Jamazoo

The Google mail team has announced another neat trick of the Gmail system:

Append a plus (”+”) sign and any combination of words or numbers after your email address. For example, if your name was hikingfan@gmail.com, you could send mail to hikingfan+friends@gmail.com or hikingfan+mailinglists@gmail.com.

For me, the real value in being able to manipulate your email address is that it makes it really easy to filter on those variants. For example you could use hikingfan+bank@gmail.com when you sign up for online banking and then set up a filter to automatically star, archive or label emails addressed to hikingfan+bank. You can also use this when you register for a service and think they might share your information. For example, I added “+donation” when I gave money to a political organization once, and now when I see emails from other groups to that address, I know how they got it. Solution: filtered to auto-delete.

I really like this trick. I get too many emails per day, much of it is friendly spam sent with good intention but really a waste of my time. So with this “+” feature, I can tell my Mom to send me email to myemail+mom@gmail.com and she can send all the fake virus warnings and urban legends to there. Auto filter and done. I also hate how some companies are a little aggressive with their email reports, and have a complicated time waster of a mess to unsubscribe from them. I mean, do I really need two emails a week from Southwest Airlines reminding me that I don’t have time to go on vacation, and that Hawaii can be mine for only $99? No! Why depress me? But I kinda want to get those emails because I keep dreaming that one day I will jet off to parts unknown. Now I just make it myemail+vacation@gmail.com and auto filter it away. Save the dream for later.

PS - These tricks work with Google Apps mail users as well.

Tags: Good Resouces // Add Comment »

Tim Berry has some things to say about the future, or at least things to say about Gene Marks‘ version of the future. Marks wrote an article called “Tech Trends to Ignore” on Businessweek.com. In a further effort to waste bandwidth and time, I will give my own perspective.

1. Radio Frequency ID (RFID) - Marks says “many companies can ignore RFID [until] it comes down in price”. Berry thinks it will be “cool” when it comes out. Personally, I wish I could implement it right now so that my inventory control would become more accurate. Nothing beats having a live, accurate inventory at all times. I think it will become a strategic advantage for the early adopter, letting a small business compete with a larger entity. Also note that Marks’ company does not sell it….
2. Virtualization - the practice of running multiple people off of one computer, or using a Linux PC to provide a Windows environment. Marks says no, we can’t get Outlook to work right, why put more people on one machine. Berry says that he loves running Windows on his Mac. My take? We are using a form of virtualization right now, by multiple people sharing a web server. As someone who has to mainain the 18 PCs at work, I can tell you right now that I would love to only do ONE update instead of EIGHTEEN of them. But of course, Marks sells Outlook support and Quickbooks, why would he be in favor of virtualization?
3. Software as a Service (SaaS) - Leading contenders are Salesforce.com and Netsuite, both of whom Marks does not trust (he sells Goldmine and Quickbooks, see a trend here?). Berry thinks it is a trend worth watching - my company uses it daily. I got so fed up with managing mailboxes, Outlook and SPAM that I switched the whole company over to Google Apps. Now I pay $50 per year per user and have NO headaches. My issue with Salesforce.com and Netsuite is the pricing. When I looked at Netsuite, the pitch was $99 per user, per year. By the time my set-up was to be configured, it was going to be $10,000 up front and another $1000 per month. What a deal. I went with open-source CRM called SugarCRM and Quickbooks. Cost? $300. Saas will work when the pricing is for the product and not for the salesteam. Google got the price right, the others haven’t.
4. Apple - I can’t tell what Marks’ view is. Berry likes ‘em. I have Apple, Windows and Linux at work. My personal preference would be for Windows, and I have found that Mac is not all that it is made out to be. But then I have only been using it for three years, so maybe one day soon I will get religion. Personally I don’t think it will matter. Linux would be the one to watch for me, because the independent developers in places like India and China and the rest are just getting started. Think about the impact of the One Laptop per Child program in a few years…
5. Anything Green - Marks is for anything cost-effective that is green, which from his point of view is none of it. Berry is for greening. Myself? I wonder why there isn’t more choice. I run a manufacturing company, and for the life of me I can’t see why there aren’t companies focusing more on volume products that can be used now. Instead of huge wind generators, why not $199 ones that are relatively small? Maybe I could put 10 of them together and power my house. I am for cost effective green. I think that it is easier to achieve than you might believe, just in small boring ways like CF light bulbs. I have a resident hippie at work to help out with ideas. Maybe that is Marks’ problem, no hippies on staff.
6. Social Networking (Facebook, Myspace et al) - Marks says don’t bother for small businesses. Of course, people were saying don’t bother with a website not too long ago. I think it is worth doing if you have someone on staff who is used to doing it. Don’t bother spending a bunch of money outsourcing it at this point in time.
7. Open Source Software - Marks says you need “propeller heads” to get it to work. He says it takes time to customize an open-source product. He seems to forget that he makes a living supporting, customizing and selling off the shelf software, and this open-source stuff is threatening his income. For myself, we use a mixture of open and closed software. SugarCRM for customer management, this blog is done with Wordpress, our servers run Linux and Apache. Closed source software we use is Windows, Quickbooks, Office and some others. If I had a choice it would be open-source all the way - and I don’t even have any propeller-heads on staff.
8. Windows XP - Marks says that XP is dead, long live Vista. I think he needs his head examined. Vista is so bad that I have replaced it in the accounting department with XP. It seems that Vista won’t play nice with a networked multi-user Quickbooks setup - something even Intuit acknowledges.
9. Microsoft and Yahoo - no one cares. Me either.
10. Virtual Worlds - at last Marks and I agree. Berry had already stopped commenting at this point. Virtual Worlds are at this point a waste of time and money. Let the Fortune 500 have it, us wee little businesspeople are better off spending money elsewhere.

