Now Hiring for an Account Manager

We are now hiring for our Account Manager job. Click the link to read the whole job description. Here are the highlights.

The As Was Account Manager takes the approved designs that we do, and works directly with our clients to install them. So you'd get policies and links into templates, and get them into the client's listing software. We can teach you the various listing software systems if you don't know all of them (and who does!). You'd create and install our "simple" eBay Store designs based on the approved template design. You'd create and install About Me pages and custom eBay Store pages.

Clients often ask for things that are bad ideas based on what we know about how eBay shoppers behave. You need to be able to comfortably tell someone that you suggest they NOT do that, and why. We're not grunt workers. We're consultants, and part of why people want to work with us is our great and logical advice. :)

This job requires expert-level Photoshop, HTML, and CSS skills. If you have taken a course on HTML, that may not be enough. We do very complicated coding, and we always do it by hand. You cannot get away with having Dreamweaver or Word code this for you.

And we'd like you to know eBay well! Our Account Managers sometimes get questions about a client's eBay selling, and we'd prefer if you had some answers. Sure, we can give you some training on how we like the questions answered, but we do not expect to have to teach you eBay!

So if you have great website skills, great client communication skills, and know eBay, we need you right now! You can work from home as long as you have a good, quiet place, and nobody else will answer the phone line we'd set up for you. Pay is hourly, and you'll be 1099'ed.

Please get in touch ASAP. The job is open right now, and we need to hire right now, even with this being the holiday season. I'm not going on vacation. I'll be right here working on hiring!

Thanks, and please pass this on so we can reach people with this skill set who may be looking for full-time or nearly full-time work-from-home work.

Posted at 06:46 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Goodbye, Evil Grandma Rose

If you know me for more than a few minutes, then you've probably heard one of my stores about "Evil Grandma Rose." You've heard the impersonation, which sounds like Edith Bunker since she had that shrill voice and Bronx accent. You might have even known that I called her Beelzebubby, which would be Beelzebub (the devil) plus Bubby (Jewish for Grandmother).

Well, I just got an email from my uncle (my mother's brother) that she passed away last night. I'm not sad about this for two main reasons. One is that she was a horrible bitch that most of us hated. She was mellower in her old age, but she was never really a nice person. I am blessed with a loving, caring Grandmother who makes me feel loved and special. That's not Grandma Rose for me or anybody.

Rose was my father's father, and oh my did Dad ever marry his mother. Shame there, but hey, we all repeat patterns until we get a certain amount of self-awareness and then the cojones to break the patterns. And for those who are new to my blog, I refer to my father as Jeff and my mother as Ellen.

Second, she had a pretty good life. She would have turned 97 in 2 months, and she was never sick. She took NO medications. None. She never had cancer. She never lost her memory. She never forgot who anybody was. She was living in an assisted living facility the last few years because she had vertigo, and would often fall (and break something) when she stood up. Other than that, she wasn't sick a day in her life. I don't even remember her having a cold.

And that's amazing for someone who I was sure lived only on chocolate. :)

She was also quite the businesswoman. I'm sure she was a horrible bitch in business, and I'm sure some people respected her, some feared her, and some hated her. But she made more money than her husband in a time when women didn't even work. She was the jewellery buyer at Fortunoffs stores (department stores in the NY area), and I think she did that for over 20 years. My grandfather, who died years before I was born, had evidently been a hosiery salesman.

In college, I wrote a song about her. My professor asked me to write a cathartic, personal song that I would sing alone (no instruments) at a school recital. I wrote about a child having a bad conversation and experience with a tree. She was the unmoving, decaying, poisonous tree, and the child partially represented my father and partially me. I'm still proud of that composition. You can't dance to it, but the audience liked it better than my comedy song about safe sex (with an underlying theme of the postal system).

I am at peace with her passing. I kept in touch with her, and never let on that I didn't like her. I called her every other month, and even visited her in April 2009 when I happened to be in Maryland on business. This is what we call a "mitzvah," which is when you do something you don't want to do because it makes someone else happy. :)

I don't think anybody will miss Grandma Rose. So don't be sad or sorry. Use this as a time to ask yourself what your granddaughter, nephew, sibling, or friend would blog about you when you died. What are you leaving behind, and who would miss you? 

I will not be going to any funeral. I will not be sending any sympathy cards. Please don't send any to me. I'm not happy she's dead, but I'm not sad at this.

Posted at 03:10 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Good Riddance, Palm Pre

Palm Pre, I gave you a chance, and now, it's time for us to break up. I need to walk away from unhealthy relationships.

I dumped Windows Mobile for you. I had a bunch of HTCs running WinMo. I was happy and productive. They were getting a little slow, but man, I was getting things done and multitasking. The Pre promised so much, especially to us multitaskers and heavy email users.

The Pre has so much wrong with it at the very foundation that I have been running FIFTY patches just to make it viable. For example, without any patches, the Pre makes a sound. It could be anything. Low battery. New email. Text message. Voice mail alert. You'll never know! You have to pull the phone out to see what it was. And the by the time you pull the phone out, the screen has gone off and back into lock mode. So you have to turn it on, unlock it, and see what it was.

I thought I could live with lots of band-aids, but it's been nearly 5 months with this phone, and I'm tired of two things. One is the major lack of apps. I really was missing the apps I was using under WinMo... ProfiMail, PockeTwit, Skype, TomTom navigation (and you don't need a data connection!), SPB Pocket Plus (and Diary), Slick (unified messenger), and more.

The other has to do with the OS just not making sense for how I use it. It's like they wanted an iPhone competitor, but didn't think about how power users use stuff. The patches helped, but still weren't enough. And then the new OS came out last week.

Someone kill me.

The new OS killed the "delete email from server" feature from email. I delete emails on the Pre. They still show up in Outlook. Outlook deletes them from the server. The Palm syncs, and doesn't delete them. I have to delete emails twice. It's nearly 2010. Surely, we can perfect this. Nope, Palm's official word on their forums is that this now works correctly, and that anybody who disagrees doesn't really understand POP3.

And time zones are now messed up. I just got a text message that shows up as 8:43pm. It's 9:43pm. My text reply timestamps at 9:44pm. So messed up. I don't need this crap, and I have better things to do than to keep taping a phone back together with all kinds of patches.

Screen are slow to come up. An email that comes in, I can wait a minute for the text to come up on the screen. Text message comes in? The Palm seems to load every message to and from that person ever from some remote online backup before showing me what he/she said. Slow. Stupid slow.

I don't have time to be this non-productive. I don't have time to try to make any lame piece of equipment work the way I need it to. Windows Mobile did everything I needed, and was pretty reliable. So I'm going to go to the Sprint store, and I'm going to get the HTC Touch Pro 2. The HTC 6700 and 6800 I had served me very well for many years, and I'm just going to stick with what I know works. I know WinMo may not be the hottest OS right now, but right now, I need to be functional.

This is a warning. Those of you thinking about getting the Palm Pre? Don't bother. I know it's now on fire sale for like $50 in some places. Not worth it. If you are a light user and don't care about personalising the phone with sounds or helpful things, then you might like it. But I need something better than this. Palm over-promised and under-delivered.

Good luck, Palm.

Posted at 09:51 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Dove and Walmart Remind You You're Ugly

Do you get these commercials where you live? A bunch of women are signing a song to the tune of "Do Your Ears Hang Low" (not sure what that's really the tune of), and they are going through a litany of physical characteristics that women traditionally may not like about themselves?

The words to this car wreck seem to be:

Do your eyes sit wide
Does your nose turn to the side
Do your elbows kind of crinkle
Do your knees sort of wrinkle
Does your chest tend to freckle
Do you have a crooked smile

Do your eyes sit wide

Do your ears sort of wiggle
Does your hair make you giggle
Does your neck grow long
Do your hips sing a song

Do your ears hang low

When this commercial comes on, I feel ugly and self-conscious. Are my eyes wider than I thought? Are my hips awful, but we're going to disguise that by saying they "sing a song"? Are my knees wrinkled?

And one should note that the women in this commercial, for the most part, are not traditionally attractive. Some were kind of ugly. Some looked OK. But the commercial seems to be about getting women to identify with unattractive women who don't seem to terribly mind that they're not so good looking.

Huh? Is that supposed to be empowering? And where is the message of this song? Where is the "Do you have a crooked smile but you're still beautiful and awesome?" The song is just a list of not-so-hot qualities without much of any other message.

Do you know what makes me feel beautiful? Thinking about the physical qualities I LIKE about myself, not singing about physical qualities I may not like about myself. I have nice eyes and nicely-shaped lips. My nose is a bit big, so I try to NOT bring attention to it. My ears stick out a little, so I tend to wear my hair long. My skin tone is uneven, but I have a nice butt and long legs for my short height. :)

So I focus on the good qualities! We all have good qualities. There should be a song about good qualities on average-looking people rather than a song about crappy, ugly qualities.

My sister always thought she had a crooked smile, and it seemed to drive her crazy. Every time a roll of film was developed or a school photo came back, she was not happy with her smile. I can't imagine her enjoying singing a song that asks her if she has a crooked smile, and seems to want to draw attention to that.

Dove and Walmart, you played this one wrong. If you want to celebrate the beauty in ugly or average-looking women, help us connect to our good qualities rather than having us sing along with some of the things that may make us self-conscious or feel unattractive.

Posted at 07:47 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

I'm Moving Back to Tucson

Yeah, I'm moving back to Tucson. Say what? What's with Deb moving around so much? Well, first of all, I can. I own my businesses, I work for me, I work from home, and I'm single with a dog and cat. The cat is really cool about the car, and the dog knows, "New house." That means no kids to pull out of school or away from friends. So I can live wherever I like, whenever I like, and why not. Do it while you can, I say.

All my phone numbers will still work... no matter what area code and number you're dialing, it'll ring at my desk.

In March 2005, I finally escaped suburban New York to the promised land of Tucson. Yeah, Tucson is really that great. It's everything I wanted... beautiful, friendly, slow-moving, insanely low cost of living, great weather year-round, safer (well the part of town I live in), and populated enough that you can get most of your major stores (1 million people living over 900 square miles). I wanted the opposite of NYC and suburbs, and I sure got it.

It's the first place in my life that has ever felt like home. Where I grew up is not home. My parents' house is not home. Tucson is home, and I'm excited to go back. Most of my best friends are there, and I'm hoping that'll inspire me to stop working 100 hrs/week, and get out a bit more.

Tucson is home to some of the best spas and rehab centres in the country. You might laugh at that sentence, but the reality is that Tucson is a great place to change your life. It's inspiring. It changed mine for the better many times, and that's why I want to stay.

San Jose has been great. The Bay Area is lovely. Can't really say a bad word about it other than I'm not really a city girl, and never quite got back into the swing of how long it takes to drive somewhere "with traffic." We kinda don't get that in Tucson. Cost of living isn't great, but the trade-off is that there's plenty to do here, and the quality of life can be good.

San Jose also gave me some time to "be alone" to redefine my businesses, focus on those, and also grieve for a bad relationship that ended badly (and won't quite go away, but it'll have closure soon enough). I needed space to think about what went wrong and what I really want, and I've been able to make some great changes to some of my bad patterns.

Incredibly good things started happening to me basically from the minute I got to San Jose. I don't really think it was being "here," I think it was just being away from the life I'd been living, but also being in a nice place that supported what I do.

I will save roughly $1000/month living in one of the nicest luxury apartment communities in Tucson, and while the economy is still crappy, I think it's important to save that. So I get to live in paradise surrounded by the friends that have become my family, and save money doing it. Check, please!

My official moving day is in mid-November, and I can't wait. I'm coming home, and I know that I will be so happy that I will be able to take the great things that started happening to me as soon as I got to San Jose, and explode them exponentially. Thanks to everybody for your support.

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

How Your Wish Your Staff Operated

I went into a local Greek place last week to order lunch to take home. It was after the lunch rush. Two tables had patrons, there was nobody behind the counter, and I didn't see a waitress.

I walked up to the counter, and a girl offered to take my order. I gave her my order. She got a guy out from the back, and had him put the order in.

I then noticed she didn't have an apron or anything, and asked if she really worked there. She said yes, but her shift just ended.

So she could have let me wait. Or she could have asked somebody to come deal with me. But she took my order. I found out her name is Nicole.

I watched her tell the guy behind that counter that a certain table was still waiting for his check. The guy printed out the check. She put it in the sleeve, and dropped it off at his table.

Another waitress then came out from the back.

You want all your staff to be like Nicole. She cared. She took action when she could have passed it off or waited for someone else. She could have walked to the back to ignore me. After all, her shift was over.

There are good staff out there. Even waitresses. :) You can find them, and then you should treat them well and reward them.

Posted at 07:50 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Do NOT Bank with Citizens RSB Bank

I have never had such a horrible experience, and want to make sure everybody knows what horrible fraud and ineptitude goes on at Citizens Bank.

I moved away from where Citizens has branches, and have been trying to close my account. I called in mid-Sept asking them to close my account. They said they couldn't until I brought the balance to zero. That turned out to not be true (as in not the only way to close my account), but that's what I was told. I told them to please close the account and cancel my debit card so that if I bring things down to zero, no vendor who might have my card down as the monthly billing source would be able to hit it. I want the account to get to zero, close it, and be done. If any vendors try to hit it, the card would be declined, I'd know which vendors those are since they'll contact me, and I can give them another card.

That was the plan. I got the $25 and change out of the account, and I emailed customer service asking for my account to be closed. I got an email back on 30 Sep saying my account was closed. Great!

I then got a letter saying my account was hundreds of dollars overdrawn. Huh? I logged into online banking to see that a bunch of charges went through on the debit card on that account. The bank ACCEPTED those charges, sent my account into overdraft, and is charging me fees EVERY DAY that it's overdrawn.

I called up to complain about this, and was told that this was my fault. I evidently was supposed to call every company that might have this debit card as the card on file, and have them change it. That's news to me. I've cancelled MANY bank and PayPal debit cards, and once I did that, NO charges went through. Zero. Declined.

But according to Citizen's, this is my fault. I should have known that they would allow charges to go through on a deactivated, cancelled card on a closed bank account with a zero balance. My fault! Of course.

They also told me that a debit card charge or check coming through on a CLOSED account can reopen the account. Huh? Then why bother closing it? I'm closing it to STOP those things. I'm closing it to NOT do any more business with your bank!

I asked to talk to a supervisor. They said one would call me back. Nobody did. I called back 2 days later. The guy I got told me again that this was all my fault, and that a supervisor won't help me. I asked him how to mark my account as fraud, hacked, compromised, and frozen so that nothing else can debit it, he made it sound like he couldn't do that, and it's my responsibility to figure out which vendors might hit that card, and change the cards on file. OK, even if I did that, it's imperfect. They might hit it anyway, I might miss one, etc... Meanwhile, the bank can just STOP the transactions from being approved, so this shouldn't be my guessing game!

I was passed to the "collections" department since now I'm in collections... I have an overdrawn account and I'm just incurring more and more fees. That department was able to freeze my account, and now, any check or debit MasterCard transaction WILL be declined.

