Lawrence Salberg

Don’t Buy Traditional Software Anymore

Lawrence — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:33:24 +0000

I’ve been swamped as of late and hope to add a ton of content to the website soon. I actually have a few things half-written. But, I have to take a break from the break and push this out today.

I have two friends who recently asked me which version of Microsoft Office they should buy, the thinking being that they might be able to get by with the “Educational” version (which sells for far less than retail).

When I respond, “Well, what do you need Office for?”, I almost get a wide-eyed crazy look from them, as if to say, “Well, doesn’t everyone in the whole world need Office?”. And I start to prattle on about online apps, or Sun’s OpenOffice, and I lose them in a fog of compu-rhetoric in which they never seem to recover. Then, they drive on down to Staples or BestBuy and buy the first copy of Microsoft Office that the 19-year old salesperson tells them is “good”.

Well, although there are similar articles around the internet about free online web apps, I thought I’d briefly go over my own use of them and mention a few alternatives. In essence, I’m writing this as a personal email to a few friends, but figured I’d offer it up as public domain so that others could (hopefully) benefit from it as well. Plus, in this economy, I can’t imagine why anyone would spend a dollar more than they absolutely had to - particularly when it many online apps are better.

TWO TYPES OF APPLICATIONS

First, “software” is known as an “application”, by which it means you do something with it. You use it to apply computing power to a real-world problem. Nowadays, we refer to most software as “apps”, and when it comes to the internet, we call them “web apps”. What is a web app? It’s nothing more than a traditional piece of software that runs via your web browser. This might seem obvious to some folks, but I guarantee you that it most certainly lost on others. So, I want to emphasize that for the purposes of this article that software=applications.

The first type of application is the kind with which you are probably familiar: a desktop application. This is software that is installed on your computer and runs directly from your own machine. Typically, the data you create with that software is also saved on your own machine somewhere, or you can “move” (transfer) your saved files (data) to things like a CD-ROM, a USB thumbdrive, a floppy disk if you have an older machine, or an external hard drive. Typically, this installable software costs money, or is in the form of often poorly-designed “shareware” or “freeware”. Shareware typically costs $10-$30 and allows you to try it before you buy it (typically for 30 days). Freeware is obviously free. However, some can be very good. (Here’s a list of the freeware that I use frequently).

The second type of application is an online app, or “web app”, as mentioned above. No installation is needed and you typically sign-up with an email address and create an account with the company that offers the web app. Web apps can also cost money, but usually in the form of a small monthly payment. Many providers of web apps offer a variety of plans that range in price to cover the various uses one might have. For example, Basecamp, a popular web app that is used for project planning, has plans ranging from free to $149/month.

Ideally, of course, you want to stop paying for traditional software and use either installable freeware, or free online web apps.

ADVANTAGES OF ONLINE WEB APPS

As the world becomes increasingly mobile, having your data tied to a single computer seems not only counter-productive, but even somewhat dangerous. We’ve all heard the horror stories of hard-drive failure, and while no one should trust a web application entirely, consider that most reliable web apps are managed by a team of computer gurus who, quite likely, know far more about data storage than you or I. Having said that, most online web apps still allow you to export your data for traditional backup, or to share your data.

You may not want to share that personal family letter you are writing (so don’t!), but you may want to quickly share some favorite bookmarks, or a list of your favorite songs. You may also want to share or collaborate (work together) on some things with just a few people, not the entire internet. Web apps easily allow you to do this.

BACK TO BASICS

First, you are going to need a decent web browser. If you are a Mac user, you can’t go wrong with Safari that came with your Mac. But if you are a PC User (Windows XP or Vista), I strongly recommend you stop using Internet Explorer and use Firefox instead. Firefox is freeware and is a far superior browser to Internet Explorer. You won’t be able to uninstall IE, but you can make Firefox your default browser. If you are bored, you might try a few other alternate browsers to see if you like them better such as Safari, Google’s Chrome, or Opera. All are better than IE.

You might think “well, who cares what browser I use?”. Normally, only us web developer geeks do. But now that you are going to be writing your letters, doing your finances, planning your personal or family schedule, making to-do lists, and a whole lot more - all in your browser - you will come to be very particular about how it works, how fast it works, and more. So, take it from me and just, well, trust me. Don’t use IE and save yourself some grief.

Once you have a browser that you are going to use, you are going to want to have a way to save your bookmarks. Again, stop saving bookmarks to your local machine as “favorites”. You have no way to quickly share them with anyone, no way to access them when you are somewhere else, no way to recover them should you lose your computer to theft, fire, or cat vandalism, and no way to find out what other great sites others are using. I’ve written before about my switch to Delicious, a free web service from Yahoo, and I highly recommend you at least start there. I’ve been using it for at least two years (feel free to browse my public bookmarks here) and once you start, you’ll never go back to the old way. Sure, I have a few traditional bookmarks in my browser, but 99.99% of them are on Delicious.

THE OFFICE DILEMMA

Unless you are in a corporate environment which requires Microsoft Office, don’t buy it. Really. There’s absolutely no reason to do so. I’m not saying that to degrade Office (I have 3 versions of it and use it regularly in my business), but 98% of you no longer have a reason to use it.

If you want an installable piece of software you can use on your machine that is equally powerful as Microsoft Office, download and use Sun’s OpenOffice. It has a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation creator (PowerPoint equivelent), database creator, and a great drawing tool. (See them all here).

Naturally, for most folks, I’d recommend Google Docs, a free web-based mini-suite of similar apps. While they are not nearly as strong as either Microsoft Office or OpenOffice, for most people that just want to write a letter, create a simple document, chart some stocks (or track their fuel economy as I’ve been doing lately), Google docs is great. And it makes it very easy to share and collaborate with others. Why email a document for someone to proofread and comment on? Very 90’s. Just share it with Google Docs and give that person rights to edit it. Don’t worry, your prior versions are still saved.

There’s also Zoho Apps, a more robust online solution, although not as widely used perhaps.

If you think this sounds all a bit heady, consider that Microsoft has been slowly moving Microsoft Office itself online. In the near future, you won’t “buy” Office, but rent it month-to-month online. This will save Microsoft a ton of money (as online software is automatically bug-fixed and upgraded at the server/host level) and keep more businesses addicted to the support of Microsoft, which is Microsoft’s bread and butter.

Still think I’m out on a limb? Even Time Magazine recommends you try an online alternative.

EMAIL

Uh-oh. I can hear it now: “But what about Outlook? I can’t survive without my Outlook!” Or perhaps you are using the free Outlook Express (now called Windows Mail in Vista). My answer: “Yes, you can break free of the chains that bind you!”.

First, I highly recommend switching to an online web-based email provider. Now you might have fetched your email online before and thought it was kind of a pain. More than likely, that’s because you were using the web-based interface that your email host (or internet provider) setup for you. And I would agree. Most of them are rather unfriendly.

Time to switch. I can’t say enough about Gmail. Personally, it’s far superior to the rest of them, and even though it works a bit differently, I have to estimate that my time spent on email has dropped in half since using it. You do want to spend less time on email, right? I thought so. Nearly every problem I hear people talk about in regards to email wouldn’t even be a problem if they were using Gmail to manage their email.

It doesn’t mean you have to switch email addresses. You can use Gmail to manage your existing email addresses. And you should. I don’t want to belabor the point and go into all the reasons why here, so you here’s a great comparison if you think I’m delusional. Here’s one that will help you migrate your old Outlook-based email to Gmail so you can access your email prior to the switch.

If, for some reason, you are one of those conspiracy folks who think Google is trying to take over the world, you might want to use Yahoo’s new and improved webmail (which looks and works a lot more like Outlook). It won’t save you as much time because it lacks Gmail’s conversation-threading ability, but it is very nice and just as usuable. And just as free.

I also can’t say enough about Zenbe, a fairly new email web app that I beta-tested some time ago. It’s now available to the public and it is like Gmail on steroids. If you really want to blow yourself away, try Zenbe and see how well they’ve thought out what email is really designed to help you do (hint: communicate!). It also has built-in integrated calendaring and to-do lists.

Now, if for some reason, you simply can’t make the switch to an online web app to handle your email, then before you spend any money on Outlook, download and use Thunderbird. I still use it to handle some infrequent mail I get on a few email addresses and it is far superior to Outlook anyway. Try creating a custom signature for different email addresses in Outlook. Can’t be done without becoming a computer geek. You don’t want to be a computer geek, do you? I didn’t think so.

EVERYTHING ELSE

There’s a lot of everything else. And this article is meant to help save money for those who might otherwise rush down to the local computer store and buy some more software. Don’t do it. Here are some resources for any other need you might have. Quicken is even now free online (as the competition forced its hand). But throughout, you’ll find free photo editors, illustration programs, social networking and business networking sites, website editors, online photo sharing, and much more.

