Name: Carson White

Email: carsonwhite@sti-creative.com

Comments: Hi,

We carried out a preliminary analysis on your website and discovered the following areas of concern.
1.    Your website attracts limited traffic, which affects potential sales.
2.    Your keywords don’t feature in Google first page, which affects visibility.
3.    Your back links are not good enough, which affects link popularity.
4.    Your website is not properly promoted, which affects the overall score.
We are a Search Engine Optimization service provider and can assist you in overcoming the above mentioned problems. We can perform a more detailed analysis on your website and provide you the plan of action of how we can promote the same.

Please let us know if you require the SEO REPORT on your website at no cost.

Best Regards,
Carson
Systems Technology International Inc.
Michigan: 39555 Orchard Hill Place, Suite 461, Novi, Michigan-48375
New York: 9921 4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11209
www (dot) sti-cs (dot) com

Notice: Under The Bill 1618 Title iii passed by the 105th US Congress this mail may not be considered SPAM as long as the contact information is included and a method to be removed from our mailing list stated. If you are not interested in receiving our e-mails then please reply with REMOVE in the subject line and your ID will be removed from our mailing list. We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

And my reply…

Hi Carson,

I’ve carried out a preliminary analysis of your email and discovered the following areas of concern.
1.    You think we are suckers.
2.    You most likely implement black-hat “SEO” services that end up hurting companies, rather than helping them.
3     You probably over charge your clients for a service that none of them need. Google actually does a pretty good job of figuring out what is important and what isn’t… without people trying to game the system.
4.    You emailed us about our site not ranking well, but how do you explain finding our site?
5.    The bill S.1618 Title III was passed by the Senate, but was not passed by the House. It takes both the House and the Senate to pass a law. Furthermore, a similar bill, H.R. 3888 was passed by the House, but was not passed by the Senate, thus and again, not making it law. Therefore, your email is SPAM.

We are intelligent human beings and can assist you in overcoming the above mentioned problems. We can help develop a training in ethics, philosophy, and logic and provide you with a plan of action of how to stop SPAMMING and SCAMMING innocent businesses.

Please let us know if you require these lessons at much cost.

Best Regards,

Lew Ayotte
Full Throttle Development, LLC
http://fullthrottledevelopment.com
http://twitter.com/full_throttle
http://twitter.com/lewayotte

For some reason he never replied.

ZAGG smartbuds (3.5/5)

Let’s start with the ZAGG smartbuds. I originally bought these because the Apple earbuds that came with my iPhone began to breakdown from over use. At the time these things were 75$, but I was able to get a pretty good coupon… back when ZAGG use to give their stuff away to gain momentum. The second pair I bought second hand from a co-worker who didn’t really like them (he’s stockier than I am and said that the cordage didn’t really work for him). There are many things I loved about these earbuds and many things I didn’t…

Pro’s

1. They can be worn in a way that keeps the buds around your neck, even when not in use. This was probably the most convenient thing about these earbuds and I wore mine everyday like this. It makes it convenient for taking calls, as well as just popping in your earbuds to listen to the No Agenda Podcast (the best podcast in the universe).
2. They are very comfortable, the earbuds actually come with 4 different sets of earbud adapters, 2 sizes of the thin silicone earbuds and 2 sets of the thicker foam earbuds. I used the smallest size foam and thought that they fit the best and gave the best noise cancellation affect, great for when I was listening to Beyond the Box Podcast with Steve Sensenig and Raborn Johnson.
3. They generally sound great, bare in mind, I’m listening to mostly podcasts and the audio quality doesn’t need to be amazing for me to get what I need, but I’ve never had any major problems with the sound.

