Varying Degrees of L'attitude by Kevin McDonald

Three full months have passed since moving 100 domains to WhyPark.com. Read here to see the 1 month results. Read here to see the Sept. results. October ended with a large decrease in Visits (-70%) compared to Sept. I did nothing different in October than I had done in September. These domains are essentially parked and on autopilot with WhyPark rotating in fresh, relevant content from the public domain. Search engine traffic was down considerably to 50% of total traffic when it had been 75%.

On the 'contextual' Adsense ads the CTR just over 1.34% up from 1.32% last month! (total number of ads shown / total clicks on ads). An other way to look at this is during Oct. 3.92% of the pages my domains served generated CPC revenue. Not bad at all considering the sites are on autopilot.

It's disappointing to see the organic search traffic fall off a cliff as that's WhyPark's value add. One month doesn't make a trend and this is still far far better than my Sedo parked domains that only recieve type-in traffic.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Citi is inserting ads into their online credit card statements. You'll notice in the picture below that Walgreens is the vendor on the credit card statement and Drugstore.com is the competitive marketer. I'm not certain how long they have been at this type of in-process online advertising but it is the first time I have seen it...

The good news from a privacy perspective is that no cookies were dropped during the ad click-through and the items initially purchased at Walgreens were (to the best of my knowledge) not shared with the advertiser.

A year and a half ago I wrote a post about this very topic but in that case it was QuickBooks Online that I thought should have an ad sponsored offering. Fast forward and I was wrong about the 'free' edition. Ads in QuickBooks would be incremental revenue to Intuit and if done correctly a great service to their customers looking to reduce accounts payable/expenses.

Back to Citi. I am curious to hear how this deal was structured (CPM, PPC...) and how effective it is. I certainly clicked on the ad but that was more out of curiosity than any motivation to save money. I'd imagine we will see a lot more of this type of in-process advertising on financial services, package delivery, and eventually health care providers' websites.

If only Drugstore.com offered to pay my Walgreens line item in exchange for my future business.... One can dream.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

It's been about 5 weeks since I've ingested any animal product or animal by-product.  I feel great and have been sleeping like a baby. The first week 'going vegan' was the toughest by far but now I'm feeling pretty confident and actually purchased some so-called vegan staples used to prepare meat substitutes (tempeh, tofu, seitan, TVP, nutritionalized yeast etc). Why did I do it? There really isn't a good answer...just looking to change things up and gain a new perspective. It's hard to argue with the benefits of veganism.

My strategy was pretty simple, don't try to cook Tofu stick to vegetables and beans i.e. things I already know how to cook and go out to eat- a lot. I've also tried to stay away from replacement products like veggie burgers or tofu dogs. That said, I couldn't resist the Smart Bacon and I am glad I didn't. S-BLTs are delicious with Veganaise. (side note Veganaise is better tasting than Mayonnaise IMHO) Needless to say this past month I've made a lot of soups, salads, veggies, and cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes. The reflex to going vegan is to make certain 'junk food' is available in times of need.

My staples to date have included:

Oatmeal, vegetables, cereal, toast, peanut butter, celery, bean & veggie soups, salads, popcorn, spaghetti w/ marinara, chips, salsa, guacamole, veggie chili...

Here are a few restaurants in the bay area that have accommodated my vegan requests or have vegan options:

Loving Hut - Palo Alto

Flea Street Cafe - Menlo Park

Darbar Indian - Palo Alto

Lulu's on the Alemeda - Menlo Park

Zibbibo - Palo Alto

Red Lantern - Redwood City

Le Boulanger - Everywhere (soup only and not available everyday)

Cafe Solestice - San Mateo & Palo Alto

PF Chang's - Palo Alto

Cookbooks I've found to be very useful include:

Vegan with a Vengeance 

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World

So far so good. Julia has slide back to the comforts of cheese and vegetarianism but I'm sticking it out for now.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of my favorite living artist's work was featured on CSI NY last night in an episode call Page Turner. JoeJoe Web (goes by JoeX2) has found a following among influential folks in the entertainment industry.  His graffiti artwork appears regularly on the television shows CSI and Everybody Hates Chris.  This is great news for collectors and dealers of his work (and JoeJoe too).  When I bought a piece of his work (from the Lifestyle series) I was wondering if Graffiti art was just a passing fad made popular by the hip hop music videos of 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg.  What I've learned since is how vast this 'sub' culture is and how much history there is in this art form (goes back to the Greeks).

