Final Project

Hey everyone here is my website for the final project.  It was hard work, but more fun then anything.  Its for my mom's hair salon.  if you're ever in town check it out.  Thanks for the great semester!!

Flyboyz All American Cuts

Dane

Pirates of the CaraSweden!

With the recent news of piracy along the important sea routes that border Africa, it it only fitting that another type of piracy reclaims its place at the head of Arrggghhhh table!  Old school pirates made their living off of hijacking and pillaging vessels along the water.  The Pirate Bay however takes swashbuckling to a more modern type of criminal activity, namely illegal file sharing.  

The four defendants in the case against Pirate Bay face jail time if found guilty tomorrow in Stockholm, Sweden.  While their prison sentences may be tame (up to a year), this could be a landmark case in the broader fight against illegal file sharing.  The entertainment industry has been waging this war for quite sometime now with limited success.  While victories against entities like Napster seemed like a step in the right direction, like weeds, file sharing sites keep sprouting up again.

From someone who knows the ins-and-outs of music downloading, I can honestly say that the effects of this ruling will be minimal.  While P2P sharing software, LimeWire comes to mind, is a powerful tool, it is too easy to shut them down.  The music downloaded from P2P services can be completely shut off just by closing the service.  But torrent services like Pirate Bay are a completely different animal.  The torrent sites are spread out all over the internet, and it would be an extremely difficult challenge to irradicate the Web of all of these torrents.

No actual material is stored on the Web site that features a search function for file sharing with BitTorrent technology-which is legal in itself, but commonly used for illegal file sharing.

If the verdict, however, comes in not guilty the entertainment industry could be set back for quite some time.  Perhaps, they might recognize the futility of this endeavor.  I think South Park addressed it best.  Let's hope that some kind of compromise can be reached.  This whole thing's a mess, and in the end, everyone is losing.  This is the original article.

Uh Oh...I'm in Trouble

Hide me.  Please!  Take me somewhere, anywhere, but far from a laptop.  Miles from a wireless router. Lightyears from anything even remotely resembling a computer screen.  Let me explain my problem.

Time Warner is testing out a new pricing plan for Internet usage.  Mr. Gonsalves' article titled, Time Warner Tests $150-Per Month Unlimited Internet exposes Time Warner's recent shunning of traditional pricing methods.  And all I can say is...yikes.  As a college student I spend most of my life on this laptop.  When I'm not doing schoolwork its watching streamed TV, listening to downloaded music, and playing games.

The newly proposed method would charge customers based on their Internet consumption.  This would be measured in Gigabytes of data downloaded.  The steps include plans ranging from 1 to 100GB, including the unlimited package.  Obviously, the prices increase with consumption levels.  Also, I understand the need for doing this.  The current networks we use to access and use the Internet will soon be unable to support this growing YouTube culture.  Time Warner COO Randell Hobbs stated:

...without expensive upgrades, Internet demand in the United States would outpace capacity within a few years, possibly as soon as 2012.

Something must be done, I know.  But this? I might be able to get by with the 100 GB per month, but with overage charges of $1 per gig, I risk my weekly allowance.  Believe me, as a proud owner of my very own checking account, I am fully aware of the pitfalls of overage charges.  

Time Warner says that 30% of its customers use 1GB a month, the $15 pricing plan.  To that I say, "Bull*&%&".  Who did they do their market research on, the Amish?  I know of only one person who could use a data package that small... my dad.  I didn't feel like interviewing him, but I'm sure it would have went a little like this:

"Hey dad do you think its fair that Time Warner is patterning its Internet pricing based on consumption rather then a flat rate?  And, how do you feel as someone who uses the Internet away from the office once a month about the suggested $15 price for such service?"

"Well hello Dane, go to Church today?"

"No dad."

"Well get to Church, and sign us up for that $15 plan, sounds like a steal."

Not much help I know.  It seems that Internet fiends worldwide will be relegated to deciding between our passion and eating.  So I know I would be paying $150 for sure.  And I absolutely could not afford that.  So I've decided that I might take up tennis, or chess perhaps, to relieve myself of the need to spend my days by the computer.