WELL WHY THE HELL COULDN'T THEY SET THE ACCOUNT FOR THAT WHEN I CLOSED IT?!?!? Why would you possibly allow my closed account to accept charges and go into overdraft when you COULD just set this freeze on it when I closed it? They made it sound like well, what if you had charges coming in? WELL, I'D LIKE THEM DECLINED SO I CAN GIVE THEM ANOTHER CARD! Why would I want that charge to go through knowing it'll cost me HEAPS in overdraft fees? Any charge that comes in after I close the account is either a mistake or fraud!

So where am I now. Well, I had to file a fraud complaint with another department. The claim is that the debit card transactions that went through shouldn't have. Those charges were unauthorised because the card was cancelled, and I expected/tried to pay those vendors with other cards. That means the overdraft and service fees are being disputed as well. I'll have to fill out an affidavit in a few days (waiting for it in the mail), and send that in. This isn't a huge amount of money. It was about $100 in debit card charges and about $330 in overdraft fees and service charges. I may owe those companies the $100, but it shouldn't cost me $430 and all this time.

So now this is going to take heaps of my time to fight and deal with. All they had to do was really shut things off and really close them. It's easy. I've had MANY banks do that all the time. When I want a debit card shut off and an account closed, you know what? The card should be shut off and the account closed. Nothing else should hit it, debit it, etc... It's EASY for the bank.

Do yourself a favour. Next time you're closing a bank account, ask about this. Ask if any charges can still come through. Ask if the bank can re-open a closed account on their own without talking to you. Just double-check. It seems insane, but please learn from the crap I'm going through now.

Posted at 11:09 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

When a Customer Goes From Awkward to Abusive

When you sign onto inkFrog, you get some automatic emails during your trial. You get a welcome message from me. You get "your trial is going to expire" and "your trial expired" which still come from the CEO. But if you hit reply to any of these emails, they right now go to me. I help everybody I can. I don't have all the answers, but I do my best.

I got an email last week from a guy who was throwing around swear words, and complaining that nobody is responding to his emails. Well, I haven't seen an email from this guy, and now he's asking for the "fuckers" at inkFrog to help him with "shit," so I write him back that I evidently am the "fucker" he's looking for, and how can I help. I don't hear from him for days.

This morning, I get an angry email from the guy saying he wants to work directly with the CEO, and that I "copped an attitude after he cussed me out." He had more swear words for me, but said nothing about any of his issues. The guy seems to be angry that the form "trial will expire" email came from the CEO, but I wrote him back. So he keeps bringing up emails that say they're from Greg, but he's mad that he's hearing from me.

I feel that it's not only my job to help people, but in all honesty to act as a buffer for the CEO. While I'd like to see this customer get help, I don't need to connect him to the inkFrog CEO so this guy can just be abusive. So I tried again to tell him I'd help him, I don't have an attitude, and as his attitude won't fly with our CEO, I suggested he switch to decaf.

Yes, every customer is important, and sure, not every customer is going to be a match to inkFrog. Yes, we want to give good service, but you have to draw a line somewhere... especially when this is what you get back...

This is the email I got back from this guy, and I got his permission to publish it. It's so fantastically horrible that people need to see it. You know that the tech issue wasn't a big deal or problem when THIS is the email I get after asking twice for him to tell me what his issues are. I guess he had some sort of duplicate listing issue, but that seems to pale in the light of everything else he's burning to say.

Well Gee, that's what the email said, " I'm Greg," blah , blah, robot bullshit. I understand that your fielding all the messages. What YOU don't get is you have problems. So your minding the store? Must be since I can reply to YOU, Inkfrog .com or whatever, and YOU answer as usual, not with any constructive help, just the usual pissing match. THE ONLY TIME I EVER HEARD FROM YOU"RE COMPANY WAS AFTER I CUSSED YOU OUT! By then, it was TOO LATE! Were you even back there way back when? So I haven't SUBSCRIBED? Yes I did. Just one of the minor problems. And if I didn't why do I have a password? So I didn't subscribe? GOOD! DON'T TAKE THE MONEY! But I'm done with you. You are not intrerested in fixing anything. Just in keeping Your status quo going. I Dare you to show this to Greg. I know you won't because you're a chickenshit. I'm abusing you? You're the one that keeps contacting me. I DON'T WISH TO SPEAK WITH WITH YOU! I Don't need your site! YOU SUCK!! GOT IT? You're the reason I can't stand women in busiiness. You screw up everything. Why don't you get back to the kitchen were you belong? My attitude won't go over with Greg? I guess not since he'll probably never see the problems. NO one needs you. No matter how bad Auctiva or even EBay is, Your total lack of support until, gee, "the money's not there, What can we do?" PISS OFF!! Comprende'?" Then," Hi, I'm Greg." THAT"S not a Robot?

Here, try this: Here's a non techie solution to one of your probs'; IF I was to give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't just ignoring me when it counted, And IF the subscription hadn't gone through, ( why am I not surprised, since I had to LAUNCH each of my three auctions three times to get two to stick. One was a duplicate that had to be erased immediately off of ebay after it showed up at 3:30 in the morning. Glitchy.) But the autobots can send me a countdown on my supposedly non subscription everyday asking for my suggestions which if I reply to by ANY email addy somehow funnels down to, what? Your crap cell phone, Debbie? How about this: IF I were to believe you never got the original emails, And then the 'bots start sending the pat response, why not change the email response addy every time? Didn't hear from the consumer the 1st time? who knows why. We've all created such a techno monster, even the super geeks can't unravel it. Maybe if a swallow flys south from Pittsbugh it wipes out all east coast emails for a week. So the second + third times the bot goes off, maybe it could send that persons response TO A DIFFERENT ADDRESS EACH TIME. Maybe that way you'd get it.( getting to be a lot of ifs,) And there's plenty more. I DO NOT WISH TO DEAL WITH YOU,DEBBIE! DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN! YOU FAILED! Show this to Greg.

Dare Ya,

Lov, Mike


P.S. : Are you as turned on as I am right now?

Well, no I'm not turned on. Not at all. Not even close.

I like to help people. If someone emails me, I answer them. I do my best to help them. inkFrog loves its customers, and wants to fix any issues people have. But this is an example of where customer service can only go so far when someone becomes abusive.

Posted at 04:38 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

Flash Forward Is My Life

I have a bizarre, life-long history with dreams.

I have had dreams with friends in them, and when we compared notes, we had the same dreams, each from our points of view.

I have had dreams that gave me information that I couldn't have otherwise had, and the info ended up true.

I have had dreams that have come true. They normally come true within a couple of days of having the dream.

In March, I was working on getting one of my staff to come back, and she had promised to return to work after an absence. I dreamt that she didn't come back, and completely quit. Two days later, she emailed me that she wasn't coming back.

In December 2008, I had a dream that the pendant I was wearing snapped in half. I'd been wearing it just about every day since I got it in the summer of 1998. It seemed extremely unlikely. Later that day, I was packing boxes to move. In slow motion, my necklace got caught on something plastic I was moving, and the pendant snapped in half.

I remember having a terrible flu and bad fever in the 1990s. My family was going on vacation, and I was too sick to go. So they bought me some Chunky soups, and were leaving me home to recover on my own. I was hallucinating from the fever, and kept yelling, "Your plane is going to crash!" I don't remember saying that, but I remember them being scared that it was going to come true because I was so rarely wrong about random stuff. The plane didn't crash.

I like to joke that I'm the Christopher Walken psychic character in Saturday Night Live... he was able to foresee people's ice cream headaches, and really mundane things. I guess I mostly see mundane things. And then they come true. But when they do, I feel more prepared for them.

But last night was another thing altogether. And this isn't uncommon for me either.

I fell asleep early. Around 11pm, I started tossing and turning, and became aware of my dream. I was sitting across a restaurant table from a friend. It was dinner. The place was dark. Mostly candle-lit and dim lighting. I've never seen this place. In the dream, he wanted to know why I had been asking him so many times to hang out with me. He seemed unsure if I were trying to date him or just hang out as friends, and in the dream, he was asking me to explain myself.

The relevant back story would be that I moved to a new town about 5 months ago, and have wanted to hang out with this guy, who also lives in the area. Nothing had come together yet, but I hadn't stopped trying to coordinate something we could go out and do. Just as friends. So I've asked more than a few times to get together over the last 5 months. The most recent had been earlier in the day.

I tried to fall back asleep, but the dream was still going. I remember sitting at the table in the dream thinking OK, I need to explain this to this guy... that I'm not trying to ask him out, but I just want to hang out as friends. How do I explain this to him without it being really awkward, I'm asking myself in the dream.

I tossed and turned with this dream for about an hour because it kept replaying on a loop. Around midnight, I just decided I was awake, and I turned the internet on on my phone. Emails started pouring in. I checked my personal account first, and found a message from the guy in the dream. It said:

Just to avoid any misunderstanding, you don't have expectations of being more than good friends, right? Hope that's not weird to ask:/

Well, it wasn't weird to ask since it was in my head for the last hour. The email was marked as 10:36pm, about 24 minutes before I half-woke up to be conscious of my dream. Well, now the door was open, and I could email back that yes, I just wanted to be friends, and I wanted to hang out now that we live in the same area because I always have a good time with him when I run into him, etc... Awkward conversation had and out of the way.

Welcome to my world. 

And I hope my friend will hang out with me. He's a nice guy, and we'd have fun. Yes, just as friends. Everybody relax. :)

So the TV show Flash Forward is very interesting to me. I like the idea of people getting a glimpse of a future that seems to be coming true. I have no idea where they're going with the plot. But watching it reminds me of me in some small way. :)

Posted at 07:20 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Palm Releases New WebOS, None of My Problems Fixed

Well, this is frustrating. Palm released a new version of their WebOS, which means my phone got updated, which is nice... except I can't believe it's not butter. I can't tell the difference AT ALL. None of the issues I was having or the complaints I had about the phone were fixed or changed.

I had emailed someone from Palm and told him my issues. He replied that nearly everything I had mentioned was on their road map for future changes. OK, so they know about all these, released a new version, and didn't fix all of these... so they're still on the road map. That's frustrating.

People are asking me what kinds of things did I want changed. Here are a few.

• There is no control over what sound goes off when certain things happen. Every email account makes the same sound, which makes the same sound as any system notification. So you have an email is the same sound as you have a tweet is the same sound as you just plugged in your phone, low battery, text message, or any app that sends a notification. All the same sound. So you have NO idea how important anything is by sound, and I'm used to knowing that from having Windows Mobile and some neato apps for that. This means every time a sound goes off, I have to take the phone out and check what it is.
• There is currently no way to disengage the EVDO internet. I can turn Bluetooth and WiFi on or off, individually. But not the internet. Which means that if the Palm sees email and twitter open, it will just check those all night, and play notification sounds every time something comes in. I get about 30 emails overnight, and none are worth being awakened. I'm used to Windows Mobile letting me say hey, turn off the internet, and even if email is something is open, don't use the internet... which means emails don't come in and sounds don't go off. I can't do that on the Palm right now, so every night, I have to go into each email account, one by one, and turn off its notifications.

UPDATE: Someone on Twitter told me I CAN turn off the data. I have to go into the Phone, then preferences, and then turn off "Data Usage." It worked. However, my complaint would now be that this is in an illogical place. The Pre has a menu where you can turn on or off WiFi, Bluetooth, and Airplane Mode. I would think that turning Data on and off would also go there rather than having to dig for that in a submenu of the phone app. So Palm, please put that in a more logical and easily accessible place. :)

• For those of you wondering why I just don't turn off sound or put the phone in airplane mode, I'm in a biz where I might get emergency calls or texts at all hours. I need to hear those sounds go off, but I don't need a 2am notification that my horoscope email just came in. :)
• There is no way for me to see what apps Palm thinks I have open... what's running now including what's running in the "background." So sometimes I get messages about having too many cards open, but I only see three, and I know people are running more than 3 things at a time. Sometimes the phone is slow, and I assume it's from running things, but I don't know what's open. This also means I can't force close something... like force close email so I can sleep. :) I can swoosh email away, and it'll still pick up email.
• I don't know what apps are starting up when I start up the phone. I may want to stop running some of those, but have no way to see what's running automatically on startup.
• There is no way to tell the Palm that a Facebook or LinkedIn friend is not someone I need to see in my contacts every day. Right now, Palm is automatically syncing with my 300 or so Facebook friends and 200 or so LinkedIn Contacts. Well, that SEEMS cool, but honestly, any of those people that I was in touch with were already in my Outlook and therefore phone contacts. So now, my contacts move nice and slowly when browsing or searching because it's checking 500 people I never contact rather than just the 150 I had in Outlook. I'd like a setting that only syncs the people I had in my contacts ANYWAY, and doesn't add hundreds of people. Evidently, nobody at Palm has ever added a Facebook friend they don't really know or stay in touch with. As an eBay educator and speaker, a LOT of people add me on Facebook just to hear what I'm saying... but I don't know them!
• To some of you, that may sound like "who cares" because if you don't use those contacts, just don't choose them. But every time I go to write an email, and start typing my friend's name, it searches my contacts... and shows me 6 people who aren't "Caroline" because I have a bunch of contacts that have "car" somewhere in their name. Same for dialing by typing to search for contacts... I'm shown HEAPS of people I will NEVER email or call. I'd just like to be shown MY contacts, and then Palm should use things like LinkedIn and Facebook to connect to those people and keep their info updated.
• There is no way for me to "calibrate" the touches on the Palm. Many times I THINK I'm clicking on something, the Palm sees that click as a few millimetres away... which has lead to fun things like deleting the wrong email, opening about 15 new "compose" emails each day that I have to then cancel, selecting the wrong text, opening the wrong app, etc... I would like a calibration tool that shows me a bunch of X's and has me click on it. Windows Mobile was great with that since their clicking was WILDLY precise... stylus-precise... I used to use my fingernail. The Palm seems to be designed for you to click clumsily with thick fingers, but being able to calibrate that would still be good.

On another note, and this is not Palm's fault, I find that many apps people are developing rely WAY too much on the phone being online. My navigation has to be online, but I can't use EVDO while talking on the phone. So driving and navigating at the same time are OUT, which is BAD. An RSS reader I downloaded connected to my Google Reader account. OK, that seems clever... until I noticed that it didn't keep ANYTHING offline. So I got on a plane, and had NOTHING to read. That is less clever.

I'm not always going to be online, and someday, when I can turn off just the internet, I may want to be offline a bit to save battery life. Apps should take that into consideration!

So Palm, I ask again for you to please soon release an OS upgrade that fixes what I'm talking about. I can't be the only person who'd like to set up different sounds for each email account, or different sounds for different notifications. I can't be the only person who'd like to turn off the internet at night, or force quit apps I don't even know are running. Please make these closer stops on the road map! Thanks!

Posted at 06:38 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Chase, PayPal, and Credit Card Fraud

Today was interesting. Two cards I have with two separate banks were both marked as potential fraud. But the circumstances were amazingly different.