So, as near as I can tell, Marks’ opinions are closely lined up with his financial interests. It must be nice having a pulpit in a magazine to promote yourself. Berry on the other hand reveals himself in his bio:

I’m president and founder of Palo Alto Software, founder of bplans.com, and a co-founder of Borland International. …. I’m the principal author of Business Plan Pro. As a consultant I worked with Apple Computer steadily for 14 years of repeat business — consultant, not an employee — doing (among other things) 14 years of annual plans for Apple Latin America, Apple Pacific, and Apple Japan. Apple Latin America grew from $2 million to $37 million annual sales while I was doing its annual business plans, and Apple Japan grew from $187 million to $1.5 billion in annual sales while I was doing its planning (not that my planning was responsible, but at least it didn’t screw it up).

Hmm, maybe that is why Berry likes Apple? 14 years of consulting checks?

Tags: business // 1 Comment »

I have written a counterpoint to an academic’s view of entrepreneurship here, and I have discovered another perspective on starting a business, at Escape from Cubicle Nation.

I love what she says:

If you think it is easy to make huge piles of money your first year in business, you may want to test your assumptions

Yeah. You are going to be rich in mere months!!! Yes! Because if it is that easy, everyone is doing it. If it is that unique that no one is doing it, then it will be a real challenge to try and get them to buy. Sigh…..

The truth is that success is not easy, but it is usually worth it, if not in financial terms at least in personal satisfaction. How do you succeed? BY not being smart enough to quit when the going gets tough. MediaBistro was a site basically about parties, that evolved into much more. It only took 9 years of losing money before profiting for 4,  to cash out for $23 Million! Woo Hoo! That is a clear case of persistence. Not bad, making $1.76 million per year.

Tags: business // Add Comment »

Guy Kawasaki has launched his new project at www.Alltop.com

My preferred part is at http://smallbusiness.alltop.com/

Tags: Random things // Add Comment »

What an idiot.

Elliot Spitzer has dug his own grave with his penis. Why would you go to the trouble to paint a large target on yourself, when everyone on Wall Street already hated you? This is really an unbelievable story to me - the guy modeled himself as an “Untouchable” and then goes and pays $4000 to be “touched”. Caught using a wiretap of all things - he should know never to talk on the phone about illegal things.