2.0 Websites - A list of Websites by Application Type
All Things Web 2.0 - Yet another list
Simple Spark - Web Apps for your Life
Top 25 Web 2.0 Apps to Improve a Student’s or Professor’s Productivity
Web Apps for Students
Entrepreneur’s Top 25 Apps to Grow your Business
230+ Tools for Running a Business Online
How to Run your Business using only Web Apps
20 Different Ways to Manage your To-Do’s (not all web-based)

If you like to browse through a book, rather than click around the web (and I don’t blame you), here’s a few good choices to help you discover and use the great variety of web apps out there.

IN CONCLUSION

Honestly, the apps I’ve mentioned above are free! So, don’t comment or ask questions below until you’ve installed or signed up for them. People have a tendency to ask questions (as if they are making some kind of commitment or spending money) when I have these conversations with them. It’s just better. Trust me. It’s free. Trust me. You’ll thank me later. Trust me.

So without further ado, happy free computing.

If you found this interesting, you might want to read:

No Ethics for Web Designers and Developers!

Lawrence — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:58:23 +0000

I recently decided to put a code of ethics on my business website. Calling it “Our Pledge”, I thought it would be a quick task that involved a few Google and Yahoo! searches. I was very wrong.

You would think a code of ethics would be a simple matter. In 2008, I fully expected to find dozens of examples from which to emulate or follow. I could hardly find any, and the few I found were paltry and even laughable.

The chief reason I decided to put it on my own website was to set a tone with potential clients upfront. I also felt it would be helpful in dealing with other web agencies that I occasionally have to work with in order to complete a project. I certainly didn’t do it to set myself apart from other web designers, but I think I may unwittingly have done just that because it seems to be a fairly rare thing for a web company to put this in writing.

This is a huge problem that the web development community needs to address. We demand to be treated as professionals, but squabble like children over inane matters such as whether designer trumps developer or vice-versa. Even though this problem has been lamented before, it still doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to solved.

Here’s a survey of what I’ve found so far (and my own haphazard solution below):

Many of the trite attempts I found had basic ethic-ese language that I’m pretty much sure the stole from the National Board of Realtors or IEEE. Stuff like “I shall be truthful and honest in all my business dealings.” I suppose when you get down to such minutia you might as well put in the Ten Commandments, too: “I will not kill my client”.

One horrible-looking website with a really good domain name that showed up high in a number of my searches, websiteethics.org, has a seven step code that includes such ditties as “I will strive to attain and to express a sincerity of character that shall enrich my human contacts.”

I don’t even know what that means. The other six statements were just as dryly worded (and unimpressive to clients, I’ll bet).

A lovely tables-based site called the UK Web Design Association lists a Code of Standards for their members with similar platitudes, and left me with no help at all.

Another supposed web-design organization called the Web Design Developers Association had a weak attempt for their Code of Ethics (enshrouded in ugly 1997 graphics and iframes so you’ll have to click your way to it) which listed a few decent standards:

To respect the rights of intellectual property.
Adjust promptly any cause of dissatisfaction and endeavor to make every purchaser a satisfied customer.

Along with some very curious ones:

Recognize the basic tenets of human rights. These include, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the right to personal privacy.
Conduct themselves in such a manner as to deal fairly with and safeguard the rights of the public, the Internet, and fellow professionals. This includes, but is not limited to, the refusal to exploit children, animals or any group.

Are there past cases of web designers destroying the freedom of assembly or exploiting kittens? Maybe, but I hardly think it needs to be included in our code of ethics. No sense in putting ideas into our clients’ heads. And as far as “exploiting groups”, isn’t that the whole idea of marketing? To exploit your competition for your own profitable gain? Seems to me this is too much and too broad.

A decent one I found came from the Web Developers Assocation of New Zealand. I didn’t even know New Zealand had internet access! I’m only kidding, of course. Everyone pretty much realized that once New England got it, New Zealand wouldn’t be far behind since they do these things in alphabetical order. All kidding aside, their Code of Ethics is worth looking at.

I particularly liked “Disclose any conflict of interest with clients, suppliers or WDANZ prior to commencing any business.” That’s something I didn’t put in mine (yet) just because I wasn’t sure how to go about doing that. Coming from a highly-regulated industry like insurance, I’ve always been careful about this.

On the one hand, I feel I owe clients some measure of dedication and confidence. For instance, I have several clients who are attorneys (and in the same field of practice) and I have a few dance studios. I think that when one hires me (even if based on my prior work which they liked) that they should know that I will give them as much equal effort as the other. So I usually contact my previous clients in that field and just run it past them. So far I’ve had no problems.

On the other hand, what if one of them said no? Am I giving my clients the right of first refusal for me to accept future clients? I certainly don’t mean to be. In fact, there’s the possibility I could always let the former client go so that I could work on the newer. So far I haven’t had that problem, but I’m not entirely sure what I would do if I did. I suppose I’d like to play it by ear which is why I’m hesitant to put that in my pledge just yet.

Two other organizations which supposedly represent many web designers (although I don’t know a soul who belongs to them) are the World Organization of Web Professionals (WOW) and the International Webmasters Assocation. Despite their lofty titles (who uses the term “webmaster” anymore?), neither of them had any publicly-identifiable code of ethics for their members, yet they both were more than happy to take your money to join. Seems to me that they are missing part of the equation.

I even searched the defacto standarnistas of our day, A List Apart, to see if they had discussed ethics, but couldn’t find any mention of it, which quite frankly surprised me.

Bruce Clay, an internet business consultant, posted a rather lengthy SEO Code of Ethics for his search engine optimization customers. I like what he had to say and I think more SEO “marketers” should agree to it. While a little of it applies to us web designers and developers, particularly those of us who design sites to be SEO-friendly in the first place, it is largely meant to send a message to his clients who have been burned by overhyped promises of various black-hat types.

I found one web design company that had their own code of ethics. RJM Web Design has a detailed list of their ethics, although it looked like it had been around for a while. There the owner promises not to “utilize or distribute spyware in any form”, and “not participate in Web rings, but overall he hits upon some very typical concerns of most clients. Despite the outdated references, it remained one of the best examples I could find.

Two other web designers used their code of ethics more as a marketing tool, basically using it to talk down the competition, or theoretical competition. Not only did it make the COE longer than it needed to be, but they sounded churlish and unprofessional. I get their overall points. I’m not even sure I could blame them since their seems to be such a lack of leadership from our captains of industry on this.

The first one, SiteTutor, a web design company in California, uses their Code of Ethics to trumpet themselves. A few such statements were:

SiteTutor.com knows search engines. You can count on us to stay up-to date with the ins and outs of search engine optimization, website coding, interactive media and any other element needed to make your campaign a success.
SiteTutor.com simply doesn’t cheat. We don’t cloak content, mirror without purpose, spam or use re or misdirection. This means your results are sustainable and your reputation protected.

The second site I found, more of a blog really, was from Jennifer Poyer of Xprt Creative which she titled the “Code of Ethics for the Web Professional Who Really Cares“, implying, of course, that she is some kind of unique caring type and the rest of us are hapless dolts. Here’s a few quips of hers:

4. I will not drag my feet, or make my clients jump through hoops if they choose to find another web designer or developer. If they no longer want to work with my company, then I need to do as much as I can to help them in their transition to whatever company they want to use. I’d be sorry to see them go, but if I’m not providing the service they’re looking for, then it may not be a good job fit. So far … this hasn’t happened, but I’m confident that if a client chose to leave, I would help in any way possible could to assist them in the transition. Any Web Professional Who Really Cares would do the same thing.
6. I will dot my i’s and cross my t’s, even when no one is looking. How many times have I gone into a client’s site — long since finished — only to fix a typo they had on their site that no one noticed? Too many to count. Do I charge them for it? No. Keeping their website in good working order benefits both of us. Besides, it’s the right thing to do for the Web Professional Who Really Cares.

Okay, I had to hold down my lunch, too. There’s something particularly smarmy about the wording, and if you bother to read it, it’s hardly a concise code or pledge that a client would read. Perhaps it’s no surprise that her company instead placed a brief mission statement on their main website.

The trouble with COE’s like Jennifer’s and SiteTutor is that they only serve to say that you are, in essence, diligent and skilled. Hopefully, your reputation and portfolio will bear this out anyway, but a Code of Ethics is not where you outline your skills anyway. No other organization does that. It is where you set standards, of an ethical and moral nature, to communicate to your clients that you are aware that you are in a position of trust, and are also aware that in these key areas, you stand to benefit greatly from abusing that trust.

Things like refusing to comingle funds belongs in a Code of Ethics, not “dotting i’s and crossing t’s”, “not cheating”, or “keeping my skills up to date”.

