WTF entry of the day: Government endorses cannibalistic plants!

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has various "kids" lyrics pages... one of which has the lyrics and midi file for Little Shop of Horror's "Suddenly Seymour" song [note: midi file plays when page is loaded].

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE this musical and quite like that specific song as well. But if someone can explain how this relates to environment or health or whatever, I'd love to hear it! :D

In Brief: Things that every blog should have (but too many don't)

I'll note up front: my blog UI currently sucks (as I've said many times before) and I WILL fix it eventually. But like a brilliant marriage therapist that can't maintain a healthy relationship, I'm going to lecture y'all on some blog-musts :-)

- Include a CONTACT ME link or info. Oh yeah, and an ABOUT ME blurb or link.
- Enable "Subscribe to future comments." (why this isn't standard in blog software is beyond me!)
- Let me subscribe to your entries by e-mail. Not everyone uses or likes RSS.
- Categories! I know Blogger is working on this (really) but the rest of you not using Blogger have no excuses! :-)

RELATED ENTRIES:
- Jakob Nielsen offers (mostly) spot-on blog guidelines
- Blogger DON'Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)

Voicemail inefficiencies... anyone got a better way?

In order to access my voicemail with AT&T CallVantage on my phone, I have to do the following:
1) Hit "***" then my 5 digit password.
2) Press 1 to go to voicemail.
3) Press 1 to LISTEN to my voicemail.

Also, leaving voicemail for friends isn't much more convenient. Why isn't there something like texting, but in voice? In other words, it's 2am, I just had a great idea I wanted to share with a friend but I don't want to wake her up. Why isn't there any easy way for me to shoot her a quick voicemail without ringing her phone? (or is there?)

I know, I know, I'm being a total whiner lately, but it just seems to me that there are some great opportunities here for companies like Skype and even traditional telcos and cell phone companies.

P.S. -- Others have also understandably ranted about how broken actually leaving voicemail in general is. Used to be, when we'd call a friend, we'd hear "Hey, I'm not home. Leave a message" [beep!] and we'd leave a message. Now we have to deal with "If you'd like to leave a page, please press 1. If you'd like to leave a voice message, please press 2 or wait for the tone..." Yeah, yeah, I know I can press * (or is it #?) or something like that to skip through that, but I think it varies by carrier, and I figure with my luck I'd accidentally hang up. Blegh.

My review of Song Airlines (Delta's low cost subsidiary)

My former colleague, Mark Jen, recently wrote about his rather positive experience flying Song Air, the discount wing of Delta Airlines... and this reminded me that I hadn't gotten around to the review I had planned to write last month.

The background:
I was searching for an inexpensive flight to New Hampshire to attend a Lindy Hop dance camp, but quickly discovered that there seemingly ARE no discount flights from San Francisco to New Hampshire, much less Burlington, Vermont. So, figuring I could at least catch a musical, visit some friends, and stay in a swanky hotel, I decided to fly into the more-discount-flight-options city of New York, NY. As it turns out, my friends were out of town, the musical was so-so, and the hotel was a disappointment. But I digress.

In the end, the cheapest AND most time-convenient flight available was from Song Air, so -- at around $325 after taxes -- that's what I booked.

On-time performance and stupid airline behavior:
My plane was an hour late getting out of the gate for reasons I don't recall. We were actually all sitting on the plane for that hour, and since this was a red-eye flight, I figured no sweat, I'll just catch some shut-eye in the meantime.

Ah, but no, that'd be too logical. The stupid crew had other ideas, blaring really lousy alternative music crap through the main speakers during the entire waiting period. More specifically, they were playing stuff from a new album by The Wallflowers, with whom they apparently have some dumb distribution deal or something like that. How do I know? In their promos, they bragged how Song wasn't just an airline, but also a record label. Oh joy. Just what I want. In an industry where airlines can't even manage their flight schedules or other core aspects of their business, I want to see lots of footage of their execs and such hobnobbing and doing recording deals with lame music artists.

Well, fine, I'll just request a pillow from the crew, maybe two, to press up against my head so the music's less loud and I can sleep. Ah, no pillows on board, even for a red-eye (I was told that they're too expensive to clean and store).

In-flight entertainment (for the trip home):
Strikingly mediocre... really a disappointment. Sure, they've got lots of TV channels, but no guide to help you see what's on. You have to slowly and repeatedly scan through all the channels to get an idea of what's being shown.

Trivia game? Sure, but not very well implemented. And pretty lame questions, nearly all about entertainment-and-sports oriented stuff (no science, no history, etc...) Oh, and no prizes. You'd have thought they could have thrown in a free beer or $1 off a sandwich to the winners, eh?

Movies? Yep, but you gotta pay. I think it was $5 a pop. What a rip.

Music? Sure. But EVERY fricking time I navigated to the music screen or one of a few other sections, I got a 1-2 minute stupid Song Air ad that could not be skipped or stopped.

In the end, listening to my MP3 player and reading a book ended up being much more efficient and pleasant.

