inluminent

Mac OS X 10.2.2 is here.
Gotta love Apple!
[via Forwarding Address: OS X]

I don’t have any motivation to continue actually working for my current employer while I’m at work.
I won’t see any commissions off any sales I make between now and my last day as they only pay commissions once campaigns sold have run and the invoice is paid, which is fair, but makes me not care [...]

So, over the weekend my company’s static IP address changed. I didn’t know that until I needed to perform some work that’s critical to my job. No one told me, or told our outsourced developers.
We have an FTP policy that only allows in certain known IP addresses, so I couldn’t FTP at all, [...]

I’ve been using Microsoft Outlook 2000 for about 19 months now. I use it everyday as an email client and organizer at the office. I’d consider myself a ‘power-email’ user, in that I get 200+ emails on a daily basis. I get email from clients, prospective clients, vendors, friends, newsletter publishers and [...]

iBlog looks like a cool little OS X blogging app. I haven’t downloaded or tested it because I’m happy with the remote publishing interface of Moveable Type, but others might want to check it out. It looks like it does its own content management versus using the Blogger API or the MT API… [...]

This article on the Motely Fool: Ask the Headhunter: Don’t Get Fired Day 1 couldn’t be more timely.
The company gave you a great offer, a fine title, and a corner office with a window. What’s not to like? Get ready to gag.
Nick Corcodilos does a great job giving a few pieces of advice [...]

Frank ponders the idea of an Apple branded consumer level server that he’s dubbed the iServe. Interestlingly enough, this is just the sort of thing I’m looking for, but there are a few things I’d like to see that he didn’t think of. I’d like to see this little consumer level server also [...]

Wow! I love Austin.
We just got home, and I’ve got a lot of work to do to get our house ready to go on the market this week, but let me just say that we found the perfect house… actually a couple of them, but one is just perfect. It’s close to downtown [...]

The wife and I are house shopping in Austin this weekend… posts will be light if not non-existant. Look for a new website announcement on Monday.

Apple has held on to their, well, apple, though its gone from multi-color to one color, at least it’s still an apple. Microsoft on the other hand has just changed fonts.
Check out the 1981 corporate logos on these old ads.

I read this article in the print version of FastCompany a while back, but just re-read it online. the article is just a bunch of quick snippets of sales advice from some of the leaders in the field. I love this line:
… being in front of the customer doesn’t help if you do [...]

E&P Online: Newspaper Circulation Holds Steady
The prevailing thought would be that as online take a stronger and stronger foothold, newspapers will loose circulation. It’s not really happening that way, yet.
“The circulation trends look pretty close to flat, which is fine. It’s not terribly different from the long-term trend, which is one of a [...]

Sucks to hear that National Airlines is shutting down. For those that don’t know, I just quit a job at a travel related website, and one of my reasons for leaving is that the airlines out there are pretty much fucked. All of them are having a hard time, but I honestly don’t [...]

Adam Kalsey describes a way to defeat RedSherrif’s Java measurement applets in his latest blog entry. I think I first read about RedSherrif in a MarketingSherpa email newsletter and I was intrigued at the time (can’t remember if that’s really where I heard of them).
I’d still like to research them a little as their [...]

Quinn disects an internal EDS memo that was posted to InternalMemos.com quite well. Some choice comments:
[We plan to] “reduce our global work force by 3-4 percent over the next several quarters, beginning with 800 to 1,000 positions by year-end. These reductions will not impact service delivery to clients. Service excellence is the foundation of [...]

I hate to say it.
But, I told you so.

Charlie Buchwalter, VP, Client Analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings, came to Dallas last night to speak to the Dallas Fort Worth Interactive Marketing Association.
Charlie spoke about “The Changing Online Media Landscape” according to Nielsen. It was a great presentation. The following is my attempt at turning an hour long presentation into a quick readable paraphrased [...]

From Be Your Sales Team’s CIO:
Pick up the phone and call one of your salespeople today. Review customer data, competitive data, reports, and customer feedback. Figure out where you can help one other. Join her on a sales call. There’s nothing like meeting a customer in person to help you understand what your sales force [...]

I’ve read a lot about Search Engine Optimization, and I agree that SEO for specific time periods or events can be extremely useful for retailers looking to capitalize on opportunity purchases.
The article Last Minute SEO Christmas List, by Andy Beal, details a few good steps any retailer can take to improve their search [...]

