Almost as soon as I announce that I was going to stop working on Hellaphone, I start using newsgroups again and start on the project. Partly because I keep getting emailed how to set it up. I didn’t spend any time creating an installer when I released it. In fact I hacked it up real quick to be a single user system.

I always planned on releasing it as a service, but became dis-interested and open sourced it. So now I’m concentrating on bringing the service up again. The project is still open and located at http://code.google.com/p/hellaphone . Check it out, contribute, or just use it.

We start a project, without the complete specs for it (of course). We make choices based on an incomplete view of the project. The choices could be whether or not to re-use existing software, which framework to use, or whether a custom framework should be written. Of course somewhere in the middle of the project we start to receive more functionality requirements. We start to patch the software to make it work. We do it again and again. Then we start to reflect on better ways we could have done the project. Better choices that could have been made along the way. We start to wonder how long it would take to rebuild it with our knowledge and the full spec.

Have you ever been in this situation? Depending on the size of the project, it can sometimes be doable and advantageous. The trick of it is sneaking the work past your boss. They never see reducing future work, just that you’re stopping the forward progress to re-code something that was already done.

This is the coding equivalent of cutting your losses and re-investing.

I’m currently in the middle of a large project that would require so much re-tooling it would just not be possible to switch to a more suited framework or methodology. However, had someone six months ago said,  ”go ahead and scrap the current design and do what is right”, it would probably be done now.

In all fairness, it seemed as though the project would be done any day now. With that in mind, what manager would approve even a partial rewrite?

I dug this old post up from a blogspot blog that I have and never use anymore. This was from circa 2004, but still holds true.

I can’t tell you how annoying it is to have advertisements that play any kind of sound when the page loads. These are usually flash advertisements. This is very rude, this is like talking to someone while they are trying to read the newspaper. This gets even worse when the noise coming from the advertisement is some voice over speaking. Please, I did not come to the page to view all the ads, so only speak when asked to. Mute the damn thing by default. Let me un-mute it if I’m interested.
This is a new form of popup, and if your not careful, you’re advertisements, like pop-ups will be disabled with browser plugins or extensions that are already available but not widely used… yet. If such ads were to become annoying enough and numerous enough then you might see browsers including flash and/or ad blocking technology built in. Be cautious with the annoyingness factor of your ads. Be courteous of how you’re perceived or you may be shut off altogether. This goes beyond sound at startup, this advice should be taken for all annoying assuming aspects of the ads. Please don’t pop up floating divs, or expanded flash viewports that must be closed manually. These are other annoying aspects that may be turned off if it persists further. This would mean a shut down of valid browser features for webmasters that deliver wanted content.

In your face sales is annoying. No one likes it.

Webmasters - Demand that your ads adhere to a set of non-annoying guidelines to avoid people leaving your site or blocking your ads altogether.

Marketing guys behind the ads - Adhere to the same guidelines, else you may find yourselves getting blocked completely.

The whole online advertising industry has been changing quickly. It was based on Cost Per (M)Thousand Impressions (CPM). Then it was based on Cost Per Clicks (CPC). Now it seems that everything is moving toward (if not already) Cost Per Aquisition (CPA).

Paying publishers based on CPM as a metric was flawed. Flawed for the ultimate task at hand… To get an online aquisition. Conversion rates were all over the place, barely any targeted placement was being done. Relevant data, what is that? We didn’t even know how many people were actually following the ads.

Along comes CPC. We start paying out by the actual clicks, it’s a little easier to track the conversions than CPM. Of course this was not perfect and seems to be on it’s way out as of this writing.

So where are we at right now? Well, everyone is sporting CPA as if it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread (why is this so great anyways?). Pretty easy equation to figure out. If the goal is to sell something directly through an online ad, then measuring the success directly through the sale seems the only way to go. Why in the world would we have done it any other way? Seems simple, right? The advertiser needs to acquire something in order to be successful, be it payment or an email address, or an opinion (survey). If this is the final goal, why would we measure it any other way?

I’ll tell you why, it’s not the way or manner in which the product is marketed that brings it a sale. A bad product will have a bad conversion rate. On the other hand, a good product will have a bad conversion rate if marketed in a poor manner. The current state of industry is this, we must rely on hard acquisition numbers for our payouts because no one knows how to value an certain spot at any certain time on any certain website with any certain product… yet!

I believe this metric can be found, and it’s worth being proven. We do this for television commercials already. Prime time commercials are worth more. Women’s products are worth even more to the hypnotized Oprah crowd. Men’s products are not advertised during Oprah. We seemed to have cracked the code for television. Television, like the web is always changing and so are the advertisements.

Granted, the web is more complicated, more fickle. The users are starting to expect more, but we have the ability to change the ads per user, and on the fly at the last minute. We have oodles of practically free computing power to inference products, services, or whatever to target the end user at that time. We have instant access to his web browsing history, or past purchases, we even have access to the services and content of the email at times. Think gmail is completely free? Those targeted ads don’t come from nowhere.