Food:
Well, when they say that they've got honestly tasty food, they're actually not kidding. The jerk chicken sandwhich I ordered was indeed delicious! Only downside: $7 or $8 (I forget), and it came with NOTHING else. Not even a cheapo bag of potato chips. So in the end, the sandwhich made for a scrumptious but not very filling appetizer. The salad my seat neighbor ordered (for the same price) looked a bit more filling... and, according to her, was also really tasty.

Overall...:
Compared against other airlines, Song Air was a reasonably priced option... especially given my relatively late (a few weeks in advance) booking, so I suppose I shouldn't be quite so harsh in my evaluation. But -- despite the fewer multimedia and food amenities -- I still think Southwest is a more comfortable and friendly airline overall and if pricing between the two were similar for a given flight, I'd take Southwest. Actually, I'd probably pay $100 more to go on a European or Asian airline if they were available, because their flights are typically WAY better than any American airline I've ever flown... but I guess I'm not very likely to get an Air France flight from SFO to NYC anytime soon, eh? Bummer.

Pricey hotels... sometimes you DON'T get what you pay for

A few weeks ago, I decided to splurge and book a night at a "four star" hotel via Priceline so I could get a good night's rest before taking a long bus ride to Swing Out New Hampshire.

If this Hilton Hotel in Manhattan is four stars, I'd hate to see what a one star place is like.

Okay, so I got at least the 'bare minimums':
- A clean room
- A decent shower
- A relatively comfortable bed

But beyond that... I fail to see why anyone would pay an arm and a leg to enjoy the "four star'ness" of this hotel.

Here's the skinny on my Hilton hotel stay:

• The check-in folks were helpful but not all that friendly.
• My room completely lacked any interesting d?cor or character. Worse yet, there were no blinds to keep out the sun, making a mid-day nap after a red-eye quite unpleasant.
• I gritted my teeth everytime I went to and from my room due to the fricking elevator TV screen blaring CNN's Katrina disaster coverage. I hope you'll forgive me for digressing for a moment... but CNN is to a thoughtfully informed citizenry what spam is to one's diet. We may think we want it, we may even think it nourishes us, but in the end it makes us feel bloated and sick. CNN is just a teensy tiny bit less evil than Fox, IMHO. Both are Infotainment and Shock Schlock masquerading as news and real debate, and having the former blared in the Hilton elevator made me want to shatter some glass and/or shout "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
• $1.50 to place a local call, $2.50 to call Directory Information, $5.25 for half a grapefruit, and $5.95 for hot oatmeal (no, I wasn't stupid enough to actually rack up any such expenses).
• $20 for one day of Internet access, despite being assured via their corporate number that Internet access was complementary. I successfully contested the charges.

Yes, I know that the sort of charges mentioned above are typical for "high end" / business hotels, but beyond the possible "because people on corporate expense accounts don't flinch," I fail to see WHY this situation exists. Usually when I pay substantially more for a particular level of service (e.g., Business Class on an airplane), I expect not only a higher level of amenities, but also more complementary perks, not fewer.

Contrast this Hilton experience with my evenings spent in a Best Western, which typically costs less than half what I paid:
- Free breakfast
- Friendly service
- Cheerful, if somewhat kitschy room d?cor (not to mention actual window shades)
- Free Internet access
- Affordable in-hotel dining

And mind you, it's not just the Hilton that deserves slogging, IMHO. I stayed at the uber-trendy Hotel 71 in Chicago a while back on company business, and was thoroughly unimpressed with that place, too. Uncomfortable chairs, sterile styling (though I suppose that's quite a matter of personal taste), no hot tub or swimming pool, and a concierge that was no more helpful than those I've dealt with at budget hotels (who often seem at least more eager to please).

I don't care if I win the lotto tomorrow. Next hotel stay, I'm being a cheap-ass bastard... and I'm sure I'll be rewarded for it in more ways than cost-savings.

* * *

Related links:
- New York Times: "If Parks Offer Free Internet, Why Can't Pricey Hotels"?

Installing software is often a miserable experience (even with Apple!)

This entry about a fella's (nasty) experience installing Quicktime made me both chuckle and nod in understanding.

Apple has a reputation of being so easy to use, so consumer friendly, so I gotta ask: what the $&@#! were those folks smoking when they went ahead with this install process? This is about as consumer-hostile as you get. It's annoying and downright rude.

In fairness, Apple's not the only company that should be forced to sit in a corner and repent. Other misbehaving miscreants include AOL and Real; I installed the most recent beta version of AIM only so I could play with the new Plaxo integration (which is actually slick and damn cool [see disclaimer]), but I sure as hell didn't want a stupid Web browser ("AOL Explorer") piggybacked on top, nor did I ask to have AIM sit in my system tray and be present upon every Windows startup. And regarding the Real Player, well... despite being very tempted to install it so I can watch some in-Real-format-only clips on the Web, I've put off sullying my new computer, 'cause I remember what a splatting mess the install was last time.

Look, companies, I know many of you have quasi-monopolies or oligopolies, but these are fleeting. Honest. I truly believe you're going to get your butts kicked on the ground if you continue to treat your users -- especially influential geeks -- like saps who are expected to just roll over and accept all of your default system changes and detritus.