First came a Chase card. This card is a debit MasterCard associated with an escrow account for my other biz, We Are Your People. We do tour management, so this card has probably paid around $60,000 in hotels, airfares, and other random things for the last 6 weeks... as our tour winds around North America. These hotels and purchases were in nearly 40 different cities.

We're over a month into the tour, and Chase marked me as potential fraud TODAY. 6 weeks into the tour, dozens of cities, hotels in every city, thousands of dollars in airfares... and today, they shut the card down and called me. Evidently, the $130 being charged by that Hampton Inn last night was too much! I had the card turned back on.

Goofballs.

Second was my debit MasterCard associated with my PayPal account. This morning, I flew from San Jose to Salt Lake City (for biz), so I charged at Delta airlines for checked bag fees. I then hit the card at Dollar Rental Car, and at the hotel where I'm typing this now. Total suspicious charges? About $800 across everybody, and some were just holds.

PayPal just called, suspecting fraud. I said that I had made all of those charges, so my card is still on.

To sum up, it took PayPal about 10-12 hours to think my card might be used fraudulently. Considering I started using the Chase card the first week of August, it took Chase about 6 weeks and probably more than $60,000 of charges to decide that maybe it was being used fraudulently.

I know people like to bash PayPal, but I'm going to say they're more on the ball here! Neither was fraud, but I tell you this. If anybody WERE using my Chase card fraudulently, I now know to NOT expect Chase's system to pick it up in any reasonable amount of time.

Posted at 07:13 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Mercury Retrograde + Match.com = Oops

I wake up this morning, and decide to ask out a guy I was matched with on Match.com. I start writing him an email like hey, you're looking for this, I'm this, I think we'll hit it off. Let's do lunch, my treat, because hey, then the worst that can happen is you get a free lunch with someone you don't want to see again... but the best that can happen is we hit it off and become friends.

My best pal Caroline calls, and asks what I'm up to. I'm writing an email to that guy on Match.com. "Oh!' she says. I said let me tell you about it. She tells me I'm writing too much, and that whatever I want to say about what we have in common can be something we talk about at lunch. Well, I wanted to be clear that I'm aiming for friendship first, and so on. She also thinks that offering to buy him lunch is way too aggressive. I said that I didn't want him to think I was some sort of broke or dependent chick who expects a guy to pay for everything.

So I start editing the email down to something much simpler. I'm finally happy with this tiny email, and I hit send. Nothing happens. I notice Match.com has something in the Draft folder. I go to that, see it's an email from me to him, and hit send.

And then I notice it's some earlier, incomplete version of the longer email. Oh jeez. I hit delete, but I have no idea if that deletes it for him. Dear Match.com, if I hit delete on an email I sent, it should delete it for the other person. Dear Match.com, send the email I meant to send, and if you're keeping drafts, try keeping current versions of what I'm writing. :(

I create a new email, write what I meant to say (the much shorter email), and apologise that he may have received two emails from me.

I really thought I was going to make it through Mercury Retrograde without major incident or embarrassment, but I do feel pretty dumb. OK, so maybe this guy gets a weird, incomplete email with me telling him we have things in common. Not the worst thing I've done all year. :) But I still feel totally dorky. I wanted to send the "right" email. I guess both emails are right. Hey, I think we'll hit it off, and hey, it's just lunch.

Mercury Retrograde... everything that can go wrong will go wrong. I usually do OK through it, but ugh, I feel like a total dork. Well, I'm not alone. A friend just told me he accidentally pasted something into an email to someone on a dating site, and before he knew it, the email sent itself. Guess it happens to the best of us. :)

Posted at 09:19 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

New Yorkers, Do You Know What Time It Is?

Once in a while, my business line rings at some weird hour. 4am. 5am. Last night, it was 4:50am. That's 4:50am the morning of Labour Day, when most businesses are closed.

It's not just morning calls. I have received calls at 9pm on weeknights and weekends. 8am on Sundays. Some truly weird times IF you think someone is there to answer the phone... and why call when you think there is nobody there.

Nearly every time someone calls me at a weird time, the area code on the caller ID is 212 or 718. New York metropolitan area. I get a few that are the NYC suburbs too. They had no concept of the time, or just figured they'd call a closed company. I prefer to call companies I know are open! Then I reach people!

My contact page even says what time it is where I am so you can consider whether or not you'd like my business to be open when you call. I'm giving you all the info I can. :)

And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking hey Deb, if you turned your phones off at night or didn't have a home office, this wouldn't matter. OK, maybe we can blame me for this, but I still think it's odd to call a company at 7am your time, especially when that's 4am for the company.

Posted at 08:48 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tales from Online Dating

So I'm on an online dating site now. Just the one. Dropped some of the others, trying one I hadn't tried before.

And online dating is definitely an exercise in marketing. If you're not sure if it is, poke around. See what pictures people choose to show, and how they write their profile. Some people clearly had professional photos taken. You can BUY a profile-writing service! So in case you can't explain why you're a good guy or what kind of girl you want, someone can write that for you. I think all profiles using that service should be marked as such!!

Here are few that have stood out to me as a member of this site for a week:

• I have seen a number of men mark themselves as "not" or "probably not" wanting children. But under what qualities they want their date to have, they have only chosen women who "definitely" or "someday" want children. Huh?
• Men, please stop writing about cuddling and how much I'm not going to believe that you like to cuddle. I believe that cuddling is something that naturally happens when people feel close. If you're not going to sell me on all the ways in which you will show love when you feel love, then why are so many men writing about cuddling!
• A 41-yr-old African American guy, whose photo made it look like he had eye liner and lipstick Photoshopped on, emailed me. I looked at his profile, and found that he has a child. I am not interested in anybody who has or wants kids. I was thinking that if someone emails me, it's polite to write them back. So I wrote him back and said that as my profile says, I am not looking for anybody with kids, but good luck finding the right woman! He wrote back that I was the wrong woman for him, and I was an idiot Jew who needed to "lose that gut." My profile has me labeled as "spiritual but not religious" and I have no references to any religion or my name.
• I now just click "send a polite no thanks" instead of writing back. :)
• Soon after I joined, a 25-yr-old guy reached out to me. That's too young for me (I'm 37), so I said no thanks. He just emailed me, and this email is SO outlandish, I wanted to share it.

"Howdy

First off let me say Your pictures don't do u justice;0) You seem like a fantastic women that enjoys many similar fun staff that any man can appreciate, BBQ"s and cuddling up on the couch that's Totally awesome Howdy I'm Joseph and if it's not rude of me may I ask how a brillant women like urself has found herself single Becuase no sane person would let you go, so I am curios to hear your story!"

Copied and pasted. And by the way, my profile says nothing about BBQ or cuddling or couches. As for my enjoyment of "staff," well, I didn't mention that either. :) I'd like to know how he knows that my pictures don't do me justice!

But wait, there's more craziness.

• Before I was just clicking "no thanks" to people who emailed me, a guy emailed me. He's about 300 miles away. I wrote him back saying that as we had completely different preferences for kids, religion, politics, and he's 300 miles away, I figured this was not the right match, and good luck. He wrote me back that he really wants to get to know me. I clicked "no thanks." Any guy who can't take a non-subtle hint is not someone I want to get to know.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel...

They're not all bad. A few guys seem OK. Maybe I'll get to meet them.

So hopefully when people are back from the long weekend, I might have stories of actually meeting some of these people.

Edit from after the long weekend: Nope, the only people who wanted to meet me used words like "hook up," which is not what I'm looking for right now. Isn't it funny how easy it is to find sex, but not to find friendship or romance?

Posted at 07:52 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

This Blog Is Moving...

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged much lately. Well, if you noticed, thank you. I'm honoured. :)

We will be redoing the As Was site over Labour Day weekend (as we did in 2007), and we'll be moving the blog to a Wordpress blog on our server. This will remain here for archives. Once we have the new URL, we'll post that here.

Thanks to Typepad for many years of good fun. Sorry, we had to go.

Stay tuned! Great posts on marketing, eBay, and online selling coming in September!

Posted at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

RCN Tries to Charge Me $656 Million

It appears that an internet bill in my name didn't have its final bill paid in Boston. I went to the RCN website to finally pay the bill. It was about $37.

I put in my banking information, and then I got this email (stars are in place to protect my info, but the email only had stars in my bank account number):

Dear Title Lastname

Payment for account number 005509***:

Your bank account number *********, routing code ***00024, Account Name As Was could not be charged $656,***,***.00.

Thank you for using My RCN.

Huh? RCN tried to charge me 656 MILLION DOLLARS? Really?

And then I looked closely.

They tried to hit my bank account for the amount OF MY ACCOUNT NUMBER, which is why I had to put stars in there to show this to you. I have a 9-digit account number beginning in 656, and they tried to charge my bank account over $656 MILLION.

FAIL. Not enough words for fail. And did they get their $37? Evidently not yet because they were too busy trying to charge me the GNP of a third world country.

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Today's Tech: Do I Have Any Privacy?

I'm seeing some posts about how Palm is collecting data on people, and sending it back to Palm. People are losing their minds over this.

Now to me, the main issue is that you can't opt out. People should be able to opt out, but Palm wove it so into their terms and the ability to do anything with the phone that opting out = throw the phone in the garbage.

So now let's look at the idea that Palm or somebody is looking at how I use things or when I do things. And if I'm going to get wrapped up about that, then there are so many other things people can worry themselves over...

• Hey, former and current AOL users, who used to and may still surf the web inside AOL's world. They know everything about you... every word you typed into a chat room, every pic you downloaded, everything you did online.
• I use Comcast for internet. Can't they trace and know everything I'm doing? Did you read the agreement that your broadband provider had you sign when they installed it? Yeah, that whole back of the page had a bunch of TINY terms and conditions. Did you read those before signing that you agreed to them?
• Your bank and credit card company knows everywhere you were and where (and how) you spent money... where you took out cash, where you charged. If anybody starts really looking at your charges, they'll know who you do business with, where you're travelling, what gifts you're buying people, etc... They'd have plenty of data on you.
• Microsoft. Oh the things they would know from me because I use Windows. Same for Apple if you have a Mac or iPhone. Hey, for all I know, my MP3 player is sending info to Rhapsody. I have no idea, but choose to not get too caught up over it.

So while I like the idea of privacy, I also realise that in today's tech world, I don't have many secrets. Databases get compromised all the time, unfortunately, so you can only just try to protect yourself. Read your credit report online every month or so to make sure everything looks right. 

I've dated people who were really on fire about this topic. They didn't want to be "on the grid" and have Facebook knowing their stuff. Well, OK, then by that logic, don't have a cell phone. Don't email people. Don't have internet service. Don't watch TV! They know how long you watch which channels. And while you're at it, don't flatter yourself by thinking that the government or any particular company finds you SO INTERESTING that they want to review everything you're doing. You are NOT that interesting!

I also think that this is for marketing. I saw a blog say surely Palm is not collecting this for marketing. I say probably, yes. They'd want to know how you are using their phone so that they can make it more of what you want. Otherwise, the data on how you use your phone seems to not mean much unless they want to blackmail people doing things they wouldn't be proud of, and that's probably not on Palm's to do list.

Personally, I hope Palm has noticed how many times I accidentally open a blank email when I am trying to click on something else, and decide to move the "new email" button. :) I hope they see how many times I create an appointment, ask it to remind me 5 min before, and then watch it sync to my Google calendar as an appointment with NO reminder... meaning that I miss stuff. I hope they see how often I open the App Catalogue in the hope that they actually have more apps. I am suffering from app withdrawal.

So Palm, you're doing this. Everybody's doing this. Make it freaking work for me. Watch what I'm doing with the phone, and figure out what's frustrating for me... and fix it. That saves me the time of blogging or complaining to you. :)

Posted at 08:01 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

How Movies Are Marketed

I've been thinking a lot lately about how movies are marketed, and I'd love to get people's comments. It seems like there are some main ways that we become aware of movies coming out soon.

• Actors, writers, director (who I'll call "key people") on national morning shows (Today, Good Morning America) or national evening shows (Conan, Daily Show).
• Key people doing regional shows, like appearing on a local segment (live or by satellite) for say a Denver or NY or San Francisco news or lifestyle segment.
• Key people on drive-time radio like kooky morning shows.
• TV commercials. Hard to miss some of those. :)
• Newspaper ads
• TV reviews during the news, or movie review shows. I'll also lump newspaper reviews with this.

Many of these are designed to drive you to the movie's website, which then wants to drive you to...

• Join a mailing list
• Follow a twitter account
• Read a blog
• Watch trailers, clips, and interviews
• Download a desktop image or phone application
• Discuss on a forum
• Go to MySpace or another sub-site

It's not like the TV commercial sends you straight to their Twitter account... they want you on the website. And at that point, they'd like you to be one of their army who is telling friends, sharing clips, and thinking about when this movie comes out.

There are other ways to promote movies, like appearing at film festivals or doing special screenings in certain towns. But how many of us learn about a movie from that? I can't name a single movie that is playing at a festival. I can't name a single movie that is on a tour of cities to do special previews and screenings. So that's not where I get my movie awareness... unless I know someone who follows that stuff. And if the movie isn't doing some of that more traditional marketing listed above, when would my friends or I find out about the special screenings? It seemed like a circle, or a sort of catch 22.

You might find a movie's Twitter from friends who found it (but then somebody found it at SOME point). You might stumble on it, say on Fandango or YouTube, and watch a trailer, interviews, and other things put out there to make you interested. You might learn about a movie by seeing what your local theatre is playing... it's possible they're playing something you never heard of, and now you're going to read up about the movie.

And then there's also the "paid buzz," like paying bloggers to write about your movie, paying people to Tweet, paying people to post things to their Facebook, etc... I'm not sure how much of that will be the FIRST time we've heard about a movie... I'm trying to think about our first awarenesses of a new movie, and what the movie people do to make sure we're excited, we are going to see it, and tell friends.

How do you find out about movies? Do you send clips of movies to friends? I'd love to know more about the marketing of movies because I tend to think that it just about ALWAYS takes at least SOME of the traditional movie marketing in order to get a giant amount of the public to know about it, to be excited about it, and to tell friends.

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Palm Pre Backup and Restore is Impressive

Yesterday was NOT a cool day for my Palm Pre. After taking a small tumble, the case wasn't cracked, but was no longer sitting correctly. It couldn't be snapped back in. Man, my HTC WinMo phones took many more WAY worse falls, and lived. So I am a bit concerned on construction here.

But I did something weird for me, and I took insurance on the phone when I got it. So I went to the Sprint Store. Showed it to the girl, who went, "OOooooo!" Like ooo, this is bad. I had called that morning, and she said to backup my pictures and any music I've put on the phone. I did. I also hit the "backup" button the phone has, though I didn't know what it did.

I went to Starbucks and got my usual. By the time I walked back, she was just about done reprogramming a brand new phone. Not worth them trying to fix, I guess. Brand new phone. The phone asked for my Palm account. Well, I didn't really know what that was for. I only knew I was creating one when I first got the phone. But having NOT downloaded the desktop software, I didn't know what having the Palm account really did.

So I log back into my account on the new phone, and it says it's downloading. Minutes go by, and then it reboots. When it's back, it's just amazing.