Does this prove that you need to be somewhat deranged to run for public office? That a screw needs to be loose in the head? (Get your mind out of the gutter) I think we should just streamline the whole electoral process and only elect people that are in need of psychological help. This would speed things up a bit.

Or maybe it just shows human frailty. And the need for people in power to randomly hookup with other people that they are not married to. As Chris Rock says, a man is only as faithful as his options. I guess being the governor gets you more options….

Tags: Dumb Ideas, Funny, business // Add Comment »

Here is your chance - I mean opportunity on Ebay to purchase - a dream date with Scarlett Johannson. By dream date I mean, to quote from the auction:

There is no set amount of time but it is estimated to be a brief visit due to Scarlett’s schedule that evening.

WoW! A BRIEFVISIT!!!! Yes! And bids on the auction were only up to $11,850 at the time of this writing. That’s right, only the price of a nice used car. For the amount of tuition at a decent university, you too could have a brief visit with a star. Its like stalking, but for charity. Expensive stalking. Something has to be wrong with a person to spend $12K on a “brief visit”. You can visit me for half price, only $6,000.

If you look like Scarlett, the visit won’t even have to be brief. Don’t tell my wife I said that.

UPDATE - The bidding is now up to $38,000. A fool and his money take a 7 day auction to be parted….

Tags: Random things // Add Comment »

Boyd Coddington died of complications from surgery, on February 27, 2008.

He was a man that brought billet to the mainstream, taught people how to forge documents to register new cars as old (bypassing inspection and emissions regulations) and took credit for Chip Foose’s work. I don’t really like billet that much, and I found his reality TV show annoying.

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In my not very humble opinion is the Britten. It was featured in the “Art of the Motorcycle” exhibit at the Guggenheim, and it represents a bunch of forward thinking ideas for motorcycles that STILL have not been put into wide scale production.

The bikes were recently on display in New Zealand - 6 of them, which is amazing when only a dozen or so were made. Link .

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For all of you who own a website, and struggle to keep spam away from your door, have you heard about Google Apps? We switched to it a number of months ago, have since upgraded to the $50 per user version, and now the blessed event has occurred. Now the clever little algorithms at Google keep the Spaminator at bay. Today’s treat was a wonderful addition….

JotSpot became reborn as Google Sites

This is a wonder to me, a gift from heaven. Perhaps an exageration, but trying to drive a ship with 18 souls on board that work from five different addresses has been a struggle. We use web based Customer Relationship Management software, and we have tried on several occassions to make a wiki that worked. But alas, Poor Yorick, my people were not “techie” enough to deal with logging into TWO sites in one day and the wiki died a slow death. Now light shines through yonder window because Google Sites works with the existing login they have to do for email - and the angels sing, and the Red Sea parts and voila! My people are now techie enough to edit the company blog. Ahhhhh. Enough with the bad Shakespearian quotes…..

The nut meat of the deal is this - my non-tech work force did not mesh well with a Web 2.0 concept of a wiki. Now they think this is an extension of their email. Who am I to tell them anything different. I give this 5 stars - not because it is the best wiki out there (it is NOT!) but because it make it accessible to the masses… or at least my people. Now we don’t have to email every little tidbit of trivia, now everyone has the latest price list, now everyone has access to that expense account form that they keep losing - I could go on forever. Now everyone can access the information that they need regardless of location, and I can keep the public eye out of it. Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Tags: business // Add Comment »

During an election year when there is lots of talk about health care reform, an article in the NY Times states that 1 in 100 adult Americans have 100% free health care, and it is not provided by their employer - they are unemployed. None of the leading political contenders will endorse this plan however - none of them even talk about it.

From the article “Nationwide, the [health care receiving] population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are [getting care in] local [facilities]. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is [getting free health care].”

The report, from the Pew Center on the States, goes on to state “The cost of medical care is growing by 10 percent annually, the report said, and will accelerate as the ….. population ages. “

In this day and age when employers are taking the beating of ever expanding healthcare bills, why do some people get a free ride? My company pays thousands of dollars every month in premiums for very basic coverage - and the employees pay the other half. Why can’t my people get 100% free healthcare?

Read the article here

Tags: Funny, business // Add Comment »