Down or Not - genius

By now, you might have an idea that I'm something of an inveterate surfer (web not water). As far as I'm concerned, when a site goes down, it qualifies as a natural disaster.

Of course, when a site goes down — and I'm talking an ordinary, every day kinda site — my first thought is that it's my fault. There must be something wrong with my browser, my network, my internet connection. Which does in fact turn out to be the case... occasionally. More often, shockingly, the problem has nothing to do with me (yeah, yeah, I know... there's a larger life lesson in there).

Downed sites were really a cause of angst and frustration... until I discovered downornot.com (good lord, I sound like an infomercial... "my acne was so bad, I was embarrassed to go outside, until I discovered Boa Balm"). Rest assured, I have not been paid, compensated or otherwise remunerated for this post.

Anyway, my point is, now instead of immediately going to "it's not you, it's me," I go to downornot.

Man, am I in trouble if downornot goes down.

How do I love thee, David Pogue?

I'm hoping if you use the internet, which you do almost by definition if you're reading this, you've been following — even peripherally — the whole SOPA/PIPA controversy. (By the way, doesn't the British pronunciation of that word — con-TRAH-versy — sound so much more elegant than ours?)
As with most controversies, the right and wrong on this one is not clear-cut. Not exactly. The goal of finding a way to better protect copyrights and reduce online piracy is in and of itself a pretty good idea. The way Congress has chosen to approach achieving that goal, however? Not so good.
David Pogue — my all-time favorite geek-gadget-tech-cool-things columnist — took a step back for a better look at the issue in yesterday's blog post, Put Down the Pitchforks on SOPA. I highly recommend you read it — only Pogue could so clearly break down the issue and the merits and flaws of the opposing positions, while still getting in zingers like these:

"In a perverse stroke of curiosity, I thought maybe I’d actually study these bills."

"For the record, I think the movie companies have approached the digital age with almost slack-jawed idiocy."

"In this case, the solution is to work on the language of the bills to rule out the sorts of abuses that the big Web sites fear. (And to fix the other minor point, which is that the bills won’t work....) "

AmericanCensorship.org did this great infographic on SOPA/PIPA (click on it so it gets big enough to actually read — it's pretty nifty).

And for those of you keeping track — I haven't forgotten I owe you the list of the other nine EGOT champs. Patience, grasshopper.

You. In 160 characters or less.

Maundering around the web as I am wont to do, I happened upon these "best" Twitter bios. I had to share.


@DianaSilvaSays — I love my husband, my dogs, all things marketing, three-day weekends, high-heels, reading, running, knitting, sushi, wine, long walks on the beach…wait, what?

@badbanana — Sometimes I just want to give it all up and become a handsome billionaire.

@smuttysteff — I tweet hard, fast, & often. I’m opinionated & swear CONSTANTLY. Don’t like it? Don’t follow. Otherwise: You’ll take it & like it.

@katefettie — You know the burnt-out college student in front of you in line at Target who was intermittently chuckling to herself? Nice to meet you, too.

@ZacharyColbert — S P E C T A C U L A R V E R N A C U L A R

@bgibbs73 — Currently working towards an MBA with an emphasis in fantasy football.

@TheBloggess — I have friends in spite of myself.

@cubedweller — Brand igniter, angel investor, public speaker, former Virgin.

@jpundyk — Nice guys finish lunch.

@cryjack — Fight stupidization.

@HotAmishChick — Will show ankle for five minutes of wireless

@JeffCThorson — I recently gave up Warcraft so my productivity, and drinking, have increased dramatically.

@wanderingbiker — Unemployed computer guy takes off on his motorcycle seeking fame, fortune and adventure.

@howardgr — A man of mystery and power, whose power is exceeded only by his mystery.

@ohyesshecan — social strategy & implementation. will work for shoes.

@radmul — If I could sum up my life in one line I would die of embarrassment

@nancyfalls — I’m @JasonFalls’s wife. I am not on Twitter. Go do something useful.