What's there:

• All of my email settings... I had put in 5 email addresses, and it started sync'ing those accounts, and downloading my mail.
• My Google account to sync my contacts and calendar, which it started doing.
• All the apps I had downloaded.
• So within minutes, I had all of my contacts, calendar, and emails freshly sync'ed. It was NICE.

What's not there:

• My desktop wallpaper. Easy to reload and assign.
• Preferences for ring tones, both the main one, and ones I had set for contacts.
• Settings inside the apps I had downloaded. For example, my Twitter app was there, but it didn't know any of my accounts.
• I'm hoping that future apps can have some sort of import/export settings so I don't need to redo all my settings if I ever have to factory reset.

But this was impressive and a welcome relief when I think about what it was like after factory resetting my Windows Mobile phones. Note that the Palm automatically syncs with Google accounts... so I have an app sending my Outlook contacts and calendar to Google every 15 minutes (and receiving anything my phone has sent). The Palm syncs periodically, so both are always updated. That's niiiiiiiice. :)

Thanks, Palm. I started out nearly hating you, and ended up converted again. :)

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Things to Consider Before Getting Married

Having read this blog post on Things to Consider Before Getting Married, I felt like that post really didn't cover enough. I know of no friends in bad marriages because of how many football games someone wants to watch. I haven't had any relationships end over that.

Here is my take on this.

Consider what is very unlikely to change at all, ever.

Religion. Politics. How many kids someone does or doesn't want. How much someone smokes, drinks, or does drugs. How much someone goes to a strip club or enjoys porn. :)

If your partner doesn't agree with your views, and that sometimes bugs you, remember that you're signing up for a lifetime of disagreement on those issues. He or she may not eventually come around to seeing your way on this, so don't assume it'll change.

Don't assume he or she will change at all, ever.

I've been in long-term relationships with a few people who had some self-awareness of some bad or even destructive aspects of their personalities that they wanted to change. Great! Step one is being aware, and step two is wanting to change. And so far in my life, I've watched these people change none of these things. I think it was because they were large, fundamental changes to how they saw things, how they gut-reacted to things, and things like that... so they weren't easy changes to make.

I have gone into long-term relationships assuming that he will "stop doing that" because he says he will get help... or because my love can support him through his tough times... or because love conquers all... or something like that. And so far, I've been painfully disappointed, and it's a double disappointment. It hurts that the person is still doing things evidently neither of you want him or her doing, and then it's hard to realise that he or she broke a promise to change it.

Make sure that if you are moving in or getting married, you really love that person AS IS. If he or she NEVER changed and always did that or always avoided that or always was just as he or she is now, would he or she still be your Perfect Partner? If you don't immediately jump out with YES, then it's no.

While my last relationship didn't last, I knew I was going into it loving that person the way he was, for better or worse, and sometimes he was worse. :) I knew he might not change, but I was ready to support him in any change he wanted to make. To me, that's unconditional love, and that is what both people should feel for a marriage to be the right choice, and then work out.

Listen to your gut.

When you hear yourself unsure of these things, or you hear yourself thinking about how you wish she didn't do that or how you wish he didn't say that... put those on a pile. They're not isolated. People have patterns. People rarely do things once. Crappy people who learn that you'll take what they just said or did will surely do it again... they just learned you'll take it.

I have had friends who were married to crappy people, and they kept telling themselves that their spouse won't be like that to the kids... that he won't say those mean things to a little baby, and then he'll learn to not say those things to me. Well, it normally doesn't work that way. If he's saying hurtful things, he's got issues, and the kid will be the next target.

Nobody escapes someone with issues, and you shouldn't assume that someone who has patterns of being a certain way will magically stop being that way. If that person were capable of that kind of awareness, I'd think that he or she would see what he or she is doing to YOU, and would STOP.

Watch your role.

In many of my long-term relationships, I seemed to end up as the everything. I was the main or sole breadwinner. I was the person who planned everything, took care of everything. Fought every wrong bill. Dealt with every contractor coming to the house. I like to be supportive to people, but seem to end up as their therapist or the objective of their obsessions, power struggles, or addictions.

Some people think they want that take-charge person, or that they want to be that take-charge person. Well, just remember that you then have a relationship that is not equal. OK, not everybody's pay rates will be equal, but in theory, you want something equal. You are not in this relationship to take care of someone else, or to be taken care of. You're an adult. :)

Live together first for 3 years.

Yeah, really. Are you in some sort of rush? You shouldn't be. If this is the right person, you'll have plenty of time together. Don't be in a rush to be married or have kids. That doesn't work out for most of us, and most of the people I know who are still in their marriage seem awfully unhappy... but stay for the kids. By the way, your marriage is a model for your kids. Stay in a loveless or openly negative marriage, and guess what you teach the kids. It's no accident that I keep dating the same people who treat me as badly as my mother treated my father... it's what I learned, and I'm not out of that habit yet. So staying in it for the kids may not be giving the kids what you think it gives them.

I have noticed that the relationships I had with people were MUCH better before we moved in together. Once you are with that person that much, you get to see it all. It all comes out. That great behaviour they save for those dates or nights together is there... and then the other stuff comes out. It's amazing how much gets revealed about someone once you are living with them. People are different when they don't have the same personal space and choices on how they spend their time.

In the last 3 long-term relationships I've been in, I saw enough bad stuff from these guys in the first year we lived together to have known that this was wrong. But part of my bad pattern is to stay in these bad relationships and think that I can help, support, and love unhappy people into better places in their lives. I am wrong. But I sure could have avoided a lot of divorce issues and bad dealings with unstable guys if I had "put on a pile" what I saw once we moved in together. I should have seen that complete picture of who that person really was, not just loved their potential to be happier or better, not just loved the good times, and LEFT.

Why 3 years? Because I've still seen some people on their best behaviour in that first year or so. It's that honeymoon period. You've picked a place, some furniture... there's probably still some of that fun, fresh dating energy there. Let that burn off, and see what you have underneath it all. I found that not only were these guys awful and impossible, but we couldn't even stay friends.

Even if you've been dating 5 years but haven't lived together yet, live together for at least 1-2 years. It really is different. It just is!

Pre-nup

Yeah. I said it, and I mean it. Get a pre-nup. I don't care if you have NOTHING. Get one. If you both agree on property and things, then you'll both sign a fair pre-nup. If you don't agree on property and things, oh isn't that best to know before you get married?

It's like any other insurance. You hope you are not in a car wreck. You hope you are not hospitalised. But you have insurance in case these things happen. You don't want them to happen, and you assume they'll never happen to you. But they're good to have. So is a pre-nup.

Marriage is not supposed to be hard, so stop telling yourself that.

People marry the wrong people, and then guess what. Marriage is hard. It takes work and effort. And that's what they tell you when you hang out. Marriage is just so hard, and it takes work.

It doesn't have to be like that, and it shouldn't. Think about your relationship with your best friend. Does that person have to try to say and do the right thing for you? Do you tell him or her what to say, what not to say, and how to act to make you happy? Probably not. You probably go well together. That's the sort of relationship you should have when you want to be married. That great friendship where you don't each have a list of what you hope the other person will change.

Your relationship with your best friend is probably very easy. It's natural. You don't have to sit down and ask where it's going, or why she wasn't more supportive. This is your best friend. This relationship is not hard, and nobody tells themselves or each other that best friends are hard and take effort.

So why are we telling ourselves that marriage is hard and takes effort when you're supposed to marry "your best friend," your perfect match, your soul mate, the person who loves you and understands you the most? Why do we tell ourselves this stuff when it just gives people reasons to stay in bad relationships? Well, this relationship is a mess, but hey, marriage is hard and takes hard work, so I guess I haven't put in enough hard work because this is a mess.

So be very careful. There is no good reason to rush into getting married or having kids. There is so much to consider to make sure it's right, and you don't end up a statistic. Divorce is not the only statistic. I also think of the number of people staying in unhappy marriages "for the kids." Or the people staying in verbally, physically, emotionally, or sexually abusive situations. These are all easy to do. None of us set out to do this, but we fall into patterns or we believe liars.

Yes, I am a bit skeptical and not so hot on the whole marriage thing. That's more from watching unhappy friends stay in bad stuff than from my own bad dating experiences. If I were the only one having bad long-term relationship experiences, you can say it's just me. :) I'm in the majority. I think people need to do a better job picking their partners. If this blog post can save just ONE person from some of the mistakes I made (more than once), it's worth it.

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

CSI Got It Wrong

I was flipping by TV the other night, and I don't remember if this were a commercial or an episode, but the CSI guys were standing over a body. Not that exciting yet. :)

But in deducing I don't know what, they decided that the guy was left-handed because he wore his cell phone on the left side of his pants.

Wrong. (Envision loud X sound from Family Feud)

I am a righty, and I wear my cell phone on the left side. Why.

• As a righty, when I carry a pocketbook, I carry it on the right. I hate when it bumps into my cell phone, or has to stand way away from me because it's on my cell phone.
• Because of where my cell phone case tends to sit on the right side of my pants, it was bumping into where the seat belt pieces connect. That was annoying, and it was hard to battle that to get into the cell phone case.
• If I'm a righty, then I am probably doing something with my right hand when my phone rings. Maybe I'm writing or carrying a grocery bag.

It just makes more sense for my cell phone to be near my non-dominant hand. CSI would have gotten this WAY wrong, if I were a body on the floor of a film set. :)

Posted at 07:17 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Chemistry.com... Holy Cats

Some of you may remember my testing of eHarmony in Feb 2006 (I can't even be bothered to check the blog archives!). That was something other than else.

This time, I decided to try Chemistry.com. I'm not looking for Mr Right or a serious relationship, but I always hope that if these matching systems are as good as they say, I'll meet people who'd make great friends.

I just don't get this. I really don't. OK, maybe people aren't that serious, and maybe they're not that interested in me. I'm not that interested in them, though I'd like to make friends. But there are some really bizarre things going on here.

This week, a guy tried to tell me he wants a take-charge woman. When I told him I am that but don't want to be that in a relationship because I want an equal relationship, his reply was that he does want an equal relationship. The example he used for an equal relationship. Referring to himself, "I might help out in the kitchen."

Are you freaking kidding me? That implies that I'm cooking and sometimes you'll help out? And that's equal? If you want a take-charge woman, you are probably not looking for something really equal... or you would have said that in the first place. :)

I picked like 7 guys so far who I'd like to communicate with and see if they're out of their minds or not. Only one responded. Seemed like a nice guy who'd have some things in common with me. Said he wanted to go out. Sure, I'll go out. Gave me his number. I called and got voice mail. I left a message saying we should plan something. Never heard back... that was like 2 weeks ago. I hope he's OK! But barring an emergency, I'll say that this doesn't look very good for what I would want in a friend (forget about some sort of date).

The other guys? Didn't respond at all. Not sure if they are logging in. One guy tried to tell me eHarmony was better, but my experiences there were WORSE. I am not sure if they've changed this, but in 2006, eHarmony treated me not wanting kids as a preference that wasn't really important to me. So even though I flagged everything I could as "I don't have kids, I don't want kids, and this is 100% important to me," they sent me people who had kids and wanted kids. That's a major FAIL. I'd rather be alone the rest of my life than to have kids or have to deal with someone else's kids, even adult children.

So Chemistry.com, I paid for a month to check you out, and I will be cancelling in about a week so you don't charge me again. I didn't expect to find love. I wasn't looking for a husband. And maybe because of that, I have really high standards.But then again, I know CRAZY when I see it, and I know a dating website that nobody seems to be logging into when I see it.

Chemistry.com, you were better than eHarmony in that you didn't send me piles of people every day who had really BASIC things completely opposite to me. That was good. But that's about it. The rest of these guys don't seem to be logging in. They're not responding to me, they're not archiving me... it's just nothing. You are more expensive than eHarmony, and I don't need that!

I'm not bothering with Match.com (Chemistry.com's big sister). When I looked at it in 2006, the second question is asked was what is your best "part," and "brain" was not a choice. I don't want to be "analysed" for my body parts, thanks!

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Can The Palm Pre Do This?

Well, I bit the bullet yesterday and got the Palm Pre. I was holding out for an HTC Touch Pro 2, and honestly, may still get that when it comes out and return the Palm. There's a lot I like about the Palm, but there is something nice about staying with Windows Mobile and being able to use all my apps. There are very few Palm apps, which is surprising given how long they're been yapping about this phone and how many have sold.

But so far, I would say the Palm interface is very slick, fast and easy to use, I like the multitasking, the screen is lovely... there's a lot I like about it. The gestures (finger motions) make sense, and the keyboard is small, but surprisingly easy to use. The screen seems to like bulky finger presses while I'm used to precise stylus pointing (or fingernail pointing). So since most people HATED precise stylus pointing, you would be happy!

So after 12 hrs of playing with the Pre, here is what I wish it would do. If anybody knows how to do these, please comment in the blog here! Thanks.

• I wish email could delete from server. I'd like to pick up email, junk what is really junk, and when I get back to my computer, NOT see the 30 emails I deleted.
• It seems like many notifications are sound OR vibration. I like both at the same time just about always. Sometimes I'm in a quiet place and can hear the phone. Sometimes, I am singing loudly in my car, and don't hear the phone, but feel the vibration. So the idea or one OR the other is NOT what I'm used to, and I'm worried I will miss things.
• I leave my phone on all night for two reasons: 1) someone might need me and call or text, and 2) it's my alarm clock. So I can't put it into silent or airplane mode since that would kill one of those goals. However, I can't find where to make the Palm stop picking up things like from the internet all night (and making sounds and vibrations when it finds them). I don't know how to get it to STOP picking up my email and tweets, or to at least NOT alert me. The Palm has areas where you can turn on or off Bluetooth and WiFi, but doesn't have an area where you turn off polling the internet (Windows Mobile does).
• There is no really quick way to call my favourite people. I have to go into contacts, find them, call them... I had an app in WinMo that let me dial by pictures, and it was RIGHT on my "desktop." I'd like fewer clicks!
• More custom sounds. I can't change my "you have mail" sound or my "you have a tweet" sound. I'm used to customising all these things in Windows Mobile... down to what SMS tone does a friend get. It's handy... why even pull the phone out if it's THAT guy, which you'd know by sound. :)
• More calendar customisation. I'm used to Outlook (and WinMo) letting me categorise my appointments, and each category can have a colour. So at a quick glance, I know if my day is filled with phone calls, work, or fun personal stuff.
• I'd like to be able to customise my App Launcher. I can move things around, but can't seem to remove things I'll never use like Sprint's NASCAR app. I can't make icons smaller and place them how I want them. I'm used to doing this with WinMo.
• I'd like ALL the IM apps to be available, not just Google Talk and AIM. I am now using Yahoo Messenger a lot, plus I do a crazy amount of Skype typing, and those aren't on here.
• Google Maps should have Latitude. I'd like that back!
• I'd like it to handle DRM subscription music because I use and love Rhapsody with my MP3 player. With the Pre, I was only able to load on tracks I ripped through iTunes. It didn't see the ones I loaded with Rhapsody. Weird.
• The integrations are neat, but I had NO idea that when I put in my Facebook info that you'd make EVERY Facebook friend I have a contact in my phone book. That kinda makes no sense since many of my Facebook friends are eBay sellers who just want to hear what I have to say about eBay. They're not REALLY friends. And when I wanted to remove those people, I was told I can't remove a Facebook friend from my contacts. Well, I'd like to! And I'd like you to know on next sync to NOT add it back!

