I am a hardcore NY Yankee fan and have attended a few games in my day. Yes, I know they didn’t make it past the “ALDS for the third consecutive year in a row” but c’mon, what team fuels excitement more than the all American sports team the Yankees? If there are any Boston fans out there reading this, you need not comment as you will receive a computer virus that will be detrimental to your health…..seriously.

Okay, so back to Baseball and Boneheads, most of us have attended a baseball game in some way, shape or form (box seats, bleachers, corporate suites, etc…). Some of us even bring our gloves in hopes to catch a fly ball that may be later autographed by a professional athlete right?

As I am sitting in the nose bleed section (for those of you who don’t know what that is, it is a seat that is so high up in the stadium that the air dries out and you just might get a bloody nose due to lack of humidity) at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, I am munching on my ball park hot dog and throwing peanut shells on the ground when I hear an announcement:

“WARNING: DURING ALL BATTING PRACTICES, FIELDING PRACTICES, WARM-UPS AND THE COURSE OF THE GAME EXPERIENCE, HARD HIT BASEBALLS AND BATS AND FRAGMENTS THEREOF MAY BE THROWN OR HIT INTO THE STANDS. FOR EVERYONE’S SAFETY, PLEASE STAY ALERT AND BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS. ANY GUEST WHO IS CONCERNED WITH HIS OR HER SEAT LOCATION SHOULD CONTACT ANY CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE FOR AN ALTERNATE SEAT LOCATION.” Actual disclaimer taken from the bottom of the NY Yankees website.

UH DUH, YOU ARE AT A BASEBALL GAME BONEHEAD!!!!!

(Thinking to myself) Wait a minute……….you are telling me that I can request a better seat if I feel I am in danger of a fly ball at a baseball game? HMMMMM. I would feel much safer if I had a box seat right behind home plate. Thank you impaul.com for bringing this subtly to my attention and getting us box seats at the NY Yankee game!

This article was written play seven card stud onlinepoker comrent a car bulgariatexas holdem downloadles r?gles de jeu pokerpoker texas holdem gratuitesstreap poker en ligneкомпютриjeux gratuites texas holdempoker texas holdem rulespoker hold hem en lignepoker comment jouerjouer au poker en ligne gratuitement,jouer o poker gratuitement,poker gratuitementregles de jeux pokeromaha poker,poker omaha,omaha poker r?glesjeu poker tourvideo poker a telechargerregles du jeu de pokertelecharger jeux pokerpoker casino gratuitesjeu video poker gratuitestournoi de pokerno deposit bonus pokerjuego omaha pokerjugar poker omaha gratisdescarga de juegos de poker gratis,juegos de poker gratis,descargar juegos de poker gratisreglamentos pokerdados poquerjuego de poker gratuitopolli poquerpoker online en espa?oljuegos de poli pokerpoker para jugar gratisparadisepoker.com,paradisepoker,paradise pokertexas holdem onlinejuego poker eroticopacific poker,www.pacific-poker.com,www.pacificpoker.compoker games downloadseven card studdescargar poker gratisjuegos de poker texasholdem poker gratiscaribbean poker portal internetcartas de poker gratispoker americanojuegos flash pokertexas holdem descargapoker texas gratisjugar card stud en lineaapuestas en lineapoker 2 cartas5 card stud by serial guest blogger impaul’s wife.

ShareThis

I contacted my initial carrier and clearly communicated my need to cancel just the first leg of my flight but I would be keeping the second leg active. The attendant quickly and graciously obliged my request. Too good to be true? Absolutely!! When the time comes to check in online for my last leg of travel, you guessed it … NOT FOUND.

I frantically try entering confirmation numbers, last name, “VIP” miles number, my freaking first pet’s maiden name … Nothing! So I call the “VIP” number, get harassed by an automated voice response system which refuses to allow me to connect with a live customer service agent. Finally, after 5 minutes of computer interrogation Jody answers.

“Jody,” I say in my most pleasant voice, “I spoke with Stacy last week who kindly assisted me with cancelling the first leg of my flight and keeping my 2nd leg active.”

Without missing a beat or even hearing what I had just said Jody methodically responds, “I’m sorry but you were a ‘no show’ for your first flight so we automatically cancelled your second leg. BUT, I can get you a new one way ticket for $605.00.”

In my most sarcastic manner I reply, “Jody, let me understand this correctly. I paid $178.00 for a round trip ticket which I proactively changed with one of your agents and you expect me to pay $605.00 for an error that occurred at your operation?”

Oblivious to the situation Jody replies “well it’s $605.00 plus … a $50.00 change fee.”