Anyway, check out JoeJoe Web's website if you like graffiti art.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was just thinking about Sara Palin as Presidemt when my mind flashed to Geena Davis in Commander in Chief. Will life follow art?

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently I've started to use WhyPark.com to monetize my domains as Sedo's parking feels really stale (example site here). Thus far WhyPark has impressed me with the simple administration of up to 100 sites at a time and the near complete control it allows regarding monetization.  August was the first full month that 100 of my domains where on WhyPark. I only verified Google sitemaps for 12 sites as the process was too tedious....BUT after reviewing the results I'm going to hire a high school kid to verify all of the sitemaps.

The August results showed 75% of the traffic coming from organic search and 25% from type-in traffic.  That's not bad and when compared to the type-in only traffic received with Sedo this is pretty compelling.  CTR was the real surprise.  On the 'contextual' Adsense ads the CTR just over 0.78%! (total number of ads shown / total clicks on ads). An other way to look at this is during August 2.66% of the pages my domains served generated CPC revenue. Not bad at all considering the sites are on autopilot thanks to WhyPark.

This link has an example of a whypark parked page. You'll see I put Adsense at the top and bottom of each page's content that Whypark provides from the public domain articles they find matching my site's 'keywords' (that I configured). It's a nice service if you have enough domains to justify the 100$ one time sign-up fee.

It will be interesting to see the traffic figures once all the domains have sitemaps verified by Google. It will take a bit of time but I'm tempted now to move all my domains to Whypark.

FULL DISCLOSURE- if you click the first link above and sign-up for WhyPark I'll get spiffed as a participant in their affiliate program. It's working for me. Hope it works for you too.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Employment verification telephone calls still exist. Who knew? The only reason I answered the phone today when it rang was the 866 number on the caller ID. I thought it may be a flight status call... Anyway, the woman on the other end asked me about a former employee's service duration and to confirm the annual salary.  I was reluctant to provide any information but didn't want to wreck this person's chance at landing a new job. The caller and I jousted a bit until she had all the information she needed and I didn't have to say much more than yes or no after asking a few questions of my own.

Why aren't these calls a thing of the past? LinkedIn gets you pretty far as an hiring company looking to verifying a recruit's employment history. Other than the base salary question the caller could have found everything about my former colleague from a LinkedIn profile.  Reference checks I get those from time to time but employment 'history' verification? 

The accuracy of LinkedIn profiles is something I have always thought of as pretty accurate. Sure there are times when you may not update the end date on your last gig before establishing a start date on your next (cough) but other than that the profiles are as get as it gets for employment/education history....read a 'recommendation' or two to help validate the self reported history and you have a trustworthy source. 

UPDATE - I just connected with the former colleague. I was listed as a 'reference'. The third party company that called me only did an employment verification. Shame on them.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My wife has started a business with a partner and is preparing to start selling a new line of 'schooling breeches' (tights worn by woman who ride horses). I offered to assist with some of the back-end systems figuring we'd be up and running on Amazon in a couple of hours. In fact, the wireframe of the site is up and running Powered by Amazon WebStore; it only took a couple of hours to setup. While not cheap (39.99$ per month PLUS the commissions) it is an amazing offering - website design wizard, category management, inventory, check-out processing via Amazon, reporting, the list of features goes on.

One big surprise however was the requirement for a UPC/EAN on items that a company wishes to list on Amazon. As of August 2008 Amazon now requires such codes. This requirement will certainly shut out a lot of eBay sellers from using Amazon as a channel. The cost of sales is simply too high for the enthusiast sellers of collectibles and spare-time entrepreneurs. 

Note to Amazon - announce this fact prior to sign-up.

Note to online sellers - it's call a Pro Merchant account for a reason.