Many of the things I was doing in WinMo were thanks to outside apps... SPB Pocket Plus let me arrange my interface. SPB Diary made working with my calendar easier. Lonely Cat Games ProfiMail was a great email app that could delete off server. Lonely Cat also made Slick, a multi-IM app. PockeTwit is a better Twitter app, putting my multiple Twitter accounts into one timeline and giving me WAY more features than the Twitter app I found for Palm.

So I feel like 1996 again... I was a Mac user who was a professional website designer/builder. And every time I wanted to use an app, it would say available now for Win95, available next year for Mac. I finally dumped the Mac and got Windows so that I could stay ahead in my own industry. And I feel like that again where every app out there seems to be for iPhone, Blackberry, and/or Windows Mobile... some are even Symbian. And where are the Pre apps!

Will I stay with the Palm for its neato interface, features, and POTENTIAL, or will I just get the HTC Touch Pro 2 when it comes out since it might have many of the same features and interface, but will run all the apps I miss so much. The drawback to the HTC Touch Pro 2? It's not out yet and it's WinMo, which may mean crashing and instability... not good either!

It's really up to app developers. Everything I want has to do with apps, which means apps (and I'd pay for these apps) can do what I need. Better email and IM handling... faster dialing of my most common friends... a better Twitter app... I'm sure these can exist, and if I'd pay for them, maybe 3,000 other Pre users (1%) would. That could be a nice revenue stream for somebody!

Posted at 06:56 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Myths About Recent Sales and Best Match

Even though eBay's communication about how to get Recent Sales momentum in Best Match search results has been clear and consistent, it sounds like some waters have been muddied. People are confused, especially those who received an email from a software service, telling them that if you move to another listing service, you will lose your "Best Match priority placement." Let's dispel this now.

Firstly, why is this important? Part of how eBay calculates where to place you in Best Match has to do with your Recent Sales. Quite simply, if an item that is a Fixed Price 30-day or GTC has a multiple quantity offered, and makes a sale, eBay would bump it higher in search results. The idea is hey, this is the one people are choosing, this must be a good one from a good seller, let's give it more exposure. The better it gets, the better it gets. :)

So you want to do whatever you need to do to KEEP the momentum you can get by making sales from these items. The word from eBay has ALWAYS been that you can keep your Recent Sales by doing these four things when re-listing the item (as of when I'm typing this on 6 July 09):

• Don't change the category.
• Don't change the condition.
• Don't change the title.
• Don't raise the price.

You can lower the price, and you can even change the description. Most importantly, you CAN change listing services. Nowhere in there does it say that you lose Recent Sales ranking if your relist shows up from a different listing tool than before. So thing 1, myth busted!

But something IS going on. Some people who are changing services found that their items sunk in search results, and it appeared that they HAD lost their Recent Sales ranking. What happened?

It seemed that many services had set "relisting" to actually be putting an item freshly on eBay. Huh? Well, think back to auctions. If you ran an item, and it didn't sell, you relisted. If it then sold, you got those insertions fees back. If it didn't sell that 2nd time, you had to list it freshly, and NOT relist so that if it didn't sell again, that 4th listing might qualify for the "free relist." So with most tools having been built back in the day, the system saw a "relist" of a fixed price item as a totally fresh, new list... which was resetting the Recent Sales on that item.

Aha!

So check your listing system to see how they're doing it. I work with InkFrog, and to fix this, you can now choose 1 of 2 ways to relist. One is a regular relist (say you use auctions and are hoping for the old "free relist"). The other choice says something like "relist for best match." This will send your item to eBay as a relist, and if you meet the criteria for NOT breaking your Recent Sales momentum, then you will keep that momentum.

That's why it LOOKED like changing listing companies was hurting Recent Sales, but it turns out that it's more about how the software is submitting that relisted item to eBay. When eBay was seeing these as brand new items, it was resetting Recent Sales. When eBay saw it as a relist, and it met the criteria, you should be able to keep Recent Sales!

We saw clients moving in ALL directions losing Recent Sales... I had a client move from Kyozou to Infopia, and it looked like he lost his Recent Sales. I know of people who left Auctiva for inkFrog and others. So it's not just one service... it looks like this was how many software systems were set up, and hopefully third party providers are making changes!

Whew, I hope that clears that up!

Posted at 08:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

What Nobody Is Saying About Michael Jackson

I have been watching some of the MJ coverage from network TV to CNN to MSNBC, VH1, E!, etc... I wasn't really a fan, but having been sick in bed a lot of the last 9 days, I've seen a lot of TV. :)

I have seen a lot of people interviewed who were friends with Michael Jackson. Nearly all of them talk about how they were there for him... they were there when he got married... or won an award... or did something groud-breaking, had his kids, went to court, etc... So many people are talking about being there for him, with him, etc...

But there is one thing I have heard NOBODY say about Michael Jackson.

I have not seen a single interview (yet) where someone talks about how Michael Jackson was there for them as a good friend. Nobody has said, "When I was at a low point, I called Michael because he's always there for me." Nobody describes MJ as their go-to best pal.

If Deepak Chopra or his son were having a bad day, I bet that they didn't call MJ. MJ's family... do you think he was the emotional rock that everybody turned to when things were going wrong for them?

To me, this reminds me of people who are takers, and maybe it's just part of being an addict... taking a lot from people around you, surrounding you with people who support your world view and get you your fix, not being the go-to supportive friend people wish you were. If you died today (and please don't), what would your friends say about you? Would they be thinking about all the times they were there for you, and evidently none of the times you were there for them?

Maybe it's a wake-up call about how we can be there more for our friends. Friendships are about a give and take, and the main thing I'm noticing about MJ is that while he may have been generous with money and using his ranch and material things, he doesn't seem to really have been anybody's best friend. Makes me think about the nature of friendship.

Posted at 06:16 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Saving Money with Google Voice

Following my post last week about Google Voice, I was poking around the forums, and got a great idea from people there on saving lots of money with Google Voice.

I will probably take and make calls through Google Voice from my mobile phone. But I was worried about it burning up my allotted minutes. Well, the folks in the forum had a solution, and I'm going to try it.

Many carriers have some sort of "friends and family" plan or add-on where you can pick a few phone numbers that are outside of your carrier's network, and you will ALWAYS get free calls to and from those numbers. For example, if you call home a lot, you might want those to not count against your minutes.

Well, you add your Google Voice number as one of those! That way, when you call GV to access your voicemail or make outgoing calls, it won't count against your minutes.

What about receiving calls? GV has a feature where the call can show up as your GV number every time OR it can show up as the caller ID of the person calling. I'm setting it to show up as my GV number... and in that case, my carrier should see it as my "friend number" calling, and not dock my minutes.

Play your GV cards right, and you could barely pay for calls ever again!

The next thing that would save me heaps of money would be if GV let us have multiple numbers that we controlled from one account. Sure I can start separate accounts, but it's always easier to control things from one account. If I had multiple GV numbers, here is the problem that would solve.

Right now, I have 4 phone lines. One is my mobile and three are my businesses (As Was, We Are Your People, and inkFrog). When you call one, you expect me to pick that up and say the right company! :) But if you call through Google Voice, and I don't know who you are or why you're calling, then I might not say the right company.

If I had multiple numbers, then I could set GV to show that GV number as my caller ID. Ring the "As Was" number, and I know to answer with "As Was." Ring the "We Are Your People" number, and I know to answer that way. I could then have ONE phone line (instead of three) because I would know who you were trying to reach, and GV would always take voicemail... with a customised outgoing message for each number.

That would be GREAT.

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Crazy Woman in My Building

I woke up at 6:something thinking I heard someone knocking on doors or going around the hall. I figured it was the girls next door. They tend to party late and come home at weird hours.

But it was 6:something, so I got up, and got ready to take my dog for a walk. We were headed outside probably around 6:40am. Someone was running after me as I left the building. I tried to ignore her, but when I got outside, she called after me.

Crazy lady: "Where is everybody?"

Me: "Who is everybody?"

Crazy lady: "You know. They are all waiting for me!"

Me: "I don't know you. Who is they?"

Crazy lady: "You know, Seven."

Me: "Is Seven a person?"

Crazy lady: "Yes."

Me: "I don't know anybody named Seven."

Crazy lady: "Don't you know Leah?"

Me: "No."

Crazy lady: "Well, they're waiting for me."

I went to walk my dog. I took her on a crazy long walk hoping this woman would be gone. When I got back, this woman was sitting on the benches outside the main door of our building. I didn't say anything to her, and she did not try to follow me in. It was about 7am by then.

I was laying in bed watching some TV, when around 7:30am there was a knock on the door... which is a little weird as we all have doorbells that are lit up. This is an 11-floor apartment building with all inside doors. I looked out the peephole, and it was HER. I stood in silence a moment wondering what to say or do. She just stood there and didn't seem to give up.

I finally said, "Please go away." She said, "OK," and kept standing there. My dog let out a big bark, which startled the woman, and she walked away. That meant this woman has been walking around here at least for an hour with evidently nobody to meet... even though they're ALL WAITING FOR HER! So I called the police.

I saw out the window that the police came. Two cars were talking to each other. Nobody called me back. I hoped they found her and got rid of her.

11am, I decide to take the dog for another walk. Just before I go out the front door of my building, I notice the SAME WOMAN is sitting in the lobby on the couch. It's HOURS later. I am thinking she is NOT meeting anybody! If I were meeting someone and they were going to be 5 hours late, I would go find a Starbucks and not sit around the lobby of an apartment building... not to mention that this all started at 6:30am on a Saturday morning, the 4th of July.

I took the dog for an extra long walk, and called the non-emergency number for my local police. I told them the woman was still there, and what did the police who came out earlier find? The woman said she sees a record of the call and of the officers going out, but they never reported back. I said that I was really doubting this woman's story, and I have no idea why she's here. But I think she's scary and not making any sense, and I have no idea what's going on.

There is only one way in and out of the building, and I decided I didn't want to walk past her. I decided that the dog and I would wait for someone to open the gate to go into or out of the underground parking. Someone did just as I got there. We ran in, and got the elevator to our floor. But hey, if this woman is in the building, she can get in an elevator and have access to the underground parking.

You learn, growing up in suburban NYC, to not have a giant mountain of trust for strangers. :) But you also learn that if something looks weird and acts weird, you get away, and maybe you call the police.

For all I know, this could be the Mom of someone in the building, and they ARE expecting her. But then again, everything she said this morning makes NO sense, and if someone is "waiting for her," where are they? Why isn't she calling them? Why isn't she using our building's intercom system to get them to come down?

It's 11:30, and I don't see any cops outside. I know this is low priority, but then again, it's low priority until it's not. I'll just go in and out through the parking garage, and hope I don't run into her. I have no idea why she's here or why she was knocking on my apartment door hours ago. And while I'm on that point, when she was standing out there, she never asked for help or explained why she was there. She was just knocking, and when I said to go away, she was like, "OK."

Bizarre.

For those of you desiring a mental picture, this woman looks a bit like Penny Marshall (famous director and actress in Laverne and Shirley). She's wearing mostly black with some hot pink. She looks relatively normal, but her words and actions make no sense. And people making no sense scare me. :)

Update: The cops came. They had no way to get into the building. No key, no special code that opens the door. They were standing outside. The desk person called me and asked how they should get in. I told them to find my name in the directory and I'll buzz them in.

Well I HOPE I buzzed in cops. Who freaking knows without video. But I think the cops need a way into this building in an emergency. If someone were being attacked, and the cops were standing outside hoping someone lets them in... that would be REALLY bad.

Posted at 11:40 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Google Voice: Review

Well, it finally came... my Google Voice invitation. I decided to check it all out. The interface looks like Gmail, so it should be familiar to many people.

The first step was picking my phone number, and it posed an interesting question... what's more important? An area code you like or your phone number spelling something? I decided that since I tend to move a lot and am not in one area code for long, I would pick a phone number that spelled something nobody can forget. :) The upside? You will probably never forget my number. The down side? I show up on caller ID as calling from Canton, Ohio. OH well.

The next step I took was importing my Outlook contacts. It remembered my categories, and used those as Groups. You can make settings for groups. For example, a group can get a special voicemail outgoing message. And a group can be routed to some of your phone numbers. Or a group can go straight to voicemail. So this means I can have one outgoing message for friends, one for certain business associates, etc...

And my most important peeps can be sent to ring my office and cell phone AT THE SAME TIME... or regular peeps can just ring the office, and I don't have to take it on my cell phone. You can also set temporary numbers (like your mountain cabin, as the help file says) in case you want calls to find you there.

Not sure if you want to take a call from someone? When they call your number, Google Voice calls you, and announces who they are. You then have a pile of choices... take the call, send it to voicemail, send it to voicemail but listen in on the voicemail (and hit a button to interrupt and start talking to the person leaving a voicemail), or record the call.

Yes. Record the call. I think it said it will announce something saying it's recording. I haven't tried that.

Want your calls to look like they come from your number? Two ways to do that. One is to dial your own number (say from your mobile), and then instruct the system to call out. The other is to be on the Google Voice website, and initiate the call from there. You say who to call or what number, and what phone you want to use. It'll call you first, and once you connect, it calls your intended party with your Google Voice number showing up on caller ID.

If you initiate calls from Google Voice, you might get charged. Right now, calls from the US to the 48 continental states are free. Calls to landlines in other countries are pretty comparable to rates I've seen from other services... $0.02/min to the UK, $0.03/min to Australia, $0.01/min to Canada. Calls to mobile phones are always more. But hey, if I'm out on my mobile phone somewhere, it'll cost me less to call through Google Voice than to pay Sprint's fees to make international calls. Google Voice gives you 10 cents free to play around (well, I got 10 cents!).

Text messaging was very cool. Google Voice understands which of my phones is my mobile phone. If you text my Google Voice number, it comes to me as coming from Google Voice. If I reply, it goes through Google Voice back to you. That means that if I go to the SMS dashboard on the Google Voice website, I will see our texts as a threaded conversation. I can send SMS or reply to them right there. That was pretty neat. My cell phone number never showed up in any of it.

Some features I haven't tried out.

• If you have received a call on one phone, and you want to switch to another phone, you can evidently hit *. Your other phones will ring, and you can pick up the call where you want. Sounds neat!
• It evidently transcribes voicemails... didn't try that yet. They will be in your Google Voice inbox, and you can have them emailed to you. I love that from Vonage, so I'm sure I'd like that here.
• It's integrated with GOOG411 when you call into your own number.
• One of the types of phone numbers you can put in is Gizmo, which seems to be a Skype competitor. Sure, you can put in a Skype number, and just label that as work or home.