If you’re in the North Texas area tonight and want to attend a meeting one of the best professional organizations I’ve ever been a part of, come to the DFWIMA meeting in Las Colinas. The topic is The Changing Online Media Landscape with Charlie Buchwalter, VP, Client Analytics, Nielsen NetRatings.
See you there and if [...]

Pretty Polly, the lingerie label that makes a virtue of targeting women rather than men, will tomorrow unveil what leading feminists describe as the most “sexist” advert yet.
Oh, they said ’sexist’ didn’t they?
I think they really meant ’sexiest.’

Over the past 18 months, I’ve amassed a large pile of pointless memos from our ‘corporate office’ (which is to say, this is something the owners of a small company didn’t have the balls to say themselves to their employees). Some of them are just down right hilarious like:
1. The memo from our VP [...]

See?
I’m not the only person saying that new iBooks are coming out soon in some form or fashion.

epodunk is a totally cool website for learning more about a community.
I just learned that I’ll be moving to the 16th largest city in the country that has a lot of great things to say about itself. Great website.
I really can’t wait to move.

Moving is stressful. Moving and starting a new job is stressful.
But, to me, it’s all good stress, in that the end result from this stressful situation will be very good.
The wife and I are suffering through this stressful situation. We’ve a lot that has to get done in a short period of time, and [...]

From Framing the Problem:
When 70 percent of development projects fail and 80 percent are over budget, there’s a problem.
Pretty good argument for wireframing from an ROI standpoint eh?

Sherpa’s latest case study gives us some insight into the ways that Briefing.com has increased its subscriber base. These 5 tactics worked for Breifing.com
Tactic #1: Converting Free Content Readers
Tactic #2: Branding (with a hotlink)
Tactic #3: Improving the home page
Tactic #4: Adding a site tour
Tactic #5: Educating Trials to Improve Paid Conversions
Read the article for [...]

Simon spent a bit of text pointing us to Joe Gillespie’s pieces on CSS. They all look like great reading, and I plan on reading them as soon as I get a chance.
Joe is a graphic designer with more than 20 years of experience and the fresh perspective he brings to CSS is inspiring [...]

Andy sure is singing the praises of Spamfire, a stand alone spam fighting software package that’s currently Mac-only (though there is a page that Windows people can use to request a Windows version). I think it looks pretty cool, but I’m actually quite happy with Mail’s standard Junk Mail Filter. For some reason, [...]

Great article: The Joys of Mod_Rewrite: A Beginner’s Guide. It’s perfect for me, the guy that knows very little about shit, but has the guts to break things to get them to work again.
Also see Dirk Brockhausen’s tutorials on mod_rewrite, part 2, part 3, and part 4.
[via PHPeveryWhere]

It looks as if the file-transfer utility, Interarchy has been officially updated to version 6.0. I’ve been beta testing this release for the past few months, and let me tell you, the betas never crashed, and have been more stable than Interarchy 5.0 since the day I started using the betas.
There are some great [...]

Rick takes a look at the recent news that says online ad revenue is up right now for the majority of publishers, but that online ad spending was down for the first half of the year.
Let me put it this way:
1. The majority of web publishers out there have seen increases in their revenues year [...]

Les needs to read Reforming Project Management more often…. I hope things work out for him.
It sucks to be in the position he’s in… I can empathize

I received a wish today from a colleague. I was touched, so I’m posting it here:
May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again, may God hold you [...]

It took all of 5 minutes… and only that long because the proxy server here at work slows FTP from my Mac down considerably… Too easy… I love Ben and Mena.
[Note: Now I just have to come up with something truly great for Kasia to link to, so I can test the trackback fixes...]

[shhh: that same little birdie told me today that those Powerbook updates might come as early as next week, and Apple should also be updating the iBook line as well. I'm pumped about it.]

Looks like if I upgrade to MT 2.5.1, my trackback URLs might work again… so I’ll do that this weekend and will need someone to test them (Kasia?)

I apologize for the lack up posts this week folks… I know that there are plenty of you out there looking for the latest in small business or marketing news, and I’m just not ‘cutting the mustard’ so to speak.
For that, I apologize.
Life’s thrown me a curveball, and I connected. The ball was driven [...]