• @stevebaker #bwstory On the race non-respondents - the Twitter version of those who give out an email address and don’t respond to email? #

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• @KimDushinski #bwstory : Not having something to say is a barrier to entry on the internet? Who knew? #
• @zappos #BWStory Interesting. How does it help improve your company culture? For that matter how do you improve culture? #

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If you want to follow the BWStory thread, I’ve added a link to my blogroll:  “Twemes.Com - BWStory”

Also, looks like H&R Block won the race which is impressive.  I expected a more tech-oriented organization.

My quest to find value in Twitter continues.  Over at BW’s Blogspotting there are a number of recent Twitter-related posts.  And currently Stephen Baker is fueling an open thread by doling out small samples from a piece that he is doing about Twitter.  He sets up the open thread here which is probably a good point to jump in, and the thread itself can be found at @stevebaker at Twitter.  One idea I really liked:  just a few minutes ago he twitted several customer service reps to see what kind of response times he’ll get.  No results yet, but I’m very interested to see how it goes.  A couple of the organizations on the list were cited in response to an earlier piece as making good use of Twitter in the business setting.

Also, ReadWriteWeb has a post on how they use Twitter in Journalism.  Areas where they’ve been able to exploit this technology:  discovering breaking stories, performing interviews, quality assurance, and promoting their work.  Now I have to admit that on discovering stories or promotion any new avenue is a good thing whether or not it comes through fresh, groundbreaking functionality or not.  On the quality assurance and interviewing I won’t argue that these can be done easily on Twitter, but I would add that these things could also be done via any number of other tools in a Twitter-free world.

So far the main values in Twitter that I can see:  it takes a lot of things that we could already do and makes them easier.  This one I’ve experienced.  I file most of my tweets from my phone in two minutes max.  In most cases my laptop is either not available or at very least it is a situation where Twitter saves me a lot of hassle getting set up.

Also, I did read about business colleagues who used Twitter to carry on a conversation over a project they were working on.  Here again, it’s not that they couldn’t have done the same thing in a chat room, but I’ll concede that Twitter is the easier way to go.  However, in using it that way, I would think you have to make your tweets private, which then means that when you are hanging down at the Red Doorman and it is 2-for-1 Jell-O shots night, you can’t share it with the whole world.  How are we to go on without valuable insights like that?

So, I’ve come full circle.  Maybe I wouldn’t be so anti-Twitter if 1. I didn’t have shoved down my throat how epic this technology is every time I turn around, and 2. they would just drop the premise that people’s lives are so bloody fascinating that knowing what any given person is doing at any given moment is “important.”  It is a quick and easy tool that can be used to accomplish communication.  Isn’t that enough with having to anoint it the next Google?

Brian at Pajama Market today posted his review of a new social media site called DotDashCreate.  He can’t figure out the purpose or the value but did note that 101,594 blogs have already signed on.  Brian’s piece is an excellent indictment, not only of DDC, but how so many of these things take shape.  His conclusion:

So to sum up my review, I don’t know what it’s for, I don’t know how it will help, you can add your blog for free without registering, but you can register and add it for free too, after you register, you may be kicked out for no reason, and the site may say your user name is not active.

For the most part, it was a waste of 30 minutes this morning.

I think he missed the obvious self-fulfilling nature of these things.  This is clearly a collection of 150K+ blogs that, in the near future, will be posting about how important DotDashCreate is and how it is changing the whole landscape, and if you aren’t on DDC you are yesterday’s news.

• Glendale today. I don’t get it. I ate breakfast at home this morning. 1 hour on the road and it’s like I haven’t eaten in days. #

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Well, this had been percolating anyway, but now it has the makings of a volcanic rant.

Seems my hero, Newt Gingrich, is on the Gas Tax Holiday idea.  First in his list of nine things that can restore the public’s “confidence that Republicans share their values, understand their worries, and are prepared to act instead of just talk.”

