July 31, 2005
Check out the camera they're using!
Is that a Canon A70 being used to take photos in Iraq for their new ID cards? You bet!
Photos like this help confirm my suggestion to use cameras like these simple, rugged Canons when going off to faraway foreign lands. HP, Fuji and Olympus also have reliable, simple digital camera models that use good ol' standard AA batteries. (Note: You should still have and use rechargables, but it's nice to have something to fall back on when recharging isn't an easily accomplished task.)
As long as we're talking cameras here, you might as well read the full review on the new Canon S2 IS digital camera at DPReview.com. A very nice, but not small camera.
Drooling yet? Remember... friends and family week starts TODAY - 7/31 - at Staples in Beloit and that means 12% off the Canon S2 IS if you're friend or family to me. (And promise to let me play with it when you get one. J/K!)
Retail Gangs: A New Breed of Thieves
'We're seeing an incredible amount of activity from organized retail theft gangs from the New York area all the way down into Richmond,' said Robert Wade, vice president of loss prevention for Hecht's.
Losses from organized retail theft have topped $30 billion annually, triple what they were a decade ago, according to the National Retail Federation, leading to higher prices, frequent out-of-stock problems and a more cumbersome shopping experience for consumers.
July 29, 2005
Wisconsin No-Call List Threatened - Channel 3000 News
Telemarketers say states like Wisconsin shouldn't regulate the list so they're petitioning the FCC to make the laws invalid.
State consumer protection says if you want to protect the state list; e-mail your comments to the FCC by the end of the day Friday:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs.
(NOTE: The site was down Friday morning. You may have to keep trying.) [Worked for me!] You will need to enter docket number 02-278.
Any comments after today will no longer be considered.
So far, 10,000 comments have been sent by Wisconsinites.
July 23, 2005
Beloit Geotags
That's the new Hybird view of Google Maps - it lays map data (streets and borders) on top of the satelite image in a live scrolling window view. Those red balloons represent Geotagged photos I've uploaded for sharing on Zoto.com. Click and have a look... should be painless, and pop-up, and garbage-free.
TIP: Double-click an untagged spot on the map to center it, then zoom the view using the slider controls to the left.
Head Shot!
Yahoo! News Photo: "Argentina's Guillermo Coria hits a forehand during his Davis Cup world group quarter-final singles match against Australia's Lleyton Hewitt in Sydney July 15, 2005. Hewitt defeated Coria 7-6 6-1 1-6 6-2 in the first match of the world group tie, giving Australia a 1-0 lead. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne."
July 20, 2005
Cars, cars, cars!
Goodbye old friend...
... traded in for Ad's b-day present last Friday (see previous blog).
As I mentioned, this is an ironic twist since it's basically the car my wife was looking for last spring when we had a bad experience at our local Ford dealer.
How did we end up buying three cars from Mark Hendee at Bryden Motors?
It all started when I wanted to gift that old Geo Prizm up there to my son in late 2003. I ran into Mark at our store one afternoon while he was looking for someone to explain Palm PDAs to him. I learned he wanted to use it for selling cars at Bryden's. In passing, I happened to mention that I'd always wanted a PT Cruiser, but doubted I'd ever get one since Bryden Motors was on my wife's boycott list (a very short, but very long-lived list you don't ever want to be on) due to a lemon of a car we bought there in 1984 and they seemed out of my price range.
Long story short... Mark said he could win over my wife to give Bryden's another try and get me a deal I could afford. More story short... after a couple of weeks of back-and-forth... he did just that. Then Ad got the Geo you see above. (Its clear coat was fading then, too.)
Late in the spring of 2004, Suzi got the bug to replace her aging '93 Ford Escort Wagon which, at that time, was her favorite car of all time. She was sold on buying a Ford Focus, all she needed was a test drive to seal the deal so we arranged for one at the local Ford dealer. (In defense of what you're about to read, I think we got a new, inexperienced salesperson.)
I scheduled a test drive appointment for "around 6:30 pm" on Thursday, but we were ran late due to work and dinner and stuff. The salesperson called at about 6:15(!), asking if we were coming or not. Suzi had just gotten home. We finally got there a little after 7:00pm.
