felt initially. But then I stepped back and looked at who I lost to. Danny Sullivan, heck, he has been giving his life to the search community for about 6 more years than I have. He definitely deserve the award more than I.

Matt Cutts, well, between fighting spam at Google, being an engineer, going to tons of meetings at Google, responding to forum posts, reading thousands of blog posts per day, and responding to a nice number of them, emailing worried webmasters, answering PR (press) questions and then writing some of the most useful and insightful blog posts at his persona blog... He probably sleeps less than me and Danny put together. So he should win this contest.

So overall, I am privileged and honored to have come in the third spot for that award and to win some and come close to winning some of the Search Engine Journal awards.

Congrats to all the winners and those who were nominated.

I hope people don't think I am a selfish and thankless individual from this post. I honestly, deeply, am very grateful for everything you guys have done for me. I am privileged to be in the position I am in. The least I can do is keep doing what I do and not complain about it.

Why did I post this? Well, I thought some people would like to see what goes through my mind with these contests. I bet it doesn't phase Matt, Danny, Rand or the others - but I use them as a meter to see if the content we are producing is useful to the community. And from what I have seen, we are doing an OK job. So thank you and I hope this post isn't taken the wrong way.

Posted at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling , SEO Tips | Comments (2)

While I was covering the fact that Google is hiring lower GPAs, it reminded me that I graduated from Baruch College, City University of New York, with a pretty high GPA. I know it was above 3.8, but I forgot the exact number - and I forgot where I would have put those papers.

In any event, my diploma has a cool line that says;

Summa Cum Laude

Which is the highest honors you can graduate from Baruch with. The Latin Honors Policy says;

• Summa cum laude shall be granted to those students whose scholastic index in all subjects is at least 3.85 (3.8 for those entering prior to fall 2004 who remain in continuous attendance until graduation)
• Magna cum laude shall be granted to those students whose scholastic index in all subjects is at least 3.75 (3.5 for those entering prior to fall 2004 who remain in continuous attendance until graduation)
• Cum laude shall be granted to those students whose scholastic index in all subjects is at least 3.5 (3.2 for those entering prior to fall 2004 who remain in continuous attendance)

Here is the Wikipedia entry for Latin Honors.

Honestly, the honors did not phase me until my last semester. It was then I learned that my current GPA was good enough to earn Summa cum laude, so I did my best to make sure I didn't hurt my GPA at the end.

Unfortunately, my second to last semester, I took a work study course (worked for myself), and I got an A. But the teacher accidently filled out on a scantron that I scored an F for not showing up to something, when I did. I confronted the teacher and he said he aligned my name up to the wrong box and gave me an F and the student that earned an F my A. After a few months and a bunch of red tape (CUNY's are like that), I got my A back and my GPA was secure.

I was a good test taker at school, because I was able to anticipate the questions on the test prior to the test. I normally finished my tests in a very short amount of time. I remember one test being allowed 75 minutes. He gave us 75 multiple choice questions with one essay. He figured you should be able to do a question in 30 seconds or so and have some time for the essay. I finished that test in no time, and I think I scored well.

Many of my intro classes were in huge theater like rooms, with second floors. Only way to test the students were scantron tests, all multiple choice. I loved those tests. The scores were then posted on the wall, the following week, by social security number or by name.

Posted at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (5)

It is a historic moment for me. I cannot remember the last time flying on a plane where the person in front of me did not lower down their seat back. It is truly a historic moment.

I had no choice but to pull out my laptop and begin typing. Typing what? I don't know. In fact, this may be one of the first times, an other historic moment, that I started writing without having an idea on topic or a title for the blog entry.

But yet, I am a blogger, so I figure, I can come up with something to write. Heck, I wrote a blog entry named "leaning tower of Snapple." (note to self, remember to link to that entry). So why can't I pull off a post on nothing.

Seinfeld was based on nothing, why can't this be post be based on nothing?

My wife went off to the "wash room" as they call it in Chicago (or Toilet as they call it in O'Hare Airport), maybe I can con her into writing some of this post, about nothing, with me. We will see, more on that later, maybe...