@QueenRania — A mum and a wife with a really cool day job…

@Glinner — I apologise in advance.

@oilman — Recommended by 4 out of 5 people that recommend things.

@TheMadHat — Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with, and then the different branches of arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

@AllisonBatof — Naturally and artificially flavoured

@RebeccaWoodcock — I am a sample size of one, not statistically significant, nor representative.

@KRCraft — An ounce of perception – a pound of obscure.

@EzraButler — I’m the illegitimate love-child of Strategy and Creativity. Now neither parent admits to having me…

@cshirky — Bald. Unreliable. Easily distracte


Culled from The 20 all-time funniest bios (parts 1&2) and 20 Twitter Bios that Demand Attention. Nicely done.

Oh, mine?

@AnswerG — Wait. I'm still thinking.

I guess we're not in Kansas anymore

I'm a fan of Google, generally speaking. I remember, believe it or not, the first day my boss at Citigroup came into my office and told me about this new search engine I just had to try. Anyone remember Alta Vista or Lycos? Ya, I'm old.

(Think about that - I'm aging myself by remembering the good old days on the Internet. Not before there was the Internet, just those early, glory days, like remembering the wild west or something. Yeesh.)

In those days, the good ol' days, Google was cool. It was different (a blank page with no images? searches returned before you can blink? what?) and the company seemed different too. Part of the "air hockey instead of conference rooms," "free Coke and Oreos for programmers," kind of thing.

And even when it began to grow up, it seemed to stay cool. Eric Schmidt of Novell and Sun Microsystems? "Do no evil"? These guys weren't only geeky smart, they were business smart enough apparently, to admit their blank spaces and handle them. That's even cooler.

Sadly, however, I think I see the stocking clad legs of Google-the-good poking limply out from under the house that corporate greed and arrogance built. This company was founded on the premise of simple and uncluttered. One column of search results. No images, no ads, no fluff. They even fought for 5 years to patent that very look (think I'm kidding? Not. "Google owns the idea of having a giant search box in the middle of the page, with two big buttons underneath and several small links nearby.")

Apparently, they patented it only to ditch it, cuz the Google home page aint so simple no more. It's a mess. Seriously. We've got top nav (Google apps, options and whatnot). We've got right side nav (sponsored links). And, most recently, we now have a left side nav too. Ugh. And no way to turn any of it off.

If that weren't bad enough, you've heard the buzz about Buzz? How Google is opting its users in willy-nilly? Adding insult to injury by, almost literally, adopting the Facebook model of making it close to impossible to turn it off? Not nice, guys. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

They might want to rethink that whole "do no evil" motto. Or remember it.

That's a word?

Chapter 1: Tess, a 15 year old from Queens, is grounded for five weeks by her parents for drinking and missing curfew.
Chapter 2: Tess starts a Facebook group, 1000 to get tess ungrounded, to rally support against the punishment.
Chapter 3: No go. Parents remain unmoved and Tess remains grounded.
Shocker.

So I know a lot of people are interested in this "unground Tess" story and movement because of what it represents technologically, socially and maybe even psychographically in today's world.

Sure, I can see that. Sort of. Though I have to wonder, what 15 year old really thinks getting a petition from her peers is going to sway her parents? But anyway, there it is, a human interest story about the intersection of adolescence, social networking, the generation gap, autonomy, blah, blah, blah.

Here's what I'm interested in. When did "groundation" become a word? The 15 year old used it to refer to her punishment... and the intrepid reporter promptly adopted it, sans quotes. This is how bad things start, folks. One person doesn't stand up for what's right, and the next thing you know, an entire generation of people are convinced that "groundation" is a real word. Like, that's so not right.

My dog ate my homework

It wasn't me, officer, I swear. My cat downloaded the porn.

No, I'm not kidding. Evidently they grow their felines different in Florida.

According to Keith Griffin, he never visited a single porn site. Not ever. His cat, on the other hand, would jump on the keyboard all the time, and wow!, all this porn would just, like, show up on his, like, monitor.

Don't say it. Don't say it.