It has been interesting to learn about the UPC aftermarket. Apparently, UPCs used to be sold rather than leased as they are today. Something smells fishy...(pun intended)

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Twitter has been plagued with performance problems. A few of the folks I follow on Twitter have been complaining on a daily basis about how frustrating the service has been to use.

I wish there there was a screenshot of the SMS I just recieved, it reads like this:

TechChrunch: Jesus twitter sucks

Tip: Reply with 'leave TechCrunch' to turn off updates from this person.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is hilarious.

Guy trying to pick up a woman via voice mail.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Rik Reppe rants about airlines and oil

James Ray Twittered this link to Rik Reppe's latest blog post about how the airline industry business model is in need of change in the face of rising oil prices.

"...maybe there's an airline out there with the stones to actually charge based on lbs. per customer (defined as the human's weight, the weight of checked baggage, the weight of all carry on items)...but I doubt it. So...who's more expensive for you to carry...a 120lb woman with a 50lb checked suitcase and 15lbs of carry on crud? Or a 200lb guy with a 25lb carry-on and 7lb briefcase? Do the math. So...who would you market to? Think about it..."

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

This morning I was reviewing Circos' web analytics when I noticed an interesting referring URL linking to our site. The link was from Roper's Ribs in St. Louis.  The folks at Roper's added a Circos link to their 'press and awards' section. Roper's is a top result on Circos for those looking for the best BBQ in St. Louis. Congratulations Roper's on your 'A' rating!

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was on Virgin America's website earlier today and remember that I wanted to pitch them a marketing campaign for in-flight speed dating when I came across this and had to laugh.

Oh yeah, check out www.circos.com to find a hotel in one of their 7 destinations.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Who know the UK was the world's leader in FUNKY hotels. I thought for certain New York's Pod Hotel would top this list but the people have spoken. Check it out.

Circos.com now has hotels from 29,000 cities around the world in search index.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's all about the wine list...

It isn't hard to find decent food in Orlando but decent wine that's a different story.  Here's a list of the top restaurants as rated by their customers' comments regarding the wine.

Have fun at Sapphire 2008.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bistro Elan

has stood the test of time. We used to frequent the bistro weekly about 8 years ago now we get there once every couple of months (2 kids now). There is always something interesting on the menu that even my less carnivorous wife finds appealing. A new (ok it's been a couple of years) pastry chef has brought in more elaborate items to the desert menu. The wine list is diverse and reasonable. You can not go wrong by letting Patrick select a wine to match your meal.

Check out what others across the Internet are saying about Bistro Elan here or enter your favorite restaurant here to view its report card.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pasta Pasta in San Mateo, CA turns my kitchen into my new favorite Italian restaurant

My colleague, Morris, introduced me to a fantastic new establishment today, Pasta Pasta in San Mateo, CA. This place is in the same category as buying premade food from an upscale grocer only better. Pasta Pasta makes all the pasta on premises as well as the sauces. The cuts of pasta are pretty unique but what stole the show for me were the meatballs and cream of tomato vodka sauce. The meatballs were perfect (OK, I like them a bit larger but I could order the exact number I wanted to eat) and the sauce had a bit of kick to it, just the way I like it - the perfect balance between too hot when you can't taste the food and not enough heat to make it interesting. Fantastic. It was so good I'll tell my friends that are visiting on business to stay at a hotel (find one using www.circos.com) with a kitchenette, drive to this place, take the food back to the hotel and cook it up. Awesome. The fresh pasta only takes a minute to cook and the sauce warms up while the water is boiling.  They also have a limited salad bar, some desert items, and wine.  My next carryout will be the lasagna. The other nice thing is the expense will sail through AP with out an issue.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Amazon Will Pick, Pack & Ship For Your Business

Amazon has once again created a game changing offering. This time it's their fulfillment web service. It works like this, you have your vendors drop ship to Amazon the merchandise your business is going to sell (through any channel you like), they will warehouse, pick, pack and ship the item to your customer when you send them an electronic fulfillment request. It will be interesting to hear from business owners how competitive the pricing is but my hunch is that Amazon has priced this cheaper than most mid-sized businesses can manage this process in-house.

