What do right and left wing, Democrat and Republican Americans who use twitter have in common? They’re using a domain registered from the Libyan government. Both bit.ly and ow.ly use the Libyan country domain .ly for their URL shorteners, which people who twitter use to shorten their links to fit in the 140 character limit imposed by twitter. Both are US companies who are using the .ly domain for branding…what were they thinking? Who’s next, .ir and Ahmadinejad’s Iran?

These tools can take this URL
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=156359&cat=12

and create a 2nd link that is much shorter and saves space in twitter tweets.
http://4wrd.us/ahox

We’ve launched an American competitor to bit.ly, it’s 4wrd.US the american URL shortener it’s simple to use and it’s owned, operated and hosted in the USA. So tell muammar gaddafi goodbye.

Tell everyone your know USE http://4wrd.US

I apologize for the crappy template this blog uses. The guy who set it up supposedly knew what he was doing, but it’s clear that wasn’t the case. I’m tired of Wordpress and plan on working with drupal on new sites.

Given the shift to social media, facebook and twitter, i don’t see the time on this blog as being that valuable.

if you want to follow my Online Marketing Twitter feed

Check out WhineyOldGuy and ShitMyDadSays is you don’t have another sarcasm in your life!

These days most of us are used to not being allowed to bring any drinks and certainly not any alcohol to special events in the US. Most venues don’t want the drinking and those who want the drinking want to sell it to their guests. Because of drunk driving, drunken rowdiness and other antisocial behavior there are many more limits on alcohol these days compared to the 70s and 80s. I’ve wondered what other countries do. I know that in germany there is a 0 tolerance for alcohol, those people who drive don’t have a single drink, period.

Well now in Australia, police are finally cracking down on drunken rowdiness by limiting the amount of alcohol event goers can bring with them to the Bathhurst V8 race. Starting this years adults ticket holders are limited to bringing in 24 full strength beers or drinks or 36 light or mid strength beers. New South Wales, Assistant Commissioner Alan Clarke said police will not tolerate alcohol-fuelled violence.

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,26171391-5005521,00.html

I think if you let that much beer into an NFL/college football games all you would get was violence and vomit. I think only in Australia would the concept of “a 24 Beer Limit” not be considered an oxymoron.

Which leads me to wonder why something sells in the US because it’s called Outback, Aussie, or sports a Kangaroo in the logo. I think the whole 24 Beer Limit, is why… It’s a mythical land, with mythical people, who drink mythical amounts of booze and have a faster growing economy than the UK, Canada and these days the US. Things Australian have appeal because we want to catch on to some of the “mythic mojo”.

Whether we can or not is open to debate, but 24 Beer limit?

OK, the headline caught your attention, so you’re here. First note that i say “Hated” in the past tense, not “Hate” in the now.

I used to hate steve jobs, because he always seemed to promise much more than he delivered. I remember back in 1984 when my house mate bought a Mac that could display a full width page of text on screen and required him to swap out floppies everytime he tried to use any sort of function. It seemed to me it was an over priced and underpowered prototype, that wasn’t ready for prime time. Jobs continued to disappoint with the Lisa, Newton (though mr Pepsi - john sculley may be to blame on that). When Jobs left apple and formed Next, he once again promised a piece of hardware that he never delivered, specifically the lack of a rewritable CD. The Next venture was a financial failure, despite the fact that the OS, called nextstep was considered by many at the time, the best graphical software development platform, ever.

Nextstep was the first time i started feeling that mr. jobs was able to deliver what was promise, at least when it was software which didn’t depend on outside manufacturers. The point where Pixar released clips of disney’s Toy Story, was the moment that my steve jobs switch went from “doesn’t deliver” to “wow”. Since then he’s returned to apple to turn the MP3 player into the brand of iPod, the iphone and of course that mac that i laughed at 25 years ago.

Well when the mac moves to Intel, then os X, i was ready to consider the switchover. Everytime i ended up ready to buy, i ended up choosing a PC for 50-60% of the price of the mac. Well in june, my windows XP machine lost it’s mind and wasn’t usable and my hp laptop was running a broken install of Vista, which i hate. So after talking to a friend about how to use a Macbook with external keyboard and monitor, i took the leap. I paid the $2300 CAD, even settled for 250gb hard drive to get one in my hands immediately.

It’s now about two months on the Mac and it’s such a stable operating system that i rarely need to deal with a crash. The software updates seem to be smoother and take seconds, not the minutes that windows often does. I never thought i’d ever say I love my Mac, but i love my mac.

Did microsoft’s crappy OS drive to the Mac? Did John Hodgman’s “PC” character in the mac ads reminding me of all the BS over the years make me switch? Beats me, but Once You Go Mac, You’ll Never Go Bac!

That’s why I hated steve jobs, but now i’m over it. :>)

I posted the following in an SEO forum that i participate in, my experiences testing Bing vs Google yesterday:

I’ve seen the tv ads, looked at the video, then go use bing and it’s the same crappy search engine as before. the links on the left, link me to new SERPs, where is the chart telling me when to fly to budapest or vegas? i’ve search for a few travel locations and never do i see their fancy graphs showing me when to buy.