Many people wonder, why are airlines going bankrupt? Well one thing is for sure, they’re bankrupt on customer service. There’s a bit more to this story but to summarize, Jody agreed it was an error on their part, I ended up taking a different airline (which of course was delayed) and I now have a $178.00 credit to use on any flight with Jody’s employer of choice … minus a $50.00 change fee.

ShareThis

The flight attendants do their normal drill that hasn’t changed for years and wonder why nobody is listening. (side note) I think the first question the flight attendants should ask “is this anyone’s first time flying?” If so, the monotonous hum drum “in order to securely fasten your seat belt slide the flat end into the buckle…” should be directed towards them. I mean seriously, if you can’t buckle your seat belt you should probably get the hell off the plane! Okay so I have digressed, back to  the boarding process. The doors close and we back away from the gate. But wait! We have been told we can not take off due to an air traffic control issue at our destination. So we sit and wait, no apologies or offerance (I made up that word) of a drink or refreshment. As a matter of fact, after we have sat on the tarmac for over 30 minutes and finally take off, we don’t even get a full soda! You get a cocktail glass stuffed full of ice ½ filled with your drink! If someone asks for anything more than their peanuts or ½ drink, the flight staff acts like they have been asked to donate a kidney. Finally I arrive at my destination, 2 hours later than planned, 30 minutes after my original flight and $300.00 dollars is all I had to pay for this adventure…plus a $50.00 change fee.

ShareThis

While “It’s [OLPC] an education project, not a laptop project.” I want to focus on the laptop itself and offer one simple suggestion for Mr. Negroponte and his project. Help provide third world children with the $100 laptop by offering the laptop to first world consumers for $1,000. Below are 7 reasons why the OLPC and their laptop is well worth $1,000.

1. The project uses the domain www.laptop.org. Michael Dell himself couldn’t get that domain name and yet the OLPC uses it.
2. The software is 100% open source
3. The LCD screen is dual mode 200 DPI color and high resolution black and white for viewing in direct sunlight. The screen can also pivot and is reversible allowing pseudo-tablet computing.
4. The laptop is very portable, weighing less than 3.3 lbs/1.5 kgs and has a built-in carrying handle.
5. Panasonic Toughbook has competition. This $100 laptop includes 2mm thick hard plastic water and dust proof casing with a waterproof keyboard. No moving parts with built-in 1 GB flash memory. Expansion slots are protected by swivel Wi-Fi rabbit ears.
6. This laptop is oh so green. Depending on the display mode the laptop uses a mere 0.2 watts in black and white to a whopping 1 watt in full color. As one could imagine with power consumption so low this opens up many doors. This laptop features numerous power generating options such as foot pedal, hand crank, pull cord (similar to a lawn mower) solar (solar backpack anyone?) and more. Battery life is estimated at more than 4x a standard laptop’s battery life today.
7. It utilizes the revolutionary mesh network. Each and every laptop serves as a dedicated router thereby exponentially increasing the range of internet access. Instead of every laptop needing to be within range of the internet they will only need to be within range of each other, as long as one laptop has internet access.

Don’t get me wrong I love my mac but I would proudly use the $100 laptop. Watch out Steve Jobs!

ShareThis

Below are my top 7 reasons why NOT to buy blog comments with commentary from the site’s home page in quotes:

1. It is spam. “Buy Blog Comments dot com is NOT spam!” Hello founder Jon Waraas (pronounced Warez). Yes it is! Besides, any seasoned comment moderator backed with the power of Akismet should not be too affected by this new service anyways. Actually, it is really easy to detect a Buy Blog Comments’ comment just look for a post by Jon Waras.
2. It is a black hat service. “We specialize in selling blog comments for blackhatters who are looking for good quality backlinks.“
3. There is not a PageRank minimum for the site’s they comment. FAQ - “Will this help my page rank? Oh yeah! It most definitely will.“
4. Buyer’s confidence is not very high. “We are working hard to get all the orders done, we will try and get all orders done within 3 days of ordering […] Once you order, we will start working on your order within 48 hours. Once we get done with your comments, you will get a text file with all the links.“
5. They are an expert on the nofollow tag. Or are they? “However, it [nofollow tag) dose not work. I and a few others have personally tested it and have gotten decent rankings from just using pure blog comments.” Later on … “BUT! We try to not post comments on blogs with the nofollow tag on the sites. We have gathered a list of people who don’t support the nofollow tag, and some types of blogs that do not use the tag at all. So don’t worry, you will still be getting weight to your site.“
6. Rest assured your comments will receive the same quality copy writing skills as the buy blog comments website. See above in bold. Dose != does.
7. It can ruin your credibility. What will your peers and readers think if they cannot trust the dialog that is taking place on your site?

