links for 2008-09-30
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Another boating accident. Yikes.
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The official BEST wedding photos!
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Shahaf reflects on his year and a half at Redfin.
links for 2008-09-29
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Guess I am deluding myself and I should dial back to 40 hours a week.
links for 2008-09-26
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"The large institutional investors who now own much of the region's office inventory intend to sell their buildings in a few years — and higher lease rates make the properties more appealing to prospective buyers."
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"In the end, JPMorgan Chase took over $134.7 billion in deposits from WaMu. Less than three months earlier, WaMu had held $181.9 billion in deposits."
Kids, Protect Your Ears!
The last thing my mom warned me about was the threat to air quality posed by Zambonis. The last thing she wanted me to blog about but I didn’t was asking you all to make donations to World Vision in Myanmar. Today she wants me to both blog and warn you about MP3 players.
From CBS, MP3s May Threaten Hearing Loss.
On the subject, my mom had this to say:
Please do a piece on hearing loss for your readers since most of them probably cannot hear much any more.
This is crucial as I am losing my lower levels (aging and ear infections) but your generation is probably in trouble now.
Irreversible! Before it is too late.
Readers, can you hear me? You’ve been warned. Mom, have you considered blogging?
Comments(3)Choppy DVD Playback For Dell Studio Hybrid
My Dell Studio Hybrid living room PC replacement arrived today. I was pleasantly surprised how well the setup went only to be stymied when I went to watch disc three of Big Love tonight. Turns out Dell likely mis-configured the DVD decoder and has essentially broken Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player DVD playback (Windows Home Premium and Ultimate come with their own DVD decoder that Microsoft licensed but Dell is installing their own DVD software that might be messing that up.)
People are complaining in the forums, Dell Studio Hybrid Cannot play DVD’s in Media Centre! Help! and Dell Studio Hybrid – DVD playback problems, CD importing problems.
Looks like they not only messed up regular DVD playback but also BlueRay too if you opted for that $250 upgrade, Studio Hybrid – Dell Media Direct 4 – Blu Ray issues – out of the box!
It is shocking that a major OEM would drop the ball on key out of the box scenarios like DVD playback from native Windows apps.
What’s worse is that they don’t appear to know how to correct the problem, nor have they fixed it yet and the system has been shipping for at least a month.
What also bugged me about Dell tonight (but less) is that Dell uses Lithium to host their forums (Redfin also uses Lithium for our forums) but Dell is not using Lithium’s single sign on (SSO) solution to share one account across the forums and their regular site. It took Redfin only a few days to implement and was a requirement when we added forums. It’s also annoying that the password requirements for the forums exceed the password requirements for their main site so I couldn’t even re-use the same password. And while we’re on the subject of Dell sign in. Does anyone else find it very odd and highly insecure that sign in to Dell’s main site is over HTTP? I would think that HTTPS would be the requirement because of stored credit card information.
Update: Vista Media Center Decoder utility reports both audio and video decoders as Microsoft. DVDs play fine in Dell’s Media Direct software. I’ve also contacted my contacts at Media Center to see if they can find a work around and set Dell straight.
Update: Here’s the fix.
Dell Sucks – My Last Order From Dell
After a few weeks of debate I ordered Dell’s newly released Studio Hybrid to replace my dying living room PC/Media Center.
Unfortunately, weeks later I still have not received it from Dell…
September 3rd – I ordered a Studio Hybrid from Dell, estimated ship date is September 9th.
September 10th – The accessories I ordered with it arrive
September 15th – For the last several days the PC order has been stuck in “order processing”
September 16th – The order gets canceled. I call. I talk to 3 different people before I get hung up on. I wait a few hours before calling back during which time I receive an automated call from them that goes to my voice mail. I call them back. First time I call I get disconnected. They then explain that they can’t resurrect the old order, they’ll need to place a new order. They’re also unable to explain why the order was canceled (“maybe the parts were back ordered?” “you know it’s back to school season right?” (am I supposed??). So they place a new order. I then ask to be transferred to a manager. I get transferred twice and not to a manager before giving up. Hopefully it ships on the 22nd like they say.
Talking to people at work who order more PCs online than I do they say I’m stuck in “Dell Hell” and that my first mistake was ordering from Dell, the second was ordering using their home customer side of the business instead of mis-representing myself as a small business. Apparently the customer service is much better as a small business.
Needless to say this is my last order from Dell and I’m going to short the stock I’m a day late on shorting .
I guess I should have paid a few hundred dollars more to get a Mac Mini. There’s a lot to be said about going to an Apple store and picking up you want without having to wade through phone prompts and all this bullshit.
Seattle Neighborhood Blog Ads
With the growing popularity of neighborhood blogs there is also a growing popularity in monetizing what for some is a hobby and for others is a full time gig.
As Urbnlivn, my Seattle condo blog, continues to suck hours of my week and continues to grow in traffic I too am turning to advertising to make blogging less of a chore and more like a paper route.
What’s frustrating is that their isn’t a Seattle neighborhood advertising network that connects local businesses with local blogs and handles the commerce and other aspects of this niche advertising segment.
Instead I’m left to visit a number of local blogs to try and determine local standards for ad size, placement and cost. I’m also struggling in Paint.net to provide my second advertiser with a visually pleasing ad thinking that the effort isn’t really worth the $50.
Here’s my research so far on the Seattle neighborhood blog scene:
B Town Blog: 200px 150 px and 728 px 90 px. Starting at $50/month.
Capitol Hill Seattle: 468 px 60 px, 160 x 240, 125 x 125. $3 to $10 CPM or $25/month
Seattle Bubble: 250px 150px. $75 and $225 per month
West Seattle: Varies, but most around 160px 160px. $0.60 CPM
And of course the standard really should be dictated by Google. 468px 60 px, 120px 600px, 160px 600px, 200px 200px, 250px 250px, 300px 250px, 336px 280px.