When i search “NYC Chinese food manhattan’ i get normal looking SERP, with 3 ads on top, ads on right and “alternate searches” on left. The same search in google, removes the ads on top, shows a map of manhattan with list of 10 restaraunts then the same sort of results that bing did: sections from menupages.com, chowhound, etc.
Google Wins

For “chinese food central park west,
bing shows 1) site from china, 2) restaurant in seattle 3) restaurant near columbus Circle BING(correct) 4) something about tshirts in central park 5) another columbus circle restuarant BING 6) a restaurant in Regina Saskatchewan
2 of 6 correct

Google 1) shows a link to page about florida at BOTW, but shows address for a place on 79th and Central park west, bing? 2) local business group with link to local restauratn BING 3) New York site with upper west site/columbus square restaurants BING 4) yellow book page for phoenix 5) NY mag restaurant reviews, upper west side BING 6) VirtualTourist, cheap chinese central park west BING

5 of 6 right, or 4.5 if you discount BOTW because it says Florida in title, but shows a NYC restaurant in my search area.

so, to me it’s the same crap in a new wrapper. which is disappointing because i’d like to see google (or anyone’s share) stay closer to 50% than 75%. it would be nice to have 3 or 4 good/commercially successful SEs

The great Pitch Man, Billy Mays, has died at age 50. He is the latest in a string of celebrities to die in the last week. He had become extremely well known, loved and sometimes hated by television viewers across the US and Canada. His trademark was to loudly pitch his product on TV, just as he did on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City where he got his start. He strongly branded himself with is loud voice, royal blue polo shirt and his pitch black hair.

This is the first Billy Mays tribute site i’ve found www.ThePitchKing.com

So a friend of mine needs to contact Homeland Security to check the status of his application. He called and was told to email the inquiry, but the email bounced. He was worried he might have messed it up, so he asked me to email them in his behalf.

this is the email i sent:

Subject: Friend can’t get thru to dhs emails

hi
my friend attempted to email this address, for assistance, but his email bounced. I’m writing to see if this email bounces and if not, whether i can submit my friends information and question from my email account, without confusing everyone? Is there a fax number where he could fax his information as an alternative to email?

thanks
fred

Well, it was good to hear back from this address in less than 24 hours. The answer was a bit terse:

Pursuant to the Privacy Act, this office can only give out information on an application to the applicant or his legal representative on file with the application.

Admissibility review Office

Wow, it was weird to see Stuart Margolin playing a bit part on tonight’s saturday night live. Tracey Morgan’s monologue finishes up thanking Loren Michaels for making his career and calls him up on stage. Insteat, Margolin, playing a director walks about wearing a headset and tells tracey that he’s not Michaels, then walks off.

I’m not sure what’s up with Margolin, it looks like he worked a few times in 2006 and twice in 2008, so i guess his career has slowed down. it’s too bad, for someone who’s won 2 emmys for his work on the Rockford Files.

The signs promoting breakfast throughout the Novotel in downtown Toronto, on The Esplanade, advertised the Best Breads in The City. Well after eating dinner and breakfast there, their bread may not be the best in the City might be wrong, but i’m willing to accept the supposition that it is.

For all you Englishman, Scots and Welch, who are spending pounds. If you want a cup of coffee to go it won’t cost a pound, but feel free to add a croissant to spend your whole pound. That’s right $1 for a coffee, $2 for coffee and croissant, about 50p and £1 respectively.

OK, first of all, I get to be a Grateful Dead fan, no matter what you uptight Wall Street guys may think. If Roger McNamee (the link is the Rex Foundation), Gary Bettman and Al Gore can be Deadheads, any modern businessman/woman can too.

But seriously my trip to the Green Earth Expo in Orlando was a bit strange. First it was the first booth that i’ve worked at a show since AutoFact 1986. Second it was the first booth/show that was for my own company that i arranged myself. Finally i was heading to alternative energy, sustainable business show it turned out to be more alternative lifestyle and products with a large minority of green energy and recycled products exhibitors. So it wasn’t quite the trip i was thinking it would be.

The event was at the Orange County Convention Center (WARNING - The center’s internet service provider, tells you that their $1000 wireless service isn’t really as reliable as their $1500 service. They don’t tell you they sell a $24 a day wireless, that seems to work fine) which is very large place with a lot of one way roads and driveways. The driving was quite annoying until the second day of driving there. This was my first trip to Orlando as an adult and while i hate paying 2, 75 cent tolls to get from the airport to the tourist area, it was a good experience aside from the driveways.

Now, back to the show.
I’m not against alternative lifestyles and other movements that seek to change people’s behavior. I’m not against hippies either. I’m just not sure we’re going to make much of an impact on the folks who drive SUVs, Fly around the world for fun or business and run their A/C full out any day it hits 75, by linking green with alternative lifestyle. Hell, i’m a guy who meet’s 2 of the 3 criteria above, i think i have a more typical american lifestyle than the alternate sorts. I want to save the world, i try to reduce my usage, but i like to have fun and live well too. I’m in favor of sustainability, not against consumerism and that’s where I think linking alternative living with alternative/green technologies doesn’t work at attracting the vast majority of the Americans that need to be engaged.

Now i don’t want this to sound like an attack at Green Earth Expo, it’s not. My friend went to a show in Chicago, that same weekend and had the same observation. Today i was meeting in Toronto (i’m happy to be able to take a train there) and my counterpart was telling me something similar about some shows he’s been to. I guess in short i’m saying the ‘business’ of fighting global warming should focused on environmentally friendly products not on ways to adapt your life to a world with less. While there is plenty of room for both movements, they don’t seem well matched to share a show.