The greatest news ever

Let me preface this post by saying that I have never worked.  Oh, I've held jobs before.  Paper boy, banquet bartender (it was like Wedding Crashers every week), and unfortunately a short stint as a chaperone at a daycare.  These "jobs" took time out of my day and I earned a steady paycheck.  But I've never sat at a desk, I have yet to have my own office, and God forbid I am ever enclosed by a cubicle.  I figure that I'll have plenty of work drudgery to look forward to in the following 40 years of my life, so why start now?

But I fear not.  Why you may ask?  No, I haven't won the lottery or inherited an estate.  I just read  this fascinating article about workplace productivity.  I have dreamed for years now that I could be watching the Evolution of Dance and be on a conference call at the same time.  While that may be a bit of an exaggerated example, take a look at the facts.  

Workers who 'surf the Internet for fun at work-within a reasonable time limit of less than 20 percent of their total time in office-are more productive by about 9 percent'

You can't see me now, but right now I'm smiling ear-to-ear AND doing the robot.  I don't know what's more incredible; the 9 percent increase in productivity or that 20 percent of time spent on the Internet is somehow considered "reasonable".  Think about that for a second.  With a 40 hour work week that's 8 hours a week and roughly 400 hours a year.  With that kind of time I could:

• Watch "Charlie bit my finger" 24,000 times.
• Read every Fail Blog entry three times over.
• Learn every quote from every single Adam Sandler Movie ever made by heart.
• Become a World of Warcraft master a la Leeroy Jenkins

The possibilities are limitless.  Leave it up to the Aussies to promote workplace le-

isure over exerting actual effort.  These are the same people who brought us Outback Steakhouse, Foster's Beer, and, of course, Crocodile Dundee.  

While I can almost guarantee that bosses all over America will never adopt this form of leisure based management.  It makes me happy that when I get caught creeping on Facebook at work I'll have an excuse.  As long as I can still search for this article.

A Blockbuster Announcement?

Two pioneers of the entertainment have joined forces recently.  TiVo and Blockbuster just announced a deal to combine both of their respective business models to offer their customers on-demand movies.  Sounds great, but is this news that will grow TiVo and jumpstart Blockbuster?  This article, and myself hardly think so.

The agreement

will allow TiVo subscribers with Series 2 or higher boxes and a broadband Internet connection to rent and purchase movies on-demand from the video store chain's library.  In addition, TiVo DVR's will soon start appearing on Blockbuster shelves.

While the idea sounds like it could be an important bellwether of better times for each company, I could see this being no more than a small term fix at best.  In the current economy, often times, it's entertainment and luxury items that are the hardest hit.  Although people will still watch movies this service will require two components for it to work.  This is about one more then needed.  

Blockbuster needs this to be huge though.  They've been getting pounded by Netflix harder then Apollo beat on Rocky in (and let's be honest) the only good Rocky movie.  But Blockbuster is missing the point here.  The movie rental service is about more then just convenience.  Netflix is a fully integrated service that is both reliable and proficient.  The ability to rank movies, view ratings, and have the website offer suggestions is a quality that cannot be understated.

No offense to both companies, but have Blockbuster and TiVo been living in a cave recently?  On-demand viewing has been around forever, and at prices much lower then the $4 movies that they will offer.  Once again, the market is just too saturated with entertainment possibilities these days.  So I'm going to help them out, pull my best Simon Cowell, and offer some suggestions.

1. Make sure the entire movie library is available for watching.  None of this new release and "Bond 20th Anniversary Special" stuff.  I want to watch Police Academy 4, do not tell me I can't.
2. Offer the DVD extras.  How dare you charge me a DVD rental price and not offer the full extent of the DVD package.  The best part of the Notebook is the Rachael McAdams commentary section.
3. I have a bomb TV, I mean it's big.  Like, I have to turn it sideways to get it out of my door.  So I want to view movies in Widescreen.  Hell, I want them in HD and BluRay too.  If I can get a DVD that way, that's the way it needs to be.
4. Make previews optional.  I mean I love them as much as the next guy but here's the deal.  It's late and I'm with a girl.  She decides we're going to watch Made of Honor.  Fine, I'll jump on this grenade.  But do I need to see the trailers for 27 Dresses and Sweet Home Alabama?  Please, spare me.
5. Give us the option to rent TV shows.  At reasonable prices mind you.  I can see Family Guy on Cartoon Network, but if I'm going to pay for it, don't make me fork over more then $1 an episode.

