Plaxo Platinum Sync

Today I got an email from Adrian Hurel that "Thanks for purchasing Platinum Sync." Which is very weird since I rarely ever use the Plaxo service. (I believe I signed up because a friend on Facebook was on it.) I am very sure that I didn't recently upgrade.

FYI: Plaxo brings all your contacts into one place, gives you access to your data where you need it, and keeps your address book up-to-date. You can upgrade for $5 a month to add 2-way, real-time sync keeps your address book consistent and accessible from the essential communication tools you use every day.

To make sure that I didn't upgrade, I logged into the service - not too quickly as it took several tries since I completely forgot what my username/password was. After a few choice guesses, I was in. I notice that my "membership" was still at the basic level and its still free. I also noticed that I only have 3 contacts in Plaxo, so I don't think I would have upgraded.

I don't know if something weird happened at Plaxo, as I have no idea why they think I purchased their Platinum service. Guess they need better QA on their emails.

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Content Shadowing

In Content Management, content shadowing is when you have a main content and some children content based off the main content. This is usually used when the children content doesn't change that much from the main content and there are lots of children contents.

The main advantage of using content shadowing over simple page linking is that it keeps the website to have the same look and feel throughout the site. It also gives more control to the primary owner of the content.

Example of Content Shadowing:

The American Association of Tirade has offices all over the country and thousands of websites to display specific information on their satellite offices. However, on several pages it displays content from the home office. Some text is replaced to add the local touch, but the bulk of the text is managed at the home office in Washington D.C. When the home office makes a change to the content, all the satellite offices get that change.

Content Shadowing needs to be built into a content management solution and be part of the design of a Website Project Architect. CS2 from Refresh Software was one company that offered the solution, some other CMS companies are working on implementing into their systems.

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Engineer Queue Boss

Essential Dev Position to help with Releases

An Engineer Queue Boss is someone that handles any issues that Quality Assurance or Customer Support finds. The purpose of this position is to take the load off other engineers so they can focus on their task and not be distracted by current issues.

In some companies this role shifts into high gear around product releases to support any deployment or release related issues.

Three requirements of a good Engineer Queue Boss:

1. Domain Knowledge of the Application
2. Good Communication Skills
3. Excellent Detective Skills (Ability to search for the problem.)

Some companies call this role Cue Boss or Que Boss, but the correct name is Queue Boss.

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Business Books damage in Flood

In 2009, we had an expected flood in our basement and we lost some things. The following is a list of books that I had the were mostly ruined in the flood. All of these are really good books that I'll probably purchase again. Thankfully there's plenty of used versions on Amazon so it won't be too expensive to rebuild my library.

The list of business books that were damaged and a link to Amazon:

• DO IT!, John-Roger & Peter McWilliams see john-roger.org
• Fish!, Stephen Lundin
• Focal Point, Brian Tracy
• Good to Great, Jim Collins
• Leverage your Best Ditch the Rest, Scott Blanchard
• Re-imagine!, Tom Peters
• Revolutionary Boston, Lexingtonm and Concord, Joseph Andrews
• Selling to VITO (the Very Importaint Top Officer), Anthony Parinello
• Set your voice FREE, Roger Love
• Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
• The Success Principle, Jack Canfield
• Victory, Brian Tracy
• We got Fired...and it's the Best Thing that Ever Happened to Us, Harvey Mackay
• Winning Every Day, Lou Holtz
• Winning, Jack Welch
• Wright Way, Mark Eppler

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CrynAir.com

There's just something wrong with CrynAir website tag line:

CrynAir. The low class airline. Cheap flights. Really cheap flights. Flights with no style at all. Lowest european fares. The worst brand in existence (but with a nice in-flight magazine). The worst website ever. Rip off fees and charges. Rude flight attendants. The most irritating in-flight experience of any airline. Adverts everywhere you look. Guaranteed drunk idiot at least 5 metres away from you. 

Are they really serious?

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Jordan Furniture

Yesterday we went shopping at Jordan Furniture store in Natick. The store was pretty busy for a Wednesday night, because of the upcoming tax free holiday weekend promotion. Customers were avoiding the rush and placing their furniture orders which they will be charged on Saturday

Once we knew what what we wanted, we looked around for a salesperson. There was nobody around, so off I went to find someone. All I could think as I was walking around was, "Hello, I have money, anyone want to take it?"

On my quest to find someone, I saw lots of customers, but no salesperson. I also saw lots of sales order terminals, but no one to help us out. I had to walk all the way to the main entrance to have the greeter find me a sales person.

Jordan Furniture should put something at each of the terminal stations to allow paying customers to "page" a salesperson. This device could just go to a central command and someone could be alerted, it doesn't have to work like Lowe's, where the whole store is alerted that you need help.

We were happy with our furniture order, just frustrated with the whole finding a sales person process.

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Dentist Converstions

Free tips for dentists:

Please don't talk about problems you are having with getting your BMW from the dealer while doing dental work on your patients. I don't think patients care that you have a BMW. Reminds me of the story of the auto mechanic who use to talk about all the work that he was doing to his house, now I know why the bills were pretty high.

Also talking to your assistant about someone that is dying or in Hospice is not good conversation material while waiting for the mouth to get numb. Upbeat conversations about the big game tonight or the wonderful weather is better to calm your patients.

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Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is now bigger than Microsoft, in terms of Market Cap:

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ROWE

ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment) is a human resource management strategy co-created by Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler and originally piloted at Best Buy.

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Bill Clinton Quote

I remember this quote from Bill Clinton on Electon night in 1992:

President-elect BILL CLINTON (Little Rock, AR 11/3/92): "My fellow Americans, with high hopes and brave hearts, in massive numbers, the American people have voted to make a new beginning."

Change will be coming back to Washington in 2010, very different than it did in 2009. Massachusetts started it with Scott Brown, other states will follow....

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