In any event, I am on a flight that was suppose to take off at 3pm but did not take off until 5pm. Which is OK, since I was suppose to be on a flight that was scheduled to take off at 5pm and wasn't going to take off (last I checked) at 7:45pm. Only thing is, it cost $25 per ticket extra to confirm these seats. But based on a number of factors, I feel it was worth it.

She just came back and began reading the post. She said, and I quote;

Don't Count On It

Enough about her...

I now need to think of a title for this post...

Historic Moments: Airplane Tray, Snapples, Seinfeld, Flying, Wife & SEO

You see, my title is not something fun and witty, it is awfully descriptive and a bit too keyword rich. Maybe too many keywords. Typically a post on nothing, won't drive any organic search traffic, unless the search is on nothing... Deep, ehhh? Do people sit and search on nothing? If they do, is it really a search? That is where the SEO part comes in... In any event, we are now in our initial descent, so here is my wrap up in one line.

When flying on an airplane back from an SEO conference with your wife, make sure to drink Snapple with your tray table down, while watching Seinfeld -- it will truly make for a historic moment.

Posted at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (4)

No way am I going to get political here...sorry. But one thing I hate about the time before election day, are the commercials. Not only are they boring, they all seem so childish and offensive.

One radio commercial I heard over and over again was a conversation between a candidate and his mother. You can hear the mother asking his son (the candidate) to finish his noodles (or something). Then the candidate tells his mother that he is busy working on stuff. His mother then says that his ideas for the government are stupid and not going to work. Even more so, the mother tells his son that the city will crumble if he goes ahead with his plan. She then laughs at the candidate (her son) and says that "everyone is going to laugh at you like they did in the seventh grade."

I forgot who the commercial was for and against, but those types of commercials make me a bit sick.

I am glad it is over for some time.

Posted at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (2)

My car has those new headlights that are incredibly bright. So bright that, I would guess, 1 out of every 10 drivers I pass by flash me, to tell me to turn off my brights. My headlights are called "High-Intensity Discharge (HID) Headlamps" and "Adaptive Front Lighting System (AFS)." What does that mean?

Well Lexus defines "High-Intensity Discharge (HID) Headlamps" as;

Headlamps that provide illumination three times that of conventional halogen headlamps while power consumption is reduced by roughly 30 percent. They also feature auto-leveling that automatically adjusts the angle of the headlamps to help reduce glare to oncoming drivers.

Lexus defines "Adaptive Front Lighting System (AFS)" as;

The Adaptive Front Lighting System (AFS) helps illuminate more of the road in a turn. In a left-hand turn, the left headlamp will pivot up to 15 degrees (the right-hand headlamp remains pointed straight ahead) and in a right-hand turn, the right headlamp will pivot up to 5 degrees (the left-hand headlamp remains pointed straight ahead).

(1) I love that it lights up more of the road, really good stuff.
(2) I don't like getting flashed by other drivers.
(3) The auto-leveling feature light indicator comes on too often, even thought Lexus tells me to ignore it, it still bothers me.

So next time you pass a car with bright lights, don't assume it is the drivers fault. It is just the car. Oh and when I bright you back after you bright me, I am sorry.

Posted at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Category: Motor Vehicle , Rambling | Comments (10)

N. Korea threatens war if U.S. pressure persists from MSNBc, and about 4 billion other articles on North Korea, War and US at Google News.

Yes, the fact that US is afraid to go to war with North Korea. The fact that North Korea won't listen to anyone. The fact that North Korea seems eager to go to war with the US.

All a bit scary.

North's Foreign Ministry warned in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

If the U.S. keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures.

Hmmm.

Fun times...

Posted at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (0)

I absolutely hate the Search Engine Watch (main site) RSS feed. It is the most annoying feed on my RSS feeds list. It updates several times a day on Bloglines, even when the main site only has one new article per day. Note, this is just the main site's feed and not the blog feed, which is powered by MovableType and FeedBurner.

Please SEW, please Stop Updating Your Posts Please! Especially when nothing has changed!

There have been feeds that I have unsubscribed from in the past because of this.

Posted at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (2)

Not sure why I forgot to add this feature on day one, but I just added it now. Like I have on the Search Engine Roundtable for over a year, possibly two years now, you an now subscribe also via email, if you don't like RSS subscriptions.