Thus, it is clear to me we need some kind of national consensus on this. Of course, the requisite external website, list of adherents, and lovely shiny Web 2.0 badges wouldn’t hurt (and will necessarily follow), but it seems we aren’t even at the colony stage yet, much less the national platform.

I think this may be where groups like Doterati and Florida Creatives can be of some help. I’m presently also in the market for a Blogger Code of Ethics after reading The Cult of the Amateur last month and realizing how many mistakes I’ve made as a blogger that have contributed to the noise problem on the internet. We discussed it at BlogOrlando 2007 and I’m sure it will be discussed even more this year.

What I came up with so far is below. The latest version will always be at my business website here. Feel free to criticize, demolish, and demonize it. I’m sure it needs much work. Any assistance would be appreciated and if it can contribute to the overall idea of a more community-built COE, I’m all for it.

We pledge to:

1. Disclose all costs, fees, and services up front to our clients. All fees are posted on our website and agreed to in-writing prior to work commencing.

2. Always use the latest coding techniques available. By doing so, we enable our clients to more easily move their site elsewhere, update it cheaper and quicker in the future, and allow them and us to more readily work with other firms to enhance their web presence.

3. Treat each client’s business like our own. This includes doing what we can to ensure their success, valuing their time, and delivering their service as quickly and reasonably as possible.

4. Give ten percent back to the community via non-profit work, supporting local efforts, or donations to charities.

5. Work collaboratively with other web developers, graphic designers, and marketing firms wherever possible to give our clients the team they need to ensure their success.

6. Use web tools to keep our clients informed and to keep them involved as often as they would like to be. We store and archive all work and documents on a separate secure website, accessible only by clients or their approved staff, so that our clients have 24/7 access to these materials, including past messages, image files, source files, agreement copies, and more.

We pledge never to:

1. Outsource any of our work to third parties without our client’s prior consent, and even in that rare case, to use only American products and services.

2. Hold a website “hostage” or refuse to turn over source files to a paid client.

3. Ask for more money than what was previously agreed upon for the original scope of work.

4. Reveal our current or past client’s internal business information (good or bad) to third parties.

5. Harass or harangue a potential client (or “lead”) into buying.

6. Use any part of our client’s paid design for other projects or to sell any part to other parties.

7. Store client source files, private messages, or documents on a public web server where this information might later be obtained by our client’s competition, hackers, or other unauthorized parties.

8. Infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others, or knowingly allow our clients to do so, including but not limited to, images, audio, video, or even excerpts of text.

If you found this interesting, you might want to read:

Create your own Brand but stay in the Community

Lawrence — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:55:43 +0000

Jeffrey Zeldman, a pioneer of web standards and a longtime blogger, quite wrongly posted about the death of the personal home page.

In it, he critiques bloggers and webified folks alike for, perhaps, unwittingly giving away our content and “brand” to other third-parties.

We are witnessing the disappearance of the all-in-one, carefully designed personal site containing professional information, links, and brief bursts of frequently updated content to which others respond via comments. Did I say we are witnessing the traditional personal site’s disappearance? That is inaccurate. We are the ones making our own sites disappear.

Obliterating our own readership and page views may not be a bad thing, but let’s be sure we are making conscious choices.

He later concludes:

But outsourcing the publication of our own content has long-term implications that point to more traffic for the web services we rely on, and less traffic and fewer readers for ourselves.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Not every person who designs websites needs to run a personal magazine on top of all their other responsibilities. If your goal in creating a personal site way back when was to establish an online presence, meet other people who create websites, have fun chatting with virtual friends, and maybe get a better job, well, you don’t need a deep personal site to achieve those goals any more.

But if world domination is your goal, think twice before offloading every scrap of you.

The danger of thesis like this, and the danger of having a mind like Zeldman, is that it is only partially thought out. He needs someone to push and challenge him to build upon this to a greater expansion of applicability.

First, who is the audience? To whom is this written? For the fans of Zeldman like me, who are likely other webified folks, who create and use websites daily, this post may seem to make sense. But as we know from the web, everything lives in isolation; all content stands alone.

The vast majority of web users - those who are just discovering blogs, delicious, and Flickr - or who have yet to discover them at all (no thanks to Facebook) - can’t understand the value of having one’s own domain.

If they are on the net at all, they live, and are at the mercy, of these Web 2.0 companies, many of which Jeffrey refers to, and most of which have yet to turn a profit. As I’ve lamented several times, when we place our content in these trusted service providers, we had better make sure we trust them. If you’ve changed your email address over the years (Juno, Earthlink, Comcast, Concentric — ring a bell?), then you know the feeling.

What happens if/when Microsoft buys Yahoo? Where does delicious go? Flickr?

I even previously outsourced my creative writing to Booksie, which I now consider a mistake. I’m moving it to a new domain, lawrencesalberg.com, which will house my professional and freelance writing services shortly.

The example he gives of Jody Ferry’s site is a good example of someone who wants a brand, but not a product. And that’s okay for Jody. As Zeldman says, if you are busy working building websites, perhaps there’s no need for personal expansion beyond the obvious: a few tweets, some photos, your LinkedIn profile. Heck, for most people in America, even that would be a stretch.

Personally, I think when you are a leader (as is Zeldman), I think you not only have to lead, but you have to remain steadfast. This is a fine line. At what point do you abandon a platform you once helped to establish? At what point do you lead people away from, say…. Gmail, to something like Zenbe? Are you being a leader by being hip, new wave, and trendy? Or are you just isolating those who can’t even figure out how to keep up with the in’s and out’s of a feed reader still? I don’t have the answer, but I think you hold fast to those principles you once espoused as much as possible to allow as many folks as possible to follow suit.

That’s why I found Zeldman’s comments about Tweets so uninspiring. How is that we are discussing 140 word “blurbs” about the fleeting thoughts that pass through our brains in flashes of brilliance and frustration - and discussing that in some noxious paragraph that covers personal essays, journals, and posts? It’s unthinkable I would hope. The two can (and often do) live quite harmoniously. One shouldn’t replace the other. In fact, it’s impossible for Twitter to ever do so. I’ll leave aside the idea of having multiple Twitter accounts (friends, family, work, crazy thoughts, new discoveries), but it will never compare to the written word in essay form so often found on blogs (like this one).

Why would we encourage anyone to abandon that? Shouldn’t we, as a culture, particularly in America, be asking others to participate in a more greater way? Despite my very recent devastation with all things web, you might note I was careful not to propose solutions, but just to share the lament. I’ve been working and thinking about it greatly since then and will shortly put forth what I hope will be a positive step in turning the internet train wreck around before it’s too late. But I think I knew instinctively that the wrong thing to do would be to abandon the platform.

If Jody Ferry wants to put a few cold links to some other places on the site on his personal home page and nothing more (the equivalent of a decapitated WordPress sidebar), then isn’t that just nothing more than the purest expression of Jody Ferry, and not a pattern for others? Isn’t everything about that site speak of Jody, both pros and cons? Of course it does. As does my site speak about me (whether too voluminous, or too sparse, or too cute, or too green, or too flowery, or too full of technical jargon, or too promotional of community, or too absent from it). As does Zeldman’s, not forgetting his redesign of it only a few years back, speak heavily about him.

It isn’t just the words, or the links, or the design, or the absence of those things, it’s the whole picture: the domain name, the icons, the underlying code, the choices of authority (do I link to Wikipedia and cringe, or take the high road and link to Britannica knowing most don’t subscribe to it?), the page width in pixels/ems, the use of Flash, the use of API’s to bring content in - or the use of links to send people out. How I or you interpret any of that defines me, particularly more so if we’ve never met. What I place importance upon is, naturally, quite different from what anyone else will place importance on. We all do it - it’s quite natural.

“Boy, those are ugly colors” - “What’s with the super-wide view with the huge typography?” - “I love what he says about Star Wars being overrated” - “I wish this guy would offer full feeds”.

It all comes into play. There is no death of personal pages going on. In Zeldman’s busy world, maybe, and thus that’s his myopic and centralized vision of a trend he is seeing. But in the real world - away from the hubs of developers and designers - more content is being generated than ever before. Whether it’s done at LinkedIn or Zeldman.com/resume is largely irrelevant. What we should be embracing - and encouraging - is for others to follow suit somehow. We should be teaching them, showing them, and motivating them.

To say, “Ahh… why waste time with a personal site unless you are a megalomaniac?” is, I believe, the wrong message to send. Historically, it’s also highly inaccurate (and I might also point out - a bit hypocritical for a man who has done quite a bit of narcissistic personal site branding himself). Why shouldn’t the 47-year old retired stock investor rebrand himself online - and fiddle with WordPress and make his own photo galleries if he wants to? Or make a page like Jody’s and get involved with LinkedIn, PhotoBucket, etc.