So why should we sit back and let someone else’s product tell us how much we should make for something that has an unknown conversion? We should know how much our advertising spots are worth. At that time, for that user’s demographic, based on past purchases and inquiries. We should be able to calculate the optimum product for purchase at that time and deliver a much higher conversion percentage. If you give us a crap product, guess what, you’ll get a crap conversion.

The other side of CPM. Why does an acquisition need to be made for the Ad to be successful? I’ve never once tried to click on the commercial in the TV to buy any product. Is branding completely dead? We need to offer to build ads just for branding purposes. Stop charging for the ad, start charging for the space. Radio stations do this already. Let’s catch up to radio for God’s sake!!!

The real problem here is that no one has come up with the formula for how much an ad should be. You can bet Google is throwing a shit ton of money at finding this solution. I will be right there trying to find out how to cash in on the CPM train.

Why merb over rails? Anyone?

I’m always open to learning financial gain, so I’m constantly reading investments books. Whether it be real estate, paper investments, or just learning to control finances to for wealth, I’m usually pretty open to new sources of knowledge. I’ve read a few Rich Dad, Poor Dad series of books. All of them an easy read, but always filled with mostly the same common knowledge and cliches repeated over and over durning the book with a few new nuggets of knowledge with each book. The books are always vague and never give any details on how to obtain this wealth. I just figured that more education and experience were needed and the book was just an overview.

I signed up for a Rich Dad Real Estate Investing 3 day Seminar which I had to postpone due to re-locating which had to happen that weekend. This is how they got my phone number. After I missed the seminar, a month later I receive a phone call from a Rich Dad employee. Now pay attention because this is what is good. The way they design the selling process makes it feel selective.

1. A Rich Dad employee calls me and asks me a few preliminary questions. Using phrases like, “very selective”, “not everyone qualifies”, “see if it’s the right time in your life”, “time is of the essense, limited availability”. She even asked me to write down some questions to help prepare for a coaching director’s interview. This was all smart because it makes me feel special should I be selected by them because I’m ready to be financially successful. I asked directly, “Is this another service that you would like to offer or sell to me?”. The response was, “No”.
2. The follow up interview. The rich dad coaching director calls and says that she needs to interview and verify it’s a good fit (as if). She asks about current financial well being. Asks about our current savings and investments. We (me and my wife) ignorantly answer these questions thinking the concern is actually our financial readiness. She asks about our credit cards and the limits on them and the debt on them. Again my wife and I think it’s about helping our financial well-being.
3. She asks about our area of interest for investing, real estate or paper. She asks about whether we would like to know more about leveraging credit to work for us. We answer yes. She touches on using credit cards to our advantage. At this moment I stopped her, and asked, “I was led to believe that it was unwise to use credit cards at such a high interest rate. Aren’t there better forms of leverage to use?”. The answer was, “credit cards are a fantastic way to leverage other people’s money. This is what Robert Kyosaki talks about. Using other people’s money”.
4. The saleswoman, I mean coaching director, starts asking sales questions like are you ready to commit. Would you be able to dedicate 7-10 hours per week? We in turn answer an un-enthusiastic, “yes”. At this point I’m waiting for a price and want to know.
5. She asks us to write down some commitments. Some they have for us, and some that we must make for them. One was the hours required. I forget two at the moment, because three is where we stopped. The third commitment required from us was the tuition. $5K. She asked if we could afford to pay, upfront, today, before we hung up. Without hesitation it we both replied, “No”. Of course we were met with, “why”, and she brought up repeating my own words, “Now Buck, when talking about your savings you said you had enough $x numbers of dollars. WHAM!!! It all came rushing toward me. This women was in no way interested in my financial ability to be compatible or my financial thinking to be successful for this program, but only feeling me out for the ability to pay. I made mention of this and immediately she went on the deffensive, and quickly the offensive. She started to passive-aggressively insult us. Saying things like, “You’re just procrastinating”. You’ll never be successful with that attitude.

I told her I would never pay $5k for something that I have only heard about for 15 minutes. “That wouldn’t be doing my due diligence”, I told her. My wife repeated that Robert Kyosaki wouldn’t make a deal like that. The saleswoman (she no longer needs the title of “coaching director” at this point) asks if the kind of help and teaching would be worth it, comparing tuition to college. I said of course, but like choosing a college, research is put in before dropping any cash. She asked, “You don’t trust Rich Dad”? My wife and I quickly replied, “NO!”. She asked, “Why not?”. I said,  “Trust is earned”.

She was starting to get insulting and I had enough. I told her It doesn’t matter, I would not invest that much cash without research from an unbiased party. She continued on and told us that we were not at the right place in our life for this commitment. This from a woman that had repeatedly told us that we were ready (until she found out we were unwilling to pay). She even tried a slight bit of pressure in the end when I said I would reconsider after some research. She told me the whole interview process would start over. Yea right, if I called and said I’m ready to sign up and here is my credit card number, that would be all that it takes.

This whole process was a bit annoying and could have been avoided had they not lied about my initial question, “Is this another service you are offering or selling?”. All in all very sneaky. Trying to convince me that credit cards were a good way to leverage credit. Finding our credit card limits to find out if we could pay. These were great ways to feel out a potential customer.

