January 2008

We’ve been teaching Ollie a fun game. Take all the Sunday newspaper circulars and go through them, one page at a time. Every person has to point to one thing on the page they will buy. One thing that they need. Or want. Val says she played the game as a kid and the Sears catalog was big fun because it contained just about everything.

She said some pages contained embarassing items, or really cool stuff… men’s jockey shorts to curtain rods to toys. One way to play the “Catalog Game” is to turn the page and each player must point without looking. Whatever your finger lands on, you must buy.

Okay, lame to some of you but it’s fun to play it with a three-year-old because he laughs so much when he has to buy a dress or women’s shoes.

Sometimes we play with a Captain D’s ad, or a Pizza Hut circular. Yes, it’s true. We live in the ass-end of the Great Dismal Swamp and fun is hard to come by. Entertainment options are few.

This is why the Internets are so important to us all. Like the Sears Catalogs from the turn of the 20th century, online catalogs provide information and have unlimited entertainment value.

This week, we’ve played the Garden Gnome game. When Val plays the game, she invariably goes to the Southern Yard Art filled with $85,000 fireplace mantles and marble columns. One of the most interesting aspects of the southern yard art landscape is the no holds barred approach to what is in and what is out.

The Heidi Klum of lawn decors — “One of you gnomes is safe. The other — out.”

This will obviously cause quite a stir in the blogging world. Reading through the Izea townhall meeting transcript a few statements stuck in my mind as encouraging for everyone involved. First, Izea is a fast moving target not easily thrown off course by Google’s attempt at censoring bloggers through PR (pagerank) deletion (Google Smacking). Second, I got the impression Izea does listen to feedback from both the Posties and the advertisers. Speaking of advertisers there are now over fourteen thousand using the Izea platform. WOW.

Now for the good news. But before I go there I wanted to make a point of expressing my opinion that the honorable FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras, seen here helping Jones Day celebrate their 20th year anniversary, doesn’t understand the power of Google and the possible danger posed by their acquisition of Double Click. OK, with that out of the way everyone should know that Izea will be dumping Google’s Page Rank - yeah boy - and that Social Spark is on track. Maybe not tomorrow, but it did like we’ll see it this calendar year.

*this is an evolving article - updates through the day with announcements from Izea

I’ve been asked by the good folks at OverStock to check out their Game-O-Love. The very first thing that needs to take place before we begin is a disclaimer. I love Overstock.com. OK, with that said let’s start by letting you know that prizes may be in your future if you visit GameOLove dot com. They’re saying that you may win presents from your sweetheart. Guessing they meant “for your sweetheart”?

Starting Friday, January 25, 2008 Overstock’s Game O Love is unleashing their Valentine Contest. Claiming prizes, gifts and love in exchange for your name and email. A rouge cupid wages full scale war on love (we’re currently on level orange) and needs our help. Now it’s been years since I’ve come across a bow-n-arrow set. Guessing my cup-o-coffee is useless so my only weapon in this war of the willing is a computer mouse. Join me my coallision of willing clickers as we search for the meaning of life *void where prohibited*!

Seriously, everyone seems to love shopping Overstock. I noticed upon arriving at the site and area to sign up for omail. What’s omail you ask? Well, this isn’t some sorta vajay2 to text teleportation system. See this is where you sign up for updates on new products, special promotions, exclusive email omail offers and coupons! It’s safe from any sort of primetime dr. weirdo calls or guest appearances.

“Ask.com Nabs Former Google Exec” sent my mind spinning through possibilities of wonderous synergy ideas. In the article it states that Cesar Mascaraque, previously of Google, has been hired by Ask.com as their European managing director. Good for Cesar. My mental fourth of July moment was an Izea & Ask collaboration encouraging the use of Ask.com search within the Izea community. Call it “Ask Izea!” *coughdotcom* = )

I don’t spend much time talking about my day job. Don’t get me wrong — I’m extremely proud of where I work and the job I’m tasked with completing. We’re (I say we because it’s only as a team that we succeed) a dedicated team of departments. It’s the type of job were one minute I’m coaching a client in a warehouse and the next I’ve been asked to sit in on a meeting.

Recently I’ve decided to move part-time as a I prep to retire at 40. So I’ve switched to part-time to help train and assist two new Job Coaches. In preparation for the big move to being home, I’ve started growing my hair out at my wife’s request. Now it’s been a long time since my hair was this long. Looking back it was probably the summer before I went into the Air Force. I just don’t have the desire right now to figure out how this whole long hair optimum care works. In the mean time I just am not going to shampoo, condition and dry every single day. Especially with the weather being so darn cold now.

While checking out a friend’s site, I noticed her talk about something called dry shampoo. Well that’s right up my alley! This would have been perfect this afternoon with an unexpected meeting I got dragged into.

Roughly speaking the flow of spam doubled in ‘07. Whispers are swirling that Yahoo!’s CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) could be compromised up to 35% of the time. This according to “John Wane” a security researcher *read blackhat* from Russia.

Not seeing the main media sources out there picking up the story yet as they usually report these matters a few weeks after the whispers. May be a good time to update that Microsoft Windows email client spam software thingy you folks seem to need.

Listen closely to geek’s suggestions system improvements. The may be telling only just enough to point you in the right direction. Don’t blow them off. This is where the Yahoo!’s in charge of the software may have goofed. They are claiming awareness of the flaw, however, “John” has said that he did contact them about the vulnerability but they ignored him.

Depending on his/her ethics and financial needs — this is the type of knowledge spammers love. A software flaw in software that everyone is ignoring. Shoot - he could probably retire on the money earned selling this to the boogidyboo bad people.