These are just some suggestions.  But if they want this to work, they have to make it much better then the other options.  In this epic battle to keep us Americans glued to our couches there will be few winners.  It's entertainment's natural selection.  I could care less who makes it out alive, just as long as I can watch Caddyshack whenever I damn well please.

My Favorite Things

My Favorite Things

I'm going to write out some of my favorite things, so you can learn more about me. I hope you like it.

• Sweet looking sunglasses.


• Practical jokes


• Anything Pittsburgh


• Dummying Jarod Palmer in practice


• Jonas Brothers Official Website

Sponsored Search: A Brief History

The topic of my paper was search engine advertising. I would have liked to have kept it more detailed, but I felt that looking at it from both perspectives (search engine entity/web site entity) allowed my paper to have a more complete scope. This article, Sponsored Search: A Brief History, views my topic from that of the search engine entity.

Before I discuss the article itself I would like to discuss the potential reliability issue that arises. To include this article in my paper I had to reconcile the fact that it's written by two employees at Yahoo! with the fact that it presents a really nice summary of search engine advertising.

Authors Fain and Pederson summarize sponsored search, or "the presentation of text advertisements in response to a user's query". They begin by explaining the importance of Web Search to the public. People often take for granted that engines like Google and Yahoo provide a real service to them for free. How do they do it? The answer, while quite obvious, is often overlooked. The revenue generated from text advertisement helps fuel the business models of these companies.

While search engine advertising implies exactly how it reads, things are much more complicated then meet the eye. The algorithms that determine the relevancy of keyword searches most often produce the best results per individual. However, in order to generate revenue, search engines have added several wrinkles in price setting and result listings to help their bottom line. Fain and Pederson introduce the earliest occurrences of such in the beginning of the article.

The original search engine model used annotation via tags (keywords) that described a sites content. The idea was that the most relevant results were listed first. Unfortunately, sites caught on and abused these processes by manipulating these tags to outrank more relevant sites. GoTo was the first search engine to address the problem by manually editing its search results, today this work is automated using complex software.

Before the days of sponsored search, search engines relied on banner advertising to earn revenue. Much like a billboard they charged for space on sites where more memorable graphical ads could be placed. A dilemma occurred however. Keep users on their site longer to view these banners, or send users promptly to the sites appearing in search results. Paid search helped end this problem by tying search engine's revenue to the actual sites visited from search result requests. But measurement and pricing of these paid searches still remained an issue.

One of the biggeer advancements in advertising was the cost per click model used by Yahoo! beginning in 1996. Yahoo! charged companies each time an advertisement provided by the search service resulted in a click to a certain companies website. However, problems arose, and the measure of the effectiveness of these clicks became increasingly debated. Do these clicks result in an action from the searcher? Do the advertisements provide a lasting impression on the searcher? All of these concepts had to be reconciled. Almost every search engine has a different strategy they use to evaluate the cost of their service and its effectiveness. This is why sponsored search bids can fluctuate so much even daily.

Photoshop Pic

SeeNBSee?

Apple is frustrating sometimes.  The endless restrictions, the frustrating lack of information pertaining to new products, and the price...my god the price!  It seems as if one member of CNBC remained unaware to the Apple norm.  CNBC's Jim Goldman vented this week regarding the ban on laptop use by the media at the recent shareholders' meeting.  Apparently he hasn't gotten the memo.  It's probably been sitting on his desk for the past eight years or so.  

Tom Krazit seconds my sentiments in his article regarding the incident.  While Apple's requires more privacy detail at its meetings then Barrack Obama, its no reason to get bent out of shape over it.  As an Apple consumer (MacBook, iPod, iPhone) I know what comes with the territory.  I pay too much for an electronic product, then I battle through its incompatibility issues, and finally I watch as the battery eventually dies on me.  SIDE NOTE: Why is it that with most objects they either stop working or they break.  But batteries...they die.  So dramatic.  

Guess what though?   I still buy their stuff.  I feel like an abused wife on the Maury Povich show, I just keep coming back.  Apple's good to me.  My laptop is easy to use and runs as fast as the day I got it.  My iPhone completes me.  Its as if Steve Jobs took a newspaper, a laptop, and a cell phone, threw them in a blender, poured them in a glass and garnished with a little bit of love.  So, you just don't understand my relationship with Apple and you never will!