Some helpful links

• http://www.realestatecoursereviews.com/review/index2.php?item_id=18
• http://richdad.tribe.net/thread/ef29e444-27fc-4e10-9391-d42c94de9670

I’m doing an experiment for the next week. I want to know how much gas I save by slowing down a little on the highway.
I usually cruise at around 85-95 mph, but this week I’m topping out at 70. Because I’m only doing 70, I don’t have to speed up and down as much to get around the morons driving slow in the left lane. This may affect my mileage more than the extra wind drag created by the speed.
Driving into work today sucked. I’m just so used to driving at a higher speed that it felt like I was putting along. I don’t think I arrived much later at work though. Granted, I don’t work that far from my home. A longer trip could definitely affect the time it takes when moving a slower rate of travel.
I imagine that I’ll get used to traveling at just the speed limit after a while. At the end of the week I’ll fill up and calculate my mileage. I’m starting out @ 23 MPG combined city and highway. I won’t be changing my routine so the results should be comparable.

I had to relocate for a job recently. Which means I had to find a new gym to join. After looking around, I was a little displeased with the lack of choices in the area where I just moved. I found a gym that was relatively close to my house and had enough amenities. I was really disappointed by the price. My first bill was $57. This is a little steep for the area I moved to. I just came from a more expensive area (South Florida) and my membership was only $35 for the same stuff.

My 30 day trial period

Luckily, Lifestyle Family Fitness offers a 30 day money back guarantee trial. I decided to use the gym and see if I liked it. To be honest, the gym has all the equipment needed. Which is to say the dumbbells go over 110lbs, they have a squat rack, and a bench press. The biggest drawback is they’re crowded, everyday. I decided to exercise my 30 day out. Mostly in hopes they would counter like every other gym I have ever belonged to. Most of the time they want to know the problem, and then offer a solution to fix it. When they asked me why I wanted to quit, and I responded with, “price and too crowded”. Here is where their in-ability to problem solve came in. They were looking for some loop hole to keep me from getting a refund, instead of fixing the problem. Most places would come down in price.

They have plenty of margin to work with…

I came from an area with higher cost of living, much higher taxes, much higher rent and real estate costs. The gym I to which I used to belong has a larger footprint and offers more locations, yet still manages to charge $21 less per month than Lifestyles. Either the gym manager is unable to sell or the business is run so badly that the margins are slim, even at the extremely high prices charged. I’m a little saddened that Lifestyles seemed to have a sales prevention team working the day I quit. Another person may have been able to save a sale by lowering the price to the same level that others are grandfathered in at.

I’m looking to buy a new car. I’m a guy, so I really hate shopping. It’s a pain in the ass.

I’m buying a more family oriented car, which makes it kind of a boring drive. I’m coming from a car that puts down 500 horsepower to the wheels with 540lbs of torque. Family cars just don’t compare, and thus makes it boring to shop for.

Anyways, back to the moron dealers I’ve been in contact with. I put out a request for quote on the official sites of each manufacturer. This was for about 15 different dealerships. All but one have called me back with the following information: “Please call me at your earliest convience”. They also took the time to email the same message.

Wait a minute, didn’t I request something?! Oh Yea! A quote. Guess how many sent me an actual quote without being asked a second time? ONE! One dealer, a Honda dealer, sent me a quote the first time I asked for it. The rest ignored my request, ignored the fact that I requested it online at my convience (my preferred method) and that my preferred contact method was email.

This is annoying! I received countless phone calls during the day disrupting me during work. The very reason I requested online quotes was to avoid the disruption.

Some dealers were even more annoying. When I asked about the new Pontiac G8 GT from dealers, one dealer returned a phone call, and only one. Again, no quote. Just a message about the first shipment had been spoken for and call me.

Why are dealers so secretive about their pricing? If I called any other business that had concrete numbers about the products they are selling, they would have zero problem giving me a quote. Hell, the selling process of the auto insurance business has been turned upside down because of the instant gratification of that progressive pioneered. And that’s not even hard numbers, they have to run the calculation of stats based on questions dumbed down enough for the non-underwriter layman.

The one place to offer me a quote will probably be the place I buy from. I say probably because I’m still debating the make/model of the car. I plan on posting all of the emails from the dealers that I have received and the names of the dealerships.

I love the new Apple TV updates. I wrote about how it may change the HD world. It really bodes well for HD and VOD. There are a few of us that were early adopters and bought mac mini’s for their Home Theater PC (HTPC), and some of us that wanted the extra juice to play their 720P 30 fps or 1080 material.Whatever the reason for owning a mac mini as opposed to an Apple TV, it seems that we are left out in the cold.

Yes, while the Apple TV was busy getting it’s update on, front row users are left with yesteryear’s interface. Of course it’s a computer and I can switch over to iTunes, but let’s face it. When you’re listening to music with friends and want to quickly browse and buy a song you’re all talking about. Breaking out a keyboard is the equivalent of the VISA check commercials when that person breaks out a check. It certainly doesn’t create a one click buying experience, putting more obstacles between me and the check-out lane. That’s the whole point of this, Apple wants to sell rentals and music. The easier they make it to buy, the more they’ll sell, period.

I hope this is on their to-do list. It would certainly encourage me to buy more from them.