Month: May 2008

Working on Being Less of a Procrastinator

Raise you’re hand if you’re a procrastinator. What’s that? You’ll do it later? Yeah, exactly. I used to think that I wasn’t a serious procrastinator, but at the end of a given day when I can’t shut down Firefox on two computers because I have six different site posts started by not finished…I can’t argue with that. One look at my overflowing desk of review items also confirms that I say yes to things but have a hard time meeting my obligation to review them in a timely fashion. Those two particular problems are things I’m constantly working on, but I also have a different type of procrastination issue: not wanting to do tasks that are particularly onerous, whether for reasons of time-consumption or reasons of pain-in-the-butt-ness. Yesterday morning I decided to tackle a couple of the issues that had been sticking in my side for many months…

Selling my time-share in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, to my company: Thoughts Media Inc. is going to use it for a one-week giveaway prize in an upcoming Pocket PC Thoughts contest. Selling it involves paperwork, and I hate paperwork, but yesterday I bit the bullet and started the process. And, in a stunning move, I had the paperwork faxed back to the timeshare company on the same day I received it (thanks to my wife). So, scratch one task I’ve been putting off for, oh, 14 months.

Getting a new microphone clip: this one was more me being stubborn than anything else, because I felt like “the system” beat me and I hate that. I bought a NeXXtech tie clip microphone (not exactly the version I have, but close) that connects to my Canon GL2 camera for use in doing video reviews. When I bought it, the first day I tried to insert the microphone into the clip, the one side of the clamp on the clip snapped off. I was really gentle inserting the microphone, so I was completely baffled. A few weeks later I went back to The Source (formerly known as Radio Shack) and exchanged it – the guy popped open the other package they had in the store and gave me the clip from that one. I went home, gently inserted the microphone into the clip again…and it snapped. I was so incredibly angry that I shoved the whole thing into a corner and ignored it for a few months. I then decided to call NeXXtech support, and they informed me that a new clip would cost $23 CAD including shipping. WHAT?!? Keep in mind the whole microphone is only worth $60, and the part in question probably cost them 10 cents to make.

I declined being ripped off and they told me that the local Source stores provided warranty support so I should go back there. I went back to The Source store I bought it from to see if I could find some sort of satisfaction – I was convinced NeXXtech had released defective clips. The sales drone listened to me explain the problem, went and got a new package from the shelf, and guess what? It had my broken clip in it from months ago. He said he could order one in, but it would take about a month. I declined and went to another Source store, and they didn’t have the product in stock either. The manager on duty listened to me explain my problem, and he said he’d order in the part for me – and was vague on whether or not I’d be charged. I agreed, at this point willing to pay whatever it cost to get the stupid situation resolved, and he said he’d call me when the clip came in. That was back in February. So yesterday, after three months of waiting for the store to call me, I decided to call NeXXtech support and pay the $23. The money isn’t the issue, it’s the fact that I felt like the system beat me. But you know what I’m doing to do? I’m going to take that fresh clip into the Source store, and ask one of the employees (hopefully the manager) to insert the microphone into it for me. That way, if they break it, I’ll hopefully have some recourse. This goes without saying, but the NeXXtech tie clip microphone is a product best avoided.

Replaced a Headlight in my Car: Relatively minor, but it’s awkward and frustrating replacing the headlights on my Mazda Protege 5. I have a long history of headline problems with this car, so again I felt a high level of frustration that I was having to replace it at all (I lose a headlight every 4-6 months). But I gritted my teeth popped the hood, and spent a good 20 minutes fighting with the clamp trying to get it inserted and secured. Turned on the power, tested it – it worked! But my other headlight, which was working perfectly an hour earlier, wasn’t working. @*#&@#&(@*#&(@#(@. I’m convinced there’s an electrical problem with my car, but the only way Mazda will fix it is if I go back to them, let them install two factory headlights, and then I can’t touch it, and we see what happens. This morning I’m booking an appointment with them to get that done – I’m sick of being Mr. One Headlight.

Editing Japan Photos: Getting back from Japan meant returning with over 2000 photos in RAW format, and coming back to thousands of email messages and a pile of work. I got photos from days zero through five processed while I was in Japan, then I hit a wall with over 800 photos from Himeji Castle and couldn’t get through them while on vacation. Then the thought of having to deal with so many photos really put me off dealing with it – Captain Procrastination flies again – so I ignored it for more than a month. Earlier this week I finally blasted my way through them, publishing our day six photos earlier this week. Yesterday, on a roll, I finished our day seven photos as well (I just need to add the comments, then I can publish them). Chaaarge!!!

Now if only I could get through that big pile of technology…I’m going to try and do a couple of unboxing videos today. Here I go!

Now Here’s Some Serious Speed…Downloading

That’s the speed I saw yesterday morning when I did a speed test – 29.3 Mbps? That’s some fast downloading – too bad I never see anything close to that from any source, though when I see 1.5 to 2 MB/s downloads I certainly don’t complain. But look at that pathetic upload speed – not even 1 Mbps! That’s the thing I complain about to Shaw once every few months: I want more upstream bandwidth. When I’m uploading photos and videos, 1 Mbps just isn’t fast enough. And what’s ironic is that I’ve felt like my Internet connection has been a bit sluggish this week… 😉

Japan 2008: Day Six

That’s right, here I am posting photos from a trip I’ve been back from for over well over a month (pushing two). I fell into the same trap as Hawaii 2006: I took so many photos that editing them is a major undertaking, something I have trouble making time for when I’m not on vacation. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a psychological element to it as well – I psyche myself out every time I sit down to edit them because it’s such a big undertaking. Having them grouped by day certainly helps though – if they were in one giant blob it would be much harder to tackle. At any rate, day six photos are now published on my photo site.

