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Battlestar Galactica Season 4 starts this Friday, April 4, 2008. It's the final season for television's finest show (aside from South Park and The Daily Show). There are some preview videos at the link above...although none too exciting.
If you're not caught up, now is the time...
I'm kind of excited this week to check out Seattle's answer to Vancouver's Workspace: Office Nomads! It's a daily or membership-based rental office in our Capitol Hill neighborhood:
"You're sitting at a coffee shop to be around people trying to shake off the jitters from your third latte you felt obligated to buy but didn't really want. You are trying to talk to a client on your cell phone but finding it hard to hear over the sound of the coffee grinder... you understand."
It's early yet but I've been having some good luck with Dr. Robert Ivker's Sinus Survival book. It's helped me greatly reduce my sinus symptoms during this allergy season. I do recommend checking out his Website and book before considering surgical options.
Add PBase to the list of Websites that won't delete your account. I've been emailing them for six weeks to delete my account and photos with no luck. They're support emailed me that it would be taken care of soon two weeks ago, but mostly they have been unresponsive.
To Joyent's credit, they responded quickly to my blog post complaining about the misleading sign up page advertising free hosting at Joyent:
"I am the VP of Platform Evangelism at Joyent. I am sorry that you have been caught in the queue. We originally created 3,500 free slots for Facebook developers. The demand has been incredible, and there is now a queue for those slots. We are doing out best to churn through the existing users, and there has been turn-over. Turn over happens when developers fail to make use of the free resources to actually develop Facebook applications. So far, we have removed over 700 accounts because the developers were not using them. We then recycled those slots. We are planning another review in the next few days, and will also be adding 500 new slots in the near future."
He also emailed me, "We really are doing our best to churn through the list as quickly as possible. And, we are trying to expand the pool of free accelerators." But then the follow up response got a bit testy...
I emailed him that "I'd highly suggest (for liability as well as good faith reasons) that you clarify the offer on your sign up and promotions page much more clearly." He asked, "What would you suggest as a clarification?" I said, "Saying clearly on the sign up page at the top that there are only 3500 spots - and that none are available at this time. If you sign up, you'll be put in a queue and that the waiting time may be several weeks."
He responded: "You still did not explain how it is that we have liability from offering something for free and then doing our best to deliver it. We do not sell Joyent Facebook Accelerators. You can not buy one. So, there is no bait and switch. There is simply a line up, which is a common occurrence for anything that is given away for free." and "I am sorry you did not fully understand the page. We tried to be very clear about the terms of this give away. We are, however, running a business. You are bluntly trying to assert that we are some how opening ourselves up to a lawsuit for doing our best to deliver a FREE product. If you can't explain assertion, I'm going to have to wait weeks as we have lawyers pour through the issue to find out how we do this without having to deal with unfair accusations from people like you. So, please explain yourself and the accusations on your blog."
This is probably how not to deal with potential customers and bloggers on the Web.
Note: Dell and Facebook are involved in promoting this promotion with Joyent.
Technorati Tags: facebook, rod boothby, joyent, free hosting, facebook applications, dell
We're having our first code meetup in Seattle. This is the first in what will hopefully be a monthly series on open source code development and the NewsCloud platform.
At the first session, we'll be talking about LAMP-based open source development tools and the open source Facebook Application Newsroom framework. If you're interested in learning more about Facebook application development, this will be a great introductory session.
I recommend that you have basic PHP/MySQL skills to get the most from this session.
Please RSVP for the location and so we can keep a headcount of how many people to expect.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 22, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
WHERE: Belltown (RSVP for exact location)
QUESTIONS: email us
Technorati Tags: facebook applications, meetups, mysql, open source, php, seattle
ONE/Northwest has an excellent summary of local meeting spaces available to community groups and others.
Technorati Tags: meeting spaces, seattle
After one more of those mindless Cialis commercials (which I reserve the right to pay closer attention to in future years), I thought to myself...why exactly do they always say, “Men who experience an erection lasting more than four hours should seek immediate medical attention.” Is that the only side-effect worthy of mentioning in ads ... or is this...marketing?
It reminded me of To Serve Man, a famous Twilight Zone episode, where at the end you hear the haunting explanation: "To Serve Man...It's a Cookbook". Honey, the "four-hour erection...it's marketing!"
I enjoyed this post on the marketing of Cialis:
This example (love it or hate it) is a great demonstration that letting the viewer come to their own conclusions, without the usual blatant, agonizing justification and hard sells can sometimes be the best sell of all. The non-sell sell. When viewers can deduce for themselves (giving them credit for brains) what’s in it for them, it becomes more personal…and their idea. And people like an idea better when they think it’s their own.
For those who just found this post via Google and lack insurance coverage, Slate has this handy explainer: How to treat a four-hour erection. It's not pretty.
I recently signed up for Joyent's Free Facebook Hosting offer so I could use it for hosting a nonprofit's Facebook application using the open source framework I released last week. I was a bit surprised when Joyent responded to my query regarding my account request with this:
"Thanks for having signed up. Due to the demand and the limited spaces available, you have been placed on a waiting list for one of the free Facebook Accelerators. As we reclaim unused accounts, those spaces will open up. While it's not possible to provide an ETA, it's unlikely the setup will occur today. If you need hosting sooner, you may want to take a look at one of our monthly or yearly Accelerator plans that can be found at http://www.joyent.com/accelera
tor/pricing/."
A week later, I'm still waiting. This reminded me of Bait and Switch:
"In retail sales, a bait and switch is a form of fraud in which the party putting forth the fraud lures in customers by advertising a product or service at an unprofitably low price, then reveals to potential customers that the advertised good is not available but that a substitute is. The goal of the bait-and-switch is to convince some buyers to purchase the substitute good as a means of avoiding disappointment over not getting the bait, or as a way to recover sunk costs expended to try to obtain the bait."
Continue reading "Joyent's Free Facebook Hosting Offer: No vacancy" »
The Wall Street Journal today writes about the economic resurgence in Hayfork, California created by companies like Jefferson Forest Products, a sustainable logging company acquired a couple of years ago by Upstream21. Upstream21 is a holding company that buys small to medium-sized businesses and operates them in a socially responsible manner with regard to its employees, the environment, customers and other stakeholders. I invested in Upstream21 after researching social investing for my article in the Seattle Weekly, Investing for Change. It's possible to be profit-oriented and do well by our communities. In fact, that's a rule that Upstream has written into its bylaws.
Read story at NewsCloud.
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