I Lied About Twitter

Yes, Virginia I did close my original Twitter account as I said in an earlier blog post. But, I've since reconsidered. I was looking at Twitter bass-akwards. It's not about how many of your friends are there, but about how many new friends you can make. So I'd be happy to have you join me (LouisBruno) on Twitter.

Vonage: Switch for Savings, Stay for Service

Let me tell you a quick, true story about my phone company. I had previously dealt with them via email and their website.  But now I had a problem that needed a live person.  Frankly, after years of un-service from the likes of Verizon and AT&T, I dreaded the call.

I dialed the number for service -- expecting to be shunted to a call-center in Bangladesh -- and was greeted by a recording that asked me to wait a minute then put me on hold.  Bad start, right?  Wrong!  Great start!  Less than 10 seconds later, another recording said "I see you're having trouble porting your old phone number.  Let me transfer you to someone who can help."

Without further ado -- and without endless requests to identify myself, give my mother's maiden name, social security number, and the number I was calling from -- Rick in New Jersey said "Hello," accessed my records, and discussed the problem, incidentally not of their making.  Rick explained the problem and took responsibility for it, telling me what he'd do and what steps to take if his solution didn't work.

Rick's efforts solved the problem.  I never called back to thank him, so Rick, if you're out there, a big thanks for your help.

Oh, and the name of the phone company that uses intelligent systems and intelligent service representatives?  VONAGE!

I switched to Vonage three or four months ago, porting two numbers and acquiring a third for fax service.  The "installation" couldn't have been simpler, with custom Vonage adapters integrating easily with my existing computer network straight out of the box.  

I love the "extra" features included in the service -- stuff like caller ID and call forwarding I call "extras" because I used to pay extra to have them.  With Vonage, they're included, more extensive, and easily managed online through their website.

And the sound quality, which I can adjust from normal to higher to highest, according to how much bandwidth I can spare, beats my old POTS (plain old telephone service) hands down at all settings!

Oh yeah, and did I mention all the money I'm saving?  At Vonage you'll switch for the savings and stay for the service!

Do You Twitter?

I don't.  I did.  Long enough to find out why I don't.

As you know, I'm a business consultant providing management, real estate and technology services.  My address book, including a few dozen friends and relations, has over 500 contacts.

Would you believe only a half-dozen real people from my address book are on Twitter?  (Chris Pirillo isn't a real person, he's a self-aggrandizement industry.)

One Twitterer was a relative who'd set his preferences to prevent auto-hookup of followers.  I see this syndrome on LinkedIn, too, where I maintain an active profile.  Why, exactly, would anyone join a social network to be anti-social?  I mean we're not talking about Tom Cruise here, or the Pope.

Another was a life COACH. (He lives in CAPITALS.)  Looking for work, I guess.  Never did understand why anyone would him to think for them.

Two were legitimate people checking out Twitter.  Each sent a tweet 5 or 6 months ago.  Just one.  Never returned.  Not anal like me.  I deleted my account.

And two were just plain lonely, losers.  Clients of mine I've long since fired.  One of whom is still a real estate broker.  Probably still complaining about not being able to make a living at it.

Don't look for me on Twitter.  OK?

The White Plains Press: A New Press Release Publisher

As a website producer, I have produced some clever websites, some that are elegant, even some that are artistic. But my claim to fame is that I produce websites that work.

My promise to each new client is that the website I make for them will help their organization grow, adding business, members, and prestige. That's a pretty tall order for a few bits and bytes in cyberspace.

Usually, "making it work" requires some marketing of the organization, often including press releases.

Until recently, I'd work up the press releases, send copies to the local newspapers, and "publish" it online using a press release service. Some of these services are nominally free -- and have a spotty record of success. Others, that work consistently, have a fee schedule that depends on speed, tracking, and promised distribution, etc.

Eventually, I realized that what the press release publishing services actually do is to make sure the major search engines, particularly Google, picked up and indexed the press releases I trusted to them.

But wait a minute. I don't need to pay someone to do that. I can do it myself with a little care and effort. And so the White Plains Press was born.

At the Press, you'll find press releases for local non-profits, like Bryant Gardens and the White Plains Council of Neighborhood Associations (WPCNA), for small businesses like Delmonte-Smelson Jewelers, Hudson Valley Energy Consultants (HVEC), and Balch Buyer's Realty, for upstate companies, like Bob & Sallie Connelly who do appraisals, auctions, sell antiques, and run an art gallery, for out of state organizations, like the Biz@Net Business Networking Group, and for local chapters of the American Society of Appraisers. And that's just in its first three weeks of operation.

Today, the White Plains Press is a useful (and successful) handmaiden to the Webshop@servenet.com. Tomorrow, well tomorrow the child could be feeding its parent.

The Trouble With PC World

If PC World were free, I wouldn't mind the bad advice.

The problem is that the PC World staff, under the pressure of compiling and publishing a magazine every month, puts out a product that is repetitive, often biased, and sometimes just plain wrong.

First about that bias. While I understand that folks in publishing tend to use Macs and to be Apple-centric, when I want to read about Macs, I'll buy PC World's sister publication Macworld. Hey guys and girls, let's stop proselytizing and start reviewing. And while you're at it, please stop the childish Microsoft-bashing. It's so 1990s. Review, not stew. We want food for thought, not clever jibes.

And then there's the formulaic repetition of boring content. I don't need more articles about what's wrong with Vista. Or column after column about the latest "holes" in Microsoft products. You only know about the holes because Microsoft patched them, and guess what. They're patched on my PCs, too. And frankly, I'll scream if I you spend yet another page exhorting me to be careful opening emails, and not to visit unfriendly websites. Geez, am I the only nerd in the world who's kept his or her PCs virus and malware free by safe-surfing and by choosing and using competent software?

Now it is true that almost every techie product out there includes a microprocessor, but cameras, HD TVs, and audio are NOT PCs. Really. When I want competent and complete reviews of these products, I go elsewhere. Reviewing these products just isn't your forte.

But most insidious of all is just plain getting it wrong when it comes to products and software. Particularly software. In the last few months, I've installed more than a few applications that didn't come anywhere near performing as described. It's obvious the reviewer never tried them. And ditto for websites. I know you're not responsible for sending readers to a website that delivers a viral payload -- but surely you can tell whether a website actually lives up to its press releases?

PC World feels a lot like a high school science fair. Lots of projects done to get a grade. The rare project that makes it all worthwhile.

Being a self-starter and self-refresher myself, I've never been on a retreat. But maybe that's what the PC World staff needs. A little time away from the grind to review their mission and renew their means.

Take ten.

AOL's Ugly Webhosting Shutdown

AOL could take a lesson from our lame-duck President and go out in style.

In its favor is the fact that AOL email can now be collected via IMAP. Yeah! (No folks, I don't use AOL myself, but I still have clients who believe they'll lose contact with the world if they close their AOL accounts.) But on the negative side of the ledger is the way the Information Technology Specialists that populate AOL's decimated Virginia offices have phased out their webhosting services.

Once upon a time, every AOL subscriber got "free" software, dial-up access, and "free" webhosting at http://members.aol.com/Screenname. Over time, that free software became bloated adware, laden with network problems, and PC "maintenance" tools that slowed user's machines down to a crawl. Meanwhile, the dial-up service that propelled AOL's growth became a Model T, found only in extreme backwaters.

Today, the software's been discontinued. No loss. AOL as ISP is history. No problem. AOL no longer charges for its "services," having long since morphed into an ad-supported business model. Nothing for nothing. And as of 10/31/2008, AOL's webhosting has shut its doors.

And there's the rub. AOL didn't just shut down the servers and disappear. That wouldn't have been nice, but it wouldn't have been awful either. And AOL didn't offer subscribers with websites on their servers a forwarding service. That would be the professional thing to do. No, the folks at AOL decided to send all links to Hometown Has Been Shutdown (HHBS).

The problem with that is twofold. People who have the old AOL address for a website won't know if it's moved or defunct. And if they use a search engine to locate a moved website, the results page will continue to show the AOL address, leading folks back to HHBS. Round and round we go ...

Dear AOL. I know it's probably too late and/or too much trouble to provide the folks who paid the bills all those years with forwarding for moved websites. But it wouldn't be hard to deliver an error 404 page for removed websites. That's the standard protocol and would eventually get search engines to drop the defunct AOL website URLs. Delivering a live and changing page (HHBS is a live blog with comments) causes search engines to maintain the erroneous listings.

So, dear AOL, if you can't provide forwarding, and won't follow WWW protocol by delivering error 404 pages, how about writing the search engines -- heck there are only a handful left -- and asking them to stop indexing any URL that includes members.aol.com or users.aol.com or hometown.aol.com?

Geez, if Bush can do it gracefully, so can AOL.

FTP Client: FileZilla

Like many website designers, I used and relied upon Ipswitch's WS_FTP file transfer software for many years. It's the "industry standard." It's modestly-priced -- now about $55 -- shareware that's frequently updated, versatile, and secure. And over the years, I tried other freeware and shareware file transfer clients, mostly for clients with less rigorous needs, and found them slow, lacking features, or just plain ponderous.

Recently, faced with rebuilding my primary desktop and another Ipswitch paid upgrade pending, I decided to sample the alternatives again. I looked at CuteFTP, SmartFTP, Core FTP, and for a while even used FireFTP, a Mozilla Firefox add-on. All were suitable for limited-duty. But none satisfied this old nerd's hunger for a speedy, well-behaved, small footprint FTP client with just enough features and security.

As you know from the title of this post, that was then. FileZilla is now. It's well-supported (wikis, forums, bug and feature requests) open source software that's lightning fast to load and to function. Hey, fast is important when you're updating more than one or two files at a time. It's frequently updated with security patches, bug fixes, and small new features. That's like tweaks, not bloat. It's intuitive for both right- and left-brained types. It never crashes. And did I mention, it's fast?

Three things I especially find helpful in FileZilla:

• Cross platform support means I can use the same client on pretty much any machine I'm working on.
• Easy to use site manager makes adding a new site simple, selecting an existing site, simpler.
• Remote file editing so I can do quick fixes for a client on the fly.
• Drag and drop support is built-in, not quirky like some, and not slow

If you try FileZilla and find yourself loving it as I do, don't forget to support it. It's free to use, but not a throwaway. It's a thoroughly professional project whose developers deserve to get paid for their efforts.