Repeal the gas tax for the summer, and pay for the repeal by cutting domestic discretionary spending so that the transportation infrastructure trust fund would not be hurt. At a time when, according to The Hill newspaper, Senator Clinton is asking for $2.3billion in earmarks, it should be possible for Republicans to establish a “government spending versus your pocketbook” fight over cutting the gas tax that would resonate with most Americans. Lower taxes and less government spending should be a battle cry most taxpayers and all conservatives could rally behind.

In fairness I do have to point out that this was not the cornerstone of Gingrich’s latest post at HumanEvents.com.  His piece points to two key Republican losses as signs of a sea change.  The former House Speaker argues, probably correctly, that an anti-Obama or anti-Clinton campaign will fail in the Fall.  He calls for Congressional Republicans to take drastic action.  “Nine Acts of Real Change” are his proposed solution and the point quoted above was first in the batting order.

Here’s why the Gas Tax Holiday and, for that matter, the stimulus package are bad ideas.  You can’t solve permanent or long-term problems with short-term patches.  Come Labor Day (when the proposal calls for resuming the gas tax) and / or after the last stimulus check has been cashed and spent, gas prices are still going to be high, and probably higher, and as long as gas is climbing the increase will trickle down to just about every other good and service.  What then?

I am with Gingrich on the idea of reducing taxes with an accompanying reduction in government spending.  This is the correct long-term solution, and not just to whatever you want to identify as the current crisis, but for a number of problems.  Cost isn’t the only issue.  There is also the ongoing matter of the government being unable to achieve efficiency in anything it puts its grubby hands to.

Lower taxes is also the correct solution for the matter of the consumer and their rising expenses.  In this area, we consumers need to solve the problem by managing our expenses. 

One example:  I live in an apartment complex.  Just glancing around at the vehicles, I’d say 30-40% of them are fuel-inefficient.  Of those, nearly half are less than a year old.  Now I have nothing against these vehicles in and of themselves.  If a buyer enters in with eyes open and doesn’t turn around and whine about the greater proportion of their income being taken up for fuel, no problem.  Also, earlier this week Disney reported strong Q2 results fueled by an increase in theme park attendance.  More folks are going to Disneyland!  Again, nothing wrong with this.

My point is, if folks are still readily buying sub-20 mpg vehicles and taking luxurious vacations, etc., etc., where is the problem that you are trying to solve?

Another problem with the Gas Tax Holiday is that it is nothing more than a handout … a political tchotchke to be handed out in an election year.  How does this accurately convey Republican values to voters?  A short-term “solution” that really isn’t a solution?  I guess we are seeing an electorate trending toward the Democrats and trying to prove that we can pander just as much.

Newt really had me when he called for those who wanted Real Change to declare independence from their political party.  That is where I’m at.  But now it appears that he is doubling back.  You see, when you are tied to a political party too much, this is what happens.  You suddenly grasp on to short-sighted tactics that are unsound in the grand scheme of things, instead being designed to accomplish nothing more than electoral victory.  And if such a victory puts these same short-sighted Congressional Leaders back in place is this really something for anyone to celebrate?

Just got my phone upgrade, and switched from a Blackjack to the new Motorola Q9h.  The Blackjack was nice, especially at the standards of a couple of years ago when I upgraded to it.  But, like any first launch it had its flaws:  keys were way too small and my fingers are not nearly as meaty as some, texting and emailing was nice with the QWERTY but the predictive text could be a little overbearing, and it didn’t take too many program installs to get me to the phone’s on-board memory limit, though it did have a Micro SD slot.

One thing that really helped me to learn my Blackjack and get more out of it in the early going was bloggers and others who knew some nifty tricks, tweaks and hacks and took time to spread the.  So, since the Q9h is still pretty young I’ll do the same as I get to know it.

First Tip:  Turning off the keypress tone.  For such a well thought out phone, this one issue was odd.  Of course you have great flexibility in adjust the phone’s sound features; what to play, how loud to play it, when to play it, etc.  The one exception was the number pad when dialing a call.  You could do whatever else with every other sound, but the keypress tone remained a very loud beep.  This was frustrating as I am frequently in situations where I’d like to tone things down without completely losing sound.