This is just an other reason I am long Amazon. They are morphing into a business process outsourcing provider which should over time smooth out the cyclical nature of their retail operations. Processes like IT infrastructure (computing power and storage), out-tasking (word-wide temporary labor force), payment processing, and now inventory/shipping. It will be interesting to see what types of companies use this latest service. All these services leave me wondering how long it will be before Amazon starts offering credit lines and other financial services.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mar. 10 is Mario day

My colleague Morris asked me if I had wished our colleague Mario "Happy Mario Day". He pointed out that Mar10 is known by people named Mario as Mario Day. Who knew? 

Started me thinking about other such 'holidays' -   there is Janu5, Jul1 and of course people named April, May, June, and even August have there holi-months.

There must be others....

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A lesson for marketers in what not to do with an email list

My friend (at least in the Facebook sense of the word) Albert Lai lashes out after Cisco spams him. Check this out; expert below.

"....
We hope you excuse this mass mailing. Some of you getting this email specifically have told us that you don't want email from tribe.net and we generally don't send out emails to the entire userbase...."

Cisco, that's not cool.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bad Profits at THRM

Thermage has been one big investment disappointment for me. The recent weakness is tempting me to average down (again) but the reason I'm not pulling the plug is that the company has not fixed (IMHO) it's single biggest problem - a negative net promoter score. 

At first, second and even third analysis this company looks like a sound investment. What's undermining their performance and outlook is all of the negative reviews from patients who have had the procedure (2-3K$) and didn't seen any results.  I'm not certain what the right answer is to fixing their negative NPS.  Something more needs to be done to improve the efficacy of Thermage skin tightening procedures AND the company needs to do something for the patients that have had the procedure and didn't see results e.g. a guarantee, a credit for a procedure on a different body part, 'something' needs to be done to turn the tide from negative to positive.

If anybody at Satmetrix is reading this please call Steven Fanning at Thermage!!!

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Misleading Unemployment Calculations

Jeff Nolan, while rightfully calling out a 'stupid' poll, today stated that the economy has enough jobs.  I am a bit more pessimistic regarding 'jobs' and the current state of the US economy. The BLS has unemployment at 5% which while slightly above the target range Jeff refers to as 'full employment' (call me a hair splitter).  This is a concern in my mind as I believe the unemployment rate is under misstated during high economic growth cycles and sudden contractions.

My thesis goes like this: if during times of prosperity more people decide to try their hand as Free Agents and during times of uncertainty some Free Agents seek the security of permanent employment... the question becomes, does the flow in and out of Free Agent Nation skew the rate calculation? I think it does by up to about a percentage point each way. So while the calculation isn't 'dreadfully' wrong it may be a bit misleading. 6% unemployment would be something to take action on...

What to do about the contracting economy is a longer discussion.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

By when wont I achieve nothing?

I ran into this quote the other day on a marketing industry website: 

"Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that's one of the hardest things to do because you don't always know exactly where you're going, and you shouldn't."  --George Lucas  Film writer, director, producer 

The quote hits home for me as I'm a believer in setting realistic goals that have a by when clause.  Can a business define its trades-offs and stay focused if it doesn't know where it is going?

No it can't. But knowing where you are going and knowing 'exactly where' you are going are very different things.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Williams Sonoma Mail Order Croissants

My wife stumbled onto these frozen treats during her quest for a Parisian style croissant. While a box is pricey it's cheaper than a plane ticket from SFO to CDG. Other than these two minor inconveniences these croissants are magnificent. 1) They need to defrost about 8 hours. Not that big of an issue as long as you remember the night before to set them on the cooking tray. 2) The egg wash- well it requires that you have an egg - something we don't always have in the house.

They are worth the 40$ and the shipping cost for the box of 15.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

That's fast!

This caught my eye today while checking out the Orglex Venture Capital Hub:

Now that's impressive - buzz about VCs before it even happens!

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Valuation Disparity

LookSmart recently came onto my radar screen while doing some research on Wikia more specifily their search engine. Wikia is said to have picked up some distressed assets from LookSmart. Having not heard that name for a number of years it caused me to dust of some cobwebs and dive in...