My kind of peeps

Don't you just love it when you stumble onto a brainwave that's in sync with your own whacked out brainwave?
And when that brainwave is online, happily snarking about movies and TV and books and pop culture in general, well, it just sends my brainwaves into a veritable spasm of glee.
The A.V. Club is "an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion"—that's how they put it. So humble.
They have a movie review category "I Watched This on Purpose"—current entries include The DaVinci Code and Max Payne. I feel for you, man.
There's a column called The Hater. Seriously, it's her job to snark.

When you see the words "Cougar Town" smashed together like that in your line of vision, what image stumbles to the front of your mind? A zoo enclosure, maybe? A cartoon about a city run by anthropomorphized mountain lions? Knives, just many, many sharp knives? The Real Housewives Of New York City? Courtney Cox drunkenly slurring "you're hot as balls" at some guy at a club?

Well, if you said that last one, you work for ABC.

Ouch.

And how can you not like a TV reviewer who says "Jane Lynch is, of course, hilarious, though she only pops up here and there, like a secret comedic weapon"? Or a music review that uses Eminem and Oprah in the same sentence? What about a "Gateway to Geekery"? Expressly designed to "help those who want to be enthralled, but aren’t sure where to start" become obsessed with some pocket of pop culture. Because lord knows we need help there.

Inducting Brick, you know, that movie that recognizes that "the common denominator between crime fiction and high school is a mood of heightened emotion obscured by a thin veneer of cool," into the site's New Cult Canon of film seals the deal. Brick is up there with Repo Man ("straddling the borderline between the New Cult Canon and the Old, Alex Cox's grubby, shaggy-dog tale feels like the starting line for modern dark-comedy indies"). Any site that has the chops to recognize that is a site for me.

It isn't every day you find an e-kindred spirit.

Every time...

You know somebody's doing something right when you hang up the phone smiling.

Yeah, yeah, I know you're tired of hearing about this already, but I'm just not tired of talking about it. GoDaddy's customer service rocks. I had another question—not a problem, just a question about how to do something—and once again, they came through. I wasn't on hold. I spoke to a nice guy named Jason. And he figured out what the issue was in about 15 minutes. Smart kid.

Smart company.

Google + Feedburner = ??

Y'all know I think the world of Google. Usually.

But today something very weird and disturbing happened. And partly what was so weird and disturbing was the total lack of customer support, documentation or ANYTHING helpful.

I burn this fantabulous blog that you are reading using something called Feedburner, which many of my multitudinous readers unknowingly use to receive the posts via email. Fine. Lovely. All good. Or it was. What's my beef? you might be wondering. Well, evidently, some time in the not too distant past, Google gobbled up Feedburner and has been moving the feeds. And by some happenstance of working on someone else's blog, I stumbled across a notice that said if I hadn't moved my feed by February 28th, my blog and my readers would be, well, S-O-L. Hmpf.

Now you may also know, I can find just about anything on the web. But nowhere could I find any clear instructions for moving my feed. Just a lot of run-around. Am I going to have put Google into the customer service swill bucket with AT&T, Dell, and Microsoft? That would make me sad.

And I have this funny feeling that when I signed up for (yet another) google account because my old Feedburner account no longer works - with, mind you, no warning, all my loyal followers got the royal f-u. And I don't mean fine upbringing.

Well, I'll keep you posted if you need to re-subscribe. Feh.

McCain the tweet. I repeat.

Okay, so first off, "to tweet" is the verb form of the micro-blogging site Twitter. Secondly, McCain, who during his campaign appeared not to know what a Blackberry (the phone, not the fruit) was, has been tweeting since January. This time, I'm not actually calling our esteemed Senator a twit. This time.