It isn’t a right or wrong thing at all. It’s a question of whether we take moral high ground that is an isolated bare cold mountain top, or whether we stay among the people and help them out.

When you deal with real people, you find out quickly that they can barely figure out how to post their resume on Monster and apply for a job. They think you are a genius if you just show them and encourage them to have different resumes - or to use different cover letters. Watch them click on the “Join the Army” ads because they thought it meant “submit”.

We should be helping these folks - getting them on LinkedIn, developing their small business websites, friending them every six months on Facebook until they join, helping small businesses understand the benefit of blogging, and yes, if need be, showing them how to buy a domain name and start creating their own online brand… whether it be a full 1000-post blog, a tweet repeater, a link list, or a photo journal. Let it be a reflection of them so that the internet begins to represent a more accurate reflection of society, rather than it’s unbalanced favoritism toward tech types. We all benefit when that happens.

If you found this interesting, you might want to read:

Everything I know is Wrong

Lawrence — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:37:07 +0000

I read Andrew Keen’s brilliant book The Cult of the Amateur over the weekend. I read it in one sitting.

I’m stunned. I’m shocked. I feel lost.

In short, with a mere 200 pages, Andrew convinced a hardnose like me that I’m wrong. About everything. About a great many things having to do with the internet.

I spent most of Monday in a fog. I felt like deleting my blog, shutting down my business, and going to work on a lawn crew for the next ten years. I’m not joking.

I think I’m starting to recover a bit. But who knows?

Andrew passionately makes the case that the internet, particularly Web 2.0 with all of it’s socialization and democratization, is making us all idiots. This is nothing new and you, like me, will probably scoff and think, “Tell me something I don’t know”.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The book absolutely destroys Wikipedia, YouTube, Digg, and even some of Google’s search philosophy. It blows away the idea or concept that a democracy is an equalizing (or empowering) benefit to the millions of us who have, for some time now, felt that the best days were ahead.

As he says, the internet is “ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule - on steroids”. He mockingly derides the “wisdom of the crowd” (a term coined by a popular book that I also found disturbingly bizarre) and “the long tail” (a marketing term created by Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson which has never been proven to work in any large scale economy, but only in isolated instances).

I don’t want to do a full-blown book review. I can’t. There would be no point. You have to read the book. If you are involved in the internet as part of your business, or if you are a blogger, or a media producer, new media evangelist, tech writer, or any such animal, you must read this book. Call me a shill if you like, but I’m not getting paid a penny to promote this.

The book didn’t have an unusual amount of shocking information in it. Not for informed netizens. I think it was the combination of Keen’s persuasive writing with facts being presented one after another, like smashing hammer blows, taking away the possibility that you would try to reason your way out of turning the page. It was, for me, inescapable. I felt my breath being sucked out of my lungs. What could I say? Nothing. He was right. About everything. And I was wrong. And we all were wrong. Collectively, we have been destroying our culture when we instead thought we were building it up.

The book makes the strong and reasoned argument that we need to return to the established and traditional institutions of information: professional news, music, literature, and even television and movies.

That didn’t sit well with me at first. I was particularly miffed that anyone would suggest that the dying dollars at newspapers and magazines were anything to shed tears over. After all, having been interviewed by newspapers and television stations myself, I had later seen those reports and wondered if they were reporting about the same event. The thirty years of liberal bias in many major media outlets had, for me, left me without a concern for their well-being, much less their profitability.

After reading Keen’s book, I’m completely switched my opinion. In fact, as he points out, without a stable and functioning news media, the blogs themselves would be doomed.

ANONYMOUS INTERNET POSTS

Although Keen only touches on this, I’ve argued sometime now for transparency. Full openness on the internet. No more anonymous debate.

I recently encountered a man who had put up a “blog” blasting his former church. While he wasn’t purely anonymous (the church was well aware of him), he had named the pastor and others in the church using their first and last names as well as the full name of the church (and denomination). All the while, he only referred to himself and his wife by first names only. My wife was a friend of his wife at one time. When I challenged him to take down his “blog” (for a variety of reasons), I also pointed out the cowardice of attacking behind an anonymous platform.

I included the Google results for searches on the church and the pastor. They both highly ranked his “blog” in the results. However, should a potential employer, business partner, or anyone else bother to search on his name, there would be no record of his identity in relation to his hate-filled “blog”. In fact, he had even spent the extra $10 to privately mask the ownership of his domain.

While on the one hand I was sorely tempted to “out” him, because the church had the good sense not to, I felt it would only contribute to the overall problem, and embroil me in an issue that I saw as just plain silly and dumb. Worse, it would likely turn him from an egomaniac to a megalomaniac, potentially making him even more dangerous and unstable.

This is the root of the problem of anonymity. For some reason, it has become some cherished right to have an alter ego, a user ID, a “handle”, that from which anyone can fire surface-to-air missiles at their enemies (and even friends). Thus, my favorite two cartoons on the internet.

I’m certainly not proud of everything I’ve done on the internet or by email. No one who has been doing this as long as I have is without some serious mishaps in their past. We are all learning. But I’ve made those mistakes as myself. As Lawrence Salberg. Not as “HotStud69″ or “hack3rBoy666″.

I can even go back to a 100+ email thread prior to Y2K in which I insisted that there was no reason to fear (or stockpile weapons and water) and for which I actually lost a few friends. Turns out I was right (that time), but that didn’t help my friends desire to return to the fold. It wasn’t even an important issue with me. I knew I was right - I had the compu-knowledge that many of them lacked. I had worked on mainframes and desktop computers since the TRS-80. But it didn’t matter. It was an argument over nothing.

The night of Y2K (New Year’s Eve), I had forgotten all about it. I spent the evening playing StarCraft on a 56Kb modem connection with three other players from all over the country. My wife walked up to me at 12:30am, kissed me, and said amongst the buzzing of SCV’s and Zergling rush attacks “Happy New Year, sweetie”. I paused as the Zerglings defiled the last of my Command Center. It was New Years. Here I was, doing something that, at the time, was one of the more sophisticated consumer technology advances out there (online gaming). Not a single one of us broke connection. Not one of us had lost power. No one had even blinked.

I wrote to the old Y2K mailing list the next day announcing my triumph (and by inference, their stupidity). Deadly silence was my reply. They knew they were wrong and could say nothing.

It was a bad decision on my part. I should have given my advice once or twice and then just let it go. People will do as they want anyway.

Imagine Y2K today. Or the myriad controversies debated on a million forums and blogs all over the world. As bad as our Y2K discussion was via an email thread, we all knew who each other were. There were no crazy anonymous posters jumping in and inflaming (or flaming, as the case may be) everyone else. The dozen of us that participated didn’t treat each other with the greatest of respect at times, but there were checkpoints to our cracks. We would see each other again; we knew were each of us worked.

Despite our individual views, most of the emails were reasoned attempts to explain our position, to debunk the others, or the find balance between the two. Foul language, idiotic analogies, and links to irrelevant websites (or videos) were all non-existent.

Now, after reading this book, I find myself in the awkward position of considering support of government-forced transparency on the net. It chaffs my conservative principles to the core, and yet, I see no other way if we are to recapture the hope that I once believed the internet held for all of us.

The idea that we can walk up and down the street without name badges is a cherished American privilege. But it is not a right. We can be asked, at times and places deemed appropriate, for our “papers”: during the commission of an illegal act, by a police officer with a reasonable suspicion of some not-so-societal behavior on our part, and even at some public protests. In other words, you need not wear a sticker that says “Hello. My name is ____”, but you must properly identify yourself at times.

Contrast that to the internet. You can and will be found out only after an extensive civil suit or investigation by the FBI. You can poke your nose into all manner of “buildings” (websites) and never be asked for your true identity. Most major media websites that allow user “feedback” and allow you to register, allow you to create your user ID. You can be “SantaElf29″ if you want to be. And then you can proceed to use their forum to utterly destroy those with whom you disagree - even people of prominence.

In fact, there’s nothing to stop even a 14-year old from setting up a userID at the Miami Herald and blasting the mayor of the city, post after post after post. Despite his lack of knowledge (and the fact he’d be thrown out of a council meeting in two minutes with that mouth), he could potentially stay on the forums for months or years before the Herald bothered to remove him. What’s good for traffic is controversy - and traffic breeds advertising dollars.

Meanwhile, we all suffer from his distracting and unedifying participation.

OTHERS SEE IT TOO

I’ve joked for years that we are all A.D.D. on the internet. Now, I’m beginning to think it may be more than just a joke.

Nicholas Carr, in a depressing essay entitled “Is Google making us Stupid?: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains” (Atlantic Monthly - July/Aug 2008) lamented some similar issues.

Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson Books (the largest publisher of Christian books) noted in response that he had lost the concentration to read long passages. That can’t be good.

Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a leading expert on adult A.D.D. published a book this past year called “CrazyBusy – Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap! Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD“. I haven’t read it yet, but the book is a help guide for the millions of people who are beginning to think they have A.D.D, but are really just pawns of our culture’s obsession with information.

And even yesterday, the New York Times reported that a junior-level NBC employee who broke the story of Tim Russert’s death on Wikipedia overstepped his authority (and one might argue, journalistic ethics) and was promptly fired by NBC:

The instinct of the junior-level employee, presumably, was to correct the record on Wikipedia and share knowledge with the wider world. That flash of idealism was very brief; 11 minutes later, according to Wikipedia records, someone at another Internet Broadcasting computer deleted the date of death and turned all the past tenses back to present tenses. Only minutes later, of course, none of this would matter.

A WORD TO THE CYNIC

Cult of the Amateur was written by a web maverick, a man who had successfully launched a web application, an Silicon Valley insider, a man who, in 2004, begin to suspect that he may be on the wrong side of history.

Keen chronicles his undoing at an O’Reilly weekend retreat in which he makes the mistake of, quite simply, observing. Like a scientific discovery that begins the same way, he suddenly sees his colleagues, many of them internet millionaires and computer geniuses, in a freakishly devilish light. In a 24-hour period, he would undergo a transformation from web guru to web reformer. As he says:

The more that was said that weekend, the less I wanted to express myself. As the din of narcissism swelled, I became increasingly silent. And thus began my rebellion against Silicon Valley. Instead of adding to the noise, I broke the one law of FOO Camp 2004. I stopped participating and sat back and watched.

I haven’t stopped watching since. I’ve spent the last two years observing the Web 2.0 revolution, and I’m dismayed by what I’ve seen.

I point this out because Andrew Keen had (and has) the authority to make the statements he has made.

Sadly, there are those who may read this, who may find occasion to use this book to congratulate themselves on their notable absence in anything webified. With an air of superiority, these few have rarely read a blog post (much less posted one), uploaded a YouTube video (or perhaps even watched one), and hardly know what Wikipedia even is. They have purposely and intentionally stayed away from the web. Some seem downright incapable of even a simple email exchange. I’ve written before about my suspicions regarding these types, so I won’t belabor that here.

Suffice to say, these “anti-nets” (as I call them) are merely against the internet because they have forever been threatened by it. The difference between them and me is simple: they would find the words of Keen’s book to be comforting, self-assuring, and perhaps deliciously vengeful. They will undoubtedly (and unconvincingly) point to such a polemic and say, “That’s what I’ve been trying to say for ten years”. Despite positioning themselves on the moral high ground in an attempt to mask their ineffective communication skills, this book really isn’t for them.

It’s for those of us, like me, who are greatly disturbed by its findings, but at the same time see it as a hopeful turning point, not to withdraw and avoid the greatest boon to communication and commerce in our lifetime to date. No. Not at all. It should be a watershed to take these early years as a lesson for us all and to work together to solve the very many and serious problems identified by Keen.

SOLUTIONS

This is the weak point of the book. Keen places some measure of hope in projects like Citizendium and Politico, but beyond that, there isn’t much to go on.

As is often the case with me, I see much more that can be done. I’m going to express some of it in my next post and outline many steps that I think bloggers, in particular, need to do immediately if we are to have any self-respect at the end of the day.

It won’t be pretty. It will be a tall order. And I’ll be drinking from the same kool-aid I’ll be serving. You may find some of it shocking - particularly if you are aware of my right-wing leanings.

But it has to be done. Or else all of this - my blog, your blog, my MySpace page, your Facebook account - it’s all for nothing. Absolutely nothing. And even though on the one hand, maybe the utter destruction of all this faux information would be a good thing, I think there is “yet another hope” (to quote Obi-Wan).

As more and more folks come online, read our blogs, get broadband, and join the “great conversation”, those of us who have been doing this a long time have to change our ways, to be the moral leaders of the future, and to set the standard. It’s going to be difficult, ugly, and many will refuse and maintain their fascist support for the current system that, up until this weekend, I also thought was the bright hope of communication for America.

If you found this interesting, you might want to read:

oDesk vs. Elance

Lawrence — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:53:19 +0000

My friend Alan LeStourgeon at Affiliate Confession has had some success with using Elance to hire writers. In fact, Elance liked his comments so much, they interviewed him.

Since Alan has already covered a great deal about Elance, particularly from the perspective of a buyer, I thought I’d do the exact opposite and cover oDesk from the perspective of a provider, and in this case, a provider who has yet to actually get his first assignment.

As such, this review is hardly objective or unbiased. It’s really just some points of difference that I’ve noticed and has caused me, for the moment, to tip the pendulum in oDesk’s favor. I thought I’d share them with you.

That may seem unfair, but I don’t think so. oDesk spends so much time training you and preparing you for your first assignment that no matter what skills you are freelancing, you are well versed in the oDesk system and its intricacies. All providers have to undergo a more rigorous signup process before they can even bid on a project. Among other things, it includes passing the oDesk Readiness Test for Independent Contractors and Company Managers. Considering I aced it, I’m well-qualified to cover oDesk’s differences with Elance. Once I have completed my first assignment, I’ll report back here.

I originally signed up for oDesk over a year ago, but I didn’t really push it and only applied for just a few jobs. That has changed and I’ve upgraded my profile in recent weeks and have begun consistently applying for both web developer and freelance writing work.

There are two types of projects at oDesk: hourly and fixed-price. All oDesk providers keep a very tight log (thanks to custom software downloaded on the providers computer) of their work. The Buyers are not even required to pay them if they do not fill out their log correctly.

For hourly jobs, the log is required by oDesk, and many buyers require it for fixed-price jobs, too.

The log includes not only a brief description of what they were doing about every 10 minutes (i.e. “fixing bug #294″, or “creating outline for first draft”), but screenshots taken at random by the software, plus, in many cases, a webcam shot of the provider sitting at their computer. These can all be edited and/or deleted by the provider before submitting their work log for payment. This might be the case if you took a personal phone call and forgot to pause the oDesk Team software.

The oDesk Tools do an incredible amount to help keep everyone in touch. For those who want to hire technical people, the software also includes an easy way for every to work as a team, including allowing for version control and bug-fixing. The approach is always a team approach. Even a simple assignment to have a few articles typed is handled in a team environment. It’s simple for the buyer to begin to include another team member down the road should the need arise.

What I like about oDesk is the elimination of payment issues - on both sides. If you’ve read anything at all about freelancing online, the over riding issue always seem to be getting paid, or in the case of buyers, getting the work the buyer agreed to do. oDesk has all but eliminated those types of problems.

With oDesk, there is a tight weekly payment schedule. At the end of each work week, a provider has 12 hours to adjust and correct their work log, before it is submitted to oDesk (of course, you can work on it throughout the week, too). Then, the buyer has just 2.5 days to review and/or dispute the work log. After the 3rd day, the money is withdrawn from the Buyer’s method of payment (of which oDesk offers quite a bit). The money, minus oDesk’s fee (10 percent), is deposited in the provider’s account about six days later.

A provider and a buyer can be on totally different payment systems. I can get payment direct-deposited into my bank account by oDesk, but the buyer may have paid via Western Union. It doesn’t matter.

The biggest advantage I’ve seen at oDesk is a very vibrant feedback system on both sides. This seems to keep at bay those buyers who want the sun, moon, and stars for 50 cents. On Elance, it seems (to me) that you have to sort through a lot of “you got to be kidding me” type jobs to find the real ones. At oDesk, while there is still the occasional “Who’d want to do that for that?” post, there just seems to be less of them. Job postings can also be flagged as improperly placed, violating the TOS, or for other reasons.

The other big advantage of oDesk is the profiles of providers. They offer tests to measure skills (and let you know exactly where that provider stands as compared to other providers available). The rest of the bid process works similar to eLance. You can even use your oDesk profile to show off to non oDesk people (see mine here, for instance) and encourage them to join oDesk as a buyer to hire you.

There are a lot of long-term hourly type jobs available there. I think the fear of providers working “off the clock” or outside the oDesk system, seems to be minimized at oDesk compared to other freelancing sites. Although I’m new there, based on what I’ve read, it seems as if providers rather enjoy the security of being under the oDesk umbrella and not being left in the lurch by unscrupulous Buyers. You can rather suppose that a Buyer who wants you to work on the side to avoid paying the ten percent fee is cheap enough to also not pay you.

As a provider, I like the fact that when you look at a job listing, you can see how many folks have applied, the average bid of those folks, how many candidates the buyer has interviewed so far, and the history of all the other jobs the buyer has paid for in the past, including their pay rates, who the job was awarded to, how many hours it was originally posted as, etc. In other words, the system helps to keep both buyers and providers honest by keeping nearly everything transparent. In fact, about the only thing you can’t see is what the current bids of the current candidates are.

