There’s a bit of naughty language in this, but it’s worth it:
The kid has a YouTube channel and a lot of potential (and he’s now going to be famous — for at least 15 minutes — for this clip).
Reading And Watching Material
- Apparently there’s a dating site made for Apple fans (down at the moment).
- TicketMaster sucks.
- Your new favorite email tool since the spam filter: Inbox Influence is a new tool from the Sunlight Foundation that allows you to see the political contributions of the people and organizations that are mentioned in emails you receive.
- Maybe one of these days I’ll install a twitter client (since I rarely go to their site) so I can remember to read folks like this guy.
- Why Windows 8 is fundamentally flawed as a response to the iPad.
- Looking for gift ideas? Shut up and take my money can help.
- What do you wish customer’s knew?
- Teen’s dad spends school year waving at bus, wearing different costumes daily, embarrassing son. Naturally, blogs his daily costume changes.
- If I ever got a cover letter like this, I’d hire the guy on the spot.
- Google apps could soon stop working in your browser.
Some videos after the jump…
Preach It, Brother
‘The Kardashians’ have now been on the air twice as long as ‘Arrested Development.’ THIS IS WHY YOU CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS, AMERICA.
Truer words have never been spoken.
And you can tell how little of a rip I give: When I was reading this to a co-worker, I mis-pronounced Kardashians. I’ve never seen their show, never will, not losing sleep over it. But I’m still miffed that Arrested Development wasn’t given the treatment it deserved.
It’s Korea’s Susan Boyle
Wow. Just wow…this dude can sing.
Grasshopper.com’s Services Are Down — Anybody Have Alternatives?
So Grasshopper, the toll-free number service that I use here at Sunray as well as at Sunriver Vacations, is in the middle of a serious outage (going on the second day now). They’ve been updating as well on their Facebook page and twitter feed. Basically, from what I can tell (and since their communication has sucked during this whole thing, I don’t know 100% what’s happening), it sounds like something at their main data center kicked the bucket, and then they kicked into disaster recovery mode, and their backup plans failed, too.
Anyway, while the set-up for Sunriver Vacations is a bit complicated (low call volume, but equally rotated between a few companies, along with a few “press 1 to speak to blah-blah” type of options), the setup for Sunray is fairly simple. We basically have our main 800 number ported over to them, and have it forward to a phone number here. After closing time, it will play a message where folks can leave a voicemail or press a number to be forward to after-hours staff. Nothing really exciting, but their per-minute rate was much cheaper than what we were paying for 800 number service before, and the free voice studio stuff was a nice feature.
That being said, being down for over 24 hours is a huge problem, and is costing the companies I work for some good money. I’ve managed to setup a temporary toll-free number thanks to a local vendor/partner company and published it on our Web site, but a lot of people and web sites have that main toll-free number published.
While I don’t know if I’ll move to another service (just depends on how Grasshopper responds to all this, once they’re back up and running), I would like to have some options. What’s everybody out there using for small business 800-number service?
Lesson learned here? Test your disaster recovery plans. This can’t be emphasized enough, and reminds me that I need to do the same (it’s been a while).
Revenge Is Sweet
Family has home wrongfully foreclosed upon, so family fights back, wins, forecloses on bank.
Where’s The Mute Button?
The Improv Everywhere folks found it.
Full back story over on their site.
It’s A Sad Day: PBS Will Have Commercial Breaks
This will more than annoy the heck out of my in-laws, who have PBS running pretty much non-stop all day long (minus the evening local news). Instead of the sponsor messages between the shows, they’re going to start running commercials during shows, starting this fall. Here’s a graph on how a typical hour-long show might be broken up.
Time Killer For The Evening
I don’t know exactly what to think about Soviet Rocket Giraffe, other than it’s a bit weird, but fun.
Need Something To Do This Weekend?
In case you didn’t know already, I’m in The Band and The Band is having a concert this weekend.
Sunday, June 5, 2:00 p.m. FREE
The Cascade Winds Symphonic Band presents Space!, the final concert of their 2010-2011 season, under the baton of music director Dan Judd, June 5, 2:00 p.m. at Summit High School auditorium. This concert is free of charge, although donations are gratefully accepted, open to the public and suitable for all ages. Pieces to be preformed include Star Wars, Star Trek, The Planets: Mars & Jupiter, Sundance and Sky is Waiting. For more information visit www.cascadewinds.org or call 541-593-1635. Summit High School is located at 2855 NW Clearwater Drive, Northwest Crossing, Bend. No tickets required.
As I say every time, it’ll be a great show, and I’d love to see some of you there (and it’s a great, free, way to spend a Sunday afternoon).