BLADAM - December 2005

DISCLAIMER: This is my personal blog. The blatherings here aren't (necessarily) the views of the current company I work for, companies I've previously blessed with my presence, my loving parents, the Illuminati, or anyone other than me, me, me!

Geek troubleshooting: Having trouble reconnecting to the Internet after a power outage?

Due to a heavy storm this weekend, the power was out in my San Francisco neighborhood for much of the day today.

Luckily, thanks to a battery backup system, I didn't lose any documents I was working on on my computer, but after the third outage recovery of the day, I found I was no longer able to connect to the Internet. Grrr! So of course, the first thing I thought to do was to go to support.earthlink.net and check for the status of their network. Oops... d'oh, no Internet! So I realized, of course, that I'd actually have to *call* Earthlink to get information on their network status, and I fired up Firefox to do a search for "Earthlink 800 number" and... d'oh again! Damn, it's amazing how second nature Internet info lookups are!

Anyway, lame admissions aside, I figured I could share with you the resolution that could ultimately save YOU a lot of time in the future!

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- Blathered by Adam on Monday, December 19, 2005 at 1:38 Permalink
- Filed under geekery
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

My experience with the Yahoo Publishing Network on my blog

I'm sorry I strayed. AdSense may not be the sexiest CAS (contextual advertising service) in the bunch, and occasionally she's a bit stubborn, unpredictable, and even cheap... but she's a lot better overall than my most recent fling.

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- Blathered by Adam on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 at 1:50 Permalink
- Filed under geekery • blogging
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

The satisfaction of mentoring

I recently got an e-mail from a former workmate, asking if I'd be willing to join him for a coffee or a meal to give "some career advice [...] and honest opinion[s]."

I'm very flattered and I like doing this sort of thing for many reasons.

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- Blathered by Adam on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 at 1:27 Permalink
- Filed under personal • society • workplace
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

Some thoughts about Kaiser Health Services

I've had Kaiser health insurance for about three years now, and I thought I'd share some thoughts for those of you who are deciding amongst health insurance plans... and even those of you on Kaiser looking for a few tips.

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- Blathered by Adam on Monday, December 12, 2005 at 16:38 Permalink
- Filed under business and consumers • happy body
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

Useful corporate autoreplies

I just got an autoreply after submitting a suggestion to a company:

Thank you for your note. We appreciate your helping us test out [...]

This is just an autoreply to let you know we received your email.
We're putting most of our energy into improving [widget], so we can't
promise a personal reply to every question.

That said, user feedback is very important to us, and your comments and ideas will be used to improve [widget].

That's actually not so bad... but it could be better. Here are my thoughts on what makes for a good autoreply:

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- Blathered by Adam on Tuesday, December 6, 2005 at 23:14 Permalink
- Filed under business and consumers
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

Best Buy has Worst Survey (and more)

I swear, don't companies bother actually putting ANY of their stuff through QA? Or even CSF (Common Sense Filters)?

I recently bought something at Best Buy locally (darnit, I needed the item immediately, or I would have amazon.com'd it), and while that immediate experience was generally decent, the followup has been so bad it's laughable.

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- Blathered by Adam on Tuesday, December 6, 2005 at 22:13 Permalink
- Filed under business and consumers • business cheers and jeers
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

Secrets to maintaining a full life and not going too crazy

I just had a very enjoyable and productive job interview, and the interviewer asked me an interesting question that I had not encountered before. He wanted to know how I manage to successfully juggle such a wide variety of disparate personal and professional tasks and responsibilities.

The answer: It's a combination of discipline, luck, support and understanding from friends, family and clients, and also really invaluable tools.

Here are a few tips and tools I'm happy to share. Undoubtedly some you'll find appropriate for you, others you'll view as incompatible with the way you want to work or live... but hopefully some of them you'll find useful

And as always, remember that there are no absolutes. Absolutely, positively, NEVER any absolutes. Oops.

Anyway, on with the list...

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- Blathered by Adam on Monday, December 5, 2005 at 21:15 Permalink
- Filed under society • people and relationships
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

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The magic number for the moment is 44. Neato.

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