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Oops: Unintentional Anagram

I was just proofing my last post and came across an unintentional anagram in a fictitious store name: "Crazy Al's Shoes"

I swear on a stack of Bibles that this was unintentional.  If you don't see it, I'm not going to point it out to you.

If you saw it right away, you should have spent more time in Sunday School as a child...

Email signatures and business cards...

  I have a couple pet peeves I have to get out there:

1. Phone Numbers in Email Signature.  There are two parts to this one.  The first is when you are going to the trouble of using an email signature for some lame witticism or quote, then the least you could do is also put more complete contact information.  Maybe your message has been forwarded and I don't have your email, or maybe I need to call you.
   
   The second part is to put a "1" in front of your phone number.  Why?  Because more and more people are receiving email on mobile phones.  If you are out of state/province/area code, then I'd like to just highlight the number in your signature to call you (while driving).  They're usually rendered as "hyperlinks" in the message.
   
2. Email Addresses on Business Cards.  Don't get me wrong.  My business card, and most these days have email addresses on them.  That's great.  But when you go to the trouble of putting an email address on your printed business cards, then at least commit to checking your email once or twice a week.
   
   All too often when dealing with a small merchant of some kind, like a tailor, shoe store or other small business person, I am given a business card with some wacky email address like ShoesRUsVancouver@ (insert dial-up network provider here: CompuServe, AOL, Yahoo or even GMail).  Often this is accompanied by some crazy web site address like:
   
   http://www.someDialUpCompany.com/~crazyalsshoes/backtoschoolspecial.html
   
   If online marketing (including email) is important to you, then at least follow through with it and take a little pride in how you present yourself.  Your store has a nice storefront, and you keep it very tidy... apply that to your online presence.  And if you don't know how:  Hire that smart kid next door for $5.35/hr to help you get a domain, and maybe even to monitor your email for you.

In terms of signatures I use multiple "new message" signatures depending on who the recipient is.  Above is an example of one (and yes, now you know how to get a hold of me).  I use a much more simple signature for replies/forwards (left) so that it takes up less real estate (but still provides needed information).

Just my two-bits.  Any other "best practices" for signatures?

Pandora's Tray...

This is very cool.

I've hit a musical listener's block (the equivalent of writer's block, except that I don't know what new music to explore).  The solution is Pandora, where I can throw the name of an artist or song that I am in the mood for and it will leverage the Music Genome Project to find music of similar ilk, then play it for me in a virtual online radio station.

Anyway, that probably isn't news to you, but check out this free application that I found on Jeff Sandquist's blog.  If you use Pandora you'll probably notice that you have to keep a browser open to listen to the Pandora online radio.  With "Pandora's Box" though you can minimize Pandora to your application tray.

Here's the catch:  Our Irish Friend (software developer Daniel Mackey from Cork, Ireland) discloses that there is no connection with the Pandora people.  The problem is that funding models Pandora uses are either ad-supported or subscription-based.

Here's the solution:  Pandora should get in touch with Daniel and work out a licensing arrangement so that some sort of subtle pay-for-use version is available as well as a version that maybe pops small ad bubbles in your task tray.  Don't get me wrong, this defeats the purpose of keeping it off the screen, etc., but you have to respect the fact that Pandora has costs in running this great service.  If you're not willing to pay the $3-$4 per month for this service, then you should be able to put up with the odd ad.

By the way, I am now looking at the Squeezebox (on the right)... very cool looking, and it plays Pandora content directly.

McAfee SpamKiller ... not a big fan...

I'm not a big fan of McAfee SpamKiller.  It came pre-installed on my Dell Dimension E520 and I've since uninstalled it.

I've kept the other aspects of McAfee's security suite, including SecurityCenter, VirusScan and Personal Firewall, but the SpamKiller product is (was) killing me.

Every time I opened Outlook it would take anywhere from 3-5min to scan new email for spam before opening the interface.  The image on the left is what I would get to stare at for those 3-5min.

You try dealing with that when you've got to send an important email, and you have had the bad fortune to actually have received mail since the last time Outlook was open.

I'd be interested in others' reaction to this product, but for now I'm quite happy without it.

I'll stick with Cloudmark... it works well for me.

Yaletown, Marina (by Josh Dunford)...

Yaletown, Marina, originally uploaded by joshdunford.

Love this shot... my new desktop background.

Good work Josh.