On February 27th, the Senator tweeted his "TOP TEN PORKIEST PROJECTS in the Omnibus Spending bill the Congress is about to pass," (this according to his own tweet). Funny. Smart. Sad. The list was such a hit, he did it again. And again. Here is yesterday's top 10 list:

#10. $285,000 for the Discovery Center of Idaho in Boise, ID 8:06 AM Mar 3rd from web

#9. $209,000 to improve blueberry production and efficiency in GA 8:20 AM Mar 3rd from web

#8. $47,500 to remodel and expand a playground in Ottawa, IL 8:29 AM Mar 3rd from we

#7. $400,000 for copper wire theft prevention efforts 8:50 AM Mar 3rd from web

#6. $190,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, WY 9:23 AM Mar 3rd from web

#5. $819, 000 for catfish genetics research in Alabama 9:34 AM Mar 3rd from web

taking a break for policy lunch about 24 hours ago from web

#4. $380,000 for lighthouses in Maine about 22 hours ago from web

#3. $380,000 to revitalize downtown Aliceville, AL about 22 hours ago from web

#2. $900,000 for fish management - how does one manage a fish... about 21 hours ago from web

and the #1 project about 20 hours ago from web

#1. $951,500 for the Oregon Solar Highway about 20 hours ago from web

This last prompted a tweet-war(!) with Rep. Blumenauer, who tweeted late last night: "McCain wasnt familiar with a blackberry right? Hows he supposed to understand a solar highway utilizing right-of-way to generate solar power."

Please note that tweets are limited to 140 characters so grammar and punctuation are, ahem, not a consideration.

Psychotic, much?

I really can't add to this blog that a friend of mine shared with me. Okay, that's not exactly true... I can add to it—in fact think I might just send something in—heaven knows I've got a few samples that qualify...but let's just say, I can't add more to it descriptively.

Psychotic Letters from Men.

The Psychotic. The Pathetic. The Bizarre.
A Forum To Show Men Who The Real Bitch Is.

What more is there to say?

I'm sure there's an equal opportunity blogger out there representing the other side, and if I stumble upon it, I promise I'll share.

In the meantime, for all us girls out there who've had the completely inexplicable, "seriously?" email... this blog's for you.

Drunk dialing? You're on your own, but...

Drunk emailing—the scourge of the rejected, the disappointed, the hopeless, the feckless, the stupid-beyond-belief—has a new enemy in town. Mail Goggles.

That's right. Google is moving out of your back yard and into your id.

Turn on this Gmail feature and when you hit "send," nothing will happen unless and until you answer a few questions along the lines of 69-38=? and 2x5=?

According to the Official Gmail Blog (what? you didn't know?), "by default, Mail Goggles is only active late night on the weekend as that is the time you're most likely to need it. Once enabled, you can adjust when it's active in the General settings." So if you're a lunchtime reckless romeo, no worries.

As illustrated, this early version of Mail Goggles will not help us all. Here's hoping that in the next version, we'll not only be able to adjust the activity time, but also enter a list of target recipients—"are you sure you want to send that email to Jennifer, Brad?" Not to mention, your own bete noir subjects (I'm thinking they should partner up with the makers of Trivial Pursuit); you know, if you're not going to be stumped by "63-28," perhaps "what year was the Magna Carta signed?" might get you, or "who directed Chinatown?" will. If you watch a lot of Jeopardy, all I can say is—don't do it, man!

32 million is a big number

Evidently, this video (yes, it's a video-if you can't see it, click here) is the 28th most watched video on YouTube, with over 32 million views. That's a lot. On the other hand, that fact is a wikifact, so take it for what it's worth.

Still, the next time someone asks you, "what is that?" tell them "it's a magical liopleurodon." I dare you.

Google tip #347

This is one of those either you already know it and you're going to think I'm an idiot for pointing it out as one of the coolest things since mint chocolate chip ice cream—or—you don't know it, and therefore you're going to think I'm the coolest thing since mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Have you ever known that you saw something on a particular site, but when you use that site's search box, if it even has a search box, you can't find it? Or it's really slow? Or you get 10,000 results in some crazy mixed up Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler way that could be fascinating if you were interested in getting on the game show "How does their algorithm work?", but since you don't want to get on that game show, you're just frustrated you can't find what you're looking for?