I use FeedBlitz, which pulls your RSS feed, into an email blast. You can manage your email subscriptions at FeedBlitz also, so it is pretty cool.

How do you subscribe? Here is the form. Enter your email address, it will take you to a page to enter in an image verification code and then finally you will have to click on a link in your email to confirm, once again, that you want to subscribe.

This form is also available near the RSS subscription buttons on the right hand side bar.

Posted at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (1)

I have been trying to find more information on a condition known as Scoleciphobia. I know the National Institute of Health's Office of Rare Diseases defines Scoleciphobia as the fear of worms. But the only page that has content on it is this attractive looking page, which really is just template content spam and offers no more value to me (heck they got all their keywords covered).

I was able to get a definition from MedTerms on "fear of worms."

An abnormal and persistent fear of being infested with parasitic worms called helminths. The technical term for this fear is helminthphobia. The eggs of parasitic worms can contaminate air and water, particularly where hygiene is poor. They can also contaminate foods such as pork and beef as well as pets and wild animals, objects such as toilet seats, and feces (bowel waste).

But that has a lot to do with Parasitism which is about being more tied to the worm, where it kinda breaks through your skin or something and then lives inside of you. Ok, now I am a bit freaked. :)

Anyway, this whole exploration was interesting. I feel a bit itchy right now.

Posted at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (172)

Are you ever bored and want to keep your fingers active? Well, there is this classic game named Space Invaders you can play online. You can play it at neave.com/games/.

It is nice to see these classic games getting recreated and published as Flash based web games.

Don't waste too much of your time playing Space Invaders:

Space Invaders is an arcade video game designed by Toshihiro Nishikado in 1978. It was originally manufactured by Taito and licensed for production in the U.S. by the Midway division of Bally. Released (at first in its native Japan) in 1978, it ranks as one of the most influential video games ever created. Though simplistic by today's standards, it (along with other contemporary games such as Pac-Man and Breakout) was one of the forerunners of modern video gaming.

Posted at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (1)

Many search engines want you to make their engine your default home page. But let's think about that. Why, today, 2006, would you want to make a search engine your home page? Any search engine, that has a box, and a search button, as the home page adds no more value that you using a toolbar in your browser, that allows you to search via the toolbar.

But still, people have set Google.com as their home page.

Back in the day, I used to set Yahoo.com as my home page, because Yahoo.com is a portal. Now I set Ask.com as my home page, specifically because (1) I use bloglines a lot and (2) I want to force myself to search with Ask.com more often.

Why do you think Google made google.com/ig? Yea, now that is a page worthy of being a home page. Same with Yahoo.com or my.yahoo.com but not search.yahoo.com, unless you activate some features on that page such as Yahoo! News results on search.yahoo.com. Of course, the same with google.com and search.msn.com. Heck, live.com gives you the ability to add portal like features also.

So why do people make Google.com without any portal like features their home page?
- They don't have a toolbar
- They don't know how to use a toolbar
- They are afraid to use any toolbar
- They want to be cool

Posted at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (7)

I always wondered what percentage of speakers who ask the audience questions prior to their speech, actually fine tune their speech at that moment.

So what are some of the reasons presenters ask audience questions?

(1) Cheap and fast market research
(2) Grasping level of audience knowledge in subject
(3) Discovery of demographic of audience
(4) Waking up the audience and gaining their attention

I am sure there are other reasons, but those are the four I can think of at this moment.

Numbers 1 and 4 do not suggest to the audience that the speaker will be changing his/her speech for them. But when you ask a question that falls under numbers 2 and 3, it may suggest that the presenter will be adding, removing or going in more or less detail on certain slides they have.

Example question of number two would be, "Do you know what an API is?" If not the speaker needs to first explain that an API is an application protocol interface that allows developers to gain access to data and/or write data to a 3rd party application, in some type of uniform fashion. Jeremy Zawodny did just that in the Search APIs session, kudos.

Example question of number three would be, "How many of you are advertisers?" "How many are you are publishers?" "How many of you are agencies?" etc.. Now that seems to me, that if more people are advertisers, the speaker may add more detail to his or her slides on that topic?

Anyway, do you feel that some presenters ask these questions but make no effort to tailor their presentations after asking? Sometimes I do...

Posted at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (0)

Seriously, out of al chandeliers to fall on you, what if this one fell on you?

