Jun

2

Why trust strangers when you can trust your friends.

Filed Under Doing, Review, Social Media | Leave a Comment

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Why trust strangers when you can trust your friends. (image: 1zoi5jt)GigPark is a new / word-of-mouth referral 2.0 and Facebook (whew!)

What all that jargon means is that if you’re looking for a plumber, accountant, real estate agent or magician you have a convenient place where you can your friends (or their friends).

The concept is ; invite your friends to GigPark, and then start asking them questions. Your questions are immediately visible to your friends, and their friends.

Friends, not strangers. What makes GigPark different is that you have a with the making recommendations - they are your friends or the friends of your friends, not weirdo strangers who may be plugging their own businesses.

When I signed up, one of the GigPark founders immediately became my ‘’ (through the magic of programming, I’m sure, since I never him). Lucky for me, he has 342 friends (everyone signed up to date?) so my query will have some pretty good reach.

To add friends, GigPark makes it easy, hooking into popular services. They’ve also developed a GigPark that you can add to your account.

Removing the complex and leaving the , this is similar to the ‘ & ’ feature in LinkedIn. You a of a trusted group and expect that the replies should be of higher quality, or so the theory goes.

My take: it’s a new so the jury is out. GigPark is still in , and from the FAQ, it looks like they’re going to be expanding the to individuals and businesses (they call them providers).

Eventually, I’m thinking it may have value, as the number of users increases. Then again, when you add more to the mix, the greater your chance of diluting the value of responses. And we’ll have to see how the providers fit into the mix.

Your thoughts? Are you on GigPark? If so, what’s your ?

Update: It’s only been a few hours since I posted my query on GigPark, and I’ve already received one response.

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May

14

Engaging in ‘high risk’ activity - moving my blog

Filed Under Blogging, Doing, Web | 2 Comments


Engaging in high risk activity - moving my blog (image: 20562069_7cf1e2aaec_m)I’ve decided to take the plunge and move my blog to a more traditional .com type (rather than the .net that I currently use). I’m going to keep the .net for more esoteric things, private server, etc.

If you’re this on the old blog (blog.bradgrier.net), then please jump over to the new one, bookmark it, and check it out to make sure it works as you expect. You can find it at blog.bradgrier.com.

The dot-com is more , have a standard ‘expectation ‘of a site or blog when it has a .com address. A .net address seems to have a different ‘expectation’. And I felt the need to try out a new provider.

So, this will mean a bit of :

  • feeds - already moved my feedburner redirects so there should be no disruption
  • Incoming - not sure what to do about this yet. Incoming add value to your ranking, so this transition will cost me some of that precious Google Juice
  • Site duplication - some of the articles I’ve been about domains suggest maintaining duplicate sites for a few months. I’m thinking about this. It may work, but I’d customize the so that some sort of ‘ moved’ message is appended to the feeds etc

But, I’m not the expert here, just the guy doing the work. Do you have any thoughts or opinions about domains? What should I watch out for? What should I do differently?

: David Asch

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Apr

8

Are Canadian telemarketers quaking in their boots? Maybe.

Filed Under Web | Leave a Comment


iOptOut logo. Woot!My position: telemarketing is annoying and should be eliminated. DO NOT WANT!
My reasoning: I did not for the call; hence it is an intrusion. It uses up my resources (time) without my request or approval. I did not for you to call me offering a home audit for an alarm company. My current is fine thank you. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.

As a result, my is locked on Do Not Disturb. I don’t hear the calls — all incoming calls go directly to mail. Nice and quiet now.

But why should I have to have a that screens my calls? I pay my company a fee just to add telemarketers to my ‘blocked’ list. I’m paying for the privilege of having a peaceful dinner at home.

Soon all this may , as will implement a Do Not Call list.

The government passed legislation in 2005 mandating the creation of a do-not-call registry. The registry is scheduled to take effect in mid-2008, yet many Canadians may be disappointed to learn about the exemption of a wide range of organizations (registered charities, with prior relationships, political parties, survey companies, and newspapers). Under the law, exempted organizations are permitted to make unsolicited telephone calls despite the inclusion of the number in the do-not-call registry.

So, there’s a loophole, and a rather large one at that. But wait…there’s more!

Canadians now have their own Do Not Call (iOptOut.ca), hosted by renowned --rights law professor Michale Geist. iOptOut (still in beta) is a where Canadians can register up to three numbers and addresses as part of setting up their iOptOut profile.

