I am a political conservative. I am for smaller government and less telling me what I can and can’t do. I border on libertarian, but I am not there yet.

If you haven’t been paying attention, the recent charge by the FCC to push regulation regarding the Internet has had major news organizations up in arms screaming about how big brother is trying to get his hands on the Internet – messing with the ultimate free market.

The truth is far different. The truth is, and I hate to say it, the FCC is right. The FCC is trying to help place net neutrality safeguards in place to protect us as consumers because the service providers are trying to figure out how to screw us out of content. Major Internet Service Providers want to turn the Internet into protected broadcast territory akin to network television.

From the Washington Post:

Specifically, Google and Verizon’s agreement could prevent Verizon from offering some prioritization to the biggest bidders who want better delivery of content on its DSL and fiber networks, according to the sources. But that wouldn’t apply to mobile phones, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the companies have not officially made their announcement.

The truth is so twisted in this statement.  This makes it sound as though big DOT COM’s are knocking on Verizon’s door asking to pay money to get their content delivered faster to the consumer.  The truth is exactly the opposite.  Major ISP’s like COMCAST, TIME WARNER, and others are looking to charge Google and other Internet sites to get their content delivered or face metering by the ISP’s.

Why is this all so misrepresented by the mainstream media and members of congress?  Truthfully, because many of the media outlets are owned by the same parent companies as the ISP’s and the congressmen are in their hip pocket.

It’s time to get angry before your ISP gets the right to tell you “Sorry, you don’t get that website with your package…”

GET INVOLVED

It is a Vostro 1520 (entry level business class notebook) with a Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 3Gb RAM running Windows 7 Professional.

I am going to use Microsoft Office Professional 2010 Beta and Microsoft Security Essentials and see how this turns out. This lowers the TCO for the user (at least temporarily) and gets it up and running faster.

I will publish the results later in the year.

It seems that TuneUp sees Dropbox as something needing to be fixed, and since Dropbox has no Program Files entry, the whole thing goes away.

Supposedly TuneUp Utilities is working on a fix, but so far, no luck.

I didn’t have this kind of luck when I searched Google. You guys have it sooooo easy.

The return window should begin 0.7875″ from the top of the page and 0.5625″ from the left edge of the page.

It should be 1″ tall, and 3.125″ wide. The logo and return address should be completely within this boundary.

The Address window should be 2.2125″ from the top of the page and 0.5625″ from the left edge of the page.

It should be .8″ tall, and 3.625″ wide and the address of the doctor should rest firmly within it.

These measurements allow for an invoice to rest inside a standard #9 Double Window Envelope whether the letter/invoice/statement shifts to the left, right, top, or bottom.

You’re welcome.

DynDNS.com + OpenVPN.net + DD-WRT.com = LUV

All this can do is create entrenched internet media titans akin to broadcast networks whose power is unquestionable – and forces new media creators to seek out these juggernauts to get their media out, thereby creating some oversight/editorial process that will kill the essence of what the internet really is.

The internet is freedom. The internet is the ability to get the word out to millions of people with the click of a mouse.

Save The Internet

DallasGilliam.com – setting up the website for my best bud. helping to get some good pagerank.

www.RDL-USA.com

RDL is a premiere supplier of high-end implant restorations, especially full arch implant supported cases with immediate loading.

We’re still adding content as we go.  Be sure and check out the new “How-To” section see the videos we added.

I have to give a big shout-out to the following commercial Joomla components, though

Phil Taylor’s Phil-A-Form – absolutely amazing customer service – looks like it has been replaced with the new version, FORMS

Artio JoomSEF Commercial Version – lackluster customer service, but awesome component – worth it to not have their embedded advertising

JoomlaWorks Simple Image Gallery – a fantastic all around gallery system.  Easy doesn’t even come close to describing what it is.

Right now, we have the following features:

• Community Calendar
• Marketplace Photo Ads
• Job Board
• Business Directory
• News

All of the above features are free.  This really catches the people around here off guard.  I stopped in three places in the last week and every time they ask “Well, how are you going to make money?!”  I tell them I have a job, and I’m really trying to do something for the community.  I get a funny look…

Beyond that, future plans include having paid home and property listings and possibly a sponsor membership for those that really love it.

This project assumes you are using the following:

1. iPhone or another device that syncs with MS Office Outlook
2. Google’s Calendar Sync
3. Microsoft Office Outlook

Important Note: Make sure you have Google Calendar Sync set to “1 Way – Google to Outlook” in order for this to work.

In Outlook, go to “Advanced Find” (in 2003, the easy way to do this is to hit CTRL-SHIFT-F) and then look for “All Outlook Items” and hit the browse button to select ONLY THE CALENDAR – make sure “All Items” is unchecked.  Click Find Now.  When the results are displayed, click any one event, then type CTRL-A to Select All – then simply press the Delete button.  You now have a blank slate in Outlook Calendar.

Note: I did this without changing my GCAl Sync settings, so I lost everything.  I should have used my iPhone to manually rebuild everything, but I didn’t.  I tried to sync.  Outlook took priority and therefore wiped my iPhone cal too.  Pretty sad.  Trying to rebuild a calendar is counter-intuitive.  You put everything on the Cal so you didn’t have to remember yourself.