Con’s

1. The regular iPhone headphones have push button volume up/down controls and the hang-up/answer button. The ZAGG smartbuds has the hang-up/answer button, but the volume control is actually separate from the the iPhone controls, it’s a slide. It kind of gives you a little more control over the volume, since you can control the headphone volume from your iPhone and then also from your headphones. However, I found this to be a nuisance more than anything. I always kept my iPhone volume up to 100% and controlled the actual headphone volume using the slider. However, it seemed like at some points in the “slide” the volume went from just too low to just too high. I think it would have been much more sensible to just use the volume up/down controls like the Apple earbuds.
2. My first pair started to get some static, it seemed like the 3.5mm connector  started to wear down so whenever it moved in my pocket I’d hear some crackling noises.
3. I really liked that I could keep the earbud around my neck… but occasionally I’d be reminded that at any time some ninja could sneak up behind me while I’m listening to This Week in Tech and strangle me to death with my own earbuds.
4. They claim that they have a noise cancelling mic. I’m not sure how this works or if it even worked. I didn’t really detect any real noise cancelling effect apart from the foam earbuds. I could be wrong, but I did occasionally have to set the volume to the highest setting. I would think with “noise cancellation” it would have cancelled the noise around me better. This is true for both pairs I owned.
5. It’s actually kind of hard to store these earbuds. The cordage is much longer than a typical set, and there are many “hard” places that seem to get into the way of how I normally wrap a set of earphones.

Skullcandy 50/50 Earbuds (4/5)

After I accidentally broke my second pair of ZAGG smart buds (my first pair broke on their own somehow). I needed to get a new set of earbuds. It’s hard to come by a good ZAGG coupon these days, so I had to look elsewhere for my podcast listening needs. After a few search and reading some reviews on Amazon I decided to try out the Skullcandy 50/50 earbuds.

Pro’s

1. These actually have the Apple standard volume up/down control buttons. This is so much better than a slider to control the volume, I no longer have to fight for the “perfect” volume when I listen to the Freakonomics Podcast.
2. I broke my last set of smartbud because of the “around the neck” feature, I don’t have to worry about that with these, if I snag the cord on something they’ll just pop out of my ears. But if I’m not wearing them, they’ll be put in my pocket anyway. So hopefully these will last me longer than the smartbuds did.
3. Like the smartbuds, the sounds quality is great. I haven’t noticed any problems, no snapping, or crackling. Though I haven’t had these as long as my first part of the smartbuds.
4. It is much easier to wrap up these headphones in and store them, though this is only against the ZAGG smartbuds, I’m sure any traditional headphones would be just as easy as these are. It’s still a PRO because I no longer have to deal with that hassle.

Con’s

1. I don’t know why they are made this way, but their silicone earbud adapters are horrible (at least for me). They sound fine, but the problem is they have little embossed “skulls” on them, which basically makes the inside of my ear itch like crazy. It’s like having a small grain of sand in your ear. Luckily, I had all my earbud adapters from my ZAGG collection. The foam ones didn’t really work (they didn’t fit right on the earphones), but the ZAGG silicone adapters worked great, and they’re actually very comfortable. I know this is turning into a pro, but it’s a con… because I think you’ll have to buy a third-party set of silicone earbud adapaters to get a comfortable feel. Skullcandy really needs to change this (seriously, who the heck is going to see the “skull” in your ears anyway). Though I never saw this complaint in the reviews I’ve read, it might just be me.
2. These don’t have the same feature that lets you keep the earbuds around your neck. It’s not a deal-breaker, but I really did like that about the smartbuds. Though I don’t really need to worry about ninjas as much.
3. These earbuds have a chrome piece on the earbuds that actually get pretty cold and is kind of shocking when you put it in your ear. It doesn’t last long, but I don’t enjoy it very much.

So there you have it, I was able to get the Skullcandy 50/50 earbuds a bit cheaper on Amazon than the ZAGG smartbuds. Neither are perfect, but I guess if you don’t want to buy those 200$ earbuds, you’ll have to compromise in one way or another. I think I’m really going to like the Skullcandy 50/50 earbuds though, the biggest complaint I have against them is their embossed silicone earbud adapters. If it wasn’t for that, I’d probably give them 5 (out of five).

What I used…
2 1/2 cups of rigatoni (or any sort of pasta)
2 cups of sliced carrots (I don’t peel my carrots)
2 cups of celery (I hate the smell of raw celery)
1 can of green beans (drained)
1 can of kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 large potato (diced)
About 4 cups of tomato sauce
About 7 cups of water
Salt and pepper to taste.

All these ingredients made a pretty hearty soup, you could probably cut some of them down a bit if you didn’t want it so hearty.

