laptops that you can't sit on your lap

Why do they call laptops - "laptops"? I have been having some trouble with my laptop lately. It's been getting hot and the fan is getting LOUD, and I was reading on the manufacturer's website that they recommend that you don't place it on your lap, as your pants do not promote ventilation. Which begs the question - what good is a laptop if it cannot be placed on your lap? Oh, and before you offer the bit of advice that, "there are colling trays that you can buy to sit your laptop on your lap", ask yourself why they didn't just include this into the laptop design in the first place. What a joke. I guess they should have just called them skinny desktops.

google's new browser

I finally downloaded Google's new web browser, called "Chrome". It's pretty slick. I dig it. It is quick and so far has only locked up / crashed on me once. I expect that with Google's popularity, it is going to eventually going to join the ranks of Mozilla Firefox and Internet Exploder as one of the top browsers. Its probably already surpassed Netscape users. Which, as a web designer probably means that we're going to have to check all of our documents for compatibility in yet another browser. Fun. As long as it doesn't give me the same headaches as IE, I'll be happy.

the uncreative industry

In my last post, I spoke a little about email spam. One other thing that I have noticed about email marketers is that, on the whole, they are the least creative people I think I have seen in my life. Rather than come up with any ideas of their own, they simply regurgitate whatever they've seen from their competitors. The sales copy always looks the same. The same catch phrases that are used to sell get-rich-quick moneymaking schemes and bogus college degrees are also used to sell a diet pill. What gives?

I understand the concept behind "shotgun" marketing - that if you spray your message in a wide enough pattern, you're bound to hit something (or somebody). But even if you could get someone to actually read that spammy message, or god forbid actually open their crummy virus-infected attachment, do these marketers actually think that they're misspelled cookie-cutter copy is actually going to lead to conversions?

fighting the losing battle with spam

So I created a new email address for myself recently and my inbox was totally free from spam for a few weeks. Then, poof! - one client adds me to their "mailing list" and I suddenly start receiving sales pithes for Rolexes, Viagra and Fentraphen again. Now I could easily spend my days trying to create and tweak filters that scan my email for spam, but I find that this is a losing battle. It either becomes a weekly chore to add additional keywords and misspellings to the filter, or you end up going too vague and filtering out valid emails from customers. I could also depend on my ISP to do the filtering for me, but I have yet to discover an ISP that can successfully filter the bad from the good. The new year is a great time to switch emails. It's almost expected. I actually like to include the year in my email address. That way, if any of my contacts miss the message about my email address getting changed, they may guess the new one when they see that the year no longer matches the current year. Some might say that spammers would make the same assumption, but that would assume that email harvesters and spammers are physically viewing their email lists, which I seriously doubt.

In the end, I'm thinking that the best thing to do is to provide a specially filtered and forwarded email address for each client. It sounds like a lot of work, but it isn't really. You create a new address for each client when you first meet, and that's it. This would also make email filtering into folders a little easier.

the search for reclaimed material

It's official. We're going to be building our new house using as much reclaimed material as possible. We've been watching Craiglist and eBay like hawks, and I also keep my eye on local newspaper and forum classifieds, too. I've already picked up some old solid wood doors which should look fabulous once refinished. There are some great deals to be found, if you have the time to wait for the right things to surface (which we do). I also ran across a great site called HouseParter.com, which conveniently searches for reclaimed materials on both Craigslist and eBay at the same time. Although that may not sound like a big deal, what makes this site especially useful is the fact that it filters the results for you. If you've ever tried to search eBay for secondhand construction materials, you quickly find yourself sifting through hundreds if not thousands of search results, most of which are not applicable. This site somehow filters most out most of the bad matches. It also lets you designate that you only want matches near your zip code, which is especially helpful for items that can't be economically shipped. Check it out if you're ever in the market for reclaimed materials, secondhand doors and windows. Just don't bet against me on eBay!

surviving on $2.65 an hour?

I was recently perusing the local newspaper when I noticed a help wanted advertisement offering a "competitive" $7 an hour starting wage. Is that really competitive? With what? Illegal employment perhaps? "Perhaps it is competitive with the minimum wage," I found myself wondering. But are minimum wage rates still that low? I seem to remember them being somewhere in the $5 when I was a kid. Could they have only gone up a dollar or so over the last couple of decades?

I went ahead and did some quick searching, and came across this site from the US Department of Labor that details the minimum wage for each state. My assumption that the minimum is about $1 less than the advertised "competitive" wage was correct, as the minimum wage in Arkansas is about $6.25. I can't imagine trying to make a living off of such a ridiculously low amount of money these days. But when you look at the larger picture, Arkansas actually doesn't have it so bad.

If I lived in Kansas, I could be earning a whopping $2.65 an hour under their current minimum wage law. WOW! You're probably wondering if I typed that right. Well, let me assure you that I did. They actually expect laborers to survive by earning less than $3 an hour. Pretty sad, and it maybe one of the reasons why Kansas is best known for being one of those states with hundreds of miles of nothingness.

Some may also point at Louisiana, where they don't even have a minimum wage law. But in reality, this probably works out well in some cases, as the market would set the acceptable rate. At least the state didn't give its seal of approval on a wage rate that won't even buy you a lunch at Taco Bell.

gifts that you give for yourself

Everyone has heard the cheesy shopping line that talks about "the gift that keeps on giving." I generally equate this to a magazine subscription, but it's been used time and again for a number of products over the years.

I've also recently picked up on a new angle being pushed by marketers - gifts that you give someone else which are really gifts for yourself. While this gifting concept isn't new, marketers typically left it untouched over the years, aside from perhaps the granola bar marketing that states that "chewy stops the chatter". Some typical examples when it comes to Christmas shopping would be when you buy your wife a new piece of lingerie, or a nice set of cookware for the kitchen. Sure, it's a gift for her, but she'll be (hopefully) wearing that sexy new teddy for you, and if she can cook, you're bound to reap some benefits for gifting a new set of designer pots and pans. Granted, you could easily take the concept too far. For example, if you buy a housewife a new vacuum cleaner, you're probably asking for trouble.

Other uses of this gifting tactic include gifts from parents to their children that relieve the parents of child-induced noise and aggravation. We've already touched on the granola bar approach. iPods also come to mind, particularly for long roadtrips. My parents used this one with us, and it worked very well for our frequent trips to the beaches of Florida. You just need to make sure to stock up on batteries before you leave. It's not exactly a novel idea, but I would hope that by now American consumers would be past the whole "selfish" phase that got us into this economic mess, and that they might be reassessing what types of gifts are truly necessary and worthy of being called a "gift" for someone else. In fact, one might think that giving gifts during a recession is a rather ridiculous idea. Instead, wouldn't it make more sense to give the gift of time, especially when we're likely to be working more of it to pay our bills?

affiliate marketing 2008 review

When it comes to my affiliate marketing experiences in 2008, I have had much more success with high dollar items than I have had with low dollar items. Campaigns that push discount furniture, for example, don't result in too many sales, but the sales that do go through make me more in commission. I've heard of lots of affiliate marketers selecting a particular inexpensive product, building a search campaign for it, throwing $1000 at it, and walking away with several months income. That's a great story, but does it really work? And...if it doesn't work, you're out $1000.

I know that they say that you need to spend money to make money, but I never got into affiliate marketing because it was a high risk venture. There are ways to throw median amounts of cash into it, and to walk away with solid performing campaigns. In the last year that I have been running my campaigns, I have only made less than what I spent on my monthly advertising once. Every other month, I have come out ahead. I guess that's a good track record. Now if I could just get that revenue to stabilize a bit more...