Now... remember... this was a test drive by scheduled appointment for an essentially done-deal car sale!
Car #1: Dead battery, this was the car waiting for us to drive. Salesperson took us to it.
Car #2: Found the keys, found the car. Salesperson helped us find it, but it was a 3-door (ZX3) STICK. No good.
Car #3: Found the keys, salesperson said "...it's a gray one out there..." handed us the plates and said she'd check the Escort's trade-in value. We searched the lot, it wasn't gray, it was blue. It had so much promotional writing on the front window ("Dude, you're getting a Dell!") that it couldn't be driven safely off the lot.
As we sat in the car, Suzi looked at me and said, "That's it. We're done here. Let's go." She got out of the car and we had to wait for the salesperson to finish their drive around the block in our Escort. When they breathlessly walked into the showroom, I handed over the dealer plate as Suzi said, "We're through here" and out she walked without looking back, leaving me with the salesperson and my mouth gaping open. It was 7:35 pm.
(My wife is a lesson in "customer service is everything." Businesses - You don't ever want to piss off my wife. Another story... Best Buy has been on her boycott list since 2000.)
While we drove back into town, I jokingly suggested we swing by Bryden's and look at the Neons. (I already knew that there's not really a car like the Focus wagon in Chrysler's car lineup.) She said, let's look, maybe we'll see "the guy we bought the Cruiser from..." We came back into town on Gardner Street and had to double-back to Bryden's and...
"It was dark and stormy night..." and it was late - 10 or 15 minutes to closing when we pulled into the lot across from Bryden's offices. We looked around and then who should we see standing down a ways on the sidewalk? Mark Hendee.
In TEN minutes... With the wind blowing and rain spitting... Mark had us test driving TWO vehicles. One - a Neon and another he recommended because my wife mentioned she drives to her mom's almost every other weekend. He said something to the effect, "...you don't want a small car, you want a highway car...something with power and comfort - like this Dodge Stratus." He was absolutely right, and he did this in something under 15 mminutes! And he assured us he could get us a deal to make it as affordable as the Focus or Neon.
This is the short version, and it took a week to close the deal, but in that 15 minutes Mark did everything right and far more than the Ford salesperson had managed with a day's warning. (We signed the papers and picked up the Stratus on a Tuesday - exactly 10 years after we bought the Escort we were getting rid of!)
Want a Chrysler? See Mark Hendee. He's 3-for-3 at our house - a car a year - 2003, 2004, and 2005.
Ad's new Focus ZX5:
My PT Cruiser and Suzi's Stratus: 
July 19, 2005
Blogging photos via Zoto
Ooo... I could get to liking this!
July 17, 2005
Blog abuse - Blog spam - Beware
Read some of the entries to see how dericulous it is. It's just padding search engine placement with blog entries full of semi-clever keywords and referral links.
Blogger User Profile: Computer Saver:
Computer Saver Blogs:
Antivirus Clean
Bug Free Operation
Self portrait or not?
For some reason, when I look at this I think the guy kneeling at the lower left is the artist. You will note that profile is the only one holding a tool (hammer) for working metal.
Comparison photos:
This was originally posted directly from Flickr. Too bad you can't use Flickr to blog post to Yahoo 360.
Contrary Brin: "...let me reiterate a point that nobody else seems to be making. I think liberals make a terrible mistake by expressing their objections to this war in leftist or pacifist terms."
July 16, 2005
Yahoo! 360? - My Blog - Spyware Informer - Dell and Spyware: Don't Say It's So!:
You're thinking of Backweb? It's not [in HP PCs] anymore... hasn't been in a long time, unless it's named something else now. But there is ad serving software pre-installed on HP and Compaq machines. It's listed in Add/Remove programs.
Since I sell this stuff, I'd like these companies to answer me one question: 'When did it become OK to annoy your customers?'
My guess is it coincided with the blossoming of the internet and web when the old PC/online habit of referring to customers as 'users' gained currency (pun intended!) with Wall Street and mainstream media. It's easy to annoy 'customers' when you hand them a label equivalent to drug addicts.
Stick *that* observation in your pipe and smoke it!