I've had it a few hours and have given nobody the number. :) So I'm not totally testing it. I'm afraid of giving out a phone number I'm not sure if I'll really keep and use. But I do like the idea of a business card with ONE phone number on it... call me, and I'll get it in the office, mobile, somewhere else, or on voicemail. And it could be my phone number for LIFE. That is attractive.

I'd love to keep testing this, but am afraid to give out my number! I'll have to give another review once I'm using this more. :)

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

A Consulting Call Shouldn't Be A Sales Pitch

Thanks to John aka ColderICE for his great radio show today. I had to listen to it when he said he was outing someone. And wouldn't you know, it was someone on my poop list, who I've pointed at before here in this blog.

This link will download an MP3 of the radio show, which was the 1 July 2009 "BS Walks" show John does on TalkShoe.com.

John gives a bad rating for Bonanzle late in the show, which I was very interested in. I disagree that Bonanzle is a good solution if you want an eCommerce presence. If you want one, get a buyitsellit.com or Vendio Store. Why bring traffic to a marketplace with competitors! Bring people to your own website.

But it was the middle of the show that tickled me.

John found out that Skip McGrath just started tweeting on Twitter, but is already trying to push an e-book about Twitter. You can evidently get his free e-book if you sign up and agree to have a 30-minute "consulting call." Ugh. Then it's not really free, is it. It takes your time and energy.

John's first point was basically why is a Twitter newbie trying to push/sell you an e-book about something that is new to him? I've been on Twitter since April 2008. I should write an e-book! John should write an e-book. Skip, this is not your specialty.

Not mentioned in John's show is something I noticed in Skip's tweets. He's looking for YOU to tweet him Twitter tips (for his book). So once again, he's barely writing his own book. I saw him do this for his last eBay book... he was in eBay discussion forums asking people for information.

John continued with a caller, Karen, who reported her experience signing up for Skip's e-book. She got the "consulting call." She said they asked questions about what she wanted to get out of this, how her credit was, and how her finances were. She said she didn't have credit cards, and lived on a fixed income. Karen reported that the "consulting call" contained no consulting or advice, even though she asked about product sourcing (supposedly Skip's specialty). The call lasted 8 minutes and 8 seconds, and the caller told her to buy Skip's system.

FAIL. Karen said on John's radio show that her impression of Skip was that everything he sends out is just full of affiliate links. She said that wasn't a consulting call, it was a sales pitch, and she thought the whole thing really felt like a "snake oil salesman." Her call wasn't with Skip, by the way. It was with one of his "coaches."

But this matches everything else I've seen from Skip, and why he's on my poop list. Time after time, I've seen him not have original information or advice. His informational products seem to be taken from other people's information or publicly available info. He is mining YOU and your tips for his books, but did you get paid for that? Did you get any credit?

I don't think his materials are right for anybody. I don't want newbies reading that stuff. I don't want veteran eBay sellers reading that stuff. I just think that this whole thing isn't much. And I'm still not happy with the time Skip admitted that he hadn't checked out a company he was promoting (to make affiliate money)... he had to admit that after his loyal followers paid that company and felt scammed.

Don't sell out your followers.

Twitter is about quality interactions with people who have something interesting to say. I'm not following Skip, but he's following me. :) Well, as of when I'm typing this, anyway.

Thanks to John and his caller, Karen, for coming out and publicly talking about this. It's easy to keep things quiet and not want to air this stuff. But people should know the truth. A free e-book is rarely truly free. A consulting call should not be a sales pitch. No "coach" representing a blogger/educator should be asking people about their credit and finances (and Karen should have refused to answer). I'm just not OK with any of this.

Posted at 08:37 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

My Personal Ad

In the spirit of humour, here is my personal ad.

Wanted: busy CEO, top level exec, or guy with at least one high-level job that keeps him insanely busy... for tweeting, Skype chats, text messaging, and short phone calls while I walk my dog.

I'm crazy busy and you're really busy. Every time you blink, I've started a company, or taken on more consulting. We both travel a lot, and rarely in the same direction, so I may not see you very often. But you can tell the difference between me being busy and me not caring (I do care!). When we get together, it's laugh-o-rama, and we don't get tired of each other's work stories.

You've got plenty of your own money, plenty of hotel frequent stay points, and plenty of fun ideas about how to spend short weekends away. You'll consider a week in Disney World, FL with me... if we ever take a break from working. OK, we'll bring our laptops to Disney. You don't want to take me bungee jumping, skydiving, or to an S&M club. Ever!

You don't struggle with addictions or the truth. You're incapable of lying, and you'll tell me when my ass looks fat in that. You genuinely like my cooking and my kids (dog and cat). You're low pressure because we're both high stress, and I don't need any distractions. You are attractive and confident, you have great self-awareness, and don't need me to validate you. Oh, and you neither have a criminal record nor a "law enforcement" past, ie: we'll never be in a power struggle. You have a good sense of privacy, and know what not to post to your Facebook profile. I'm a CEO, you know. :)

In your spare time, you like to debate mobile phone platforms and manufacturers, recite Monty Python's Flying Circus Sketches, and think about the future of eCommerce user interface design. I'm a musician, you're a musician. Maybe we don't express that sides of ourselves very often, but they're a big part of us. Let's get out there and be musicians.

You're roughly my age (I was born in 1972), you're male, you're straight, you are free of "social" diseases, and you don't have or want human children. You're not religious. You might be single, and you might be currently unhappily married. You're in no rush for any sort of serious commitment.

And that would be my personal ad.

Added: Yes, I'm looking for perfection. I'm sorry, but you need to match all of this. I shouldn't settle for anything less than the right person for me. :)

Added: You stalkers can just back off. The weirdo in upstate NY, any Brits still holding a grudge, and the psycho Aussie with the criminal record. You don't qualify. So sorry.

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Credit Card Fraud in Vegas

Last time I was in Vegas, someone skimmed my card. Oh, I learned all about it... this is where someone swipes your card (with a device other than the device they needed to use for you to pay), and it records everything on your card. They can then use that (or sell that) and reprogram a credit card to be yours.

This a REALLY sneaky for two reasons.

1. Your card wasn't stolen, so you don't know it's compromised.
2. Since they reprogram a card with their name on it, anybody who asks them to produce ID will still pass the test... the name on the card matches the name on the license. But if the cashier looked closer, the 4 digits printed on the receipt wouldn't match the 4 digits on the face of the card.

Two days after I got back from Vegas, while I was buying lunch in Tucson, AZ, my card was being used in a rural Pennsylvania WalMart to buy $1200 of stuff. Somehow, my card issuer didn't think it was WEIRD that one card was being used across the country at the same time, and let the charge through. I spent the week fighting it.

So how do you protect against this?

I'm going to Vegas this week for the eBay Radio Party, so this is on my mind. I decided to go to Safeway and buy a Visa debit card. It was $5.95 for one with $100 loaded on it, and I can use it just about anywhere. I'll use it to eat in Vegas, and that way, when someone walks away with my card, they have NO reason to skim it. It can't have more than $100 on there.

I suggest the same. Get yourself a gift card, and use that. Sure, I spent $6 on it, but I would pay $6 to NOT go through what I went through last time... fighting the charge, canceling the card, waiting for a replacement, messing up some of my monthly charges that were being auto-billed to that card. It was a MESS.

I've heard other people talk about using something like this... where they have a bank account (with an ATM debit Visa or Mastercard), and they only put enough money in the account to cover what they think they'll purchase. They do nothing else with the card, and don't keep a lot of money in there. That way, if it's every compromised, they haven't lost much, and the hassle is much less.

Personally, I think that by it being a pre-paid gift card, it's probably completely not attractive. Why steal my card for what might have $50 on it?

Travelling, especially to a conference? Spend a few dollars and get yourself a Visa gift card. :)

Posted at 02:59 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

All Is Full Of Love

you'll be given love
you'll be taken care of
you'll be given love
you have to trust it

maybe not from the sources
you've poured yours into
maybe not from the directions
you are staring at

twist your head around
it's all around you
all is full of love
all around you

you just ain't receiving
all is full of love
your phone is off the hook
all is full of love
your doors are all shut
 all is full of love

Thanks, Bjork. :)

Posted at 09:22 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

A Flight For $9?

A friend just called, and was thinking of coming up to see me for the weekend. This weekend. He lives in San Diego, and I'm now in San Jose.

We started looking around for flights, and he found Allegiant Air. They didn't have any flights up to me on Friday, but that had one up to me on Thursday (in 3 days). He can't make that since he doesn't want to take off of work.

But the price of the one-way flight to see me was $9. That's it. I assume they'll put tax on that, and charge for people checking bags. $9.

His return flight? $19. I mean this is just STUPID.

It doesn't fly in and out of San Jose. They fly in and out of Monterey, California, which is about 73 miles south of me. Yeah I'd go pick him up! But holy cats, I am definitely going to check their schedules next time I want to fly!

$9? $28 round trip? Huh?

Posted at 06:24 PM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Auctiva's Lawyers Want You To Know...

I've heard from Auctiva's lawyers. They'd like you to know that everything I've written or said about Auctiva ever is false. Including the stuff I can prove to you. It's all false according to them, so let's smile and nod. :)

I'd like you to know that although I have been working for inkFrog since mid-May, nothing I have said or will say about Auctiva has anything to do with inkFrog. They don't tell me what to say, I'm not saying these things for them, and it's just not about inkFrog. Ask inkFrog - they are not connected to what I choose to say, especially the things I chose to say before they hired me. And I've been saying negative things about Auctiva for years since I just don't like their system.

I have no hidden agenda. My agenda is always to get the truth out there. I'm just straightforward and face value, and I don't blast a company one day and then run a post the next day about how great they are and how they're doing nothing wrong. Anybody who wants to pretend that I'm only saying these things so that people will leave Auctiva and join inkFrog are applying agendas to me that I don't have. If you want to stay with Auctiva, you should! If you want to leave Auctiva, you should! If you want to sign on with Vendio, ChannelAdvisor, Infopia, inkFrog, Turbo Lister, Blackthorne, or anything else, you should. I support you. :) You should pick whichever system is right for you, and I have no attachment to who you pick. That means no agenda and no hidden agenda.

Bizarre things Auctiva does are completely about Auctiva, and if you read my blog, then you know I'm committed to pointing at all KINDS of companies doing bizarre things. I am my own person, and I stand behind what I say. These are my opinions, feelings, and advice... and if those can get you a letter from a lawyer, then every blogger, every tweeter, and every person posting to an online forum disliking Auctiva should be really careful.

Auctiva's lawyer is getting your Auctiva subscription money to tell me and maybe you to not say anything they will claim is false. Well, OK, you shouldn't say false things about companies. But you have a right to your opinion and experiences. I have had nothing but bad experiences with Auctiva, and Debbie Levitt is allowed to say that. I am allowed to stand in a crowded room and shout, "I don't like Auctiva!" That's still legal last I checked.

So my promise to everybody involved is that I will only post things that I can prove without a shadow of a doubt, and without revealing any information that may be considered confidential by eBay or any company with whom I have a relationship. I won't post about something I read in someone's forums since whoever posted that might be talking crap. I promise to label my blog posts and radio shows as the statements and opinions of Debbie Levitt as an individual, professional consultant, and not the opinion, statement, or stance of As Was, inkFrog, or any company that may be affiliated with either of us.

That doesn't mean I'll stop talking about Auctiva or any other company. It only means I'll be more careful about how I express my opinions to you guys. You guys still need to know the truth, and I may be the only one who is willing to tell it to you. While other people are backtracking, perhaps out of fear of lawyers, I'm not going to let threats and bullying stand in my way of giving you my opinions and the facts I can prove. Some people don't let the truth get in the way of a good blog post. I don't let lawyers threats get in the way of the truth.

The right to free speech stops at my ability to tell a lie. I do not want to tell or spread lies. I don't like when people do that to me, and I don't do it to other people or companies. So I'll just stick with my right to free speech, and only share what my opinion is, and the things I can completely and totally prove.

Auctiva, I suggest you do the same. My opinion is that you don't always take the high road. Do unto others. :)

I trust we're complete here. Thanks, everybody.

Posted at 02:40 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Why I Decided Against the Palm Pre

The Palm Pre came out this weekend. For weeks, I had the date in my calendar, reminding me to wake up early, and run to a Sprint Store.

Until I did some more digging.

I have the HTC Mogul (aka the 6800), and there is so much I like about it. If I could make it better, I'd have a bigger, sharper screen, and lots more memory. I'm at the point where apps crash because I'm trying to do too much at the same time. So the 64MB of memory that I think is in here just won't do. But it's intuitive, and I love the apps I can get for WinMo (Windows Mobile to the rest of ya).

I went to the Sprint Store and saw the HTC Touch, which is the newer version of my phone. Well, downgrade... they made it SMALLER, and it still had WinMo 6.1. So that seemed like a waste of money. I dug around the internet, and found that they're coming out with the HTC Touch Pro 2, aka the Rhodium, and that Sprint could have it as early as mid-June 2009. Well, I'm typing this on 7 June 2009, so I can wait!

Why not the Palm?

Well, I started remembering my days with Palm's first Treo. Man, that was the worst phone I ever had. So unreliable. It was something new for Palm, they hadn't really gotten it right, and I was a crash test dummy. Or just dummy.

While I hope the Pre is better, I started reading some reviews... both "official" and what people were writing in Twitter. I saw things like, "sluggish," and "doesn't play Flash," and started telling myself that I had it pretty good with Windows Mobile. And if the new WinMo phones have the upgraded OS and way more memory for multitasking, then isn't that really all I need?

And do I really want to re-buy all of my apps? I'm very happy with my apps. I live on TomTom, Photo Contacts Pro, PockeTwit, ProfiMail, Google Maps (with Latitude, in case anybody should care where I am), Skype, Slick, and a few more. Oh and let's not forget the great apps from the SPB people... SPB Pocket Plus, Diary, Weather, and Insight, though I haven't had time to run Insight in a while.

People don't know that WinMo phones can do a lot. We have the Opera browser too, ya know. My ProfiMail app checks 5 POP3 boxes and a gmail account once per minute, and alerts me to new emails. Text messages are in threaded conversations. My camera takes great pics. I can voice dial, and with Nuance's apps, I can even dictate text messages and short emails... great for trying to send a msg while driving for those of us who do NOT want to be typing while driving.   

I can do everything I love to do with WinMo. I just want to do it faster with a nicer screen, and it looks like the HTC Touch Pro 2 will be the best match for me.The Palm might be nice, but I don't want to be the crash test dummy anymore.

Posted at 02:30 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Left Auctiva? Using Their Templates? Beware!

You've been an Auctiva user, and you've put items on eBay with their "free" templates. You might have lots of items up, including Store items that you have had on "Good Til Cancelled" forever.

The big question has been when Auctiva switches to a model where you must pay for those "free" templates, what will happen to people who have left Auctiva, but still have items live on eBay that use those templates? A lot of people are asking me this, and some were banned from the Auctiva forums, so let me see if I can clear this up.

I have two pieces of information:

1) It looks like Auctiva is going to build something similar to Frooition, where your template is dynamically added to the listing thanks to some sort of scripting. This would allow Auctiva to remotely control your template, and if you stop paying, shut it off. Someone showed me something Auctiva wrote (I think in forums) saying that once they "make a future change to templates," anybody who isn't paying would have their templates changed to tiny invisible graphics so that the info would still be in the listing but not the template.