The disadvantage of oDesk is that there aren’t as many providers as Elance (due to the more stringent entry requirements) and for some types of work, you may find difficulty getting someone willing to do it (or it may possibly violate oDesk’s TOS). That wouldn’t be the case with SEO-based articles though, as that is always a thriving market on places like oDesk, Elance, iFreelance, etc..

In the end though, I’d encourage anyone to at least give it a try. For higher skilled jobs, or jobs that you’d like to pay hourly but feel as if you are managing someone as if they were right in your own home or office, I think oDesk might be a better fit than Elance. Also, if you are having payment hassles as a provider, or if you are a buyer who thinks certain providers may be avoiding you out of fear of getting paid, I think oDesk might fit the bill there, too.

I originally signed up for Elance many years ago. I’m going to resign up in a few moments, so should I discover any errors in what I’ve already said, I’ll correct them here.

oDesk is so focused on what it does, that I might consider using them in web design business. First, quite obviously, it seems like a great place to hire some extra help if and when I get behind. But I’m also getting requests occasionally for hourly work (something I haven’t done in my business in the past). I get requests to see if I’ll just quote two or three hours of work occasionally. I’ve passed that work on previously because it was hardly profitable for me to take it. In addition, like all hourly work, the client expected to pay after the fact, and I didn’t want to be chasing down $50 all over town.

However, I can see how it could be useful to tell such potential clients that you’ll accept the work if they sign up for oDesk and post their job there. First, it virtually guarantees that I’ll get paid if I do the work to spec, and second it forces the client to be net-savvy enough to do a little bit of the work online (post specifications, job descriptions, upload files, etc) such that my work is actually my work, not babysitting someone who doesn’t know how to upload a Word doc. Lastly, it could benefit the client too, because they may find someone that can do it cheaper, or who is available more readily than I am that particular week, or may have other work they need done outside of what I do for which they can now use oDesk providers.

If you found this interesting, you might want to read:

Still not getting Twitter. Help me out.

Lawrence — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:49:46 +0000

I’ve been on Twitter now for a while (maybe four months?). And this is the second time I’ve joined. And I’m still not fully getting it. It’s extremely time consuming when I use it.

While it might only be little flashes of light throughout the day (using Twirl), it’s still distracting when you are working on a project. Or on the phone with a client.

In keeping with Darren Rowse’s recent post about batch processing, that’s the way I like to work (and play): in batches. I check my email, then close it. I install three shopping cart in a row. I do two or three wireframes in a row. I check my Facebook profile and comment and update there accordingly. When I go to a friend’s house to visit (or meet a new friend at a coffee shop), I get in the zone and just focus on that person, letting calls go to voicemail. In fact, when I’m on the phone, I ignore other incoming calls. The person I’m talking to gets my full undivided attention. The only reason I even keep call waiting on my phone is so that my wife can get ahold of me in an emergency if I’m on the phone - for her peace of mind. Else I’d cancel it. In other words, I don’t tend to jump from one thing to the next if at all possible. I multi-task (big time) but try to focus on only a few things at once.

THE TWITTER CONCEPT

The theory behind Twitter it is that you can keep tabs on what your “friends” are up to from day to day without being interrupted by intrusive emails (which I’ve already pronounced dead), or worse, from getting those awful email (or print) family newsletters. In other words, it’s supposed to be a way to stay in touch better. And with Twitter posts limited to 140 characters, it’s difficult to accuse anyone of being verbose and annoying. Pardon me, but that’s just a personal attack that people toss my way from time to time, particularly when they can’t find any solid points to make against my position.

So, wouldn’t everyone just like to receive little streaming bits of text to their desktop or their cell phone letting them know that their friend is heading out to the grocery store, or that their son is done playing his baseball game, or that the uber-blogger they secretly worship just got 500 invites to some new beta web application? I suppose that some people would.

But after using the service, here’s the problem as I see it: There’s already easy ways to do all of this.

I could, for instance, send a text message to someone (or an email). Probably the best option would just be to update my Facebook “status” update. My friends (real friends in most cases) would see it when and if they wanted to, not as an intrusive flash across their screen that says, “Been listening to a lot of Latino music lately. Upbeat, fun, & catchy. What music used to be. Of course, I don’t understand the words.” (an actual Twitter that I sent back on May 13).

WHO ARE THESE FOLLOWERS?

Twitter allows anyone to follow anyone. So, instead of that message, as dumb as it is, going to people that know me, it only goes to those who choose to follow me. And while it might be nice if all my friends followed me on Twitter (and yes, I know I can have my Twitter feed forwarded to other services via FriendFeed, etc), the reality is that I have total strangers following me and reading this stuff. It’s one thing to say they could go to anyone’s Twitter feed and read the old posts, but they are actually following me, little ol’ me, live, as in “Live from Melbourne, Florida, the 140 character micro thoughts of a random guy named Lawrence!”

Let me give an example using my own real-world experience.

As of this writing, I’ve posted only 57 updates, which is Twitter-speak for “posts”. Go read them if you like. It will only take a minute or two for you to scan through them all since each one is no more than 140 characters. Yes, even on Twitter I tend to max it out and be verbose, usually finishing within one or two characters of the limit. So, at most I’ve only written about 1500 words worth of “tweets”, a little longer than my average blog post of 913 words. They are hardly worth the amperes illuminating the pixels on the screen.

Yet, and here’s the surprising thing, I have 26 people following me on Twitter. Who are most of these people? I have no idea. I can’t possibly convey an idea or a thought worth any Chestertonian influence on them in 140 characters. I’m certainly not a mover or shaker of industry such that entire markets rise or fall based on my words.

So, why are they following me? I’ve asked them that very question, so we’ll see if they respond here. Maybe they can help me understand.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

The other thing I don’t like about Twitter is that your posts go to the entire world. Yes, there are ways to do only direct posts (private) to just one person. But, if you’re little Johnny, and you use Twitter on your cell phone to tell all your peeps and family that you’ll be at the mall until 9pm with your 3 best friends, the entire world can see that message, including all the people who probably shouldn’t. Twitter does allow you to make your entire feed private, but few people have that turned on. Eventually, they start to slip and start posting a bit too much information.

I know of one person who Twitters quite a bit about his personal life. And if I was a home-invasion bad guy, it would be simple enough to determine when and where he would be at any given moment. And I don’t need a login or his permission to read his Twitter feeds. They are all on his Twitter page. Of course, his lack of discretion isn’t Twitter’s fault. Or is it?

TWITTER ABUSE

But here’s where Twitter is really being used well. By marketers. And bloggers.

Everytime a blogger has a new post, they Twitter about it: “New Blog Post: 10 Ways to Skin a Cat”. Nevermind that I’m already going to see that blog post in my feed reader later that day or week. I’m immediately interrupted with it’s sudden posting. You can just imagine the uselessness of this duplicitous information, particularly if I were to follow the “tweets” of every blog I read (over 100). It’s obnoxious.

Worse, there are a whole breed of marketeers (not a typo) who scour Twitter looking for people based on locale or career. Then, they “follow” you. By default, you will get an email saying “So-and-so is now following you on Twitter!”. Naturally, you click over to see who this mysterious admirer is and find a Twitter user who has about 12 friends, but is following 849 people. Then, you see what they wanted you to see all along: the link to their real home page which is, no surprise, a company of some sort selling or pushing some product or service.

So, while they could have been guilty of violating the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 had they just sent you an unsolicited marketing email, plus having the acquisition costs of acquiring a decent mailing list, they’ve effectively utilized Twitter, a free service, to gather up a whole round of potentially interested parties and circumvented the whole email service by deceptively “following” you such that you come to them. I’ve even had a few companies do this and almost immediately unfollow you. Of course, I’ve already gotten the email - which was the whole point of their shameful tactic.

I’m a nobody. I would imagine that people like certain high-profile bloggers get tons of this icky Twitter-spam, which I am now dubbing Twam. It has to be annoying for them.

IN CONCLUSION

I’m not opposed to Twitter (although I prefer Pownce). In fact, to really make better use of it, I think the key is to have multiple Twitter accounts - particularly a private feed and a public feed. I don’t know if that violates their TOS, so I’ll have to look into it.

Here’s the feedback I would really appreciate.

1. If you are following me, why? What do you get out of my very limited (thus far) twittering?

2. If you use Twitter, what (really!) has it done to better your life?

3. If you don’t use Twitter, but know of it, why have you not started using it (or a similar service). What do you think is keeping you from trying it? Time? Too geeky? Pointless? Something else?

4. If you are someone I know, but doesn’t use Twitter, when you read my Twitter updates, does it motivate you to join Twitter or to stay away forever?