There are lots of awesome programs that do behave themselves: asking the user if they'd like to have things run at startup or if they'd like icons placed here or there. Some of the install processes even include prominent AND NON-LEGALESED terms of service, so we don't have to either scroll through 478 lines of gooblygook or worry about what happens if we just ignore it.

* * *

It may take a while, but we users will win in the end. So, dear companies, now is the time to do the right thing... before it's too late. Earn our trust, serve our needs and (maybe) then we'll be amenable to your upgrade offers and cross-promotions. Get us to love, not hate, your brand and you'll be rewarded in the long term.

Jakob Nielsen offers (mostly) spot-on blog guidelines

Jakob Nielsen is one of the granddaddies of Web Usability; he's offered for years lots of strong and (IMHO) often very smart opinions about what practices and designs on the Web make for good user experiences. I don't always agree with his assertions, but I am very impressed by his recent blogging guidelines.

Here are the key sins he warns against:

1. No author biography
I completely agree. This provides much-needed context. Is the person talking about their employer? A competitor? Are her political views colored by her association with a particular organization or religion? And so on.

2. No author photo
A photo is worth 1000 words. Particularly if it's a serious mugshot, a playful pic, a lovey-dovey shot, etc.

3. Non-descript posting titles
I like teasers sometimes, but (and I need to take this to heart) they should indeed be used sparingly. And as Nielsen notes, key words -- relevant to the specific audience -- should always be used up front.

4. Links Don't Say Where They Go
This is an important issue all around the Web. While I've been guilty of this sin in the past, I totally agree that it's rude and/or just annoying to link words like "here" and "like this" and so on. It's also really bad from a search-engine-optimization standpoint (HINT: Y! and Google et al DO care what you've used for your linked text ;-)

5. Classic Hits are Buried
I've been trying to avoid this problem by including a "Related Links" tidbit at the bottom of many of my newer posts. With that said, though, I still get really frustrated that my "best" writing sometimes goes completely undiscovered and unloved. :|

6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
This is a pet peeve of mine. What were the Web log software designers thinking when the put a calendar front and center? I mean, seriously, how often do blog readers think: "Gee, I simply MUST see what Fred has written about on July 22nd, 2005!" Uh, no. Like Jakob wisely notes, people are curious to learn more about what you've said on a particular topic. I think I've done a good job bringing my topic lists front and center (listing related topics at the top of each post, and all topics on the right of each page), but perhaps I can do so both more efficiently and less obtrusively when I (finally) overhaul my blog.

7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
Here is where I strongly disagree with Jakob and other folks like Duncan of the Blog Herald. When publishing was in meatspace (e.g., via dead trees), sure, it made sense to stick to a schedule. After all, one was typically PAYING to receive a publication (magazine, newsletter, etc.) on a regular basis. And before RSS readers came along, it was also understandable that people wanted to know how often a particular site updated its content, so they could know to check it every Wednesday night or whatever.

But with RSS feeds so ubiquitous now, this is no longer relevant. In fact, not only am I perfectly happy to subscribe to blogs that post irregularly (but with interesting content), I'm often negatively overwhelmed by blogs that publish a zillion times a day. Hence, despite their consistently entertaining content, I rarely ever read Boing Boing or SFist anymore because I simply can't keep up. The unread items just pile up, and I end up just marking them all as read after a couple of weeks go by.

8. Mixing Topics
I'm really struggling with this issue myself. On one hand, I KNOW that if I trimmed this blog to talk only about Google or dancing, for instance, I'd likely get a much larger and more loyal audience. And probably more targeted and lucrative ads, too. But I blog stuff that I enjoy blogging about, and I hate to change that. The thought of maintaining a bunch of separate blogs sounds like a pain in the ass, and beyond that, I think of Jeremy Zawodny and Robert Scoble -- both of whom unrepentantly mix in talk about their personal interests -- and (not that I'm in their league) I note that somehow their blogs remain popular :-).

9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
Amen. I've already written about the topic of cautious blogging in the past:
- "Got business aspirations? Neuter your blog or suffer the consequences."
- "'I know all about you, Adam' -- Context and queasiness"
- "Letting it all hang out."

10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
This really is a no-brainer. Similarly, I highly advise folks to get an e-mail address in their own domain (e.g., lasnik.net). Sure, you can still easily use Yahoo! Mail or Gmail or whatever by using forwarding, but you then at least have excellent mobility should you choose to change Webmail providers in the future. Plus .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) looks rather professional and is a lot better than .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (or, frankly, any aol.com address; all of them scream "neeeeewbie!")

* * *

What are your thoughts? Do you think Jakob got it right? Do you agree with my comments as well? Any additional blogging sins to note?

* * *
Other related links:
- "Blogger DON'Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)"

Why do people willingly go see REALLY bad films?

So I just read that the remake'd movie The Fog is #1 at the box office this weekend.

WTF?$#@*#&!!

Look at the reviews.

For those of you too lazy to click, let me quote from a few:
- "The Fog is a bore, laden with unspectacular special effects and dreadful acting..."
- "Wainwright's Fog proves successful only at blowing."
- "...this flick absolutely stinks of half-hearted effort and assembly-line cynicism."

From Rotten Tomatoes, it has an average review score of 2.5 out of 10. This isn't ambiguous. The film doesn't just blow... it sucks!