2) Someone else showed me an Auctiva forum posting that said that if Auctiva finds listings that are still up with "free" templates but the user is not paying for Auctiva templates, Auctiva might choose to contact eBay, use the VeRO programme, and file a claim of copyright infringement.

That's right, you would be reported to eBay as someone who breaches the intellectual property of others, which can not only get your items taken down, but can get you suspended. That goes on your permanent record. And Auctiva is willing to do that to you for the what, $5? So who cares if they promised you free templates... you can pay them $5 or you can be reported as a thief! [note: Auctiva is claiming they won't do this, but I saw people writing about this on their forums, so I leave it open a possibility that they may be considering... hey, who KNOWS what Auctiva is thinking at any given moment!]

Obviously, it's really important that people who don't intend to pay Auctiva get Auctiva templates out of their listings. This does NOT apply to people who have used Auctiva but with templates they bought from us or other designers. You can still use your template because you own it. This is about people using Auctiva templates but not paying Auctiva their new monthly fee for template usage.

So what can you do? Two things:

1) You can go into every listing in your new software, and change your "item description" so that it ONLY has the description of the item... no template, no border, no polices... nothing but the item description. Then, you can drop that into a free template from your new listing software, or build in a custom template.

2) Through my work with inkFrog, we're working on developing something that will strip templates out of items we are importing from other companies. So for example, if you move from Auctiva to inkFrog, and you import even THOUSANDS of listings that have Auctiva templates in them, we're working on a way to pull those Auctiva templates out, and reduce your "item description" to JUST the item's description. Then, you can use a free inkFrog template or get a custom one.

That's the story as I know it, and as of now. But the soap opera seems to change daily! All I know is that no matter what, if you are leaving Auctiva, it's important to remove every trace of their stuff in your stuff so that you don't get charged, and so that you're not reported as a copyright infringer.

Posted at 07:35 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)

Pin the Tail on the eBay Listing Price

I'm just sitting here in disbelief...

First Auctiva goes from free to paid, and the prices seem a bit high. That's news.

Days later, they email their users trying to get them to not leave, asking them to prepay a year for $180. That's news.

Vendio announces that users leaving Auctiva can have Vendio free this year and cheap next year. OK, that's news, but what about all the rest of the Vendio users? I imagine there will be backlash from thousands of people who'd like to get Vendio for free this year and cheap next year. How will they handle that? Now those people might leave!

It also sets up the new users for another pricing change... and they would have just left Auctiva because of a pricing change. Their Vendio price will go up in 2010 and 2011. So this is weird.

inkFrog announces that they've been $9.95/month, and they promise to stay $9.95/month for at least another three years. Given that so many sellers are asking to NOT have prices switched on them, this is news. This should be tweeted and blogged and out there. People need to know this, but one person thinks this isn't news... so Vendio's announcement goes out, Auctiva's announcement goes out, and inkFrog's doesn't go out from this "source."

eBay sellers think this is news. They're thrilled that someone isn't going to play pricing games with them. It's so rare that a company in this industry is not messing with their customers that that IS news. Think about how many services have been sold (Andale, Marketworks) or just decided to terminate (Mpire, ChannelAdvisor Pro). How many have raised prices and not grandfathered people in.

Consistency should be news, and a company being fair to ALL of its customers, not just the new ones, should be news. Our industry should have more consistency and honesty!

Help spread the word. Tell people about inkFrog's price lock by tweeting and blogging about this announcement, found at http://community.inkfrog.com/showthread.php?p=199584

Thanks.

Posted at 10:01 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The Truth Behind Auctiva and Price Changes

Auctiva, you did quite a job with marketing spin last week. The exact quote from Auctiva's CEO was, "eBay recently made changes to its affiliate program that greatly restricted, and ultimately eliminated, this critical revenue stream."

I care about the truth, and I'm not sure that's totally the truth. It does make people sympathetic to Auctiva, and look at eBay as the bad guy. But let's take a closer look.

The eBay Partner Network (ePN) is eBay's system for giving people and companies commissions from registrations and sales. The idea here is that if you can bring people who weren't on eBay TO eBay (say from your blog, website, etc...), you should get a commission for that.

Over the years, ePN has made a lot of changes. But one thing that was pretty consistent was that in order to make this commission money, you're supposed to bring traffic from outside of eBay. eBay doesn't want to pay a commission to someone who drops links INSIDE their eBay listings or Stores since that doesn't jive with the intentions.

Think of eBay's old "store referral credit." If you brought someone in from outside of eBay through that link, you might get a fee credit. If you dropped that into eBay listings, you can expect nothing. Same kind of thing.

Evidently, Auctiva had coded a number of things they were putting into listings (images, galleries, etc...) to have ePN codes. And when your shoppers clicked on those inside your listing, and then bought from you, Auctiva got paid commissions by eBay.

Evidently in 2009, eBay has decided to crack down on this harder. It looks like they are throwing people out of the programme if they are mis-using these links, by accident or on purpose. This particular case is no accident. :) Nor is it a secret. I've seen piles of people I don't know on message boards and discussion forums all talking about Auctiva's "use" of the ePN. There was a real outcry for eBay to either cut them off or let everybody make this kind of money.

I would rather have seen eBay allow this, honestly. I think that if you put something special into a listing that makes the sale, why not get a commission from it? There are plenty of things people put into listings that KILL their sales. If you can actually MAKE sales happen, do it and do more of it! eBay wants more sales. Sellers want more sales. Let people who can make more sales happen MAKE THEM HAPPEN and get rewarded for it. Where's the problem there!

When Auctiva makes it sound like eBay made a change that forced them to do this, I am not crying in my cereal. eBay's only change was to crack down on people who had been abusing the ePN, and Auctiva weren't the only ones. I would also have to say that a business that only survives as long as it makes money that it gets from breaking a rule is not really a strong model! That would be like a business deciding it's only profitable if it keeps sales tax money it collects rather than giving that money to the state! It's cheating.

So cry not for Auctiva. I think they made their own beds on this one. They could have been charging people $5 all along, come in cheaper than other companies, and had revenue to rely on. They never HAD to be free. They should have thought more long-term, especially if their major revenue stream was the kind of thing that could go POOF at any time!

Between eBay cracking down on non-compliant eBay Stores this year and now cracking down on misuse of the commission system, I think the best advice I can give is the same advice I've always given: be compliant. Follow the rules. You won't like it when eBay cracks down on the rules, and you haven't been following them!

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wedding Vows

Yesterday was the 44th wedding anniversary of some of my friends. I love them very dearly, and I'm glad they've held together.

They've had a lot of challenges in the 6 years I've known them. The husband has had gigantic health issues, one after another. He even had a heart transplant last year. They've spent like years worried nearly daily about whether or not he'll live. Scary stuff.

It's made me think about wedding vows... in richer and poorer, in sickness and health, for better or worse. I think some people vow that and really mean it. I think plenty of people promise that, and either don't mean it or change their mind. You're allowed to change your mind!

But it's amazing when people mean it. And it's amazing to see the previous generation stay together like this.

I think my parents should divorce. They're evidently married 42 years now. I think they should have divorced decades ago. I just think they bring out the worst in each other. Sure, they stayed through richer, poorer, and so on, but are they really making each other's lives better? From the outside, I think they don't make each other's lives better... just more convenient like roommates make things convenient in sharing a house.

Someone was telling me the other day that his life has been a mess for like 10 years, and he said it has definitely hurt his marriage. But they're together, and it didn't sound like they were in danger of not being together. I'm glad that they're staying together even when times are bad. Hey, we all have bad times, though hopefully he'll soon see a better life than the last 10 years!

My first marriage was abusive, and I stayed in there WAY too long thinking that you stay with this, and you keep hoping it gets better. Once he saw that I stayed through that treatment, it only got worse. So promising to stay in something really destructive is NOT a good idea, and I'm not for it!

I guess I tend to compare things, especially watching how other couples interact with each other. I've seen some pretty dysfunctional things. I've seen abuse. I've heard about abusive things going on. Sometimes, that can wake you up to what you have... whether you have that same abuse, or hey, you don't have it so bad.

I guess I like the romantic idea of still completely loving someone and accepting someone even when finances are tough... even when finances are a disaster :)... even when someone is sick and can't totally contribute or isn't an equal partner... even when things seem or are bad... even when things are out of balance. I like the romantic idea of someone loving and accepting me, even when I'm fat, pimply, poor, and depressed... though I recognise that that may be a hard person to love. :)

Ah, romantic ideals. I do like the idea of two people being fully committed to being as equal a team as they can be.

June is often wedding month... so make sure you are marrying someone you truly love and accept unconditionally. If you're waiting for him to change, or you're hoping she stops doing those 10 things you really hate, cancel the wedding. My first husband eventually admitted to me that when he married me, he was already feeling distant and disconnected from me. That is someone who should have cancelled the wedding. I certainly wish he had.

Don't be afraid to cancel a wedding. Better to lose some money and possibly be embarrassed than to make this your life or make that person the parent of your child. Wedding vows. Take them seriously, or don't make them. :)

Posted at 11:39 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Unjust Price Changes, Part 2

Oh remember my recent blog post on an apartment complex that changes its price every day, and won't honour the previous day's price?

They just called me to see if I'm still interested. The apartment? Oh, it's now $1875/month.

2 weeks ago, it was $1670/mo. A few days later, it was $1765/mo. A few days after that, $1830/mo. They told me that the price changes on demand... but if this apartment is still open weeks later, evidently there isn't that much demand for it!

Nobody has rented this apartment. Yet it gets more and more expensive. That's a LOT of extra money to pay for something that evidently nobody wants. :) Can you imagine if I did that with my services? Let's see... an eBay listing template is $2000, and if nobody signs up for one today, maybe tomorrow it can be $2100! Oh, you heard that yesterday it was $2000? Well, the market changes, and I hope you understand. I could never do that. It's just insane.

That was how they treated me. And they really doled out the info on how I could have locked in the cheap rate much earlier. Once the rate was at $1830, they told me how I could have locked in the $1670 rate. Really! And today, the guy told me that they WILL honour their own prices for 24 hrs. Really! That's not what the manager told me last week. She told me they can't honour any price they've previously quoted because that would be against the California Fair Housing Laws. Drip drip drip is the sound of information. These people always gave me "oh we WOULD have done that if you had said these magic words" days late. FAIL.

So thanks anyway, Avalon on The Alameda in San Jose, CA. The apartment I've picked (from a distance) put their unit and price on Craigslist. And even though the ad was days old, they were willing to honour their own price.

Imagine that. They were willing to quote a price, and stand by it. That made me trust them more, and if I'm going to live under their management, I need to trust them. So I sent them a deposit to lock it in.

Brings back memories of when another Avalon was holding an apartment for me, and then decided to rent it to someone else. Avalon, I think we're done here. My apartment looks much nicer than yours, is in a better area, and closer to public transport. It's brand new and never lived in. And they want $1733/mo.

Speak with your dollar, people. If enough of us do that, it'll work. :)

Posted at 10:47 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Injustice: Daily Price Changes

I'm trying to get an apartment. Using only the internet (since I'm not even in the same time zone as this apartment building), I fell in love with a community. I called them up, sent in my application, but found out that they don't run the application until they get a security deposit.

Well, I'm not ready to put that down until I know they have the right place for the right price. What is your price on the 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit I'm considering? $1670/month. OK, I'll think about that, thank you.

I call back a few days later. I think I might want it. Oh, the price went up? The SAME apartment you were going to give me a couple of days ago is now $1765/month? Um OK. That chips away at trust, but OK. I'll think about it.

OK I'm ready. I have my security deposit ready. The moving company is just about hired. Now, I'm in the right spot to put that deposit down, and hold that apartment! What's that you say? The price went up again? Today is Wednesday. On Monday, you said it was $1765/month, but today's it's $1830/month? WHY?

They explained to me that when demand is up and they're signing lots of leases, they raise prices because they think they can. They evidently have NO policy about sticking to a quote they gave me before. When I complain that I could NEVER get away with that in my business, they tell me that the California Fair Housing Laws won't let them offer me a different price than someone else would get today.

That's bull.

You are offering me the price that you ALREADY OFFERED ME. If someone calls today, they can get a fresh price quote. But if you already quoted me a price, at least give me a few days to make sure I am ready to put money down on this place. Stick to your own price for a few days. If someone else takes that place before me, give them the higher price... they won't know any better! But if I'm taking it, give me the price you quoted me earlier.

I could never get away with this in my business. Where I grew up, this was called Israeli Negotiating (whether or not that's flattery :) ). The idea was that you make someone an offer. If they turn it down (because they think they're going to bargain you down), you RAISE the price. You are basically teaching them that you will NOT negotiate down, and you start basically bullying them. They quickly learn that if they don't take it now, the price will just keep going up, so they'd better take it now.

That's the same thing this apartment complex is trying to do. It's bullying. They won't even honour a price they KNOW they quoted me. I can't think of any other business that gets away with this. This is not "catch of the day" where maybe the fish was harder to catch today because of the weather. This is an empty apartment standing there.

Meanwhile, the price on their website is wrong. The price on the website is WAY lower, so you also have bait and switch. I have bait and switch now, and they get around it by warning me that oh, you'd better lock this in now... the price may go up tomorrow.

I told them I will roll the dice, and wait for their price to drop. I will not pay an extra $2000 per year in rent because I am ready to sign the lease today instead of 3 days ago. That's an insult, and a waste. I will not be bullied, and I will not be baited and switched.

I've left a voice mail for the Santa Clara County team that mediates disputes between landlords and tenants. I'd like them to explain to me which part of the California Fair Housing Law allows them to do this to me, and why CA law would allow such bullying and deception.

Posted at 03:08 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Call Your Favourite Moving Company

I am working on another move, and I called United Van Lines. Why? In Sept 2007, they moved my Grandmother's antique dining room set from NY to AZ. They did a WONDERFUL job. So I think of them when I am moving.

Today, I contacted my local United mover here in the Boston area. We had no idea what my Grandmother's furniture weighed, and he suggested calling the company that moved it last time.

So I called Liberty in Suffolk County, NY, and got the comptroller. This super nice guy took time out of his day to go back nearly two years and look up what the weight was. It wasn't in his computer, and he had to pull out old paper faxes of the weight of the truck. He said the fax was very hard to read, so the weight was either 460 or 660 pounds.

This was HUGELY helpful.

He then asked if I had anybody for my next move. I told him I was talking to my local United guy. He then told me that I could have started with him. They could have arranged the move, and then connected me with the local guy. I assume the make money on that, and hey, maybe he should. He was really nice, and gave me great service when he didn't have to.

So now we all know. If you were happy with a moving company, even if you are not moving from or to that area, you can call them and start with them. They probably make money from arranging it, and what better way to thank a company you like than to give them more business. :)

Thank you libertymoving.com!

