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We’ve recently began to get a lot more spam at work. It comes in the form of attached PDF files that are stock “tips”. (On a side note, have you ever watched the price on these stocks after getting these emails, they do go up for a period, someone is making money here, although illegally). A colleague was talking to me about the impact spam & the cost associated to continually fight it. That got me thinking, is spam really that bad for our economy? Lets look at what it effects. Note: I’m talking spam here, not opt in email marketing.
Hardware - ISP, Corporations, Home users all need more of it, specifically storage devices. ISP & Corporations need better routers & higher performing CPUs. Benefits companies like Cisco, Western Digital, RAID providers, basically any hardware related company benefits here which in turns benefits countries like Twain, China, and other Asia Pacific hardware manufacturing centers.
Bandwidth - More spam means less bandwidth. ISP have to install more fiber, which benefits telecommunication companies.
Man Hours - More network administration is needed to manage and facilitate extra hardware and software, this benefits IT workers
Software - Software companies are making a killing selling spam prevention software. The best part for these companies is that spam tactics change everyday, so their software must too, which is great for maintenance renewals. Sales & Software developers benefit from this ever growing changes.
Productivity Loss - Ok the big question. All this prevention but still spam gets through. How much time is wasted at looking/managing/deleting spam? Personally speaking, maybe 15 minutes a week, which can’t be a realized effect can it?
Conclusion
Spam is good for the economy IT/Tech industry. It keeps the machine rolling. Yes it’s a nuisance but the positive effect it has on the industry far out weighs the negative.
While this post may prove spam’s contribution to the economy, most people want to
stop spam before it starts.
Spam blockers are an amazing
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Written by Tim on August 2nd, 2007 with 3 comments.
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Overview
My wife and I visited the Riviera Maya from April 15 - 22. 7 relaxing days away from our beautiful but rambunctious kids. This was the first time away from our youngest baby so my wife had some jitters plus it was her first time out of the country. This was an all inclusive deal, again a first time for the both of us.
Flight
We had a 4 PM direct flight from Indianapolis. We flew Frontier Airlines. All Frontier jets come with a LCD with 30 different TV stations all included. Plus they serve a nice sandwich and chips during the flight. The plane was half full so the crew was very relaxed. They get an 9 out of 10 from me. We arrived in Cancun at 7 pm their time. The flight home was uneventful which is good thing for air travel.
Cancun Airport + Transportation
Cancun airport is crazy, they do get you thru customs pretty quickly, but man what a shell shock. My Spanish was rusty but I didn’t realize how rusty. An airport worker got us to our private transportation. I sent an email to Cancun Transfers asking for a nice SUV - they delivered, a brand new white Ford Explorer. Our ride their was awesome, our driver was great. However our ride back (again Cancun Transfers) was a nightmare. I swear the guy almost killed us at least 5 time, speeding like crazy. It’s at least a good hour trip to the Catalonia Riviera Maya from the airport.
Hotel
We stayed at the Catalonia Riviera Maya. It’s basically two hotels together that act as 1. Check in was a breeze and we were given a room on the Riviera side, next to their newest building. Before we left I dropped them an email explaining this was our belated honeymoon and if they could do something special for my wife. In our room was a bottle of Champaign and chocolate covered strawberries in a nice arrangement. The “Cat” as returning guest call it, has 5 total restaurants, 5 pools, and 2 swim up bars. The grounds of the hotel are absolutely beautiful and really kept up. The beach was crowded but my wife and I always found a couple of chairs (people do play the chair game). The Cat is situated in a mini cove with a small reef and has really good snorkeling - they give you snorkel equipment for an hour use per day, plus other water activity equipment. We snorkeled everyday. The hotel guest are mix of family’s, retirees, and couples. It’s not a party crowd but people are drinking and having a good time. The rooms are basic, and clean. Our bathroom was very nice, dual shower heads, marble. We had a king’s bed that was a little stiff. The cat doesn’t have ocean front views (it’s right on the ocean but the hotel is turned in on angel), but our room did a have a ocean side view. It really feels like your in the Corona commercial on the beach.
