blog.mattgoyer.com

I made the mistake of checking in on my 401k; it’s down (only?) 29% from the beginning of the year. Thankfully I have another thirty odd years before “retirement.”

In addition to saving for retirement I occasionally try to save more. The time I was most successful at saving outside of retirement was at Microsoft when it was easy to sign in to the payroll system online to re-direct a portion of my pay check to my non-spending account. Sadly at the ‘Fin we don’t have such a sophisticated payroll system.

One of these days I hope to go back to saving more. Something that is motivating me is a simple strategy I read about recently in Business Week, The Psychology of Saving More:

Those who planned savings for the next month did far better than those who tried to plan further out.

I’ll let you know how it works for me.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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A full day meeting on Friday prevented Ben and I from lining up on the day of release so after drinking way too much on Friday evening we headed down at 8:30 to the AT&T store on Capitol Hill where we probably got the 30th and 31st spots. After they opened at 9 it wasn’t long before they were out of the 16 GB black ones which is what we wanted. We kept waiting though and while we waited I found out that a 16 GB phone for me wouldn’t be $299 like everyone else but $499 because I only bought my last phone in December. After waiting some more (for a total of 1.5 hours) they ran out of 16 GB phones just as we were about to go in so we headed down to the Apple mega store in the U-District to see if they had any more inventory. Turns out the line there was massive so we headed back to Capitol Hill where we ordered the unavailable 16 GB black ones. Turns out if we wanted it we would have been the last people to get 8 GB black ones had we waited.

I’m shocked they only had about 30 phones total on the second day of release. And it sounded like they didn’t have many more on Friday.

Oh well, I’m fine waiting for the back ordered black one since $557 is a lot of money for a phone.

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We said goodbye to intern/part-time Redfin product manager, Alex, in style this past Friday.

After drinks at Imo (which Rob hates but there isn’t any other option for ~15 people on a Friday close to the office) we rode the bull at Cowgirls (even though it wasn’t really bull riding time yet):

And then went to 22 Doors (we where the loudest group there and scared off Katrina and Bria) and finally McLeod.

Alex sent an email the next day exclaiming his surprise at how not hung over he was after countless shots of tequila from Adam.

More photos on Flickr.

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I ski five to ten days a year at Whistler and so an email from them about a survey caught my eye:

From the email:

Dear Matt, We’re looking at various facility and service options that could serve you better, our valued Whistler Blackcomb guest. In the survey below, we are looking for your opinions and preferences regarding a private members’ club that could provide privileged access to amenities, services and facilities at Whistler Blackcomb. Complete the short survey by June 11, 2008 and you will be eligible to win $500*. This survey should take 15-20 minutes to complete.

From the survey itself:

Whistler Blackcomb is looking to enhance the resort experience for you, our valued guest, and is considering the establishment of a private members’ club. This survey will help us to better understand your preferences for different private members’ facilities and services, such as:

• A comfortable clubhouse in the base area that would serve as a central meeting area for members with golf club style locker rooms and a Great Room for lounging or après ski;
• An on-mountain members’ restaurant that provides high-quality food without crowding; and,
• Convenient designated parking spaces for the member’s exclusive personal use.

Interesting but likely not worth the money.

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I foolishly let the fairtunes.com domain name lapse some years ago. Oddly I get about a request a month about Fairtunes and I was going to point someone to Archive.org to check out what used to be only to find that the domain name squatter that bought fairtunes.com is blocking archive.org in the robots.txt file!

We’re sorry, access to http://fairtunes.com has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.

I’m broken hearted since I didn’t have the foresight to save any screenshots of Fairtunes before it disappeared from the Internet :(.

Coincidentally the current domain name owner has offices just down the street from where I live. I sent them in email about re-purchasing the domain but I’m sure they’ll want thousands to make up for their lost revenue. Oh well.

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A co-worker just asked if I had heard of My Winnipeg, I hadn’t.

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