Yea, I was bored in a session...

Posted at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

Honestly, I am not crazy, this is the loudest typing I have ever heard. He is in this very quiet press room, all you hear are soft taps from around him and then his bass like echos of the keys he is pounding on. He is back.

Posted at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (1)

I am sitting here in the press room at SES San Jose and posting my recap of the Social Search Overview session but something keeps distracting me. I try to ignore it and move on to a really quick post on Yahoo Launches Search Builder but the typing is still irritating me.

(1) It is loud, really loud
(2) I feel like he is breaking his keyboard and it worries me

Get this, he just got up and walked away. The computer was IncisiveMedias. Ouch!

Posted at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (0)

Some of you know that the Search Engine Roundtable has a discussion forum but many of you do not. The forum is nice, it is just a couple dozen active users who are very close. It is public but requires registration to post, like most forums. Only thing is that when a new member goes out of line, I don't private message them, I ban them right away.

We have this no tolerance policy.

But yet, we have a very grey area on what our policies are.

Yea, they don't go well together. But no one seems to be upset by it.

Posted at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (2)

Let's play the where is Waldo Game... Andy Beal has posted that he is departing Fortune Interactive. Ok some history for you.

Andy first founded KeywordRankings, then KeywordRankings was bought by WebSourced, WebSourced changed its name to MarketSmart Interactive. Andy left WebSourced, many bad rumors buzzed through the SEM community. Then Andy started Fortune Interactive. And now, ten months later, he is leaving the company he co-founded.

Got that? Phew... Spinning here...

Oh, when he left WebSourced he wasn't allowed to keep his popular blog, the Search Engine Lowdown. But with this departure, he can keep Marketing Pilgrim.

Good luck Andy!

Posted at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Category: Buddies , Daily Grind , Rambling | Comments (0)

Honestly, who would you rather look at? Me, or Matt Cutts?

Thought so...

You can find Matt Cutt's SEO Videos at Google Video. Yea, some person put up that Hostage Video, I don't know who.

Oh, you notice how I am looking down at Matt. A ploy to get you to vote for me.

Wow, this is a dumb post... Just waiting for the wife...

Posted at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling , Rambling | Comments (6)

Honestly, who would you rather look at? Me, or Matt Cutts?

Thought so...

You can find Matt Cutt's SEO Videos at Google Video. Yea, some person put up that Hostage Video, I don't know who.

Oh, you notice how I am looking down at Matt. A ploy to get you to vote for me.

Wow, this is a dumb post... Just waiting for the wife...

Posted at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Category: Rambling , Rambling | Comments (6)

The other day I complained that Flickr is Just Too Hard to Sign Up With. Well, since then, Tim Mayer of Yahoo! pointed the co-founder of Flickr, Stewart Butterfield towards this entry. Stewart commented stating that they are aware of the issues and will be working on an "email a friend" feature to make it easier for family and friends to view private photos.

Whooo hooo!

In any case, you shouldn't need to have an account to see private photos if the person who uploaded the photos wants you to see them - we are working on a way to securely share private photos without requiring that your in-laws have to have a Flickr account.

(Finally, we don't have a simple "email to friend" feature right now, but that is coming as well.)

I simply cannot wait! Go Flickr!

Posted at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Rambling | Comments (0)

Email is extremely powerful, it is the most used product in the online world, but many people simply don't know how to use it. This post will be my rant on how people don't properly use the reply versus the reply all button.

When to Use the Reply All:
When you get an email that is copied to many people and where all parties can benefit from your response, you should use the reply all. For example, someone is scheduling a meeting and it involved five parties. If one person replies all that they cannot make it, then the others know they need to wait for the host to reschedule. Other examples are when you are asking for feedback on a project that several people are working on. There are tons of good examples when this should be used.

When Not to Use the Reply All:
On an email chain, when you forward a joke to your 100 friends. Do not reply all to that email, it will start a swarm of unwanted and time wasting remarks about a joke email. No one has the time or the patience to get these responses. Also, when you are BCCed on an email, typically, the reply all button should be disabled in these cases. To reply all when you are BCCed undermines the one who BCCed you.

Now the same applies above, just in the reverse for when to reply direct to an email.

There is my rant.