Well Jon Waraas, if your service does not take off you could always resort to extortion. I mean why not? You already seem drawn to the black arts. Just start a new site, www.seoblackhatusers.com, and auction off the names of everyone who signed up for your buy blog comments site.

This objective, unbiased review was brought to you by impaul.com (sarcasm). A good start for your SEO is to review the various plugins and best practices.

ShareThis

For anyone who uses or knows someone who uses one of the built-in permalink structures (default, date and name based or numeric) it is not too late! You can and should consider changing your permalink structure right now. With the help of the Permalinks Migration plugin your old posts will automatically be redirected to the new permalink structure using a “301 Redirect.”

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Download the Permalinks Migration plugin, unzip/unpack and upload the files to your ~wordpress/plugins directory
2. Activate the Permalinks Migration plugin in your Wordpress admin console
3. In your Wordpress admin console go to Options -> PermalinksMigration
4. Enter your old permalink structure (ex: mysite.com/?p=123) then click “Update options”
5. Go to Options -> Permalinks, select “Custom” then enter your desired structure, recommended /%category%/%postname%/

Using the recommended custom structure /%category%/%postname%/ your post articles will appear in the following format mysite.com/category/postname. Properly named, your category and post titles are now more items for a search engine to crawl and better position your site on the web. SEO permalinks … what will they think of next?

ShareThis

1. Keywords - the first 25 words are critical. Your article, especially the introduction, should be rich with keywords. The introduction, approximately first 25 words, is many times pulled by search engines as the article’s description. Thus the first few sentences can play a very important role with your article’s page rank.
2. Clear Description - Get to the point! You want people to find your site then once they get there you want them to stay as long as possible. A good introduction will not only ensure success with the search engines but always explain to the reader what exactly your article is about and compel them to read more. Expand upon your introduction and stay on point.
3. Use Links - effective linking within the context of your content can add value, increase your search engine presence and cross market other portions of your site. Three quick examples in context: let’s say your ChipIn campaign is related to your article. You can link to the campaign within the article. You can also learn more about using ChipIn here.
4. Relevancy - Let’s pretend your website or blog is on real estate and you spend two weeks writing about fly fishing with day traders. Do not be surprised if your feedburner.com subscriber list bottoms out. Write valuable articles relevant to your intended audience. Some may view a blog as being different than a traditional website where it is somewhat understood that the blog author may write about personal life events. This view is subjective and may or may not be shared by your entire reading audience. The best practice is to spend the majority of content related to your blog’s purpose or mission statement.
5. Frequency - depending on your online and organizational goals - whether every day, x number of times a week or quarterly - you should always be providing fresh content for your audiences.
6. Formatting - while there is no MLA or APA guidelines for blogging there are a few best practices.
   • Instead of paragraphs try to use lists
   • Lists size - at least 2 but no more than 10; 7 is a good number (7 Tips for Writing Great Content).
   • Use headings and sub headings
   • KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. Write short, concise sentences. People will read and remember more if you do.
7. PROOFREAD - proofread, proofread, proofread! Everyone has spell check. Misspellings and blatant grammatical errors stick out like a sore thumb. Worse, they can serve to discredit your article, authorship or website as a whole. Always proofread.

ShareThis

First why am I, like many others, switching their long standing relationships from one registrar behemoth to another? In my humble opinion, Network Solutions missed the boat. While Go Daddy offered much of the same service offering but at a fraction of the cost I became tired of my annual Network Solutions’ payments being gouged just so I can retain “VIP” status.

Once the decision making process began and quickly ended it was easy to initiate the transfer on Go Daddy’s side. However, when I came to the authentication code step of the process this is where the Network Solutions’ hurdles began. I searched their site from top to bottom with no mention of a howto or where to turn. I was not about to call their hot-line and be bombarded with business retention techniques either, I’m in sales and I have no taste for that stuff!

<sips bourbon>

Who comes to my rescue during this time of peril? The same entity which rewards me for dedicated subscribers such as yourself and consistent daily traffic. Ahh yes … Google. Firing up the old impaul.com Google sidebar led me to this wonderful resource which I want to share with everyone who has, is or soon will experience transferring a domain name from Network Solutions to Go Daddy or any other registrar for that matter.

Click here for the howto PDF. This document gives excellent step by step instructions on what you need to do in your Network Solutions administrative console to complete your domain transfer. Just a heads up, once you successfully obtain your authentication code from NetworkSolutions be prepared for a couple of emails such as the below. I mean come on, can they sell any harder against leaving their service?!

Dear Network Solutions Gold VIP Customer,

We have received a request to transfer the domain name registration listed below to another domain name service provider. You should also have received an email from that registrar regarding this transfer request.