First, I made the rigatoni according to the instructions on the box and drained it.
Second, in a large pot, put everything in, cover and bring to a boil, once it starts boiling lower the temperature to a simmer. Let simmer for 30-60 minutes (keep it covered). Cook until the veggies are tender.
Third, enjoy a hot and hearty soup!

The story is about a journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig), who is hired by Henrik Vanger to investigate the death of his daughter from 35 years ago. As he is figuring out what happens, he gets an assistant, Lizbeth Salander (played by Rooney Mara), the girl with the dragon tattoo. Lizbeth, is basically an hacker/investigator for a company. She is 23 years old but is a ward of the state because she was ruled incompetent/insane as a child. She is extremely intelligent but has had a very rough life. This movie reveals the dark side of Sweden as Lizbeth and Mikael’s fates intersect and they journey together in solving Vanger’s daughter’s death.

I wholeheartedly give this movie 5 out of 5 Circus Peanuts, with two caveats.

1) The “hacking” is not very realistic, this is typical of all movies though.
2) This movie is VERY R-rated. Rooney Mara has a few nude/sex scenes in the movie. There are also extremely graphic (and disturbing) rape/revenge scenes.

Regardless, this movie has definitely peaked my interested to the next two books in the series. I believe I’ll start reading them soon.

Week 6 – Week 4 (level 2):
Monday – Day 1 Goal: 18, 22, 16, 16, max (25+) – Actual: 12, 22, 10, 10, 6
Tuesday – Day 2 Goal: 20, 25, 20, 20, max (28+) – Actual: 20, 25, 10 ,10, 10
Friday – Day 3 Goal: 23, 28, 23, 23, max (33+) – Actual: 23, 22, 12, 14, 14
Total This Week: 220 Pushups (26 more than last week)

I am still seeing improvements overall, just not the sort of improvements the program is trying to get.

So here are the results for the end of last week.
Week 4 – Week 2 (level 2):
Monday – Day 1 Goal: 10, 12, 9, 9, max (13+) – Actual: 10, 12, 9, 9, 14
Tuesday – Day 2 Goal: 12, 13, 10, 10, max (15+) – Actual: 12, 13, 10, 10, 15
Evaluation Test: 25 Total
Total That Week: 120 Pushups.

And the results for the end of this week.
Week 5 – Week 3 (level 2):
Monday – Day 1 Goal: 12, 17, 13, 13, max (17+) – Actual: 12, 17, 13, 8, 7
Tuesday – Day 2 Goal: 14, 19, 14, 14, max (19+) – Actual: 14, 19, 14, 7, 8
Friday – Day 3 Goal: 16, 21, 15, 15, max ( 21+) – Actual: 16, 21, 15, 11, 13
Total This Week: 194 Pushups.

So, as you can see I have definitely started to improve. It didn’t ask me if I wanted to restart this week this last time, so I am going to press forward onto the Week 4 plan.

As I said last week the iPhone App wanted me to take the exhaustion test again. I was able to do 23 good form pushups, which put me at level 2 for Week 3.

Week 3 (level 2):
Monday – Day 1 Goal: 12, 17, 13, 13, max (17+) – Actual: 12, 17, 10, 5, 5
Tuesday – Day 2 Goal: 14, 19, 14, 14, max (19+) – Actual: 14, 19, 9, 9, 7
Friday – Day 3 Goal: 16, 21, 15, 15, max ( 21+) – Actual: 16, 17, 9, 9, 8
Total This Week: 166 Pushups (27 more than last week).

The iPhone App keeps asking me if I want to do the same set next time, or go back a week. I decided to “press on” because at the end of this week (I’ll do it Sunday) there is a re-test to see where you start off on the third week.

So here we go… week 2 (level 3):
Monday – Day 1 Goal: 14, 14, 10, 10, max (15+) – Actual: 14, 14, 5, 1, 2
Tuesday – Day 2 Goal: 14, 16, 12, 12, max (17+) – Actual: 14, 16, 9, 6, 4
Friday – Day 3 Goal: 16, 17, 14, 14, max (20+) – Actual: 16, 17, 9, 6, 6
Total This Week: 139 Pushups (16 more than last week).

As I said, Sunday I will retake the evaluation test to see where I’m suppose to start. By the way, a friend asked me what the rest was between each set. Day 1 – 60 seconds, Day 2 – 90 seconds, Day 3 – 120 seconds.