After a little bit of browsing the registry and one incorrect guess, here is how to turn off the keypress beep:

\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Sounds\Keypress\BeepMode = 0  (was 1)

After making this change it appears that the sound and volume that you have selected in Settings-Sounds takes over.

I’ve got to admit, when I heard Marvin Harrison’s name associated with a recent shooting in Philadelphia, I was totally shocked.  And to be fair, despite the fact Harrison owned the weapon, he hasn’t been offered up as a serious suspect in the case.

But even when you set the shooting aside this whole thing is already light years beyond the image of Marvin Harrison that arose from years of his polite silence.  Again, it was his gun even if he wasn’t the shooter.  And once again we have a star athlete in the seedy part of town, altercating during the wee hours of the morning.

So, it would be reaching to accuse Harrison of the shooting, but very reasonable to dispense with the aura of uprightness that has been associated with him for so many years.

And that’s what I realized out of this.  Why did we think he was such a good guy?  We know far less about Harrison than we think we know about “Pacman” Jones, Michael Vick or Chad Johnson.  Harrison has been even less forthcoming with the media than Barry Bonds.  Yet he has been held up as a hero and an example, because he just kept his mouth shut and quietly did his thing.  He has not sought to shine the spotlight on himself.  He had not, prior to this, been associate with any high profile poor judgment.  And, he even ducked the media instead of being a royal prick.  It is sad, that simply avoiding those things would be cherished enough, and noteworthy enough to give the guy a fast track to sainthood.

Jim Rome was right.  We really don’t know any of these guys.  It seems as though our ability to remain objective in the face of scandal is constantly exercised.  Just as important but not nearly as well-worn is showing restraint when inclined to over-reward good behavior.  And again, that’s the whole point.  It isn’t good behavior, it’s just not being a jackass.  That should be the minimum standard when instead it has become the crowning achievement.

Time for an update on my projects.  First - project Open Office where I proposed to do all of my outside-of-work office software tasks in Open Office.

Things started off well.  I’ve been doing a lot of studying and using OO’s Writer for note-taking.  Not overwhelmingly dramatic, I know.  It worked just fine.  I did like how easy it was to set up and use styles, something I find to be a real pain in MS Word.  So, I guess that was a nice, easy start.

While I use spreadsheets a ton at work, I don’t use them as much at home, unless I’m doing work for work at home.  However, I do need to update my budget this week, so I’ll be getting into OO’s Calc then.

This brings us to the database which has been a disaster.  Now, let me start by saying that I know the things I’m about to complain about are POSSIBLE in Open Office.  Problem is, they just aren’t easy.  And working with a database isn’t like using a word processor.  With Writer, you can sit down, quickly take in some of the subtle differences and start typing.  You overcome differences in advanced functions as you encounter a need for them.  With a database there is a lot of setup involved.  In fact before you can begin end-using your db, you will have to find and conquer every difference that your project will contain.

Setting up tables, no prob.  This is the db’s equivalent of just typing into a word processor.  Linking the tables … not so much.  OO’s Base does not, or at least doesn’t do well at, predicting the direction for joins.  OK, even that is not a huge deal.  I appreciate the way Access’ flawlessly assigns the “one” and the “many,” but I can handle that myself.  Except in some cases OO was actually fighting me here.  At one point, in a situation where the link wasn’t critical I gave up, opting to handle the matter programmatically.

On to queries.  This is where my fight ended.  If you can’t quickly set up queries you might as well find another tool.  I figured I’d start by working in the query builder tool before moving on to writing sql statements.  Any time I ventured beyond, or I should say tried to venture beyond, basic listing, sorting and filtering it didn’t go well.  Again, it definitely doesn’t have Access’ intuitiveness.  But more than that it doesn’t appear to follow some of the conventions that are common pretty much anywhere you work with writing queries.

Here is the downfall.  In Access, in SQL Server, in MySQL if I run into a roadblock I can usually have an answer, complete with code, within a couple of minutes just using Google.  With Open Office there is documentation and there are users out there.  But the official documentation is hit and miss, and the nation of users is much smaller, and the number who are trying to do advanced things with the database, smaller still.

I’m not giving up on Open Office, but right now I’m also not able to use it exclusively for home projects.