If you found this interesting, you might want to read:

Dumb Job Ads: Website design ~ several projects (Orlando / Clermont)

Lawrence — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:23:34 +0000

This made my day. Another fool discovers Craigslist.

Hi!

I am looking for a couple possible candidates to collaborate with me and execute some web-site designs to be developed and presented to investors. The outline for the initial project will involved similar features to Myspace and Ebay (but not as involved, of course)

The designer/programmer chosen will have the opportunity to be a part of several other projects that are being mapped out currently.

I’m not trying to get something for nothing, and I’m also not trying to blow smoke up anyone’s backside. No money will be involved up front, just idea exchange and hard work on both of our behalves. I plan on sharing eventual profits equally. If this type of creative journey is too wishy washy, risky, or up in the air for your taste, there is no need to reply. If you are interested in applying your skills and ideas, in the hopes that we can then market the site and build traffic, than by all means, let’s get started.

When you reply, please include links to sites that you’ve worked on so I can check them out. :)
Thanks!
Philip

It’s simliar to MySpace and eBay, but not as involved. Of course. Just similar. Hilarious.

I personally will double Philip’s offer. You’ll get paid twice as much working for me, and I’ll give you even more opportunity to be a part of even more projects being mapped out. And I promise you won’t have to work near as hard as you will for Philip.

If you found this interesting, you might want to read:

Ted Murphy of PayPerPost tries Social Networking in Central Florida

Lawrence — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:15:00 +0000

Ted Murphy, the founder of controversial Orlando-based PayPerPost, is at it once again.

He has recently founded a social network for Central Florida web workers called Doterati. There’s much wrong with this, but perhaps a few things right with it. I’m all about giving someone a second chance - even when Death Star attack sirens are going off in my head.

When I say he “founded” a social network, I mean to say that he spent an afternoon or two using Ning’s excellent network-creating web application to slap up a few pages to get it going. He did buy the domain name however (in his own name), and he has relegated himself to a “user” as far as any casual visitor to the site would know.

So, how did I find out about it? Murphy and his pals created a Twitter user (also called Doterati) and began doing some searches for Central Florida bloggers and web geeks and then following them. This is becoming a pattern for companies wanting exposure from bloggers. Search through Twitter for keywords germane to your region or product, follow the Twitter user, wait a few days and watch the traffic boost. Nothing wrong with it. Sort of clever, but sort of snarky, too. No real invitation, no risk of email spam, a very soft-sell approach in such that many people think they have “discovered” something in some sort of hip, viral way - when in fact it is deliberate marketing effort by those who use this practice.

But, I’ve already excoriated PayPerPost before here, so I’ll try and be nice this time. PayPerPost is a business model which pays bloggers to blog about products and services from other companies. They litter college campuses (literally - with flyers everywhere) like UCF exhorting college students to “Make Money Blogging” to the tune of $50 to $100 per day.

Companies pay bloggers $3 to $10 (on average) for a post of so many words with specific links to their websites or products. Hordes of young people signed up. For a while, many of them made some decent cash. Then Google got serious with the unsponsored text links and the bloggers in the PayPerPost network were hit hard.

The biggest complaint people have with PayPerPost is that they promoted dishonest blogging. The posts were often worded to make it sound like the writer was a fan or user of the product. The blogosphere reacted violently. Eventually, PayPerPost conceded to requiring a disclaimer on all paid posts. The fans of PayPerPost who call themselves “Posties” are a particular rabid bunch that make some gaming clans look tame by comparison.

What made matters worse was Ted Murphy himself. He shot back at critics, most notably TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, with the political skills of Walter Mondale. In certain delusion, he had the escapades and hijinks of his company filmed and put online at RockStartUp. I can’t say they aren’t worth watching. They are certainly educational, if nothing else. What’s surprising to me is that many of the episodes that outed Murphy is an ego-maniacal spendthrift are still up on the site, despite wide-spread criticism.

More recently, IZEA, a company that, well, pretty much does the same thing as PayPerPost. Except in some kind of social way which no one can figure out. They also recently shut down one of their operations due to, in Murphy’s words, “elevated levels of abuse”. I hesitate to point out that a tech person’s job is to control, manage, and defeat abuse and this type of statement makes me question even more Murphy’s credentials in the tech community. Oh, I guess I didn’t hesitate at all, did I?

What about Doterati?

One could make the strong argument that Ted Murphy should be focusing on returning a profit to all the investors who have put some serious cash into his various enterprises, none of which have a positive cash flow and free from venture capitalist entanglements yet.

There is a growing and real distrust of anything this man does - and not without reason. So, while on the one hand maybe Doterati is a humbling attempt to integrate himself better with the Central Florida community (always a good idea for outsiders), there’s the suspicion that Doterati is just a way to gain a giant mailing list for Murphy’s marketing efforts. I’m not sure he’s the best person to run things, but on the other hand, I’m willing to let him hang himself. Should he flub this up, maybe we’ll finally have enough irked individuals necessary to run him out of town permanently. Conversely, this could be his saving grace, giving him the platform to demonstrate that he does understand community, that not everybody chases the almighty dollar to its logical end, and that while we can agree to disagree on various aspects of blogging, that he realizes that his marketing ideas aren’t for everyone.

I noticed he is letting others form groups in Doterati and push their events so that’s a positive. However, one Central Florida blogger, Alex Rudloff, already got a firestorm of criticism last month for suggesting that folks sign up for it. So, uh, I’m not suggesting it.

But, I do want to hear from the Brevard and Central Florida bloggers, web developers, web designers, computer and network gurus. Is this something that you think will work? Is Ted’s new network a satisfactory solution to us communicating and getting together better? Can we trust Ted to just let this grow on its own and to just be what it is? Or are we going to find ourselves the victims of endless email member spam about IZEA projects, splog comments at Doterati from Murphy and his minions, or show up to conferences and shindigs in Orlando, only to be greeted at the door by the Postie Shock Troops? Or will we put our time into this and then have him not renew the domain name?

You can comment here or on my profile at Doterati, as long as I’m there anyway. The jury is out, but I’m hopeful. But I did use a brand-new password to sign up. Just in case.

If you found this interesting, you might want to read:

Can I Write a Book?

Lawrence — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:44:24 +0000

I’ve had many people suggest over the years that I write a book. It’s always been a goal of mine. I even recently had a published author suggest it, which although very complimentary, made me just more depressed.

Here’s why. I don’t have the time. I certainly have the ideas to communicate. I write well. I edit even better. But as life goes on, you get depressed when you don’t finish the things in life you hope to do. Especially the things that you know you can do. I might not be cycling across America anytime soon, but I can write. Now. Today. In fact, I’m doing it right this second.

Last night I couldn’t sleep and it gnawed at me. At four in the morning, I turned the light back on and picked up a book I’ve been reading and counted all the words on a particularly full page of text: 430. I rounded down to 400 for an “average page” since many pages have less words due to headings, bulleted lists, half-page chapter openings, and the occasional illustration. Then I looked at how many pages were in the book: 267. Then, I rounded that down to 250, eliminating the index and a few appendices. 400 x 250 = 100,000 words.

I was surprised. 100,000 words would be a lot for a well-documented, heavily-researched and footnoted dissertation. For a creative novel, it could be a lot. I’ve since read on the internet that the average novel is 60,000 to 90,000 words. But for a motivational book, a cultural commentary, or a subject that an author knew well, it wouldn’t be much. At least not as much as I thought.

And I thought… 100,000 words? That’s it? I can do this.

I type pretty fast. About 80 words per minute. So, I calculated a slower speed of 60 wpm. I figured that if, for every hour I spent working on it, half was spent typing, then I’d be able to output roughly 1800 words per hour. If I spent four hours per day, I’d be able to output 7200 words per day. If I did this five days per week, I’d be able to output 36,000 words per week.

In less than 3 weeks, I’d have my 100,000 words, my manuscript, so to speak. I could have a fully-written book in less than 3 weeks? It hardly seems possible. I was very excited for a few minutes and then reality set in.

I can’t spend four hours a day writing a book. Maybe two, but not four. I still have clients to keep happy, new projects to bid on, family things to do, and many more things on my plate. The garage is a mess, if you must know.

Although I’ve written a lot in my life, I imagine that a book is somehow different. Everything has to fit together. It’s easy to keep track of things in a short essay or even a long blog post. But a book could become confusing. It has to be clear.

Plus, I still wasn’t sure. I rechecked my calculations. They were all correct (and well they should be - my dad used to teach Calculus).

But even counting for typical delays and interruptions, and allowing some time for research and documentation, I started to see the potential to finish one of my book ideas in less than three months.

So, I decided to start getting ready today.