Why do I care?

Well, because when crap like this (or Gigli, or Catwoman, etc.) brings in money, then the studios are incented to create MORE crap like this. Worse yet, then movie theatres feel compelled to dedicate screens to such drivel instead of showcasing worthwhile (and, dare I say it, oft independent or foreign) films.

I'm not saying that all films should be serious works of art. Hell, I just watched Bubba Ho-tep last night :D.

And it's not that I think less of people going to see a film where there's not really a huge critical consensus (e.g., 40% of critics loved it). But I'd like to slap silly the folks that go see films that have scores like 3% on the Tomatometer. At risk of being a bit overdramatic, in a way they're ruining the theatre for the rest of us.

$1 will cure the Blogspot splog problem (and related problems)

THE PROBLEM
As Chris Pirillo and others have noted, doing a search on practically anything nowadays returns a deluge of spam blogs, or "splogs," that are comprised of a bunch of randomly scraped-together sentences automatically stolen from around the Web. Typically, the sploggers create these blogspot blogs just so they can slap AdSense ads on them and earn cash from unwitting surfers who land there, see that all the content is crap, and then get away by clicking on one of the ads on the page.

Sounds stupid? It is. But sadly it's actually lucrative for the sploggers. And Google's caught in the middle because -- while, yes, they're earning money as well out of the deal -- their search index is becoming less and less useful... and that can undoubtedly hurt the company's long-term viability. Say what you will about Google, but they are nothing if not forward thinking... so this is a problem that they are certainly seriously tackling in the background.

THE SOLUTION
But I have an idea that'd solve the issue faster. It's not entirely 'democratic.' It also risks some 'friendly fire'. And initially, it'll be a major pain in the ass for Google and a minor pain in the ass for anyone wanting to set up a blog. But hear me out... :-)

Google should require a $1 credit card, ACH bank payment, or paper check payment from any blogger who wants his or her blog to be indexed.

But note that...
- Anyone could still create a blog for free.
If you wanted to have a blog to communicate with your friends or family or workgroup or whatever, no sweat. You'd just give 'em the URL, let them subscribe to your RSS feed, etc., no payment required.

- Google would create a special subdomain for the paid blogs.
blogspotgold.com or whatnot... so that other search engines could easily filter out anything in the blogspot domain.

- Google would allow any current blogspot user to 'upgrade' for $1 and would automatically redirect their URL permanently.

WHY THIS'D WORK
- It would likely no longer be economically feasible for spammers to create 10,000 disposable splogs.
- Even if the economics worked out, Google could limit the number of blogs created per credit card number or bank account.
- Google's creating its own payment processing solution anyway, so they'll soon have the payments part covered.

WHAT WILL HAMPER THIS SOLUTION
- Sploggers could use stolen credit cards, though I think it'd be difficult to do this in bulk.
- But most critically, there's the frustrating issue that even a $1 payment could end up publicly silencing voices that should be heard.

MORE ABOUT THE SILENCING-VOICES PROBLEM
While I'm all for accountability and taking personal responsibility for one's communications, I also recognize that there are instances in which folks desire -- and often should be accorded -- anonymity.

For instance, what about Chinese dissidents who may want to blog about their feelings and experiences or even blog about upcoming protests? Is it inconceivable that the Chinese government could pressure Google into handing over identity information gleaned from a dissident's $1 blogspot payment? Even if Google takes pains to sincerely insist that it will *NEVER* do such a thing, will everyone trust this promise? And what about whistleblowers?

Or what about those people -- particularly in non-industrialized countries -- who may not have a bank account or credit card but still want to blog?

A POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE SILENCED-VOICES PROBLEM
Perhaps, instead of denying indexing to all non-paid blogs, Google could simply -- upon request -- pre-screen all such blogs for indexing consideration. For instance, something like the following:
1) Person sets up free blog and blogs a minimum number of substantive (non-sploggy) posts over a minimum period of time.
2) They then submit this blog for indexing consideration to Google.
3) If Google determines it to be non-sploggy, they then elevate it to blogspotgold, and provide a free redirect from the old URL.

Admittedly, though, sploggers could retaliate in this context by submitting bazillions of obvious-crap blogs just to clog up the reviewing queue. However, if it were impossible to submit a blog for consideration until it had been around, say, 3 months or 6 months... that would make it harder to do a mass-submit "DOS" [denial of service style] attack. Spammers are not patient people.

* * *

So I'm curious... what do you think about all of this?
1) Would a $1 payment really prevent most or even all splog from getting into the indexes of Google, Y!, and all other major players?
2) Would there be bad 'collateral damage'... or could this be reasonably minimized by the ideas I've specified or through other means?
3) Know of any anti-splog options that are better than my $1 idea? (hint: capchas alone aren't the answer)

* * *

UPDATE at 9:00PM PST, 10/16/2005:
People have pointed out to me that children and young teens typically don't have credit cards or even bank accounts, and that it seems unfair to single them out for a waiting period. So here are some other ideas (with the first two stolen from current Gmail policies :D)

- Get a blogspotgold account via text message.
True, this requires a phone... or a friend's phone.