Drinks
Let’s just say I became real good friends with a couple of the bartenders at the swim up bars. Between tequila poppers, green ice shots and strawberry banana daiquiris we drank to our hearts content and more. Nothing like a tequila sunrise at 10 am, on the Riveria Maya. They’ll make them as strong as you want, just ask. I hit up the sports bar a few time to catch some scores, rum & cokes, and had a good time in there too. They serve dos equis on tap.
Food
The Cat features 2 buffets (they serve the same food, one is open air, the other is enclosed), 1 Mexican, 1 Italian, 1 Steak a la carte restaurants where you have to make reservations. The buffets are good, not great, they have a different dinner theme ever night. Breakfast was good there. During the day the steak restaurant is a grill serving hamburger, hotdogs, chips, salsa, plus more, a real nice selection. After a few drinks in the morning we pigged out here everyday, my wife was a huge fan of the place. This is the place you make reservations for the a la carte’s too, so make sure you get your reservations in early. We ate at the steak restaurant first. I had baby back ribs, my wife had a ribeye. My ribs were great, a different type of rib then most American ribs. The ribs were smaller in height, same length though. In fact I noticed everything was smaller then in America, chicken, bacon, etc… Must be the size of the livestock. The Italian was fabulous, I had plenty of house wine. The Mexican was also good. The secret gem of the hotel is an ice cream parlor where you can get banana splits, crepes, and more. We made sure to hit this place every night.
Service
The service in the hotel is top notch. From the waiters to the bartenders we could not ask for better service. We always tip a little although it’s not expected. It’s almost a shock to come from America where most customer service lacks to a place like this. We never got the animal towels from house keeping but they did their jobs and we did not have an issue with anything missing, although we did keep our valuables in a locked suit case just in case.
Xel-Ha
We did the all exclusive here, snorkel equipment, locker, all you can eat buffet & drinks at Xel-Ha. I would recommend going here if your hotel doesn’t have good snorkeling. The underwater rock formation is amazing. We did the lazy river (which unlike the water parks in America, is a real river). It’s a cool place to go once but I don’t think we would go a second time.
Playa Del Carmen
The shopping & night life here is awesome, a must go. You can barter some real good deals. We got our 4 year old a soccer outfit that was originally $35.00 but ended up paying $5 for it. I also got some fat Cuban cigars here. We felt generally felt safe here but I wouldn’t roam alone late at night.
Puerto Aventuras
This is a gated community that Cat resides in and we used the Cat’s bikes to ride there. It’s a cool place that has a dolphin adventure, a few shops and restaurants. You can see what the local fisherman bring back too. We totally felt really safe here.
Weather
The entire time it was sunny, highs between 88 - 92. It was the best weather you could ask for.
Written by Tim on July 14th, 2007 with 4 comments.
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I’ve been tagged for this 5 things you didn’t know about me. Here goes.
1) I play pickup basketball at 5 A.M. on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at the local YMCA. Been doing it for almost a year. I feel so much better after playing in the mornings. It’s really cool that we can get a pickup game of 8-14 people so early in the morning.
2) I played basketball against Kobe Bryant in a high school summer league basketball tournament. He was good…great, but I had no real idea who he was. How things have changed, today high school athletes are famous by their sophomore year - See O.J. Mayo.
3) I despise cell phones. There is something to be said for not being reachable. I didn’t get my first cell until 2 years ago. I was forced by my wife.
4) Paul O’Neill was my neighbor for a time. He had a batting cage & automatic pitch thrower set up and numerous professional baseball players came over to hang out. I was 9 years at the time, it was unbelievable cool.
5) I’ve sent over 10 million emails in my life. I did a ton of email marketing for P&G a few years ago. They have huge lists, all opt in of course, so I’m not worried about the spam cops.
Written by Tim on May 31st, 2007 with 2 comments.
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Checked the online status of my passport this morning and bam, it has been overnighted. We got it on 4/5. Oh yeah, this is good. Some lessons learned from this experience:
- Our government is completely a reaction factory, no forward thinking or proactive thought comes from the bureaucratic mess in Washington.