Posted at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (3)

I have this old time client, I believe most of those in the company believe the Web is an important part to their business. But there are some decision makers that feel that the Web does not deserve any investment on the company's part. They do not want to spend any money to upgrade their site, improve their rankings, sell online or mend their online reputation (which is pretty bad).

Several months back, possibly a year ago, I met with them to give them a list of low cost options they can implement to solve one of the many Web issues they have, their online reputation. Since then, the company created a blog at one of those free hosted blog sites. To give them credit, they update the blog once a month, but since it is located at this free hosted blog space, it does not rank too well. Their online reputation is as bad as it was when we first met, a year ago.

Now internally, I am told, they are having conversations with several of the management to figure out how to improve their online reputation. I.e. removing or pushing down the bad listings for their company name in the search results, specifically in Google. They play with the idea of getting free banner ads from newspapers they advertise heavily in. They get the ad space was free, but they spent time creating the banner ad, they spent a "favor" with the paper to get the as space, but they (1) linked it to the number one listed site (their own) which won't push down the bad listings and (2) the ad is linked through redirect after redirected link and (3) it is an image ad.

So the management spends more time discussing if this will work. Possibly 20 hours between all of them over the year (I am sure it was more than that). 20 hours of their time may be equated to $300 per hour, so lets say $6,000. Plus the favor they called for from the newspaper, no idea how to quantify that, let's say $800. Plus any banner ads and creatives they spent time creating, lets say $200. So figure about $7,000 is lost time.

Ok, now how to we calculate two years of having a few negative pages rank well for the company name? How much in lost dollars for people searching on the company prior to buying the product? How much? The Overture tool shows that about 700 searches are done each day for the company name. So let's say fifty-percent are prospective customers, 350 people per day. Then let's say thirty-percent of those would buy from the company, heck they are searching for the company name, so they are probably more likely to be in "the buy mode" then searching on the product category type, so we have 105 people.

105 people each day are ready to buy from the company but search on the company name prior to buying. Now, of the 105 who search, how many of them are likely to buy the product if the 3rd listing's title says something very negative about them? Let's be nice at say five percent are still willing to buy. That is 5.25 people buying the product each day, that is about 100 less orders per day from Internet savvy people (which is increasing).

Let's say the average product sells for $1,000 (I think that number is about right). That is a loss of $100,000 per day. 365 days per year make it out to $36,500,000 loss in revenue per year? Doubt it is that high but you get the picture.

Spend 0.0005 percent of the lost revenue over the year on your Web initiative. See what happens...

Invest those 20 hours of lost management time on your Web initiative. See what happens...

That is my rant for the day. :)

Posted at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (0)

You know what really annoys me? People who update their posts without describing what they update. Now, of course, doing this once in a while is not a big deal. But to do this constantly, argghhhh.

I am a huge RSS reader. I read something once, I don't want to see it again. But when you update your posts, the RSS reader marks it as new, and shows it to me again. If you do not add a postscript or update, clearly to the post, then please don't update the post. Of course is there is a glaring error, fix it and say so.

My rule of thumb, once I post it, there is a 3 minute rule. No updating posts after three minutes unless I add something significant. And if I do, then mark what was updated.

Just one of my pet peeves. Watch, now everyone I know will be updating their posts, by adding a period or comma, just to mess with me.

Posted at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (6)

I want a place to speak my mind, talk about things search and not-search related. Heck, if I want to blast Google for doing something but give them real attitude, I can do it here. Heck, if I disagree with Danny at Search Engine Watch, I can do that here also. If I had a bad day, I can whine about it over here. If I want to share fun experiences with the world (if they care) I can do it here. The list goes on, this is my personal blog, but it also will contain recaps of what I did in the search world today in the Daily Search Coverage category. In addition, I may give some SEO or SEM tips that I feel are not appropriate for the SEW or SER blogs I write at. ;)

All in all, I want to write what I want to write and not have to worry about what people want to hear. Don't get me wrong, I love the other two blogs, I enjoy it a ton. But, sometimes, I have things to say that don't fit in those blogs.

Welcome to the Cartoon Barry Blog, where Cartoon Barry can speak his mind.

P.S. It makes it easier to speak your mind if you use a cartoon as a mask.

Posted at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (15)