But just to be sure I wasn’t fooling myself, I downloaded an excellent plugin for WordPress (which powers my blog here) that shows a running statistical word count of my blog posts in my Admin interface. I wanted to see what I normally output when I’m not really trying. I’ve written before about why I blog and more recently the traits that I think make me a good blogger.

If you know me, I don’t write attempting to create some winning, highly-sought after blog. If you don’t like what I write about, don’t read it. Or comment on the post and call me a name. Any name at all. Just don’t call me late for dinner. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Unlike some bloggers who are trying to create some search engine mecca, I’ve never thought like that in regards to my little corner here on the internet. I wanted to see what I had already typed in the past years on my blog. The results were revealing.

As of the previous post, I had typed 191,110 words, in 210 posts, averaging 913 words per post. In other words, I’ve already written two books worth of material. My longest singular post was 5,575 words. If you like trivia, you might be interested to know that my shortest post (4 words) is also one of the most-commented posts to date. Those four words, apparently, are very controversial.

Although my post archives date back to December 2002, I originally backdated a few of those posts to be “historically accurate”. I didn’t really start blogging actively at Salberg.Org until February 2006. Subtracting the 12,925 words of the older scattered posts, that leaves 178,185 words in the 28 months of writing starting February 2006. That’s an average of 6,363 words per month.

I feel pretty good that with some effort and a plan that I could boost that to about 25,000 per month. I spend a fair amount of most posts checking references, linking to them, and editing and proof-reading each post. At least about 30% of my time for each post. The above numbers also don’t include emails, blog comments, and forum posts elsewhere on the internet. Although they do include the occasional blockquote cut and pasted from someone else. But not too many. I imagine they balance out with the off-blog writing.

I’m hardly alone in this thinking. Despite my “discovery” last night, I found plenty of references to similar ideas on the net - like this one.

Of course, you might see shorter and less frequent posts here in the meantime. I can’t do both. I’m also not oblivious to the later needs of editing, typesetting, and trying to find a publisher, although I’ll likely self-publish it initially unless some nice publisher wants to come give me a hand (ahem… and a check). But those walls will fall pretty quickly once the manuscript is in hand. Cart before the horse and that sort of thing.

I’ve had many books in mind for a while, but two in particular. One is a historically accurate account of a particular event, but written as a screenplay. I can’t say more than that, because if I ever get around to it, it will be a movie on par with BraveHeart. But better. But I don’t think that is the one to get started on. First, I’d have to write a screenplay which, by all account, is a skill unto itself. Second, it’s going to require an enormous amount of research.

The second book is the one I’m going to do. It has to do with cultural battles America has already lost - and how we can recognize them - along with a strategy to neutralize and nullify those battles. It isn’t going to be a rehash of so many other cultural battle books. It is largely unique in some of its assumptions and understanding of today’s cultural mores. I hope it will be a fresh perspective on how we, as a nation and particularly as Christians and/or conservatives, have conceded so much already.

Despite common assumptions, I personally believe we don’t have to keep those battles in the past as lost ground in the cultural war. Many on the right are constantly accused of trying to drag America back into the past - to the 1950’s, or to the Crusades, depending on whose doing the accusing. It’s no surprise that many “heroes” on the right dodge the accusation choosing to confront those on the left with their own idea of “progress”. While that may be an appropriate tactic at times, I think we’ve conceded too much and we need to attack on battlefields where we have had some shameful losses. We have abandoned those fields, leaving our dead scattered on hills of the ancient past.

That’s all I’m going to say about the book’s content at this point. Although I haven’t totally decided on the title officially, I’ve registered the domain name tenbattles.com today. Sad, but you have to do this early on, else some profit-mongering clown will read this and eat up all the domains that I might otherwise use. Read into that what you might.

To help me, I’ll be using yWriter which is freeware marketed toward novelists, I’ve seen a number of reports that says it is great for organizing non-fiction works as well. You would think that a web guy like me might use Google Docs, but I hate to say that so far Google Docs (and gMail) can’t keep up with my typing speed. It’s autosave feature kicks in every ten seconds or so and I lose a word. In other words, I have to pay attention and type slow so I don’t have to type a word or two over again.

I could also use Microsoft Word but that seems so… 90’s. Word will also be a nightmare to manage 250 pages while I’m creating it. Yes, I know about sections and auto TOC creation (I did this for many years), but I’d rather not fool with all that while I’m doing the actual writing. I may do the final project assembly in Word, then pull it all into Acrobat Pro and typeset and paginate it there. I’ll cross that bridge later.

So, what do you think? Can I write a book?

If you found this interesting, you might want to read:

Mismanagement at Planned Parenthood

Lawrence — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:39:56 +0000

Is there anyone left who truly believes that Planned Parenthood is a great civic community service? Even if you aren’t prolife and opposed to abortion, you’d have to be a blind follower to keep defending Planned Parenthood in this day and age.

As you may know, in many areas across the country, the gloves have come off in dealing with Planned Parenthood and its misguided minions. Planned Parenthood, like many abortion clinics, is so desperate for profits they have spent a half-century lying and covering up its many illegal and unethical actions.

For instance, Planned Parenthood, although founded by a racist,Margaret Sanger, has always insisted that there is no overall ideology that specifically targets blacks and minorities for abortion over and above whites. Although many prolife activists have long since known otherwise (just stand outside an abortion clinic for a few days and do the math), many allegations are now surfacing of this practice being a key component of Planned Parenthood’s operational tactics. Read the following report or if you can handle an almost chilling recording in which Planned Parenthood operators is more than willing to take money from a person posing as an avowed racist, see the following YouTube video - as long as it stays up. I’m sure Planned Parenthood is doing its best to get it removed.

Abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood have long been in the building of protecting child molesters and allowing them to continue their behavior. Whenever a thorough investigation of their facilities and patient records have been done, discrepancies have always cropped up. Minors having abortions are near routine at many Planned Parenthood facilities. Of course, it is rare for these audits to be done as Planned Parenthood, like many abortion clinics, vigorously declines access to its records (using the grounds of “patient privacy”). Many women have come forth in the past two decades admitting that their abortion was paid for in-person by men twice their age and the clinic, in defiance of state laws requiring medical providers to report all cases of suspected rape of minors, happily took the money and proceeded with the abortion, aiding and abetting the rapist of disposing of the “evidence” of his deeds.

The latest attempt by Planned Parenthood to defend it’s actions, as reported by the Family Research Council, has to do with the ongoing legal battles in Kansas. The State Attorney General, Phil Kline, is proceeding forth on an investigation of Planned Parenthood’s activities there - and he has the medical records to back it up (after finally winning them in a protracted legal battle). Now, Planned Parenthood, as they have continued to fight over the records (claiming that Kline mishandled them while he had them in his possession - an argument going nowhere fast), has tried to explain obvious and disturbing inconsistencies between a set of records that Planned Parenthood submitted to the court that was supposed to be a match of the one’s in Kline’s possession.

Their defense? I’ll let Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council describe it:

“So far, PP’s only defense for the inconsistent records is that the clinic didn’t have a copy machine in 2003 and all of its record keeping was done by hand. Planned Parenthood has an annual budget of $1 billion, and a special affiliate that focuses on medical records, but it can’t afford a copy machine?”

If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be hilarious. The incompetence of Planned Parenthood shouldn’t be too easily laughed at, however. They are an aggressive and serious organization who, like many despots on the final weeks of a regime, are far more dangerous than ever.

It should come as no surprise to Brevard County citizens that Planned Parenthood is dead-set (no pun intended) on opening up a full-service abortion clinic in Melbourne or Palm Bay, although they are also considering Cocoa. They would like it to happen by year end are working hard with various “progressive” groups in Brevard to find space. With Brevard County not having an abortion clinic for several years, Planned Parenthood feels there is a significant market for their “business” here. One simple look at all the child molesters living here in Brevard would lead one to conclude that perhaps they know something of which we ought to be more aware.

State regulators and city and county officials need to be absolutely certain they don’t take for granted a single word of what Planned Parenthood representatives say or submit to gain clearance to put a facility here in Brevard. As Brevard was once the site of some of the largest protests in the prolife movement, it will only be a matter of weeks or months after Planned Parenthood opens before every happenstance of how they obtained their facility in Brevard becomes a matter of public record. Any business or government official who cut even a single corner to help Planned Parenthood slide into Brevard will likely not only be held accountable by prolife groups (which is arguably half the population of Brevard County), but could also be liable for any illegal actions that Planned Parenthood continues to perform while in Brevard County.

While it might be funny for some to see the incompetence and mismanagement of Planned Parenthood (and I confess I have a hard time not laughing myself), it would be a mistake to view their stupidity as a weakness. Like the despots I mentioned previously, their arrogance and disregard for law (as well as life), only serves to make them more dangerous in any community in which they are permitted a toehold.