Merry Christmas

What To Do When You Have Money

Face it. We would all love to be rich right? I know that I would. I also know what I would buy. I would have tons of land, large house, big truck, farm animals, go on vacations, have some great clothes but I would also try to do as much good as possible. Help out with my church, local families and charities. I was reading an article today on Fox News about David Spade. He of course now live in Los Angeles but he grew up in Pheonix. He was watching Fox News and saw that the Phoenix Police Department was outgunned by the Mexican drug cartels. He took it upon himself and donated $100,000 to them so they could purchase 50 AR-15's. Also in this article it was said that he donated $25,000 to the family of a fallen officer last year. Isn't that amazing? Now of course he did not call a press meeting or blab to the paper about this. He quietly called the PPD and made it happen. I love reading stories like this. Unlike most he is not hoarding what he has earned. He is using it to help others. Really cool.

Merry Christmas

Yes I said it.  MERRY CHRISTMAS! I am now typing this entry under my desk.  Ducking to make sure I do not get attacked by the nut job wackos that hate this phrase.  

Every year you hear about the far left wanting to cut Christmas out of the vocabulary during the holiday season.  I would like to put my spin on this.  I believe that Christmas the holiday and Christmas the religious celebration are two different things.  Now I understand that the reason for the holiday started with the religious aspect but it has become so commercialized I do not feel that one has anything to do with the other.  I would actually be ok with the holiday having a name change.  What do you think?  When I think of Christmas the holiday I think about the man in the red suit, decorations, decorated trees, cookies, gifts, shopping, spending time with family and friends, days off from work, movies, traditions and the list can go on and on.  When I think about Christmas the religious celebration I think about Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Bethlehem, the nativity scene and God sending his only son to save us.  Christmas the holiday really other than a shared name has nothing to do with  Christmas the religious celebration.  What I have a problem with are the individuals or groups that have an issue with businesses decorating or saying "Marry Christmas" because again they are not representing the birth of Jesus but rather Christmas the holiday.  Now I might get burned at the stake here but I do agree with the the left that the religious aspects (i.e. nativity scenesor a pentagram) should not be displayed on state or government property.  The reason I believe this is the only way to be fair is to allow all the various other religions to have a display for their religion and lets face it I am not for allowing 10 or more different "displays" on the front lawn of the local fire department.  Now I am not saying that town hall, government buildings or the White House can not decorate for Christmas because the decorations represent the holiday and to me are no different that those of Thanksgiving or Valentines Day.  Christmas the holiday is really just that.  Another holiday.  

I hope that you enjoy this holiday season.  Whether it is celebrating the holiday, celebrating the birth of Jesus or if you are like us and recognize that the two are separate and can appreciate both.   So again I say MERRY CHRISTMAS!  

Sorry My Content Has Been Sucking

When I first started this blog I was gun ho.  I was going to post lots and post often.  Then the holidays hit and that took my attention.  Other outside things have taken my attention as well.  Also I have lost my focus on where I want this blog to go.  Origanlly it was about my day to day, family stuff and maybe a comment here and there about the news, current events, Web 2.0 and gadgets/techy stuff.  Nowadays though more and more it has been more of Web 2.0 stuff, news updates and gadget talk with little to no of my personal views..  I feel that maybe I should start a seperate blogs but man that would be so much work.  I don't like the way this blog has just been a cluster lately.  Thinking about some changes so stay tuned.

Making Money By Tweeting

Want to make money by doing what you do already?  How you ask?  Simply tweeting.  Well thanks to Kid Tech Guru for turning me onto Magpie.  Sign up with Magpie and adjust your tweet to ad ratio.  On their front page you can see what you can potentially make.  Me for example right now according to my tweet to follower ratio I can make around $100 a month.  Not bad for doing what I already do.  Now the con is obviously that your followers can get annoyed that you are now posting ads and many say they would not follow someone that post ads but my opion is most every commercial site I visit has ads so why would I be annoyed as long as I am not inundated with ads I think its cool.  I will give it a run until I or my followers get annoyed.  Check it out.

Add Twitter To Gmail

Oh yeah.  You heard me right.  I sit at a desk all day so twittering is pretty easy but it is a tad annoying having to have Gmail and Twitter open.  If you are as big of of twitteraholic like me you have to have both of them open all day.  Well I just read on Lifehacker you can now add TwitterGadget to your sidebar on Gmail.  With the limited testing I have done so far I find it to work pretty well.  My only problem is the quickest refresh is 3 minutes.  You also have the option to manually update.  Give it a run and let me know what you think.

Reason 101 Why I Love Google Products

So Google just launched the ability to text from Google chat.  Oh yeah finally.  Just tested it on my Motorola Q9c and it worked perfectly.  Read more on the Official Gmail Blog.