After selling FindArticles to CNet for ~20$M LOOK is planning to use the proceeds to buy back shares. Shares that are trading at a measely 1.5X Sales. On the surface this seems way too cheap. When you consider that AdBrite just raised 23$M on what had to be near 100$M valuation - and while not public company I am led to believe AdBrite does about 10$M in revenue annually. (Fact check? Anybody out there know?)  Anyway, LOOK looks too cheap. I'll need to dive deeper on this one as operational execution is the biggest concern but LOOK is a new addition to my 'watch list'.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Two of my favs

Santa brought my kids Doodle-Track Cars this year. The motorized car (think hot wheels) follows a track that you (or your kids) draw on a piece of paper. It's like having a train-set with infinite pieces of track.  I may like this more than my kids although we did spend at least 30 mins playing with this together before they lost interest. My wife says I 'hogged' it. For 10$ (included batteries and track marker) I'm thinking about getting a few more and having my friends over for race nite.

On a different note, today I opened 6 e-cards that rolled in over the past few days. One of the cards was of my friends having been 'elf'd', 4 were pretty standard greetings with holiday music and the last displayed the following:

It looks like some IT guy somewhere is working today.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

When Will Technorati Figure It Out?

This blog has a new name as of today but I can't seem to change it on Technorati (can change description but not title). It will be interesting to see if the name change trickles into Technorati automatically. A quick scan for an answer on appropriately named Yahoo Answers  didn't reveal anything useful.

I've decided to ditch Ask.com two and a half months after 'trying' to live without Google for a month.  My new fav search engine is Yahoo Answers since is dumps to general web search if it can't find an answer from the history of answers given by the unwashed masses. The nice thing about Yanswers is that it allows me to post the question to the masses if I can't find an answer. Time will tell if Yanswers can hold my attention.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apparently I Worked For Microsoft

Check out this plaxo pulse update in the screen shot below. It seems that plaxo is not deciphering authors of blog postings. The post below is from my colleague Morris but anybody in my plaxo network would think it's from me. Here's what happened or at least what I think happened: We have a corporate blog circos.wordpress.com, the entire team is able to post to that blog. My plaxo account has the corporate blog (which I am an author) as well as my personal blog (the one you are reading now) as public and available to be shared via the plaxo pulse. It seems whenever the corporate blog is updated the RSS gets feed into plaxo and they attribute the postings to me (or at least omit the byline)  hmmm why isn't plaxo isn't picking up the bylines? It really does look as if I wrote this post. Note to self and team - manually enter bylines into every post

- kmm

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From Great to Miserable to OK, maybe I'll go back

Two weeks ago my wife dragged me into Neiman Marcus as she was tired of seeing my X year old clothes (cough).  Unfortunately, we went in to the store with the kids just before lunch. Needless to say this shopping trip was short. I did manage to try on a new sport coat and have it marked up for alterations. The service was great. The salesman gave me his card/number, took mine and said he would call when the jacket was ready (the next Tuesday) and that he would put some shirts and pants aside that he thought I might like (in my size which he measured). Cool I thought. Personal shopper.

Tuesday roles around and I get a call as promised. We set a time to meet on Thursday. Thursday roles around and I have a meeting with a VC and blow off my shopping appointment. The sales rep calls and asks to reschedule. I tell him 'I might be in on Saturday.' I didn't make it into the store and didn't feel the need to call. He calls me again and asks when I'm going to come into the store.  I blow off the return call and figure I'll stop in and get the jacket the following week during lunch and since that time my wife picked out a ton of new clothes for me from Richard's in Menlo Park. No need to spend any cycles in NM.

Faster forward an other week (today)- As we are driving past the mall I make a detour telling my wife, kids, mother-in-law and her caregiver that I'll be right back I want to run in and pick up my jacket. 20 mins later I return to the car empty handed - they can't find my jacket - the one I paid for and had tailored. I'm frustrated but then again I'm not in the car with whining kids so life isn't too bad. *smiles  The sales rep that was on me like a dog on a bone is no where to be found. His colleagues called him, no answer. I'm getting antsy and visibly frustrated. They say their sorry, take my number, and promise to call with more info as soon as they have it.