- The State Department bureau of consumer affairs has handled the overload pretty well in my opinion. They did a good job of explaining the problem and what the public should be aware of by reporting to the media and via their website. I never had a big problem getting thru to the passport centers via phone, 3 or 4 tries by 10:00 am and I was thru with a ~10 minute hold time.
- Some passport reps are more helpful then others. On 3/27 a gentleman informed me that the State Department had waived the expedition fee and gave me the scope how to get my passport early. Other reps were….kindly not so helpful.
- Congressman’s aides aren’t the sharpest & with a little leg work you can find more info then they can. Jean Schmidt’s aid gave no real help, besides tracking my passport was in New Orleans. They need to talk to the rep above on how things work.
- Florida, Texas, Alabama, & the cruise lines will benefit for a long time because of the changes in passport requirements. For a family of 4, passports will run $400, some people are going to bark at that and take their vacations in the US instead. College spring breakers are normally last minute planners so they won’t have time to get it them. If I was in the Mexican tourist industry I’d be ponying up the dollars to lobbyist to get a “smart” drivers license that was cheaper then a passport and more distributed, that is what Canada wants too.
Written by Tim on April 6th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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See Part 1
So the passport situation has not got any better. We are supposed to be leaving on April 15, but the State Department Passport website says we won’t get our until April 29, that’s not good. I called my congress woman, Jean Schmidt last Wednesday and left a message. I was surprised to get a callback the next day from one of her reps. She took my info and said would have a follow up on Friday. Friday, then Monday came and went with no call back. (One note - when you say you will call back on a certain day, please do). I tried getting thru to the passport center number, but their automated system says all the reps are full and then hangs up on you (ever heard of a call que?). The US government dropped the ball big time on this, by not preparing itself with it’s own regulations. I love to see my tax money at work. I’ll keep you updated…
Written by Tim on March 20th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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My wife called yesterday while at work and said Alex did patty cake for the first time. I didn’t believe until I got home, sure enough he was. I got this on video today:
Video: Alex does patty cake
Written by Tim on February 17th, 2007 with 5 comments.
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I’ve had vista as a dual boot since the day it went gold, but to be honest I’ve refrain from moving to it because I had a big project I was working on and wanted to make sure my OS didn’t slow my productivity. But today I decree Vista will be my new OS going forward, well kinda, from now I will boot to Vista and only go to XP if I have really have to. My plan is 4 weeks with Vista and then I’m blowing away XP and starting over with only Vista. More to come on this.
Written by Tim on February 16th, 2007 with 3 comments.
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As much grieve as I give banks and credit card companies today I experienced the easiest online system ever, bar none. I have my mortgage and my checking account with US Bank. They’ve been my mortgage company for ~6 months now and I always went into a local branch to make my payment (i.e. transfer from checking) because I was told by my closer that she had US Bank and they charge $15 for an online payment, sorry but on principal alone I wasn’t paying an extra $15. Anyways today I log into my banking and notice a “make payment” button under my mortgage. I click it, it “knows” I have a checking account and prompts to enter any additional payment amount. I click submit, it then wants a confirmation submit button clicked. BAM, I’m done. 3 clicks to make a payment. I didn’t have to create a new account, verify my account number, add my checking account as a payee account or any of the other crap that some banks make you do (Remember banks make money when your late with payments, it’s in their best interest to make the online experience a bad one). This is how it is suppose to be done. Somehow the engineers at US Bank figured out how to integrate a checking system with a mortgage system, something I know Bank of America has no clue how to do.
Written by Tim on February 15th, 2007 with 4 comments.
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So my wife and I are going to Puerto Aventuras on April 15 for a much needed 6 night all inclusive vacation away from the kids. We are staying at the Catalina Riveria Maya. Anyways because of the new passport regulations we have to have one or we blow our money. The trip is 8 weeks and 3 days away as of yesterday when I go to get our passports. I’m told by the clerk of courts in Clermont County that it’ll take 6-8 weeks to get our passports, talk about cutting it close. You can have it expedited but I decline. I ended up sending an email to the Department of State making sure I’ll get it on time. The response I get is below:
Applications are normally completed within six to eight weeks. Due to the high volume of applications this may take longer. If you need your passport sooner and did not expedite at the time of application, please call the toll free number listed below. The additional fee is $60 and can be paid by credit card over the phone.