Really Cool Aquariums

I follow a cool blog called Damn Cool Pics and as the title describes they have some really cool pictures.  Todays posting was neat because it shows how creative people can tweak the idea of the standard aquarium and make it really cool.  A conversation piece.  Check it out below.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 09, 2008

Creative Aquariums

How To Lose Business And Influence People

Disclaimer: First I would like to say this entry is not discounting Tatango.  It is simply about my bad experience with their leadership.

Last week I went on a search to find a web application that would allow me to send a group text message to all of my residents at one time.  A great way to remind them of a function, rent due or pest control will be coming by today.  I also wanted to be able to receive text messages from my residents.  Well I found a site called Tatango.  I first was excited but soon found that it only supported out going and no incoming text messages.  I sent an email to their support email address asking for my account to be deleted.  The next day I got a response from Derek Johnson, Tatango's Founder & CEO asking why I would like my account deleted.  I stated that it did not fit my needs and then listed my needs.  I also added if I was wrong please let me know.  Well throughout the day I wanted to learn more about Tatango.  I found out that Derek was a 23 year old college drop out and that Tatango was the largest business of it's type.  I was really impressed with Derek that day. To start a company at such a young age and be successful at it was very impressive.  The more I read I learned about how they strive for the best customer service and how they utilize every kind of social media out there.  While reading Derek's blog I saw a contest to win and Ipod Nano.  All you had to do was comment with a great business tip.  I figured I would give it a shot.  Originally the contest was to end on or around 12/26 and Derek was going to pick a winner.  Well instead he changed it and wanted his readers to vote on the best comment.  He set up a poll on his blog and Fri-Sun people were to vote and in his words "Make Your Vote Heard."  I alerted my friend on Myspace, Facebook,  Twitter, Carolina Shooters Forum and EverythingQ.  I also entered a blog entry here on my personal blog and asked them all to vote and vote often.  I set up an account with TweetLater so that my status on Twitter and Facebook would be updated every two hours reminding people to vote.  I am very competitive and so I pushed the crap out of this.  Well on day two I noticed that another contestants votes were exploding.  I pushed my friends at EverythingQ to start voting more.  We found that you were only able to vote once per IP address.  After reading the rules, which simply were to vote, some of us started using an anonymizer.  There was no automation.  Each vote was individually entered by hand making each vote unique.  As we voted the only other contestant that was close his votes went up.  We assumed (and later confirmed) that he was using an anonymizer as well.  After an all day push on Sunday voting ended with the other contestant having 1149 votes and me over 3000.  Clearly I was the winner.  Soon after I get a message from Derek saying that according to the host of the poll we were using an automatic anonymizer.  I corrected him and said that we were not.  Each vote was entered by hand.  I chatted with the other contestant and he said he had used and anonymizer as well.  Me and my friends waited all night Sunday and all day Monday for the announcement.  Many people displaying their disgust with the way the contest had been handled.

Finally on 12/02 Derek posted a video on his blog announcing the winner.  And honestly congrats to her.  Not only was I shocked that I lost but was more shocked over a statement in his video.   He said that the contest proved that it is not always the best idea that wins in this Web 2.0 world but it is who can utilize Web 2.0 and social media.  Well let me remind you how I achieved all the votes I did.  I alerted my friend on Myspace, Facebook,  Twitter, Carolina Shooters Forum, EverythingQ and my blog.  I asked them all to vote and vote often.  I set up an account with TweetLater so that my status on Twitter and Facebook would be updated every two hours reminding people to vote.  I think that is the definition of utilizing social media.  

Well what really sucks for Tatango is now I am not going to use their product.  No I am not being a sore loser.  In business terms I am simply firing a vendor that I feel does not live up to their word.  Nothing against their product.  I am sure it is great.  But what they did was bad business.  You might say "Well no big deal.  You are just one person."  Keep reading.  What has hurt them now is I was going to utilize their product among 194 residents.  Many of which could of used Tatango with their business or groups.  Wow that's a hit.  Now again utilizing social media this blog will be posted on Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Carolina Shooters Forum and EverythingQ.  On Twitter I have 41 followers, Myspace I have 94 friends, on Facebook I have 135 friends, Carolina Shooters Forum has 2300 members and on EverythingQ there are over 97,000 members.  And then there is that great advertising tool called word of mouth.  There are countless people I have talked with about my experience.  Also there are the readers of my blog.  This blog entry is also going to be sent over to Consumerist and we will have to wait and see if they will post it there but according to www.quantcast.com, "Consumerist.com is a top 5,000 site that reaches over 1.3 million monthly people "  Ouch.  So all told that is over 1.4 million perspective customers that now have that little seed of doubt planted.  Again I would like to say that I have had not an issue with Tatango but with their leadership. 

Thanks for reading.