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

I Could Live at Disney World

I've done the math. Disney Extra Value Resorts at Walt Disney World, Florida used to run around $80/night with tax. 30 nights of that would be $2400/month. That's not far from the rent I pay now! I know people paying more than that in rent.

And they'll clean my room every day!

Disney's dining plan... 2 full meals and one snack each day for $40/day. That's $1200/month. OK, that's more than I spend now on food, but hey, I can eat anything in any Disney restaurant any time. That's neato. :)

And for a few hundred, I can have an unlimited park pass as a FL resident. :)

I can save even more money by moving into the local Comfort Inn. I can have my room cleaned every day! And the room seems to run around $40/night after tax. Hey, that's $1200/mo, which is like half the rent I'm paying now.

I could live at Disney World. What the hell. :)

Posted at 05:50 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Companies In The Same Industry Aren't Always Competitors

If you read my blog, you know I can be a bit of a whistle-blower. I have called out plenty of companies, large and small, in the eBay industry and well outside of it. I've called out plenty of companies, but when I call out a certain one, people want to dismiss what I have to say, claiming I'm just badmouthing a competitor.

Not every two companies in the same industry are competitors.

• ChannelAdvisor probably does not feel they compete with Auctiva. Auctiva is probably not working on how to get customers away from ChannelAdvisor's Premium product. :)
• If you asked Toyota what cars the Yaris competes against, they probably wouldn't name some the BMW 7 series. Ask BMW who they compete with, and I think you would NOT see the Toyota Yaris on that list.
• Wal-Mart may not feel that they compete with Nordstroms or Saks Fifth Avenue.
• A $59 tent at Target doesn't compete with a $200,000 Fleetwood RV, though one person may consider both and then choose one over another.
• Just because Brand New Online Marketplace Number 13,098 wants you to think they're a new and better eBay doesn't meant that they're on eBay's radar AT ALL. eBay may not perceive them as competition... when eBay is transacting billions of dollars a year, a marketplace that won't publicly say how much is being transacted may just not be seen as scary competition.
• I do not worry about losing business to people downloading free eBay templates as they weren't my target audience.

I don't compete with these other guys. (Frooition) When I call them out for the truly bizarre things they do, it's not because we are competitors. It's because they are the same fair game as everybody else I've blogged about.

I don't compete with people and companies in the eBay Stores Design Directory. You can't get what we do from them, and you can't get what they do from us. We are a full-service marketing, design, and strategy company. We know all the eBay rules, and we followed them before eBay had to crack down on broken rules. We do designs based on marketing, psychology, shopper behaviour, and principles of online user experience. We don't use cookie-cutter designs, or sell the same things to multiple people. We think that custom work goes beyond making that stock template "that blue" or that background "that pattern."

Not every two companies in the same industry are competitors. If I say something about another company, and especially if their customers are all over the web saying the same thing (or more harsh things), consider that I might just be factual and not "badmouthing." Badmouthing isn't my style, but trying to get truth out there is.

Posted at 03:12 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Nominate As Was for an eBay Award!

eBay will be giving out its Developer Awards soon, and there is still time to nominate companies you think deserve awards.

http://ebaydeveloper.typepad.com/dev/2009/04/send-us-your-nominations-for-the-ebay-star-developer-awards.html

That's the page that tells you how to do it. For the nominee's name and contact info, you can use:

As Was
PO Box 68085
Tucson, AZ 85737

eBay knows us, so I think that'll be enough for them to figure out who you mean!

I feel that we should win the awards for the following categories for the following reasons:

• DSR Rockstar (improving customer service & buyer experience) - Our templates and eBay Stores as well as our strategy help and advice improve sellers' customer service, and definitely improve the shopping and buying experience. Our clients typically see their DSRs raise or stay high after working with us. Just using a piece of software for shipping or answering questions doesn't guarantee that anybody's DSRs will go up, but stick with us, and we'll get you there. :)
• Most Innovative - That's definitely us! Have you seen anything like our templates? If so, it's because they are copying the original. We are definitely the company to think of when you want a design that is custom, unique, innovative, and will really connect with your target audience. Considering our first eBay client was in early 2001, we wrote the book on eBay design and eBay consulting!
• Rapid Evolution (boosting seller efficiency in a dynamic marketplace) - Yes, that's us again! Even in a changing marketplace and down economy, many of our clients are still seeing increases in sales and improvements in their businesses. As we finish many projects within 2 months of someone hiring us, we are quickly able to create dramatic changes in eBay businesses. And considering that many clients report sales going up while pre-sales questions and fees go down, we are definitely improving seller efficiency.
• Early Adopter - Well, this could be us, but I think this category is really designed for the software company that best keeps up with eBay changes. So nominate your favourite eBay software tool for this one!

So please take a moment to email eBay (as per their blog post) and nominate us for one or more categories! Tell them why we deserve to get awards for helping eBay sellers.

Thanks!

Posted at 07:31 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Customer Support For $292/hr

This blog is the Marketing Hall of Fame, and if we had awards, this would win the award for biggest balls, if you don't mind me saying that.

Customer support. It's a sticky subject! Looking around the eBay industry, some companies have email-only support.. but you should get help, and it's free. Some companies have phone support. Some is free, and some is paid. Some companies pick up their phones while others leave you in an endless voice mail universe.

Today, I saw this blog post about Frooition charging for customer support. Before you get your undies in a bunch and say I'm just saying bad things about my competition, they're not my competition. You can't get what we do from them, I refuse to let my company do work that looks like that, and I certainly don't treat my customers like this. I compete with them about as much as a BMW 7 series car competes with that really tiny Kia that doesn't have power windows. :)

So Froo have decided that just as their clients are having a lot of problems with all their broken eBay Stores, eBay listing templates with amazing elements that can work against your sales, and Froo server downtime, now's a great time to start charging people to solve their problems.

The most amazing move is that evidently NO customer service is now free. If you want to email and not pay, you may never get a response, as the Froo site describes it. So free email support is now gone. If you need help, you're opening your wallet.

£199/hr is what you'll pay if you want your problem turned around in one day. With the British Pound around $1.47 right now, that's $292.53 an hour for customer support.

If you have a non-urgent problem (?), you can pay £99 per hour for a 5-day turnaround time. That's $145.53 to us Americans.

If you've ever been to the Froo site, then you may have seen their "we have open jobs page," where they were hiring a "junior designer" for £12/hour. So some guy works for £12/hr, and you get to pay £199/hr for that. Froo certainly know how to mark stuff up to make some profit!

We bill at $100/hr, but then again, we don't charge people to fix things we broke. Froo happily sold you a non-compliant eBay Store that they knew broke rules, they sold it to you up to the moment eBay announced they were cracking down on those Stores, they are charging to "fix" these Stores (they call it an upgrade), and now you can pay for customer support time.

I think that if Froo are doing this, not only must they be in financial trouble and under pressure to bring in revenue and profit, but they are also just not very good at this whole marketing thing. They should still have free support, especially when their servers are going down, and especially when eBay is cracking down on rules that make Froo eBay Stores break. And they should mark up their rates just slightly. For example, if you're paying staff £12/hr, and a good eBay consultant might charge £30/hr, charge £40/hr. You're still making a huge profit, and you're still taking a rate people might pay to get help.

But to jump straight to £99 and £199/hr says, "Don't get in touch with us. We don't want to give you support, so we're pricing it so high that very few people will ever take advantage of it. Just don't call us... we don't want to hear from you." It also says, "We don't care if you stay with us or leave to hire another company. Between charging you to fix your eBay Store and charging you for support, we'd rather just not deal with you."

That's what it says to me, and that's bad marketing. It tells me that they don't want to hear from people asking about the servers going down or asking about their Store breaking. You can pay to ask those questions, or just not ask them to save money.

To Froo customers, I say speak with your British Pound, and go somewhere else. There are plenty of companies out there who would love to have your business. My company welcomes you as well. :) We give $500 discounts to anybody dropping a Froo template to have us work our magic. We're always compliant, and our contract says that we fix broken things that are our fault for free. Imagine a company standing behind its work. :)

Posted at 06:58 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)

Expert Consultant, At Your Door

Last week, a client called me. He seemed nervous about his business. He was ready to grow and to be more efficient, but wasn't too sure about the big picture or all the little pictures that make up the big picture. He said that if there were an eBay Live event, he'd want to meet with me. But without that event, he wasn't sure how we'd get together.

Long story short, he invited me to fly to where he is. He covered my expenses, and I gave him a well-discounted rate for my personal time. Who am I? Well, if you don't know me, here's my website about me as a public speaker and consultant. Your might also know me as Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was. :)

So on Thursday 16 April, I bought tickets to fly to him on Saturday 18 April. I stayed through the evening of Monday 20 April. We got an incredible amount done, from planning the big picture, working on changing how his listings would look, fixing a few things in the eBay listing template we had made for him, and training his wife on some HTML and Photoshop so she can help him out.

It was fantastically productive, and it was great to connect with such nice people with a good business model. My client is a bit quirky, so when I asked him to summarise the adventure for my blog, here is what he sent:

With the giant-headed intellect of an alien the smiling, caring, helpful Debbie Levitt, As Was Founder and CEO, came in for a landing at my humble abode, and my eCommerce business and family were enriched spiritually and financially. Debbie is an extraordinary talent and wonderful human being to boot. An on-site visit at my home over a work/fun-filled weekend will be paying big dividends going forward. I highly recommend this type of interaction for any of Debbie’s clients or soon to be clients. It was positively awesome.

I wanted to let people know that I'm available to travel to you, wherever you are, and stay as many days as we need to get you the help you need. You don't have to be an As Was client for me to come and consult on-site for you. And I'm not an alien. :)

If you'd like to get a quote on me travelling to you, please turn the following into an email address, and email me.

deb AAAAAAAAAAT debbie levitt DOOOOOOOOOOOT commmmmmmmm. Trying to avoid spam. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Rumour of eBay Certified Seller

I have been hearing some rumours about an eBay Certified Seller programme. First, let me say that I have heard NOTHING about this. I know nothing. I don't even know if it exists. But I've been reading the posts and speculation, and wanted to throw in my 2 cents.

For the first time in my life, I actually agreed with something someone posted in response to this on AuctionBytes. He or she basically said that Certified Seller sounded like another thing to add on a giant pile of ratings, titles, and categorisations eBay already has for sellers.

• Feedback
• DSR
• PowerSeller logo and levels
• Feedback stars
• Percentages and tiers
• Being sorted into Best Match

I think I'd agree. I think we have enough ways to certify or qualify sellers. I have bought from plenty of eBay sellers, and I think we know everything we need to know to organise sellers by quality or reliability.

If eBay would re-tweak Best Match so that DSRs and other "seller standing" parameters were the MOST important factor, then eBay would be serving me (statistically) the best sellers. Period. The best people!

But right now, "Recent Sales" has been tweaked as more important, as far as I can tell. This means you are more likely to get a seller who has a large inventory over a seller with really high ratings. I think this is wrong. I don't care how many the guy has... I just want to have a really good shopping and buying experience.

For those of you who are fans of my mockups of eBay pages (how I think the pages should look), you might remember that I started taking OFF things like feedback stars. In reality, so few of these things mean something to shoppers. Does a shopper care if you have a purple star? Does the shopper care if you recently changed your ID? Does the shopper look at these and even know what they mean? If they don't know what they mean, then they might be confusing or misleading.

Which is why I want to get rid of anything on eBay pages that is meaningless to the shopper. If this doesn't enhance the sale, why is it there? It might be just another thing the shopper has to read or think about, and that can slow down or derail shopping. Adding that a seller is "certified" may not mean anything more to shoppers than PowerSeller or anything else we throw at them.

I compare this to the time I tried to get to know Bonanzle. The site told me that some items were "in a bonanza." I had no idea what that meant, and there was no obvious explanation. So I gave up and left. I felt like there was a lingo that I wasn't hip to, so I was just an outsider. I think eBay should stay away from too many titles and lingo that isn't totally obvious and totally helpful to shoppers.

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Pay-For-Tweet

There has been a lot of discussion lately about "truth in advertising," especially relating to blogging. I'll be writing articles about that too. But today, I stumbled on TwittAd.com.

You are basically "selling" TwittAd's advertisers the right to post things to your Twitter account. You get paid for the ads. You're selling out your contacts. Here's how it works, copied and pasted from their website:

1	Post Twitter account for advertisers to purchase
2	Select your duration & price
3	Wait for advertiser to purchase
4	Accept or Deny the proposed ad within 48 hours of purchase
5	If you accept the ad we will use the Twitter API to upload the ad to your Twitter profile
6	1-Tweet Promo Sent
7	At the end of the tenure Final Tweet Sent

The other option they offer is instead of putting your account up for "rent" (as I'll call it), you can search their campaigns, and see if any advertiser matches something you'd like to get paid to tweet.

Oh wait, there's more. I just found this in the FAQ:

Yeah, you read that right. You're renting your Twitter background as ad space.

Well, good luck to the people who give this a try.

Posted at 08:28 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

People in Boston are Strict

I've lived in Boston a few months now, and the one thing I've noticed is that people are strict. People are often humourless, and lacking flexibility. Deadlines are really hard. I'm used to Arizona, and I'm also used to NOT treating people like that. I'm used to BEING flexible, so I often expect others to be flexible.

I belong to meetup.com groups. Last week, I realised I could make an event the day before the event. It was a new group, and I was only one of 4 people attending, including the organiser. I decided to change my RSVP to NO so I could see my husband's band play. I got a message the next day that due to unforeseen circumstances, the organiser of the group had cancelled the event and completely closed the group. The end. No first meeting. No group. ?!?!?

Another group I'm in charges $10 for each person to go to the event. I had RSVP'ed yes, but forgot to pay. The organiser sent out an email last week saying that if you didn't pay $10 immediately, she would go in and manually change you to a NO RSVP. I emailed her to please not change me, and I would pay some time the next day.

9:40am the next day, I get an email that my RSVP was changed to NO. She had set it so that nobody could change that to YES. You could keep it at NO, or you could change to "waiting list," neither of which prompted you to pay her stinking $10. So now I'm trying to figure out how to pay this and be considered a YES.

Jeez, strict.

Last week, I was driving down a street that was 2-lanes in my direction. I was trying to follow my GPS, and was not familiar with where I was. I was in the left lane. All of a sudden, the left lane I was driving in had a left turn arrow. I was surprised, and didn't feel like I had time to make a decision. There was a cab right next to me, so I'd have to hit my brakes, signal, and move to the right lane. I noticed that both lanes continued after the intersection, which was weird. So thinking I had no time to do anything else, I just continued through the intersection.

Lights started flashing. I was pulled over by the police. They told me it was against the law to be in a turning lane and NOT make a turn or NOT get out of the lane. I broke a law. Talk about strict. I explained to the officer that I was trying to follow my GPS, I was driving along in the left lane, and suddenly, it had a left turn arrow. I couldn't merge onto the cab, and I just continued through the intersection.

She let me off with a warning, but it was a sad experience that made me think this town is just really strict. No room for mistakes. No room for someone following a GPS to have her lane turn into a turning lane and not get out of that lane.

This town is really strict. I hope I find the fun and flexibility at some point.

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)