- Get a blogspotgold account via invite from current member.
Allow each current member to hand out up to 10 tokens a month, and if more than 2 of them are used to create splogs, then don't give that member any more tokens for a year.

- Distribute blogspotgold tokens via schools (administrators, teachers, whatever)

* * *

UPDATE, 10/18/2005 at 1:45AM PST:
Ah, Google responds to the outcry! I had no doubt that they'd be taking all of this seriously (I know that the Blogger folks are sincerely passionate about blogging!), but it's nice to see their public acknowledgment of the problem nonetheless.

Also, the prolific geek, Chris Pirillo (of Lockergnome fame) has proposed his own top ten list of Blogspot anti-splog solutions.

Despite some challenges and regrets, dancing at Jammix is still a blast

Every month or so during the school year, the Stanford University Dance Department puts on an event called Jammix. It includes a huge variety of music and dance styles... from schmaltzy tangos to goofy covers of American pop tunes to "Play that Funky Music, White Boy!" to Metallica waltzes (!) and beyond. And all for $2, too!

The talent is equally varied. Given that this was the first Jammix of the season, there were even more newbies than usual, but also quite a few impressively experienced folks (including dance teachers!) in attendance.

The common denominators amongst it all are Fun and Friendliness. Oh, and always at least a couple memorable moments for me :-).

The D'oh Moment
A salsa song came on, and -- despite being a total salsa neophyte (I remember about 3 moves) -- I decided to ask the woman standing next to me to dance since she looked particularly warm and approachable.

"Hi, I'm Adam" I offered.

She looked at me with a mix of surprise and genuine amusement. "I'm..."

"Anne!" I interjected. Yeah, as in Anne the (at least locally) famous and much beloved salsa teacher that I've been acquainted with socially for over a year. She had dyed her hair, and apparently by this Friday evening my brain fuel was running low.

Thank goodness she IS a kind and patient soul, or I would have been even more mortified than I was... asking such a fab salsera to dance salsa AND not recognizing her. And why oh why couldn't I have asked her to Lindy Hop instead?! :O But luckily I ended up feeling pretty comfortable sticking to the basics during the dance, chatting throughout and catching up with her since we hadn't seen each other in a few months.

* * *

Of courage and compliments
Despite assurances from nice friends that my waltzing is actually decent, I still am a bit self-conscious about it. So you can imagine how proud I am that I got up the guts to ask one of the most talented women of the evening to dance a cross-step waltz with me. Even better yet, halfway through she complimented me on my dancing and asked if I'd consider being a part of the Annual Stanford Viennese Ball Opening performance group that she's leading.

Alas, it requires rehearsals twice a week for several months, and given my uncertain schedule for the next while, I sadly can't afford to make that commitment. But I was quite honored nonetheless, since she obviously liked my waltzing :-).

* * *

Each time I attend Jammix, I always have so many mixed emotions. On one hand, I feel regret (for not learning to dance earlier in my life), I feel a little embarrassment (for being an old fart amongst so many 18 and 19 year olds!*), and -- when dancing with beginner after beginner -- I sometimes feel frustration or even exhaustion (e.g., waltzing with someone who has no frame or polka'ing with dead weight). But on the other hand, the welcoming atmosphere of openness, of joy, even giddy enthusiasm tends to outweigh the downsides for me. And -- unlike sometimes when I'm out Lindy Hopping -- I rarely worry whether I'm good enough or popular enough to be asking someone because at Jammix everyone's just happy to be dancing (it helps, too, that there are often more women than men in attendance... w00t!!!)

Also, seeing so many young people on campus doing something than drinking themselves into a stupor or grabbing each others' asses at crass frat parties is also delightfully refreshing. And no, these aren't predominantly freaks-'n'-losers, either. It's clear that -- along with indeed a bunch o' geeks (not that there's anything wrong with that ) -- Stanford dances attract many jocks, cheerleaders, pretty boys, hottie chicks, fashionable peeps, and so on. Indeed, this sort of scene does give me hope for future generations of college students :-). I've even heard that many students camp out just to get into the uber-popular dance classes at Stanford.

What a wonderful world, at least this piece of it! And how lucky I am to be a part of it :-)

* * *

Related links:
- "Skipping the frat scene: Jammix social dance party" [Stanford Daily newspaper]

* * *

* Regarding the age-thing, my friend Graham said to me at an earlier Jammix: "You may be old, but you're not creepy old." Whew :D

Tips for corporate wannabe bloggers

Jeremy Zawodny recently posted that he's going to be speaking about blogging at the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference, and asked his readers what he should tell those folks.

Many people, understandably, responded that he should basically tell them to drop dead. Given the DMA's, ahem, relationship-challenged practices in the past (e.g., supporting opt-out, rather than opt-in e-mail lists), that's hardly surprising.

With that said, though, I figured it'd be worth it to suggest a few more friendly guidelines for the DMA folks, at least those genuinely interested in communicating decently and effectively with others online. Specifically, here's what I commented on Jeremy's blog:

* * *

Tell them to ask themselves this before they ever post anything on a blog:
"If you were out having a beer with someone you've recently become friends with, would you say this to their face?"

