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So I get a lot of spam. I mean a lot. Probably 300 – 500 a day. I assume its because I am awesome, but its really because my email is listed as the registered owner and tech contact on about 25 domains.

While Apple mail rocks, it still has to sort the spam to my junk folder, and spam is still in the way when I check my webmail.

Enter solution:

Now Google bought out part of (maybe all of) Postini, and made it cheap. $3 per user, per year.

I have implemented this on my email account here at factor 1. Let me tell you, in the past few days, my spam has dropped to 5 or 10 a day. My Apple mail catches those.

This is the same system google uses to filter the amazingly spam free gmail. So I essentially have the gmail filtering system, on my commercial hosted email account.

I would recommend this to anyone with an email address. I have had good success so far, and very limited legit email caught in the filter (which I can check online)

https://www.postini.com/postini_solutions/email_security.php

My Friend Seth (he may not know we are friends yet) posted a great thought on the ratio of Signal to noise.

This really rings true being a web designer. We are often asked about creating secondary, and tertiary (and beyond) websites, just to link back to the main site. People tend to believe that throwing more billboards up will increase sales or traffic.

I think sometimes, these people need to look within, and see how they can better improve their company, product, service, or customer care. Then see what that does to sales. But thats the hard way. Its easier to throw money and marketing at the problem to see what tricks customers into the door.

PC manufacturers wont take your kool-aid of an OS and keep using what was tried and tre, even in the PC world.

Windows XP lives on through licensing loopholes

I guess this should force microsoft to build a better system, and fast. If history is any indication, it could be another 3 – 4 years for another microsoft OS attempt. Apple will have had 4 or 5 OS releases since the original XP, and Linux will have had time to convince the mainstream that Ubuntu is a great Windows alternative.

Sometimes I dont get out of the office as much as I would like.

This helps.
jpgmag.com

I can sit here, and spend 10 minutes exploring the 4 corners of our globe, as seen through the eyes and lenses of people I dont know.

Gets the creative juices going sometimes.

seriously. these are awesome.

See the rest here

Found via Brad

So US airways decided this month to charge more for window and aisle seats, and leave the less than desirable middle seats at the current rates.

What I see they are doing here, is US air carriers continuing to drive a wedge between the consumer and the airline. Flying used to be fun. 10 years ago it took 4 hours to fly from LA to NY. Now it takes 6.5 hours with all the waiting on the run way. The TSA has their own set of issues. Flying is becoming more of a hassle than ever.
(more…)

Eighty-five percent of respondents agreed that the quality of a business owner’s website is an important factor in earning the consumer’s trust. Over 75 percent of respondents said they were more likely to make a purchase from “an unfamiliar business with a quality website,” than “a poor website from a known business.”

This is from a Study by Nielsen and WebVisible as reported by Peter Krasilovsky

How does your site hold up? Would 85% of people trust you based on your site?

Warning: This is a technical, website coding post. Not really marketing related.

So I was coding a site today while waiting at the dentist office (I am a geek I know). And I decided I would name one of my Div IDs “960wrapper”, to indicate that this div was 960px wide. Makes sense right? After doing this, and some other code the issue arises. My html is not seeing this div. at all.

I added a border stroke to outline it
nothing.

I added a background color, and a min-height.
still nothing.

Keep in mind I have no internet, since I’m in a waiting room. So no google searches, no CSS xray tool.

I am about to pull my short hair out.

In some playing, tweaking, and overall trying to do anything to make this simple div wrapper to work, I re-title it to just “wrapper”

And BAM it works. I think I let out a little victorious battle cry in midst of the dentist office.

So what I figured out:
Div ID’s seem to not like names starting with numbers.

I did a few google searches back at the office. Nothing. I cant find anything related to this issue. Can any web CSS geeks point me to where I can learn why this method wont work?

ATA / Aloha Airlines has stopped all flights to and from Hawaii on Thursday.

Here is my dilemma. There are ATA passengers stuck on the island with a round trip ATA ticket. The remaining airlines that service Hawaii, have decided to take advantage of the situation, and raise their prices.

What!?!!! In a world where good marketing and PR can make or break a business, why do we have companies continuing to take advantage of a customer. If it were up to me and I owned an airline, I would have flew all ATA customers off the island, for free or dirt cheap. My airline would have been seen as the hero, and I would have received a lot of news buzz for being a nice guy. But thats me I guess.

I know this is old school, and yes biblical, but if you as a company can take care of people because you want to, because its the right thing to do, the money wont matter.