Once the profile is set up, iOptOut members select organizations to be notified of their preference to opt-out of marketing communciations. Just select an industry, say Newspaper, check all, and an will be sent to all registered newspapers indicating that you no longer want them calling or emailing you for subscriptions. By law they must comply.

As I understand it, ’s do not call legislation (and the official DNC registry) allows some organizations to be ‘exempt’ from the legislation. iOptOut fills that exemption hole.

How does iOptOut work?
iOptOut contains a database of organizations, all of which are exempted under the current law. When you register with iOptOut you create a personal list of organizations that you wish to opt-out from further marketing. You provide your name, telephone number(s) and address(es) and we send a message to each organization, on your behalf, asking that they remove you from their active marketing or polling lists. You could send a message to each organization yourself individually, but there are hundreds and the appropriate contact information is often difficult to obtain. iOptOut allows you to do this in bulk, opting out of dozens of organizations with a few clicks.

Do I still need to register my number with the “official” do-not-call registry once it is operational?
Yes. IOptOut complements the forthcoming do-not-call registry by filling in the gaps created by exempted organizations. You will still need to register your number with the do-not-call registry once it becomes operational.

So, I’ve opted out. We’ll see if this reduces the number of calls coming in from ‘Manitoba’ or ‘Ontario’. Unfortunately, there’s no way to opt out of incoming telemarketing calls from outside of . Savvy telemarketers will soon switch to services hosted in the America, or offshore. Sigh.

Quotes courtesy iOptOut.ca FAQ and Michael Geist’s blog.

Jul

17

Online backup one of Time’s top 50 websites for 2007

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Online backup one of Times top 50 websites for 2007 (image: mozy-logo-beta-120) Odds are, if you’re this, you’ll have read one of my previous articles about Mozy, a (and subscription based) .

Well, Time magazine has selected Mozy as one of their top 50 for this year. Now, which position is actually up to you and me. You see, Time has this nifty voting gadget that lets you select the spot you feel Mozy should be in.

Now Time is asking users to rank the top 50. If you like Mozy, this is a great opportunity to give us some props by visiting the Time website and giving us an appropriate rank. So here’s how to help: when you get to the website, just slide the slider to something like, say, 100, and click the submit button. We really appreciate the kudos!

idea, and yeah, I like Mozy so I turned the volume up to 11, so to speak.

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Jul

17

Keep your RSS feeds under control with Google Reader

Filed Under Blogging, Social Media | 2 Comments


Keep your RSS feeds under control with Google Reader (image: )

With all the different types of coming at me electronically these days, I’m always looking for ways to better manage the flow through the firehose.

One feature that I’ve just discovered, though it’s been in the for a while, is the Trends view of your Google Reader habits. Yes, we all know that is collecting data on you and your activity through the , but here’s one way to use that data to your benefit.

Keep your RSS feeds under control with Google Reader (image: )In my case, Reader Trends view allows me to inactive or abandoned , and purge them from my list. Simply select the Inactive tab from the Trends view and you’ll see the last date Reader was able to grab the feed from that site.

Note: This doesn’t necessarily mean that the site is down or the blog has been abandoned. The site owner may have just changed the URL of the feed…in that case, you’ll have to for the website and resubscribe.

But in my case, I have about 40 that were no longer published, or the last post was over a month ago. For the most part, that’s too long without a post , so they’ve been removed, but some I’ll keep as I know the author posts infrequently, but I always enjoy it when they do.

But that begs the : How often is ‘often enough’ for the feeds you read? Do you want daily posts or is weekly enough? Or just post when you’ve got something good to say? Hmmm, food for another post, methinks :-)