This brings be back to Jim Goldman.  I get it, Apple has your ***** in a vice.  But isn't it worth it?  Isn't it worth that special feeling you get when Steve struts up there, black turtle neck, sleeves up, and presents us with greatness?  For a great parody watch this Mad TV spoof.  Their OCD has everything to do with their success, why deny them that.  iTunes one of the, if not the biggest provider of downloadable entertainment on the web because of it.  Sorry Mr. Goldman that Steve Jobs doesn't need you to run an extremely successful enterprise.  But you sure as hell need him to write your article.  So take some advice.  Get a pen and paper, leave the laptop (that Apple helped pioneer) at home, and get the news out in an hour.  It can wait.  And also, check out the new App Store, it's great!

   At the price I pay, it should be made of gold.

...until death do us part

The internet has recently churned out another story with strong ties to our class.  Facebook (how apropo) has recently been fighting off protests from account holders over privacy issues (double whammy!).  The site, according to the AP,... 

backed down late Tuesday on policy changes that tens of thousands of users complained would grant the social-networking site the ability to control their information forever, even after they cancel their accounts.

Here's the deal.  Facebook changed their Terms of Service about a week ago.  Facebook's terms of service used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. The new change would have altered this wording, and your info would be floating around cyberspace forever.

Luckily, the consumerist.com, a public advocacy group, got wind of this.  They put pressure on Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, and he reverted back to the old terms.  See his blog here.  

The new terms were created with complete disregard for us account holders.  And they knew it.  Otherwise they would have announced such a change publicly to Facebookers everywhere.  The battle here is over the legal rights of ownership to an entity's image and information.  Facebook hopes that they could cash in on the property of their members, through release of their profiles.  It's slap in the face to many, but let's look at it more closely.

I understand Facebook's position on this one.  They're a business, and the objective is to make money. Many sites collect and hold onto consumer information, so why should Facebook be any different? Pulling a fast one on you're consumer base?  Ok, I get it.  But they got caught.  Alex Rodriguez taught about what to do when you make mistakes.  Apologize, come clean, make reparations.   He did, they did, and it did.  So, I guess I don't mind the actions of Zuckerberg and his team.  I mean, we have this great FREE social networking site.  It has extremely limited advertising and an easy to use interface.  It's been the icebreaker in relationships, business partnerships, and friendships.  So I'm willing to cut the "book" some slack here.  But I will be monitoring what I put up on that site a bit more closely.

Similarities????

Doodle 4 Google

Google has grown leaps and bounds since its infancy.  Probably the only thing more iconic then the search engine's leading algorithms is its logo.  Recently Google chose its winner in the Doodle 4 Google contest.  Google sets up four divisions in the contest, organized by age.  What makes it neat is that these are kids creating the logo.  Also, Google creates a theme for the doodler to follow.  This year's "My Community" theme is about describing what community means to you.  Check out some of the winners from past years as well, some pretty amazing stuff.

Kudos to the kids who take part in this, sharing their vision through art.  But even greater praise should be given to Google for such a creative contest.  What a great way to engage children's minds and enhance the profile of your company.  There's nothing better then a true win-win situation.

The winning submission: 14-16 year olds

Mashup

The mashup that I found was called Map Sex Offenders.
It takes information from the National Sex Offender Registry and combining it with Google Maps. This is an extremely useful tool if you're a parent worried about the safety of your children. You are able to visually see where these people live. The only thing that sucks is that it costs money. I guess Map Sex Offenders doesn't care about your kids that much.

Apples to Blackberries

It's been a rush to keep up with the iPhone lately.  For consumers, a new Application is released every ten seconds.  Business partner AT&T is constantly changing and updating its rate structure and business model around the phone.  And now it seems, Verizon and Blackberry are pumping extra cash into their latest baby, the Storm, to compete with Apple.

With the Storm now costing $203, technically the phone is being sold at a $4 loss.  For more pricing info go here.  However, the real story here is the lengths to which competition is going to compete with the growing popularity of the iPhone.  When Apple introduced the iPhone, AT&T sold it at a loss as well.  Now obviously they are making serious bank on the data plan, but Apple itself has something going for it that the Storm and its manufacturer don't.  That is the cash cow that we call iTunes.  The App Store is selling applications faster then programmers can create them, and Apple is getting much of the proceeds.

