I'm sorry. That's a pretty bloody lame title. And I'll also forgive you if you didn't read my previous post on this subject... which had such a clever title that I can't find it either!
Every so often, though, I read something that makes me wonder: why did the writer go into business at all?
Last week we received a flyer from a realtor whom I'll call "John Doe". John obviously is pretty good at selling homes- after all, he's been in business for over 10 years with the same firm in the same office (we'll say he works for "Acme"). So, with a proven track record of solid business acumen and a professionally written and laid out color flyer, why would I do business with him?
I wouldn't. Why? He's got a winning smile, a good track record, and a really nice flyer.
Why? Because of his amateur, second-string personal email address- johndoe477@hotmail.com.
R U pulling my leg?
I'm sorry, but this is one of those things that just get me going. This IS the 21st Century, after all. And unless you're the only game in town, I'm not going to contact someone who has a throwaway email address- that's no way to run a business. So, my advice to the SOHO and SMB readers who may see this is this: get a domain that has your name in it. Give everyone in the firm a standardized email address, like john.doe@acme.com or jane.doe@acme.com. If your web presence is lame or nonexistent, hire a designer. Trust me on the website- believe it or not, I have "webmaster" in my list of credentials.
(Pause for effect)
Most readers will not know me personally, but on my best of days, I have trouble even spelling HTML. I'm kidding, of course. Just a bit. For example, if I see the tag <!DOCTYPE html> at the top of a page, I know I'm looking at an HTML 5 page. I also know how to recognize and change colors, as well as edit text and import or delete images. I told you that so I could tell you this: don't hire me or anyone like me to manage your online presence. There are pros out there who will do it better and for a fair price. If your business is your livelihood, you owe it to yourself.
But please do it.
Speaking of addresses, data and names, I'd like to share one more pet peeve. I don't consider pride to be a major fault of mine, but when it comes to business, please take the time to spell my name correctly... and get the city I live in right. The city I live in is a suburb of Chicago, with a population of approximately 60,000. It has three ZIP codes, one of which is shared by a village that is 1/15 our size and is strongly mob connected. I cannot tell you how INSULTING it is to get a piece of mail addressed to me, with the proper ZIP code and +4, but with that other village's name on it. Mail like this goes DIRECTLY to the garbage.
I work in an industry very closely associated with direct mail; most of our business is from folks doing direct mail. Every day, I look at mail data, and am constantly reminded of the old programming axiom GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). However, from a personal perspective, I tend to scrutinize the mail we receive at home... and Jennifer has also taken an interest in it. The USPS (United States Postal Service) depends on direct mail, but does not often see fit to enforce its own regulations. I see so much direct mail that is so out of spec that it really IS junk mail, and yet the USPS just accepts the money for the postage rather than enforcing its regulations.
That's not my beef, though.
Even though we live in a 24*7 world, take the time to get stuff right. Get the easy (data) stuff right- for example, it's spelled Coeur D'Alene. not Coeur Dalene. It's not <frigging> rocket science, folks. Then, when you get the easy stuff right, spell my name correctly- at least get my gender right! My name is a little long, and in an address block is often truncated. How about just truncating it to a standard, shortened (nickname?) name rather than just arbitrarily chopping letters off?
Okay, I'm putting the soapbox away now.
Data: 42 (my personal database project) is inching along. I got some data entry done over the last week, and did a few table upgrades. I think I'm currently up to seven complete CD entries, and quite honestly the last one was a bear!
I'm not a huge Elvis Presley fan, but I picked up a SEALED copy of his 30 #1 Hits CD from our local Goodwill store a few months ago for a buck (1USD). When I first built the table for CDs, I had included seventeen track titles. I knew I'd need more, as classical music tends to have LOTS of tracks. The Elvis CD, though, has thirty tracks, so I added thirteen tracks to the table, only to realize that there is one unnumbered track at the end! In unrelated database news, I added 885 pieces to my Lego collection, courtesy of the Amazon Prime sale on the 12th. As I was thinking about Lego and the database, I decided to only include Lego part numbers for parts that I actually possess.
That's it for now, fellow datacampers. As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Showing posts with label HTML5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HTML5. Show all posts
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Thursday, September 18, 2014
A conundrum
I had thought of using the plural of conundrum in the title of this, the 126th edition of A homegrown DBA exploring #notsobigdata, but I ran into a small problem: it seems that there is some disagreement as to exactly what the proper plural is. Not having a foundation in any language from whence this word may or may not have originated, I will defer to the OED's verdict: conundrums. And, for those of you who never knew a world without the internet, Google did not put a red squiggly line under the OED version, so it must be correct. Now, if only the Urban Dictionary (sorry, no link; I tried to keep this safe for viewing anywhere) would second this motion....