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Jun

12

5 reasons I won’t get an iPhone

Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments


  1. Cost. If the iPhone’s listed prices were converted to dollars, the would price out between $530 and $640 CAD. That’s way too much money for me to spend on a today. Yes it has other functionality, but I’ve got that covered; keep .
  2. Contract & add ons. In the US there’s a 2 year contract required. The base doesn’t (as far as I can tell) include a contract. I can’t see that being any different north of the border. Now consider the type of data access you’d need. The offers many very features that will quickly bite into your allocation. You have to add this. Basic for this puppy would be silly so you’d want to have the full data packages. Pricing on this ’seems’ (Rogers plan pricing is kinda all over the place) to start at $50.00/month. I’m a heavy user so my costs would be more. 
  3. I already have an . My Nano is perfect for music and podcasts. Why would I want to have my battery drained when I listen to ? How would this integrate into my existing systems?
  4. I already have a PDA I’m happy with. My Palm T|X. Same battery drain issue. As well, my PDA is awesome for doing what I need it to. I have all the bought and installed. It syncs nicely with work and home . To convert everything over would take Mucho $$$.
  5. New processes to learn. Integrating everything into one unit means I’d have to the way I do things. My system works now for me. To use the I would have to delete and install new for time , and calendar integration. I have no idea how well it’ll sync up with Outlook (at work) and what I’d use to sync with at home. I run PC’s and Ubuntu. Is there a Calendaring app that will work with the , available now?? I’d need new methods to grab my podcasts (I don’t use iTunes). How would that work?

Too many unanswered questions. So, the way I figure things. I’d likely end up paying over $1000 CAD to learn how to use a new gizmo, when my existing gizmos all do what I need currently.

An isn’t in my immediate future. Though, I guess if I really want the look of one, I could use an iPhoney :-)

May

9

Five essential tools make blogging fun and easy

Filed Under Blogging, Social Media | 36 Comments


Time is short and there’s lots of interesting things to blog about these days, so why make it harder on yourself than you have to? I’m all about taking the easy way, but unfortunately as I’ve been learning, TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Lunch), and to learn the easy things, I’ve had to work through the hard ones. What I’m about to discuss are the essential.

Fear not, gentle reader, in this missive, I’ll skip the hard and reveal only the easy…at least, they were easy for me. Your mileage may vary.

5) Wordpress
At minimum, your bloghost should offer you this most-excellent platform. It’s the most popular for all the right reasons; easy, flexible, robust, supported, and has a huge developer base. It’s also .

4) Firefox
Every good blog deserves to be viewed through a good browser. Firefox wins my vote for the same reasons that does; easy, flexible, robust, supported, and has a huge developer base. It’s also .

and Firefox both support plugins — 3rd party additions that extend the functionality of the …which is important because that’s where I’m going next.

3) ScribeFire
A plugin for Firefox, ScribeFire grew out of the Performancing blog- . Quite simply, ScribeFire allows you to edit your blog while you’re surfing, dragging and dropping items directly from your source webpages, newsfeeds or whatever. It connects directly to most popular and seamlessly posts your post.

2) Wordpress plugins
There’s too many to cover them all but I’ll briefly list the ones that make blog administration :

Finally, the Big Kahuna. The one essential thing that really makes and easy.

1) Google Anything
Yep, pretty much anything by can be considered essential for and easy .

And there you have it. My five essential (ok, more actually) that really make a activity. Imagine what would be like if we didn’t have these gems.

Got a few of your own? Add to the conversation by posting them in the comments!

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May

2

Podcasting — is this desktop publishing of the 21st Century?

Filed Under Social Media | 2 Comments


Since I received my iPod Nano for Christmas, it has been with me daily. It’s been a source of and education through Podcasts — audio files containing what used to be called programming when was the only way to listen to audio programs.

Back in the day, you needed a multi-million megawatt transmitter and multi-million dollar studio to have your heard by the masses.

Today, through the advent of inexpensive and mobile listening , today anyone can create their own ‘’ program, and many do! But should they?

In the latter part of the last century, the same advent of inexpensive made the concept of Desktop Publishing a reality for many who needed a .

‘Now’, they thought, ˜we can be read and will listen to use because we can produce a fanzine, a newsletter, or even a real magazine, all from the comfort of our home office.’ They didn’t need permission of a newspaper editor, or magazine publisher, their thoughts were important and we needed to read them. Oh Really?

If history is a teacher then we should learn the lessons of publishers; just because you can work through the laborious process to make a newsletter, doesn’t mean that the resulting dead edition will be worthy of . If we can’t understand the message, then the effort is wasted.

Many home businesses were created around the concept of publishing (and many have since migrated to ). These ‘publishers’ created many newsletters, pamphlets and public documents for many other small businesses. And many were pure crap.

Grab the lesson and fast-forward to this century.

Today’s enables you to do many things with the written word, with , and . And many of these productions are also pure crap. Sturgeon’s law in action.

My thinking? The time invested learning to use the gear to produce the message should really be doubled — with much of it spent learning the basics of first, and then learn the medium of . The tech is the easy part…communicating the message, that’s the hard part. Do that and you will be heard, and understood.

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