Are ads on your blog worth the visual clutter? 

Let me know in the comments.

Tags: advertising, ads, blog ads

Popularity: 1% [?]

Common courtesy isn’t so common, but it never goes out style.

I was IM’ing with a close friend who is interviewing with several firms now, and he told me how puzzled he was that so many of them simply went dark after his interview. No call, no email, no letter. Nothing.

Common courtesy is free, or at least very, very inexpensive to practice (yes, it takes a moment to respond to an email, but do it). Guy Kawasaki is very good at responding to email, even with a single word – and so is Seth Godin.

If you don’t have the common courtesy to close the loop with someone who is expecting a response from you, believe me – you are absolutely screaming volumes about yourself.

Tags: courtesy, feedback, seth godin, guy kawasaki

Popularity: 1% [?]

SFO. Powerbook.  Wifi.  iPod. Bowie. Let’s Dance.   Perfect way to tune in & tune out.  Nice.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Seth Godin is riffing on customer service this morning & mentioned this from Joel, who runs Fog Creek Software. I became so engaged with what Joel is saying that I wanted to link to it here:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html

Good stuff, and I’m pleased to report that Freepository is already doing most of this (and from this point forward will do all of it)

Thanks, Joel (and Seth too…)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tech Tip – Spamassassin Custom Rule

I had been inundated with so much spam lately that I added some custom rules to my spamassassin setup. These rules are added to your local.cf (don’t put them in /usr/share/spamassassion, as they’ll get overwritten with the next SA update). The single most useful one for me in this bunch is the LOCAL_RETURNED_MAIL rule.

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Popularity: 31% [?]

Don’t look so surprised – Wal-Mart is in fact going into communities where classic economic redevelopment has failed, or worse yet, has never even been attempted.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/19/financial/f091544S30.DTL

Wal-Mart gets lots of criticism for lots of things, and as an employer that brings together a population greater in size than many American cities, this is no surprise.  When was the last time a city of this size (1 million plus people) didn’t receive criticism? 

My opinion of Wal-Mart is ever-changing; stories like this one are why.

Tags: walmart, wal-mart, economic redevelopment

Popularity: 1% [?]

Cutting the compacted, nearly solidly frozen snow from your front yard?  No, that wouldn’t be right… that would be crazy…

Tags: snow, chainsaw, denver

Popularity: 7% [?]

I came across this story yesterday and the more I think about about, the more it inspires me to move forward with some of the things I’m working on (look here over the next few weeks for details)

This kid is a 7th grader from New Jersey who got involved in raising funds – and awareness – for autism research through his hockey team.  Check out his site here:

http://assistfrombubba.com/

He has several convenient methods by which you can make a donation (do so).  Even if you don’t make a donation, take his story as inspiration to make a difference.  In something.

Tags: autism, research, hockey, fund raising

Popularity: 21% [?]

In January, I began offering a new account type at Freepository – Silver Edition. Silver provides on-demand trac views of your subversion-managed freepository. For a limited time, Freepository Silver Edition, which provides hosted SVN and Trac, is available free of charge.

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Popularity: 10% [?]