For instance, when you're (appropriately) talking a friend, you generally don't:
- shout
- hype
- badger
- monopolize
- ignore
- use fear

You do (or should), however:
- Talk like a human
- Listen
- Listen some more
- Respond appropriately
- Be sincere. No, *really* sincere, not faux sincere.
- Know your relationship-type. You don't hug and kiss a new friend and say "You're my best friend EVER!!!"

And the hardest, but IMHO most important:
Know yourself, know your limitations, and don't pretend to be someone you aren't. If you're a 300 pound frumpy housewife, you don't show up at a bar in a miniskirt and halter top to meet a friend. You'll embarrass yourself, you'll embarrass your friend, and no one will want to be seen with you, much less listen to you. For companies, this means that you shouldn't sweep who you are and what your history is under a rug; if you've had problems with a product or customer relationships, enter into a conversation humbly or even with an appropriate apologetic introduction. "We realize we haven't always worked with our customers in a way that would make our founder proud. Here's what we're doing to change that... and why we respectfully ask you to give us another chance."

Humility, thoughtfulness, subtlety, humanity. All attributes that the spam-defending DMA, sadly, seems to have in very short supply.

* * *

RELATED ENTRIES:
- Blogger Don'ts [from the consumer-side of blogging]

Yet another reason why I'm disgusted with our legal system

So the cops in Louisiana that beat that defenseless guy bloody are pleading not guilty, despite all the video evidence.

This just makes me sick. I can totally understand issues regarding extenuating circumstances (insane overwork, high stress, etc.)... all of which might reasonably serve to mitigate punishments.

But to actually claim, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that you're not guilty? For crying out loud, I want to live in a society in which people freely offer the following:

"Yep, I'm guilty. I did what I'm charged with doing." plus one or more of the following:
- "And I'd like to sincerely offer apologies to the following people..."
- "And here's why I respectfully ask for leniency."
- "And here's what I plan on doing to insure this never happens again."
- "And here is how I propose to compensate my victim(s) / society..."

I suppose there are many societal issues that contribute to this lack of responsibility-taking / lack of forthrightedness.

1) Our legal system's horrid bias against any person or entity that simply says "I'm sorry."
2) Insanely out-of-whack punishments (e.g., admit to smoking an ounce of marijuana, go to jail, especially if you're black).

I wonder if the legal systems in countries outside of America lend themselves to less-frequent asinine "not-quilty" pleas or more frequent apologies from offenders. Anyone know?

* * *

Related entry:
When your lawyer won't let you say "I'm sorry"

How to evaluate your current job & career... and thoughtfully consider future options

I'm doing the whole job-hunting thing again... searching for interesting contracts (I luckily am still blessed with several cool ongoing ones!) or a really smashing full-time opportunity. The latter option in particular has gotten me to do some deep soul searching about career / relocation criteria, and I thought I'd share a list I've been compiling.

Your feedback is VERY welcome! Any major missing categories / criteria, or some that should absolutely be split up or combined?

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Oh, and I'm such a geek, that I'm thinking about making an Excel sheet out of the criteria list below, along with spots for optionally specifying item weights and having the sheet calculate optimal choices... e.g., you could specify that you especially care about being mentored and getting free food, and the spreadsheet would give more weight to jobs that offered those things.

Ideally, this list could be used to help one determine if they should stick with their current job or transition to a new one (with the same or a different company)... and also assist people who are unemployed and evaluating new opportunities.

So without further ado, here is my list (and yes, I realize there are parallelism -- or rather, lack of parallelism issues -- but this is just a first draft... I'll smooth over that later :-)

1) The industry (e.g., pharmaceutical, digital photography, pro sports)

• Alignment with your interests and passions
• Awareness / experience (how strong is your past history in this space?)
• Future (weak or strong demand for this area in the years to come)
• Perception of current and future HR folks & hiring managers (how association with this industry looks on your resume)
• Perception of others (what family, peers think of the industry and your association with it)

2) Position type (Product Manager, Software Engineer...)

• Enjoyment (do you like working in this sort of position?)
• Personality and skills fit (can you cut the mustard?)
• Perception of current and future HR folks & hiring managers
• Perception of others

3) Basics about the company and company site

• Company reputation, products, and positioning
  • Products and services (is it stuff you feel passionate about or disconnected from?)
  • Perception of current and future HR folks & hiring managers
  • Perception of others
  • Alignment with personal morals (e.g., donates a lot to charity, possibly
    not a cigarette company, etc.)
• Physical atmosphere
  • Conduciveness to concentration (quiet, not too quiet, etc.)
  • Office surroundings (plants, decorations...)
  • Immediate work space (privacy, ergonomics...)
  • Resources available (modern computers, enough pens, etc.)
• Overall feel
  • Size (startup vs. BigCo)
  • Morale
  • Socialness (fun atmosphere daily, special parties...)
  • Excitement (cutting edge sector or boring)
  • Pacing (relaxing, stressful)
  • Department / position fluidity (can you easily move amongst departments, job types?)
  • Security (company -- and your position -- will be around in 5 years)
• Your department or immediate team
  • Your relative placement (big fish in little pond or the reverse...)
  • Your department's placement (revered or shunned in company with regards to resources, opinions, etc.)
  • Size
  • Morale
  • Socialness
  • Pacing