I suppose the thing that brought all of this up was a situation that happened at work recently. A few months back, my boss asked me to confirm or deny a certain habit of a coworker. This made me somewhat uncomfortable, and my boss was quite aware of it, but it was an important matter and he needed to get an answer specifically from me, as I was the only human being who could verify the matter (it probably could have been settled through the review of certain electronic records, but for some reason that avenue was not explored). I told my boss quite honestly that I could not confirm the allegation. Recently, however, I found myself in a position to revisit the question- hence, the curiosity of the plural of conundrum. My problem was this: I was quite uncomfortable when the topic was first broached, and I answered the questions honestly, all the while giving my colleague the benefit of the doubt. Recent events, however, put me in a position to conclusively verify what my boss had suspected, and so I found myself with no choice but to reopen the matter and confirm the allegation.
To say that things like this make me uncomfortable is an understatement. I can usually "fake it 'til you make it" in most social or business settings, but when it comes to coworkers and serious stuff, I'm an invertebrate.
In other news, I'm in the final "era"of my very favorite online game, Rail Nation. I say this also with mixed feelings, as this will probably be the last round I play for some time. Rail Nation is an RTS (real-time strategy) game, and has players from all over the world. I love the game- what's not to like: it's trains. Think the original Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon- if you liked that game, chances are you'd love this one. But, as much as I love this game, I need to take a break from it, as it's a major time suck.
Continuing from my previous topic, there are two programming languages which were not on my laundry list of things to learn. I can't believe I omitted HTML5 and CSS3. I actually have a tiny bit of experience with HTML, having once had as one of my many job responsibilities the title of "website administrator" for a company that really didn't want to do business on the web. And these folks were all engineers!
No data news to report- this work situation has really unsettled me. And there's a reason for it, but I'm currently not at liberty to discuss it.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
I suppose the thing that brought all of this up was a situation that happened at work recently. A few months back, my boss asked me to confirm or deny a certain habit of a coworker. This made me somewhat uncomfortable, and my boss was quite aware of it, but it was an important matter and he needed to get an answer specifically from me, as I was the only human being who could verify the matter (it probably could have been settled through the review of certain electronic records, but for some reason that avenue was not explored). I told my boss quite honestly that I could not confirm the allegation. Recently, however, I found myself in a position to revisit the question- hence, the curiosity of the plural of conundrum. My problem was this: I was quite uncomfortable when the topic was first broached, and I answered the questions honestly, all the while giving my colleague the benefit of the doubt. Recent events, however, put me in a position to conclusively verify what my boss had suspected, and so I found myself with no choice but to reopen the matter and confirm the allegation.
To say that things like this make me uncomfortable is an understatement. I can usually "fake it 'til you make it" in most social or business settings, but when it comes to coworkers and serious stuff, I'm an invertebrate.
In other news, I'm in the final "era"of my very favorite online game, Rail Nation. I say this also with mixed feelings, as this will probably be the last round I play for some time. Rail Nation is an RTS (real-time strategy) game, and has players from all over the world. I love the game- what's not to like: it's trains. Think the original Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon- if you liked that game, chances are you'd love this one. But, as much as I love this game, I need to take a break from it, as it's a major time suck.
Continuing from my previous topic, there are two programming languages which were not on my laundry list of things to learn. I can't believe I omitted HTML5 and CSS3. I actually have a tiny bit of experience with HTML, having once had as one of my many job responsibilities the title of "website administrator" for a company that really didn't want to do business on the web. And these folks were all engineers!
No data news to report- this work situation has really unsettled me. And there's a reason for it, but I'm currently not at liberty to discuss it.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
On programming (#hourofcode continued)
I am a programmer by trade. My training is ongoing, as is appropriate with any craft. What I do on the job, though, is only a part of my craft.
For nearly a year, I've been in search of the "perfect" programming language to learn. My requirements for this language are fairly simple: I need to be able to learn it on my own time, on my own schedule and at minimal cost. Considering the day and age in which we live, these are pretty simple and easily met. The problem I've encountered, though, is that many languages will fit my criteria, and I think I need to have a few under my belt. The huge problem is: where to start?
HTML is a pretty obvious choice, and I've dabbled in it a bit. The problem is that it is pretty much limited (!) to the Web, and I am in need of something a bit more general purpose in nature. With the advent of the Raspberry Pi, Python has become a strong contender for me, and as I have an interest in this device, Python seems to be the way to go. So, where is Python?
