Pauls Rants and Revelations

Since I’m all about the online tests I took one for self improvement just to see what it would say. I came across one put out by Live In The Two which looked decent (and short, took about 5 minutes) and was a little intrigued by what it said. Here are some of the juicier bits for you:

Discipline: My schedule is a disaster. I procrastinate and don’t plan.

Passion: I couldn’t paraphrase this, so I’ll just paste of whole - “While you are capable of being the motivator of a group, you struggle with finding that one thing that really “lights your fire.” Sometimes it feels as if you’re biding your time until the right goal presents itself - but in the meanwhile, you wait.” - take from it what you will.

Risks: It says I don’t take them. Which is true because I have kids. That and risks have tended to be not so much a good thing for me.

Optimism: I have none. Im a total party pooper.

The sites test isnt really designed to make you be more succesful but more to make you aware of yourself a bit more than you likely are so that you can be in the wonderful top 2% of the successful (hence the name of their site). Wether this info I got will be helpful or not, only time will tell, but in the meantime I have some “looking in” to do it seems.

Go ahead and give them a try and see if they throw anything interesting or helpful your way.

-Cheers

I never realized how difficult it is to actually move a server without anyone complaining.

Sure, some would complain about down time but that can’t really be helped. And still others would complain about their email not being their or having to change some setting. That one I think is the most annoying.

My favorite complaint is from a hosting client. She called me on the phone (which is a shock) and wondered why her website is down. I told her that I’m moving the server (standard response at that point) and she said that this outage is intolerable. At the word ‘intolerable’ a wheel click and I remember who it was. A former hosting client who, at the time of her call, has had her site turned off for the better part of a year. Sigh. People this stupid should not be allowed computers.

Oh well. At least everything is mostly moved over. Just waiting for a few tid bits and its done. At least I learned a few things; such as I never want to deal with another windows box again. Ever. Its a small bit of wisdom but a valuable one I think.

-Cheers

I was cruising the Apogee Search Blog and was reading some of the articles on search engine marketing in order to raise the PR of this lowly little blog a bit. Then I thought to myself that I have to share this with you (now don’t you feel special).

I didn’t know that they had a blog so I was surprised upon reading it. If you don’t know, Apogee is an SEO Company in Austin specializing in marketing and optimization for search engines. They are pretty good at what they do and they have a good number of articles filled with tip and tricks for anyone to apply to their site.

Perhaps that PR9 rating I’m dreaming about isn’t so impossible…

-Cheers

For some reason this little euphemism has me peeved. Usually, it is in reference to “going all the way” or “going all out” or “giving it everything you’ve got”. But where, and when, did this term come into being? What references exist for this term and are there any facts to support it?I started my digital digging on a number of sites and reference books. Here are some of the possible sources of “the whole nine yards”:

• Fabric bolts have nine yards of fabric - False; on average they have 20-25 yrds.
• A mans 3 piece suit requires exactly 9 yards of fabric - False because not all men are the same size
• An old time sailing ship had 3 masts with 3 yards each - False as they often had 12-18 yards in total
• Football term used to get to the next down - False, a down is 10 yards away, not 9
• Scottish kilts were made with 9 yards of fabric - False as the average was 4-8 yards and varied greatly depending on the weaver

There are plausible ones as well. A machine gun magazine ribbon from WWII was 9 yards long. Also, the first reference in print to ‘the whole 9′ was in the early 60’s. So this is a plausible beginning for the term.

I haven’t found an answer yet to it so Ill keep looking. If anyone has any info that would fit let me know.

-Cheers

Here is the next tid bit of wisdom for all of you trying to kick the habit.

One of the things about quiting smoking (that is actually true) is that you will most likely gain weight. This is not a side effect of quitting, but you are trying to replace the oral fixation with something else  and eating is the most readily available and easiest thing to replace it.

Tip 3: Eat and Move

Eating more is not, on the whole a bad thing. In fact, I encourage it. Eat what you wish when you wish. But also, move a bit more than you used to. Since you will be on a semi-rampage (nic-fits) searching for something to do, you might as well do something your body could use.

I started running more and working out. This is something anyone can do. If at the most you just start by taking long walks and working into running/jogging, then that is great also. Running is free (you can run anywhere on the streets) and one of the best workouts you can get.

So in short, eat what you want, go out for a walk or a run, and I promise you will feel better for it .Unless you run past a group of smokers. Then you have every right to roll your eyes and give them the disgusted looks you yourself used to get.

Then just keep on running.

-Cheers

Just for laughs, and to see how much I will need to save for, I went and priced a Mac Book Pro and the new iMacs in case I can’t somehow get the Mac Book. I was a little shocked at the prices but I wasn’t really expecing anything less than paying $4 grand for a Mac Book or $3 grand for a new iMac. At least that was what I expected. Here was the final tallies of what I priced out at apple.com:

Mac Book Pro 17″ Widescreen Glossy - $4,177

* 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 4GB 667 DDR2 - 2×2GB SO-DIMMs
* 250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 4200 rpm
* SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
* MacBook Pro 17-inch High-Resolution Glossy Widescreen Display
* Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS - U.S. English
* iWork ‘08 preinstalled
* AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll

iMac 24″ Glossy - $3,747

* 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme
* 4GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2×2GB
* 1TB Serial ATA Drive
* SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
* Apple wireless Mighty Mouse
* Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
* iWork ‘08 preinstalled
* AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll
* Accessory kit
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
* 24-inch glossy widescreen LCD
* AirPort Extreme
* Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR

While the comparable iMac is a few hundred cheaper, I can’t take it anywhere with me (at least not conveniently). So I think I’ll do the Mac Book route as soon as I get the $4k to buy it. Although I am not really site I need iLife ‘08 preinstalled… What the heck is that anyway? Is it like Office or something?

Oh well. I’ll ponder how to come up with the scratch later. Back to work with me.

-Cheers

Just when you thought there couldn’t be any more on SEO, I come up with something out of my hat. Well, it didn’t really come out of my hat, but SubmitASite does work a bit like magic. As an SEO services company, they of course focus on increasing search engine placement. How they do this is, well, a bit beyond me at this point but they are a professional search engine placement company so I would assume they have their own secret formula.

I have tried to do my own SEO in the past with little success but these offer genuinely successful search engine placement services that pale to anything I used to do. Their most interesting to me is their link building service to get your name out to higher rated site. If I had the dosh I would try it out but your company might benefit so go bug your boss right now for that increase in the budget. You might even get a raise just for suggesting SubmitAWebsite.

What have you got to lose (except that lousy PR)?

-Cheers