First, I purchased the iPhone App here (they also have a “multiuser” version available here). I bought the single user version. I like the app because it doesn’t require me to look anything up, just tells me what I’m suppose to do and has a built-in rest timer for resting between sets. I didn’t want to have to deal with tracking that information on my own.

These are the results from week 1:
Sunday – Initial Test – 19 Consecutive Pushups (Which starts me out in Level 3).
Monday – Day 1 Goal: 10, 12, 7, 7, max (9+) – Actual: 10, 12, 6, 4, 8
Tuesday – Day 2 Goal: 10, 12, 8, 8, max (12+) – Actual: 10, 12, 7, 5, 5
Friday – Day 3 Goal: 11, 15, 9, 9, max( 13+) – Actual: 11, 15, 8, 5, 5
Total This Week: 123 Pushups ( +19 Initial Test )

I was very happy with my initial test results, 19 consecutive pushups is actually much more than I’ve ever been able to do. As you can see, I have had some trouble with the program, being too fatigued to finish the last few sets. In cases where I cannot make the goal, I do knee pushups to finish off the set. But I only count the full pushups. I also did Day 2 in the evenings, Days 1 and 3 were both completed in the afternoon. In the future, I will do them all at the same time.

I hope it’s as magnificent as I’ve been imagining… And yes, I did vote for the winner.

“Some answers cannot be found on Google, try the Bible.” – God

Apparently, God doesn’t know that you can find the Bible on Google. Which leads me to my next thought… it seems like you actually can find all answers on Google. My recommended improvement:

“Google the Bible… or even better, quit your bibliolatry and follow me.” – God

P.S. I hate clever church signs that fail basic logic tests.

The Monty Hall Problem is the question, “Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?”

However, SPAMMERS knowing exactly how WordPress works and how to inject comment SPAM into WordPress. Though, if you do not have comments automatically approved, they definitely should not appear… if a comment does get injected, the WordPress administrator (and author) should receive a notification of a pending comment. So, there is a simple way in WordPress Multi-Site to just set all comment and ping submissions to false. Just stick this little bit of code into a php file in the mu-plugins directory:

add_filter( 'pings_open', '__return_false', 10, 2 );
add_filter( 'comments_open', '__return_false', 10, 2 );

One of the Multi-Site installations that I have this enabled in wanted to allow comments on two of their sites. If this is something you need, just setup a mu-plugin php file that looks like this:

function comments_and_pings_closed( $open, $post_id ) {

	global $blog_id;

	$comment_sites = array( 10, 15 ); // Site IDs of site that you don't want automatically disabled

	if ( in_array( $blog_id, $comment_sites ) ) {

		return $open;

	}

	return false;

}
add_filter( 'pings_open', 'comments_and_pings_closed', 10, 2 );
add_filter( 'comments_open', 'comments_and_pings_closed', 10, 2 );

For instance, this past weekend the ONA11 Conference and Online Journalism Award was held in Boston. PBS and NPR were both Diamond Sponsors. (1) What does it take to be a Diamond Sponsor? Well, they need both paid 30,000$ to be diamond sponsors. For 30,000$ of your donated money, they received this: (2)

Opportunity to put your name front and center during high-level, well-attended reception.

• Introduction and remarks — opportunity to address the audience of more than 700. For keynote, logo/signage acknowledging sponsorship placed on live streaming of event.
• Three full conference passes
• Six ONA memberships — three with the full conference passes and an additional three to attend conference at member rate
• One full-page color ad in conference program guide — premium placement
• Logo/name listed as Diamond Sponsor on signs at conference
• Exhibit Table (Sept. 23-24) and Job Fair table (Sept. 22)
• Insert and promotional item in the attendee gift bag (provided by the sponsor)
• Logo placed in conference e-mail newsletters (audience ~3,500)
• Logo and link prominently placed on conference Web site
• Logo (linked) and 60-word description on Sponsors page on conference website and in program
• Sponsorship acknowledgment during live streaming of presentation
• Other considerations negotiable

I don’t know, for some reason this really annoyed me. I wonder how much 30,000$ would have helped support one of their stations. I also wonder how much money total they’ve spent sponsoring events like this one.