10 minutes later I get a call from the original sales rep. He tells me "You were supposed to call me." I'm about to blow a gasket but my daughter is screaming in the background because she wants to drive on the highway on the way home ("I DON'T LIKE THIS WAY!" over and over at the top of her lungs.). I tell him this isn't a good time for me, he asks that I call him when I am free.  5 minutes later I get a call from a woman, presumably the manager indicating she heard of my situation and asked if she could have the jacket delivered to my home. Ahh satisfaction. she gave me a 30 minute delivery window which they made!

Offering and making this delivery was the only thing NM could possibly do to get me back into the store X years from now when I'm forced to buy new clothes.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (6)

Say it ain't so.

How crazy is this?

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 08:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (5)

Not Fun

This evening a so called moderate 5.6 mag earthquake hit the area. It lasted about 20 seconds and seamed to come in two waves. This was my first experience with a quake- it was not pleasant. Thankfully nothing fell/broke and the power stayed on.  The kids were sleeping but my daughter woke up stating she felt her bed shaking.  She may be spending the night in our bed....

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the better scams

I received this email the other day...

 and was curious as the timing was nearly correct. I had just sent in my tax return for the Oct. 15th extension deadline and received a legitimate refund. My first thought was that the IRS discovered a mistake and was refunding me further (forever the optimist, I am). Upon clicking the link in the email I was brought to this site:

A pretty good fake! The URL is a dead give away but all the other links on the site are pointing back to the IRS site.

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It sounds offensive

Amazon's Mechanical Turk is destined to be a game changer in the out tasking space. The unfortunate thing is its name. It sounds offensive to me and makes me wonder if Turkish people are also offended or if there is some sense of national pride.

From MetaFilter: 

"In 1769, Hungarian nobleman Wolfgang von Kempelen astonished Europe by building a mechanical chess-playing automaton that defeated nearly every opponent it faced. A life-sized wooden mannequin, adorned with a fur-trimmed robe and a turban, Kempelen’s "Turk" was seated behind a cabinet and toured Europe confounding such brilliant challengers as Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte. Excuse me?"

Even with a cunning character behind the name I am not so certain I'd like it if say China created an offering called the Mechanical American as a play on the "convincing the UN something exists when it doesn't"  (e.g. WMDs).

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

...but not for fast service

I recently evaluated SnagIt CollageComplete and FastStone Capture for screen shots. FastStone got my business because the two features I wanted were simple to use - watermark our logo into the screen shot, and select a window within the screen for capturing.  SnagIt CollageComplete is a bit over kill for my needs and FastStone is cheaper. The free trial ran out today so I forked over ~20$ for a 'lifetime' license. Paypal processed the transaction (which was nice because my wallet is downstairs) no problems. Here's the rub, I have not yet received the registration key.  I've been refreshing my inbox for an hour now - nothing. I emailed support - nothing.

So much for finishing the deck for tomorrow's presentation.

UPDATE - The registration code was received an hour and a half later.  

UPDATE II - The kind folks at TechSmith (i.e. SnagIt, Betsy Weber specificly) read this post, sent me a license key to their product, sought feedback on how to improve SnagIt etc etc. So , determined to use SnagIt I launched what I called SnagIt in my original post only to find out that I actually used/evaluated CollageComplete! Yikes. Betsy must have thought I was a real cheap-skate when during and IM session last night I told her SnagIt was too expensive at 39$. For the record CollageComplete is 149$- a bit more than I was willing to invest. So, I will offer to return the SnagIt License Key to the folks at TechSmith and will definately purchase from them Camtasia Studio!

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 09:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Circos adviser gets busy

Found this post on UnderTheRadar's blog.  It seams like Boopsie is smok'n!

It's nice to see a Greg Carpenter an (IP contributor and now informal) adviser to Circos, once again with a hit on his hands.  Way to go Greg!

Posted by Kevin McDonald at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Score 1 for the underdog - well sorta

There is something about Google that while admirable is spooky. Yesterday I decided to try and go a month without using Google (except for checking our Google Analytics accounts). In its place I'll be taking Ask.com for a drive.

My first impression of Ask was positive. I liked the binoculars, the ease of bookmarking and saving search results (session based i.e. without logging in), and to my surprise - this search result:

While I like the fact that my blog entry on Thermage is the top result I expected something more like this: