Month: August 2005
Better Not Send Porn Spam To A Texas Housewife
Otherwise, Dateline NBC will send its crack team of high-tech reporters to hunt you down. I would’ve loved to have heard them say “Spunkfarm” on TV. More commentary on the lame excuse for journalism (this was just sensationalism, folks) here where one commenter says “If I had to shake hands with someone from that news organization, I’d make sure to count my fingers immediately afterwards.”
Who Wants To Start This In Bend?
I can see there being money around here using the homeless as an advertising medium. The hot spots, I’ve found, for bums homeless folks appear to be at Wal-Mart (and all the intersections around Wal-Mart), 3rd Street and Revere, the Mountain View Mall Cascade Village area, the back exit of parking lot by the North Liquor store, and pretty much every other main intersection along 3rd street (I’m sure I’m missing some big ones — feel free to fill in below in the comments). I’m sure these guys would happily hold a sign that might make them a few bucks and/or get them some food.
Technology Sucks
When you do what I do for a living, there are just times that you want to completely just step away and turn the computer off for a while. That why you frequently don’t see posts on this site on Fridays or Saturdays. It’s my days off work, and my days to just avoid my computer, chill out with my family, and take a break so that when I am forced to sit in front of this machine again, I’m in a better mood.
After the events of today (including the mess that inspired my earlier post), I had to step away. I turned off my laptop here at work, packed it up in my bag so I didn’t have to even look at it. I went outside, took a quick walk around the block, and came back to my office. Upon arriving at the office, I realized how little I wanted to turn that computer back on and I realized how dirty my desk and office were since I didn’t have my laptop covering up things. So I went back to our housekeeping department, grabbed some rags and some sort of all-purpose cleaner whose name I can’t remember, and started cleaning. I cleaned up my whole office, even scrubbing down my phone (there was a lot of gunk on there). I dumped out my desk drawer on the floor, realized I probably have more writing utensils than anybody in the building, and cleaned it out, too. I got out some business cards I was looking for, put them in an area where I could actually see them, and now my desk is much more organized and clutter free.
Now, a couple hours later, my office is sparkly, I’ve put up with the crap from the girls in the office who think I’m a slob, and I’m back to work.
So what do I do first? I blog this entry. Now maybe I’ll get something done. Really. I promise.
Maybe I should just shut this thing off again…
Need: Service Contracts
I’m doing my first huge “on the side” web design and programming job for a company up in Portland. I’m most of the way through the project at this point, and the guy running the show for the client is being a real piece of work. I’m dealing, primarily, with an old college buddy and good friend up there, but, for the most part, the project isn’t going very smooth. Between client changing his mind at the worst times, assuming I can read his inner most thoughts, putting his employees in the middle of it, etc…, it’s just been a real mess. I’ll be lucky to break even on this whole thing (because I had to sub-contract some of the back-end programming that was out of my league).
I did this because my friend that works there said his boss was riding him about it, so asked if I could help them out. It was more of a handshake deal, because I had the confidence from my friend that things would work out fine. Neither he, or I, expected the mess to come out like it did, and because it was more of a handshake kind of deal with just vaguely written service agreements, I’m getting bitten in the backside.
So here’s where you guys come in. I know a great deal of you out there are Web programmers, services providers, consultants, designers, etc… . I’d appreciate it greatly if you could send me a sample contract that you use for these types of things. I’d also be interested in getting contracts from folks who do systems and IT services (building and repairing computers, networks, etc…) as I do that quite a bit, too (it’s much easier, as many of those folks are local). If you could e-mail them to me at jake [at] utterly boring [dot] [com] that’d be just dandy. Thanks again for your help, everybody.
(And yes, I know there are sample templates out there online for this type of thing, I’d just like to know what real people are using.)
Want To Work In Sunriver?
Sunray Vacation Rentals is hiring for several positions such as Front Desk Manager, Reservationist, Maintenance, and Housekeeping. Check out our jobs page for the details or e-mail me directly if you have any questions about the company, as you’ll be a co-worker of mine (which could be considered a benefit or a detriment — your call).
Best Strip Club Marketing Tactic
1) Give yourself a clever name resembling a major toy store that has the word for female private parts in it.
2) Get yourself a big sign that includes said word in the copy.
3) Anger the locals to get free press coverage.
4) Get a photo of the aforementioned sign and its various versions posted (with followup grammatical commentary on the plural form of the word) on BoingBoing.
5) Profit!
This Was CNN Front Page News?
ROME, Italy (Reuters) — A Macedonian man left his wife at an Italian service station and only realized he had driven off without her six hours later, news agency Ansa said.
Barney said he got that link from CNN’s front page. That’s really sad, to be quite honest with you.
The World’s Worst Credit Card
While the interest rates on those credit card offers seem decent, it’s the nasty fees that will kill you, this one charging you a total of $412 just to have the card.
Note that if that link goes bad, as BendCable links have a tendency to do when they get traffic, you can download the image in question here.
Link found actually just dinking around BendCable’s user directories.
BendBroadband Working On Wi-Fi Service
Of course, their press release (the full text of which is below, since it’s not on their site yet) doesn’t mention anything about prices, rollout schedule, etc…, and I’m sure it’s not going to be free like it is in Hermiston. Considering that I’m able to get free Wi-Fi around most of Bend via open Wireless Access Points, I don’t know if I’ll be paying the price (unless they need a freebie beta tester, of course). They apparently had Wi-Fi at the fair this year as part of their first roll out. While I can’t see too many fair-goers using the Wi-Fi, it was probably handy for some of the exhibitors.
If I remember correctly, OregonTrail was the first company to offer Wi-Fi service in the area, but I don’t know if they still do (especially since they were bought up) or had too many takers considering the price.
Full press release from BendBroadband is below.