True Love is That Which Sacrifices

“Dick and Rick Hoyt – When Rick Hoyt was about to be born, the umbilical cord got wrapped around his neck, depriving his soon-to-be-born body of oxygen. Initially, doctors told the new parents their son was a vegetable, with no higher brain function. But the parents didn’t believe it; they saw signs of life and intelligence in their son. Sure enough, the doctor’s discovered they were wrong. Rick did have higher brain function. However, the lack of oxygen did deprive Rick of the ability to control his muscles, leaving him essentially a quadrapalegic.

The story of Team Hoyt began when Rick found out about a fundraiser for a friend. The fundraiser involved running, and wheelchair-bound Rick told his Dad he wanted to participate so he could help his friend. So father Dick Hoyt ran with his son, rolling him around the track, raising money for Rick’s friend. After the run, Rick told his Dad that running made him feel free for the first time. Inspired by his son’s statement, Dick took Rick running, swimming, bicycling, climbing–anything he wanted to do, Dick found a way to share it with his son and help him feel free. It’s an amazing story of a father and son’s courage, determination, and love.” – Source

Talk about humbling. I was grumpy today for various reasons, but watching this video and reading about this father/son team (thanks for the reminder Shane!) brought me back to reality – you can’t help but be inspired reading about this father/son duo. Amazing stuff.

Amazon AdSense Ads

How long has Amazon been running sponsored links? I was looking at The Wreckers live album, and saw this in the listing:

Clicking on the ‘What is this?” link gives the following text:

SPONSORED LINKS
Sponsored Links are advertisements that Amazon.ca provides for you. We receive Sponsored Links from Google’s AdWords service. When you click on a Sponsored Link, we get revenue. The selection of Sponsored Links that are displayed is based on keywords. For example, if you search for “Bruce Springsteen” or view pages about Bruce Springsteen, the Sponsored Links may point to sites that sell tickets to his concerts or provide information about him. Sponsored Links are always clearly labelled.

Generating additional revenue from Sponsored Links allows us to offer you lower prices–something we are dedicated to doing in every way we can.

Really Amazon? You’re going to drop your prices because you’re making money from Google? You’re not just going to roll the profits into your quarterly earnings to make your shareholders happy? Yeah. That’s what I thought.

[I really do like Amazon though, I order a lot of stuff from them – pretty much every new book, DVD, and CD I buy comes from Amazon.ca…and I’d buy a lot more from them if Amazon Canada offered MP3s, electronics, etc.]

Sloppy PR People Tick Me Off

The bulk of my “day job” consists of me filtering information from public relations/marketing people: they flog their products at me, I decide if it’s worth writing about, and if it is I share it with my community on one (or more) of my Web sites. What’s extremely frustrating is when I decide I’m going to write about something, and the PR person/company in question makes that hard for me. They typically do one of these bone-headed things:

  • They send me a press release, but they haven’t gotten around to publishing the press release online anywhere, so there’s nothing for me to link to. Links – you know, the foundation of the whole Internet? Yeah, they matter. I’m not going to spend 30 minutes re-writing your whole damn press release – I’m not a journalist, and I don’t have time for it. I hear excuse after excuse from PR people: “Oh, yeah, we haven’t gotten around to putting the press release online.”
  • The don’t send me an image of the product. The Web is a visual medium, and people like pictures. I can either email the PR person back and wait several hours (or days) for them to get back to me with the photo, or I can hunt around the company Web site looking for an image – and more often than not, I can’t find anything more than a little 100 x 100 pixel image. Even companies that are smart enough to have dedicated online press rooms will often not have them updated with the latest products. Why the hell have an online press room unless it has absolutely everything that an online writer is looking for?
  • They send me their press release as a 2 MB Word file with large embedded graphics. Don’t waste my time. They often think that embedding graphics in a Word document is the same thing as providing a blogger/journalist with the images they need. It’s not.

So the shot list for all you PR People out there: email me the press release in the email message, have the press release online for me to link to, include me a reasonable size Web-ready image (1000 x 1000 pixels maximum, JPEG format), and if I ask you a question, please try to get back to me as quick as you can…though hopefully if you give me the things I need, I won’t have any questions for you – other than “So when can I review this?”.

Oh, and lest anyone think I’m bashing PR people, I’m not – my bachelor’s degree is in PR. I know the game and how it’s supposed to be played, so it ticks me off when my “peers” don’t do what they’re supposed to.

I Saw Iron Man Tonight…

The. Best. Superhero. Movie. Ever.

(more later, gotta’ pack for Seattle, heading to Mobius 2008)

Win a $5000 Laptop: Here’s How…

If for some odd reason you only read this blog, and don’t follow my “real” sites, you might not have heard about this: on Saturday night I launched my $5000 HP laptop giveaway contest ($5500 once you factor in the bundled software). Go check out this post on Digital Home Thoughts for all the details.

Spammer Using This Domain…Again!

It’s an ugly way to start my week: opening up my personal email account and seeing 300+ messages…290 of which are spam bounce-backs from some jackass spammer using my personal domain as a reply-to address. And it just happened a couple of weeks ago! Hopefully it will be as short-lived this time as it was then. And I really hope all the alpha-geeks in the world would get together and solve the problem of email domain-hijacking once and for all (and spam for that matter).

Sites Back Up…Again

Ok, we’re back up and ready to rock – although things are a bit slow at the moment because we’re copying over large chunks of data. I’ll be posting the Dragon contest later today as planned – but it won’t be until the late afternoon/early evening. Watch Digital Home Thoughtsmebeli for it!