4) People

• In general
  • Personal attributes (smart, friendly, interesting, helpful, thoughtful...)
  • Work habits (hard working, sane...)
• Direct contacts
  • Boss (communicative, has reasonable expectations, smart, thoughtful)
  • Subordinates (respect you, do work effectively, enjoyable to work with)
  • Department / team members (respect you, pull their weight, good to work with)
• Leadership, your position, and autonomy
  • Opportunities to be mentored
  • Opportunities to mentor
  • Hierarchy (flat, deep)
  • Responsibility and autonomy (highly structured task list and oversight vs. high levels of responsibility and autonomy)

5) Your actual work assignments and available / required tasks

• Short term / current value (satisfaction, joy derived from them)
• Future value (good or useless for career)
• Stimulation (intellectually or emotionally challenging)
• Corporate relevance (your work measurably contributes to company's bottom line or company's visible
  presence)
• Perception of current and future HR folks / hiring managers
• Perception of others (what family, peers think of the industry and your association with it)
• Travel required (little, lots, to cool places, horrible places, stressful, enjoyable, etc.) 

6) Benefits

• Compensation package
  • Upon start (signing bonus, moving allowance)
  • Salary and bonuses
  • Stock and stock options
  • Vacation and personal days
• Other direct benefits
  • Free or discounted access to desired services / products
  • Good health insurance, other types of insurance
  • Education and training (on site / external)
  • Substantive discounts on commuting
• On-site benefits
  • Cafeteria (pricing, food quality, quantity, nutrition, hours...)
  • Utilitarian offerings (car wash, laundry...)
  • Health-related (dentist, doctor on staff, gym, nutritionist...)
  • Daycare

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P.S. -- A special thanks to my friend Kelly for providing such a thoughtful sounding board and suggesting many of the items above!

Bloglines, Newzcrawler... and the new Google Reader

A few weeks ago, I already started transitioning all of my feeds off of Bloglines. Why?
- It's slow.
- It's down too often.
- Reorganizing feeds (moving them to different folders, etc.) is worse than being stuck in a closet with Vanna White. Night after night after night after night.
- It's similarly painful to mark just a few articles in a feed as read or unread.

I've moved over to Newzcrawler, a stellar newsreader app for Windows. Beyond just tons of cool power features, it also lets me pretty easily sync my feeds between my desktop and laptop using an external FTP site (okay, geeky, I know).

* * *

With that said, I've still been hoping to see some vast improvements in the online-reader front. Rojo seems to be getting better. And I've heard rumblings over other cool services as well. When I learned today that Google had entered this space, I was extremely excited. Please, I thought, give us another Gmail. Or Maps! :D If not for me, at least for my less-geeky friends whom I'm dying to get into feed reading.

So far, alas, I'm rather disappointed in the Google Reader. I know it'll get better, but for now, Googlers...

1) It's too cluttered and overwhelming.
Hide some stuff. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but blog text blends into all the other text and I find it just tiring to spend more than a few minutes in Reader.

2) No mouseovers?!

3) Ambiguities
Is "Read items" a description or an action? Okay, admittedly this is rather a nitpick, but it is a top-line link ;-).

4) Search what?!
When I see a search box at the top of the page, I expect to be able to search the content-in-context. In other words, if I'm in my Gmail account, I expect to search my mail. If I'm in Reader, I expect to search for a string in my read and/or unread feed items. From an expected user-action standpoint, what's likely to be more common: adding new feeds, or working with the feeds one already has?

5) Save me from overload!
There's no way to mark an entire feed as read. Or group of feeds.

6) Why the weird quasi-breadcrumbs in center focus?!
Why do I want to see "New Subscription" "New Subscription" article article article... Just show me new articles. If I want to see what I'm subscribed to, I'll go to the Your Subscriptions tab! :-)

* * *

Other quick suggestions/observations:
- Add a space in "Subscriptions(#)" to make it "Subscriptions (#)"
- Include a shortcut key to go to the pulldown menus. Actually, quit using HTML-style pulldown menus as action-triggers. It's not good UI, IMHO, and it's confusing when more than one says "More actions..." (plus with more than one on a page, that sort of makes it hard to use a keyboard shortcut)
- Allow for the multi-selection (and from there, tagging) of feeds.
- Include a feedback link directly on the Reader page.
- Enable us to see ALL articles from a given feed in one fell swoop (ala Bloglines)
- Let us easily sort, reposition, edit, and delete labels and sets of labels.
- BUG: I unsubscribed from a feed, it's outta my list, but I'm still seeing items for it.
- Gimme feed icons, please! When I have 200+ feeds, it's how I can most easily spot some of my favs :-)
- Dim links if they're not applicable (e.g., dim the Page Up link if I'm already at the top)
- I tagged an entry. How do I search for it by tag now? (I only see how I can filter feed tags)

* * *

Okay, let me be a LITTLE less of a jerk here and note what I *DO* like about Reader:
- Keyboard shortcuts! :-)
- Ease of adding new feeds (by keyword, by title, by URL... very flexible!)
- Nice how the filter narrows as I type! (but it'd be even nicer if ESC cleared it)
- Pretty fast (excepting the short time earlier today when it was first released)

* * *

Anyway, I'll keep my fingers crossed that Google rapidly works on this beta, giving it top resources... rotating in seasoned PMs / APMs, providing needed equipment for scalability and so on. For now, though, I'll happily stick with Newzcrawler, and -- admittedly grudgingly -- suggest that my newbie friends start off with Bloglines for now.