In a word: everywhere! I have it installed on nearly every PC I use on a regular basis, and although I'm not much past the very basics of the language (think: print("hello") ), I've made it a priority to at least touch it every day, if not actually learn something.
The past week has been a bit of a wash as far as Python goes. The main reason for this is because I am once again gainfully employed as an employee rather than a contractor or temp.This makes me happy- yay! However, as an employee, I feel the need to increase my value to my employer, and to this end, I will ensure that I do some programming on my own time.
In the wonderful world of data, I came up with one more improvement to one of the tables which should fix a data synchronization issue. More on that after it is implemented.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
For nearly a year, I've been in search of the "perfect" programming language to learn. My requirements for this language are fairly simple: I need to be able to learn it on my own time, on my own schedule and at minimal cost. Considering the day and age in which we live, these are pretty simple and easily met. The problem I've encountered, though, is that many languages will fit my criteria, and I think I need to have a few under my belt. The huge problem is: where to start?
HTML is a pretty obvious choice, and I've dabbled in it a bit. The problem is that it is pretty much limited (!) to the Web, and I am in need of something a bit more general purpose in nature. With the advent of the Raspberry Pi, Python has become a strong contender for me, and as I have an interest in this device, Python seems to be the way to go. So, where is Python?
In a word: everywhere! I have it installed on nearly every PC I use on a regular basis, and although I'm not much past the very basics of the language (think: print("hello") ), I've made it a priority to at least touch it every day, if not actually learn something.
The past week has been a bit of a wash as far as Python goes. The main reason for this is because I am once again gainfully employed as an employee rather than a contractor or temp.This makes me happy- yay! However, as an employee, I feel the need to increase my value to my employer, and to this end, I will ensure that I do some programming on my own time.
In the wonderful world of data, I came up with one more improvement to one of the tables which should fix a data synchronization issue. More on that after it is implemented.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Why, 2K!
Well, it's been ten days since my last post... which, in the blogosphere, is the half life of an eternity, I think! Today's title is in commemoration (actually anticipation) of 2,000 views of this blog!
This makes me happy.
In addition to looking for a job, building Forty-Two, working nights, blogging, HTML5 and working on the Lego spreadsheet, I've also been doing some stuff on Twitter ( @CJoelHarrison ), and am looking at PHP, MySQL and Apache. I'm not sure as yet where the last three will fit into the general scheme of things, but I'm thinking that adding these last three to my software skills can only be good.
As far as blog data goes, I'm still amazed at some of the locations of my readers. When I first started out, I had a goal of at least one reader per continent by the end of 2013. As a writer, I'm not sure how much control I have over who reads, but I've tried to make it as interesting and universally appealing (within the constraints of being semi-technical at times) as possible. So, with five months nearly gone in 2013, I'm happy to say the last frontiers for readers are South America and Antarctica. Shameless plug: if anyone knows folks in either of these places, I'd appreciate a recommendation!
Finally, the database has grown by .5% since I last took a look at the numbers earlier in the month, and the Lego spreadsheet has not been touched. Most of the database growth has occurred in one table- Songs. As I'm getting deeper into this project, I'm finding that it is quicker and easier to take a single book or piece of music and extract all of the data, rather than working in the main table and going back and forth opening, saving and closing multiple tables many times over the course of an evening's work. That's the theory for today, at least.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
This makes me happy.
In addition to looking for a job, building Forty-Two, working nights, blogging, HTML5 and working on the Lego spreadsheet, I've also been doing some stuff on Twitter ( @CJoelHarrison ), and am looking at PHP, MySQL and Apache. I'm not sure as yet where the last three will fit into the general scheme of things, but I'm thinking that adding these last three to my software skills can only be good.
As far as blog data goes, I'm still amazed at some of the locations of my readers. When I first started out, I had a goal of at least one reader per continent by the end of 2013. As a writer, I'm not sure how much control I have over who reads, but I've tried to make it as interesting and universally appealing (within the constraints of being semi-technical at times) as possible. So, with five months nearly gone in 2013, I'm happy to say the last frontiers for readers are South America and Antarctica. Shameless plug: if anyone knows folks in either of these places, I'd appreciate a recommendation!
Finally, the database has grown by .5% since I last took a look at the numbers earlier in the month, and the Lego spreadsheet has not been touched. Most of the database growth has occurred in one table- Songs. As I'm getting deeper into this project, I'm finding that it is quicker and easier to take a single book or piece of music and extract all of the data, rather than working in the main table and going back and forth opening, saving and closing multiple tables many times over the course of an evening's work. That's the theory for today, at least.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
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