I have another option. Use site specific search in Google. You know those chocolate chip cookies I keep raving about? Well, since for some reason I keep forgetting to save and print, or print and save, the recipe, I have to keep looking for it. You'd think going to the NYT website and searching for chocolate chip cookies would be the fastest way to do that. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. The fastest way to find that recipe is to Google the following: site:nytimes.com "chocolate chip cookie". And if you want to get around Rotten Tomatoes' new and, IMHO absolutely not, improved interface, typing site:rottentomatoes.com unforgiven (or swordfish, or charade, or whatever movie you happen to be interested in) is a much better way to go.

From me to you. Don't say I never gave you anything.

You've got a friend...

So you may (or may not) remember a certain rant of mine—that once on Facebook, it is well nigh impossible to get off.

In for a penny, in for a pound; I stuck with it and discovered it wasn't so bad. And then I was friended (when, oh when, did that become a verb—worse, when did I give in and start using it as one??) by someone I hadn't spoken to in over 10 years. That was nifty. And nice. And made me think maybe there was something to this online social networking thing after all.

And then I began to realize it was a good way to get in touch and stay in touch with people I never would—high school, college, work, yadda yadda yadda. Everything it says it is. Go figure.

But that all pales, PALES, in comparison to what happened to me on January 5th. On January 5, 2009, Carole King friended me. Some few of you will understand the magnitude of that. And for those who don't, chew on this: in 2007, my best friend and I flew to Tokyo for a day and a half—just to go to a Carole King concert (Mary J. Blige and Fergie performed too). Which was unbelievable—and which is not the concert pictured above, if you were wondering, I just thought that the happenstance of Carole and JT back together again was a picture worth, well, you know... this was actually a year later and, happily, in Los Angeles and was also un-flipping-believable. I should know—I went twice.

All I'm saying is, I have nothing bad to say about Facebook. Nuthin'.

Spilling the beans...

So yet again, I find that Starbucks is offering something great, and telling no one.

Can someone explain that to me?

And this one's a doozy. A double doozy in fact - maybe even a triple. As I've told you here, if you have and register a Starbucks card, you get complimentary drink upgrades (e.g., syrup and milk), and a free tall drink when you buy a pound of coffee. This all for taking your $20 bill, buying a piece of plastic , and then buying your drink. Well, okay, buying the piece of plastic, giving up your email address and then buying your drink. (Not to mention, in return, Starbucks guards that piece of plastic... Lost? Stolen? Dial 1-800-STARBUC and presto! Old card deactivated and a new one issued. Try doing that with a $20 bill.)

But if you really prefer soy to regular milk in your latte, and you're a S'bux regular, that's two bucks a week. That adds up. And if you're a grande vanilla soy latte kind of a person, well I don't know exacly, but I think that's at least another $2 a week - we're talking a pound of coffee you just basically got for free this month (plus that free tall drink).

But that's old news. It turns out that back in April, when these benefits started rolling out, Starbucks upgraded the card program to the Starbucks Card Rewards Program (I'm going to call it "SCRAP")--not that they told anyone about the name change, of course.

And the latest, or maybe the first (even I can't untangle the chronology--and honestly, I really do have better things to do today), benefit is two hours of free wifi access daily if you register a Starbucks card that you use or reload once every 30 days. That's pretty sweet. Starbucks partnered with AT&T, and when you register your card, you can sign up for an AT&T wifi account that gives you 2 hours a day free, regardless of who your wireless carrier is.

Oh, and did I mention that SCRAP holders also get unlimited free brewed coffee refills while they're in the store? How perfect does that sound? Mosey on in, get a cup of joe, log on, and drink on up--the refills are on Howie. Not that he'd tell you or anything.

All rumors, all the time

Information overload. Analysis paralysis. Data deluge. Celebrity saturation point.

Whatever.

Check out Truemors, "NPR (or CBC) for your eyes in the sense that it contains unusual breaking news, stories, and rumors like what you'd hear on NPR." At least that's how it describes itself.