While 1 million Storm's have been sold, Verizon has little chance of ever matching the iPhone's popularity.  And right now they're paying for it, literally.

Analog: Analogous to Dumb

I have a hero.  A loud, flamboyant man in interesting dress. He is neither Liberace nor Elton John.  His name is Matthew Lesko.  While his teachings are tailored to the common man, his motto has recently been adopted by our own government.  But instead of our politicians funding the hard-working entrepreneur, they are spending our money on covering up their own inefficiencies.  What else is new?

Point being, this switch from analog to digital television has been one of the most embarrassing gaffes of recent memory.  Three days ago,

Obama called for a delay largely because the federal program that subsidizes converter boxes for those viewers hit a $1.34 billion funding limit this month (AP Article).

They hit their limit?  Fine, I can handle that.  Now consider that an estimated 10 million people have not switched as of yet.  This has been a program running for almost two years!!  Think of five friends.  Now twenty (if you have that many), how many have rabbit ears coming out of their tv sets?  If you said more than none, you're lying.  Who are these people, more importantly...where are they?  If thirty years ago Mike Teavee could get sent through time and space using television signals, a la a Wonka Bar, surely there are citizens in these modern times smart enough to realize that life offers more than four channels.

Now as the Feb 17 transition date looms, the politicians are starting to get antsy.  Obviously, spending more money on cheesy commercials and ridiculously expensive coupons is the way to get the other five percent of the country on board.  Obama and the Democrats are pushing hard for a transition delay set back to June 12th.  I guess they believe that in five months they can "convert" the same people the last twenty-four months of spending haven't touched. 

 Luckily, the few Republicans left in the Senate were able to band together and block said bill.  I would like to say that the transition date will remain as scheduled.  But it's hard to see through all the static.

Facebook: The Biggest Whopper Virgin

Facebook recently quashed the dreams of another inventive marketing campaign when it decided to make subtle changes to the new WHOPPER SACRAFICE page. See the story here. The muscle behind Burger King's recent surge of brilliant marketing campaigns was at it again. The application allowed users to receive a coupon for a free Whopper hamburger by unfriending 10 people on their Facebook accounts. The best part is that the app sends a message to the recently dumped friend explaining that 1/10th of a hamburger is more important then them, crushing their self-confidence into a flame-broiled heap. The application was a great service to me, personally. I was able to kill two birds with one stone, knock out a few unwanted people, and get a delicious treat. Kind of like Happy Gilmore winning the gold jacket, beating Shooter McGavin, and getting his Granny's house back.

So what happened? Facebook, in all their infinite wisdom, decided to disable the defriending portion of the application. That's like Mr. Miyagi telling Daniel-son not to use the "crane kick" against Johnny Lawerance in Karate Kid. Burger King, humbled by the decision, discontinued the application all-together, immediately after.

Where does Facebook get off? This a website that let's teenage girls post scantily clad pictures of themselves for all to see (especially me, keep up the good work Facebook), but won't let America's capitalistic spirit tho thrive? Any I challenge you to find anything more American then stabbing a friend in the back for free fast food. It makes me wonder if Facebook is allergic to exposure. They could have really embraced Whopper Sacrifice, aligned themselves strategically with Burger King, then made a quick buck.

Facebook has yet to comment on the reason for their actions. Something tells me it may have to do with the "feelings" of their members. Boo-frakking-hoo is what I say. Facebook could have decided to make the defriending part of the application temporary...like a week or something. Hell, I'd defriend family members if that was the case. A free burger and a week without having to see my sister posting on my wall? Now that's a win-win situation.

Seacrest high fives a blind guy?

Well, American Idol auditions are underway, and that means unintended hilarity seeping out of every pixel of my TV.  The Tuesday season premier was more then I could have asked for.  Why you might ask?  Just watch...  

American Idol Video

Poor Seacrest, immediately he realized his gaffe, and turned it into one of the most awkward hand slaps ever.  I'll cut him some slack though.  He's on TV more then Regis Philbin these days, and rarely makes these kinds of mistakes.  

Not to toot my own horn here, but I saw this coming a mile away.  Any time you mix cameras and the handicapped, you get a delicious blunder cocktail.  Let's not forget, however, that this blind guy can sing.  I know I'll be rooting for him, but I bet Seacrest won't. 

The Biggest News of the New Year!!!

This blog has begun...that is all.