I want all of my data online... but it can't happen yet :(

One of my computing dreams is for me to have all my data online.  No, not all my applications (though, to  some extent, that's a neat idea, too)... but rather, all of my documents, photos, songs, chat logs, etc.

Here's why I would love to see all my data online:

• Safe keeping and effective backups *others can generally store backup my data more effectively than I can). 
• Easier sharing and collaboration
• Accessibility anywhere... home computer, laptop, friends' homes, internet cafe, etc.
• Efficient mashup / mix-n-match / integration potential; e.g., mailing a doc from Y! Briefcase via Y! Mail or collaborating on it via a hypothetical Y! Whiteboard.

Of course, there are certainly many concerns related to having data online instead of on one's hard
drive:

• Access speed
• Longevity of storage solution (it'd be a pain to have to download, then completely re-upload all of one's docs)
• Security (these services'll be much more of a target for hackers than my stupid hard drive)
• Flexibility (difficult to edit large audio or video files without fully downloading them, etc.)
• Accessibility and search (easy to search across my hard drive, hard to search across disparate services like Writely, Gmail, JotSpot, etc.)

So how far along am I in getting my data online, and what are some services I'm considering?

E-mail - part of the way there (discussion lists)

• I'm already very comfortable with Gmail overall, and quite optimistic about the upcoming Yahoo! Mail (now in limited beta testing).
• Gmail particularly rocks with discussion list e-mails... its conversation view, while not completely revolutionary, is refined to a point that is far beyond what anyone has ever offered before. Little touches... automatically collapsing items previously seen but making them available instantly via AJAX, and so on.
• But what about lock-in? While you can POP your mail out of Gmail (and, presumably, from Y!), with tens of thousands of e-mails that's bound to be a large undertaking.
• At least with Gmail right now, applying any actions against a mass of e-mails is tedious at best, near impossible at worst; for example, you can't reasonably and retroactively apply a label (tag) filter to a few thousand previously-received e-mails. You've gotta batch things 20 mails at a time. AAAAAAAGH! :| Even with the much-maligned (and generally unspeedy) Outlook, deleting, moving, refiling large numbers of e-mails is pretty straightforward.

Word documents - not yet, but very tempted!

• I've already fallen in love with Writely, an online collaboration and WYSIWYG writing tool... and in fact, I'm AUTHORing this blog post in it right now.  A fabulously intuitive user interface, rock-solid basic features (thank you unobtrusive auto-save!), and much more.  Free!  Try it out :-) However, this service is run by a brand new, no-doubt-well-meaning but still small startup. And besides, I don't think it's designed to house *all* of one's documents, but rather those you're collaborating on others' with.
• I could instead use one of the many file storage services, like Streamload or box.net, each of which offer literally gigs of storage for less than $10 per month. Plus, as I'll note later, these services also can stream music and video...

Other MS Office documents

• Unfortunately, there aren't any writely-style online apps for Excel, nor any OneNote online apps -- the two other Office apps I use most often.
• But other than that... again, most Office docs (and other docs) are reasonably small (at least compared to multimedia!), and so could be quickly downloaded and uploaded to edit.

Instant messaging logs and other documents

• I tried keeping my Trillian data (lists, logs, etc.) on a remote server, but it made Trillian excrutiatingly slow :(.
• On the other hand, it would likely be trivial to keep other documents on a remote server and access them easily via WebDAV.

Digital music and video (multimedia)

• As noted above, I could use an online storage service like Streamload; Streamability-anywhere is nice... but if I had my music exclusively online, it'd preclude easy mixing, converting, etc. :| So, at least at this time, definitely not an option.

Misc application data and metadata (preferences, votes/ranking, favorites/bookmarks, etc.)

• In some cases, I've found it's possible to maintain application data remotely (via WebDAV). So far, I've shown that this works well with MyLifeOrganized (a fabulous task management program!), but in other cases, it's just too slow (Microsoft OneNote). I haven't yet tried storing my Roboform, Newzcrawler, or other app data remotely yet.
• With regards to bookmarks, I'm a big fan of the social bookmarking service Spurl, which works in tandem with del.icio.us and narrowly edges out Furl for me. This way, no matter what browser or even computer I'm using (home, laptop, work, etc.), I always have my favorite sites at my finger tips.
• Unfortunately, lots of metadata isn't yet seemingly possible to separate or share apart (in real time) from applications themselves; for instance, when I rank music (star it 1-5) on my home computer's Windows Media Player app, those ratings aren't visible to me when I'm on my laptop.

* * *

I'm curious...

1. Do you share my wish of eventually having all your data stored remotely?
2. Have you tried going along this path yet, and if so, how far?
3. What advantages / pitfalls have you seen or do you seen in the future in this context?

I look forward to seeing your comments below :-)