Archive for the 'rants' Category

An Historic Blog Post

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

On Twitter last night I posted a correction to an email blast from President Barack Obama where he said, “this is a historic step.” The correction of course, is that it was “an historic step.” This is based on everything I ever learned in English class and read in any grammar books through my schooling […]

Why Do Sound Engineers Insist On Actively Mixing Vocals?

Friday, January 16th, 2009

They’re teaching it wrong. I mean, they have to be for every sound engineer I’ve met to get it wrong the first time. (By every I mean every one but you, of course) Oh… hi. Let me catch you up on this rant that’s been going on in my head for about 4 years now. […]

Don’t Forget To Proofread

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

Barack Obama spoke in Dover, New Hampshire the other day, and since (a) that’s only one town over from me and (b) I wasn’t there, I was eager to read the local paper’s report on the event. As I read through, I saw two instances where the reporter, Robert M. Cook, left a string of […]

No Sirius iPod Coming Soon

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Every few years, the rumor mill perks up with talk, speculation, or simply hope that Apple and Sirius will team up and put Sirius content on the iPod. It ain’t gonna happen folks. At least not any time soon. And the reason is simple: Apple makes money selling music on the iTunes store. Until Apple […]

Beware the Debit Card

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

We came back from our Memorial Day weekend away to find an urgent message from Citibank. My wife’s Debit Mastercard had been fraudulently used down in Mexico for a number of days, and Citibank wanted to start the process of canceling the old card and issuing a new one. This certainly isn’t the first time […]

UNH Students Targeted by RIAA, UNH reports it wrong

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

I hate to complain here, but I wanted to get something correct online in hopes that it sticks. Recently the RIAA has sent threatening letters to between 30 and 50 University of New Hampshire students here in Durham, accusing them of illegally sharing songs over the Internet using Limewire or Gnutella. Unfortunately, every article that […]

Truth In Journalism Falters at Local Fair

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

Yesterday, we took the family to a local fair to enjoy the sights, sounds, rides, and food that go along with it. My wife, Lisa, a vegetarian, took great interest in the fresh veggie wraps at one of the food stands. While we were there, Amanda Dumond, a reporter from the local paper, was doing […]

You Still Have To Dial a 1

Thursday, August 9th, 2007

It’s time to change my cell phone number. A year ago I migrated to a New Hampshire number and got 603-781-9445. Ever since, I’ve been getting wrong numbers, often to the tune of 3 or 4 daily. The problem is that parts of northern Massachusetts use area code 781 and, yep, there’s a 944 exchange […]

Traveling Woes

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

The agent (again) confirmed that someone with a name not dissimilar to mine is on a watchlist, and that’s causing all these problems.Let’s hope the new DHS TRIP program can resolve this once and for all, otherwise I might want to go visit the DHS in person to fix it. It’s bad enough having to experience this, it’s worse when your children have to watch you get “screened” (as they did this time) and it’s unacceptable when your pre-school children are forced to go through it themselves (as happened the last time).

Website Metrics: Clicking and Missing the Point

Friday, March 30th, 2007

Focusing on one metric at a time yields nothing, hence the need for Integrated Path Analysis.Unfortunately, Brandt’s goal of “end-to-end” analysis falls short because, well, he’s *starting* at the end by beginning his analysis when someone clicks on an ad…. Was that *single* ad impression the sole deciding factor that lead them to click and then be comfortable purchasing from said vendor?I doubt it.Chances are, they had seen other advertising for this vendor, and all of that *in total* added up to the customer’s comfort level being high enough to move forward with the purchase.