Jenmar International’s Dental Lab Management Software

At this point I have reviewed and played with basically everything out there that isn’t DOS based (and who the hell would invest in DOS based applications at this point anyway?) Jenmar truly understands the difference betweeen case tracking and Lab Management. They’re the only ones who seem to have as much emphasis on rapid entry and ease of use as they do on getting crucial business information out to the managers.

Some of the big selling points for the product that Jenmar puts out have to be the ability to link and pull in information from closed cases (remakes, restains, etc) so that there is a clear path with any case as well as Dr preferences on a per item basis – so you can have a Doc that wants a PFM a certain way every time and it auto

Even if you’re not running a pay-per-piece lab, this is the way to go. Someday, though, someone is going to make one that gives you a department dashboard with graphs and all. We’ll see.

When Barnes & Noble opened in Bowling Green, KY the first thing I did was run to the computer magazine section.  There my heart nearly burst from my chest as I discovered 2600 Magazine for the first time.  I read alt.2600 (as much as I could understand – I knew what they were doing, just not how).

I still have every issue of 2600 that I ever got (about 2 dozen of them) in a plastic container upstairs in my own house.  They traveled to college with my should I ever run in to Lord Nikon questioning my hacker elitism.  I always dreamed of playing hookie from class and running off to NYC to go to the H.O.P.E. conference that 2600 put on.

Now, the last H.O.P.E. coference is taking place.

Ah well, some dreams are not meant to be.  I wouldn’t be on their level anyway, but I did want to try my hand at “Spot The Fed” and maybe pick up a t-shirt.

So, how to approach it? Well, it’s my first time, and I want to do a test run with A/B testing. I’m using some pretty interesting resources to pull it off, so I thought I would share.

• hotpads.com – HotPads.com offers national “Heat Maps” with different demographic information by county/parrish. The key one for my use is going to be Household Income. This allows me to zero in on counties with an ideal income area.  I then hand select the cities from those counties that qualify.  I’m actually hand typing these.  It would be nice to have someone do this, but we’re talking cheap right?
• osha.gov – The Department of Labor / Occupational Safety and Health site gives you a directory listing of SIC codes, so if you’re trying to drill down on specific professionals to market to, this is the place to find what you need.
• usadata.com – This site allows you to get contact information for the SIC codes in the places that you’ve selected.  In this example, I took all the major and medium cities in a specific section of a state, selected those cities on the site, the SIC code for the professionals I want, and then generate a usable mailing list for approx $0.20 per lead and up.  Pretty cool.

If you figure a full color mailer @ $0.39/ea or better plus postage then you’ve got ($0.20x + $0.39x + [post]x + setup on mailer) = a direct mail campaign.  If you can get bulk mail post ($0.15/ea?) then you’re looking at $750 for a 1000 pieces if you do the setup yourself.  If you figure a response rate of 7% then you need those 70 to give you $11 /ea to make it back?  Not bad…

My personal objection to this is the senseless barrier to entry that it creates.  If you’re trying to get a client, potential client, or reader to come to your site then why would you make it more difficult for them to accomplish that goal?  Our website design should reflect our goals for the user – make it as easy as possible for them to do what they/we want to do.

CSS-Tricks.com has come out with a new tutorial for one time only landing page using cookies that would alleviate some of the problem – but use it sparingly.  If your designer is trying to sell you the benefits of the splash page and you actually want return visitors then I would suggest this method.  Also, if you’re going to use a splash page, make sure it is in line with your sales model and not just a random display of your designers “artsy side”.

Imagine you share a domicile with a friend. If the friend is there, you will talk to them when you have the opportunity and the desire. If you lack either of those then you won’t communicate. If the person leaves the room then opportunity goes away. If the person is there, but you don’t have anything to say then the desire is gone.

The same is true with text messaging (I’m getting to Twitter – hold your horses). In a world where text messaging is available, you erase the opportunity element.  The other person is essentially always in the room and desire is now the only element.  If a person is busy, the don’t have to engage in the text with you, and for the most part no one’s feelings get hurt.  In addition a text message conversation can go on for hours when chance allows.  If you try to substitute in a phone conversation you get hours of dead air where you wonder what the other person is doing that is more important than continuing this conversation…

Twitter takes the concept of text messaging to the next level.  It takes 140 charachters at a time and puts them on public display – short and to the point.  You can follow only a few people, make friends with fellow professionals, or just talk to yourself.  The key concept is that you’re sharing yourself a very little bit at a time.  No long prepared oration.  Just simple lines of notice.  Get to the point, and do it fast.

The solution for the prototype stage is Zoho Creator. Zoho Creator is a drag and drop way to create complex web forms that can be embedded in your website or used stand-alone.

For example, say you needed a rapid way to add a contact information form to your website.  With Creator you can add as many fields as you need (address, phone, email, etc…) to the form, make certain fields required and set the form to email you the results when it is submitted – all in about 5 minutes.  They even have certain generic forms already in place!

This is also a great time saver if you want to do a limited run of a possible service.  If you wanted to see how people internally or externally responded to the layout of a certain form then this is a great way to do it.