Please re-submit periodically for a status check by completing the status form at our website at http://travel.state.gov/passport/about/npic/npic_896.html
Now I’m worried, I’m going to wait until March 7 to get it expedited.
I’m totally for homeland security and such but this thing is going to hit my wallet:
- $97 x 2 for regular passport
- $60 x 2 for expediting
- = $314.00 to be able to leave my country and return.
For a taxpaying citizen like myself shouldn’t this be included?
And exactly what does a Passport tell us? An official birth certificate (which in some states anyone can obtain for anyone) has the same name of a drivers license. I sure hope the department of State has other measures of verifying other data on the application.
Written by Tim on February 14th, 2007 with 13 comments.
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There was one thing I was really bad at, negotiation. Point blank I had no idea how to do or what games to play, until I read sometime back Erick Sink’s blog entry about his adventure with negotiating a car deal. Unfortently I hadn’t read this when I bought my new house in the summer. My wife and I walked into that house with the builder and were straight Google Eyed (a little more her then me). It was over, we had no chance to get some real money off of the house. That guy played me like a fiddle. Lesson learned. On December 31st, my wife was in a car accident and totaled our 2001 Honda Accord. Insurance give us more then we owed so off I went looking at cars. Here is are the 5 rules of negotiation I used get a good deal.
Rule 1: Do your homework, Know your price:
I researched what type of cars I wanted, price range, what was available
Rule 2: Define a fallback plan:
I had a rental car for 45 days, plenty of time to find something. If worse came to worse, my wife and I would have to share a car for a bit.
Rule 3: Don’t get emotionally attached.
The worst words I spoke when buying our home was “I Love this house”. I kept a very open mind to all the cars I looked at and made sure I didn’t “fall in love”. When I test drove each car I made sure to say out loud. “I’m not sure I can envision myself in this car”, I did this to reaffirm to the salesman and to myself.
Rule 4: Don’t show all your cards until the right moment:
The day I went to the dealers I had 3 Honda Elements I wanted to look at, at each dealer I only mentioned the one car as a comparative, so that I had the 3rd car to eventually use at the very end of negotiations. This worked out great for me.
Rule 5: The ability to WALK AWAY:
This is the most important rule, if a salesperson thinks you are willing to walk away (meaning no sale for them AND more importantly the time they lost) then they know you have the upper hand and will be a lot more likely to make a deal more towards your numbers then theirs.
My story goes like this. On Saturday midday I go into Honda East knowing they have a 2004 Honda Element EX 4WD with 34k miles on it listed at $19,700. Salesperson approaches, and I ask what they have in stock for a used Element (Rules 1, 4). She shows me this.
It’s very nice and exactly what I am looking for but not for the price. I take it for a test drive and mention the “I’m not sure I can envision myself in this car” line (Rule 3). She gives me more features and I show some enthusiasm for the car. Lets talk price. She gives me the run down of all the options it has on it and I make it known to her about another deal at John Nolan Ford for a 2003 Honda with very similar options but priced well below hers, $16,900 (Rule 1). I shoot an offer of 16k. She comes back with 17,900. 16,900 is my counter. She hits me back at 17k and says that is as low as she can go. That’s $2500, not too bad. But too much then I want to pay. Tell her thanks but I need to go look at the other deal. I walk away (Rule 5).
At John Nolan Ford, I follow the same rules during the test drive and I mention the offer at Honda East. My initial offer is $13,500. He comes back at $14,900. I respond with $14,000 and that I saw a 2003 Honda stickered the same but with only 15k miles in Columbus and I willing to walk to go see this car. He caves, at $14,000. That’s $2,900 off. Deal.
I’m not all of the sudden a great negotiator but by following these 5 rules, I can now at least play the game.
Written by Tim on January 11th, 2007 with 4 comments.
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