I'd say, any site that reports on all of the following: ComCast's $125 million purchase of Daily Candy, Shia LaBoeuf's possible pinky amputation, Got Milk? Yes, in 6000 B.C. and Miss New Jersey's crabs, is the perfect site to check out before heading to any dinner party, bar or other event requiring small talk. Business, celebrity, science, and the just-plain-strange with one click--what more could you ask for?

Smile...

This is a video you definitely don't want to miss. Click here if you don't see it.
(If there's no link to watch in "higher quality" - click here)

I read about it in the New York Times... then I clicked on it, and started smiling about 15 seconds in, and kept smiling all the way through. Now that's something.

A hit, and a...

Oops. But they're allowed.

Amazon has been at the forefront of one-to-one marketing since the beginning of time, or at least since Al Gore invented the internet. Way back in the dark ages, when I think we still had to call up and give our credit card number over the phone (!), Amazon opened as (self-described) "Earth's Biggest Bookstore."

You know me - I never met a bookstore I didn't like - how could I resist that? I not only ordered a book from them, I also signed up for their "Eyes" service, which, as described in their 1997 SEC filing:

allow[ed] customers to specify an author, title or subject area and receive notice automatically when a new book is published that matches their criteria.

Sounds simple now, doesn't it? Ridiculously amateurish, almost. Almost. Back then, though - let me tell you, one small step for Bezos, one giant step for mankind. There wasn't anything like it - if your favorite author came out with a new book, no one was going to tell you - let alone if another author like your favorite author came out with a new book. Well, Amazon was going to tell you. Amazing.

We got used to that pretty darn quick - and one-to-one e-marketing became rapidly and significantly more sophisticated. You may not even think twice about the little lists you see as you shop online - "Customers who looked at this item also looked at... " or "Customers who bought this also bought these..." It's a whole lot of brain-power spinning somewhere trying to wring every last penny out of you - I mean make your shopping experience as fulfilling as possible.

Every now and then, though, those automated marketing algorithms throw out a suggestion that makes you remember that HAL is just IBM shifted one letter backward in the alphabet and Dave is actually human and still has the advantage (if only by a hair).

Such as... this morning in my inbox, I received an email from Amazon with "recommended add-ons for" the neoprene iPod nano armband I recently purchased. Want to guess the top recommended accessory? I'll give you a minute. Yup, you got it. An iPod nano. Ya think?

In this case, the sequel to the sequel is a good thing

Have you downloaded the new Firefox? Firefox 3.0? Not, by the way, Firefoxier, or The Return of Firefox, or Firefox: The Last Browser. Just Firefox 3.0, speaking for itself.

Anyway, it's pretty darn nifty. And, like Barbie, it comes with some awesome accessories - I mean add-ons.

If you're a Gmailer, you've got to install the Better Gmail 2 add-on immediately - it tiers your labels, highlights your messages, customizes your signatures, and just makes things better (hint: after you install it, to manage it, go to the Tools menu in Firefox, it should show up just above Options). If you're a multi-Gmailer (I confess), you absolutely, positively need to install Gmail Manager, which puts a groovy button in the lower right corner of your browser showing ALL your gmail accounts, including domain hosted accounts, where you can easily switch back and forth, see new message snippets - all without logging out and in, in and out. How happy am I?

Then there's this image/video thing called PicLens that somehow makes me feel like my PC is a Mac - don't ask me how, because I haven't the faintest. That's not its intent by the way - its intent is some truly fantastic way to browse and look at images and videos, but as I was browsing and watching, I all of a sudden felt like the cool Mac guy and not the poor PC dweeb on those commercials. Sigh. And if you happen to already have a Mac, I think it might explode from sheer bliss.

Oh, and to make sure you don't forget to do all this? Install Remember the Milk - a task manager that shows up in your gmail window (and/or on your G-calendar). You can categorize, organize, date, complete, postpone tasks - if you have a blackberry, for $25/yr, you can sync to your task list on your phone. How cool is that?

Stay tuned - I'll share more goodies as I find them. I'm nice that way.