Domain Name: xxxxxx
Date of original request: July 11, 2007 1:46:08 PM EDT

In an effort to ensure that this request was not sent to us by mistake or in response to a “notice” sent to you by someone other than Network Solutions, we wanted to let you know that a number of our customers have informed us that they have received (and in some cases mistakenly responded to) notices they thought were from Network Solutions, but were actually from an unrelated third party. If you ever have any doubt or questions about a notice you receive, please contact us to verify its authenticity.

You do not need to transfer your domain name registration if you are only changing your ISP and/or hosting provider. In that case, you can login directly to Account Manager at URL and update your domain name servers (DNS) to match the DNS information provided by your new ISP or hosting provider.

IMPORTANT: Transferring a domain out of your Network Solutions account will result in the deletion of any other Network Solutions services that are associated with that domain.

If you have received this notification in error and do not wish to transfer your domain name registration we must hear from you before July 15, 2007 1:46:08 PM EDT so we may cancel this request. Please go to URL and follow the instructions.

If you do still wish to transfer your domain name registration, we hope that you will reconsider and choose to stay with Network Solutions. We value your business and would like to keep you as a customer.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact your dedicated Gold VIP Customer Service Team at goldvip@networksolutions.com.

Thank you for choosing Network Solutions®. We are committed to providing you with the solutions, services, and support to help you succeed online.

Sincerely,

Network Solutions Gold VIP Customer Support

I hope this helps. Please comment any related issues you have experienced and helpful tips as well.

ShareThis

Everyday we analyze, compare, sort and search, Google, Yahoo, clip ads, flip countless pages and more just to find the right deal. But what happens when the “chosen one”, the best deal or simple transaction goes awry? Who comes to bat for you?

Customer service … or at least that’s the plan

MSN, the de facto home page for more corporate users than Starbucks abusers, reported the “Bottom 10 in Customer Service.” Big names you associate with price and product but not necessarily value show up on this list:

Bottom 10

1. Sprint Nextel
2. Bank of America
3. Comcast
4. Time Warner Cable
5. AT&T
6. Citibank
7. Wal-Mart
8. Verizon
9. Wells Fargo
10. DirecTV

Dishonorable Mentions

1. Dell
2. Circuit City
3. Best Buy
4. Home Depot
5. Sears
6. Macy’s

Notice any similarities? These are all household names that are probably responsible for the largest marketing expenditure in their respective industries. But why skimp on the customer service? Is a relationship too costly to manage? Of course it is! <author’s point to be lazy> If you Google (do you capitalize it when used as a verb? I guess so) “cost more to keep a customer” you will find multiple reinforcements to my statement.

The question now is why? Why go against the grain, invest in your customers, seek long term buyer-seller relationships?

I am sure there are countless answers to these questions - profits, image, integrity, ethics … loyalty (notice how I slide morally to the right). Now who is the champion of customer service and comes first to mind as far as customer loyalty is concerned? Well if you read the title of this blog and have been wondering when I was going to get on point now is the time.

Tested and true experience has shown me the pinnacle of customer service is L.L.Bean. When entering college they replaced the 10 year old backpack I had since third grade. L.L.Bean over-nighted a pair of gloves to my grand father on December 23rd because the post office delivered the original order to the wrong address. More recently, my wife and I through our infinite consumer novice ended up with three XL dog beds. At first we were going to replace just one bed. However, we soon found out XL was far bigger than what we imaged from the L.L.Bean website therefore we needed to return two of the beds.

I logged into my UPS account, put together a shipment and received whiplash from the sticker shock that slammed me with $65+ shipping fees!! I frantically voided my order and thought to call L.L.Bean for advice. This was 10:15pm PST. I pulled up their website, easily found their customer service phone number and next to the phone number I found a familiar friendly phrase I have never seen in the corporate world, “anytime.” Where 24/7 rules supreme L.L.Bean walked past the water cooler, beyond the Mantra Machine (the remnants of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse word of the day machine), grabbed a black coffee off the camp fire and replied, “Yea. Call us anytime.”

I dialed.

It rang once.

A woman picked up. It was like calling a friend.

She understood my plight and offered to send me a UPS shipping label for use with my return. I quickly and gratefully accepted the offer.

Total time to resolve my issue: 2 minutes

Total time I will be a L.L.Bean loyal customer: lifetime + word of mouth to family and friends = forever

So while I’ve had my countless run ins from the “Wall of Shame” the few times I have ever needed a success story in customer service, L.L.Bean has not only stepped up to the plate but to string along another baseball metaphor they hit it out of the park!

Customer Service Good Bad

ShareThis