Deys.ca | Bill Deys

So I had a little weekend project. I’ve been on the whole local and organic kick for the past while and you can’t get more local or organic then growing your own! Now my garden isn’t up and going yet, I had to do a little construction. Why? Well a few years back we tried a garden. We pulled up sod, put a little divider fence in, got a nice selection of stuff all planted, and… Well we have rabbit, we have pet rabbits but, they aren’t the problem. Our neighborhood is crawling with wild rabbits, and they loved our veggies. Might as well have set a table setting out for them! We tried marigolds to no avail. So I build a 4′ X 8′ wood frame, 1′ deep and put a 3′ removable fence around it. Hoping that will keep them out. Now I need to get a load of dirt to fill it up! I am going to cheat this year and get some veggies that have already sprouted but next year I’m going to do my homework over the winter and get things going early!

My next step is to grab an old pool filter from for to convert to a rain barrel and plumb it up to the down spout and get a watering system hooked up! Pics of that when it’s in!

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Who really wants to be marketed to?

We have things like TiVo to skip ads on TV, and ad blockers to hide the banners on websites. I think that is some proof of my point.

So why do people think it could be even remotely effective to JUST push ads on social sites? Really think! We don’t like to be interrupted when we can’t control it so we build new tools to gain back the control. With all these social sites the control is baked into them from the start. That is where the phrase “permission based marketing” came from. Users who choose to follow you are giving you SOME permission to market to them. Abuse the privilege that the user has the control to unfollow you.

So how do you get, and keep, followers. We first let me ask you a question. Don’t you like to support that guy you know in the shoe business more then the chain store that interrupts the finale of LOST? Be that guy you know. When you’re on Twitter don’t just push links. Be a real person, talk a bit about what you are having for lunch, about the hockey game last night. If people see you as that person, then you are that guy they know who is in the shoe business and when they go looking for shoes guess whose name will pop up!

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Technorati Tags: friend, marketing, permission, tivo, Twitter

So far the iPad is one slick device. The keyboard dock makes it very compelling as a laptop travel replacement. I’ve actually been using it that way at work for most of my email and a lot of blogging!

Spell check is genius. It should have been on the iPhone from the start, so much so that I’ve had it thorough a jailbreak for a long time.

It is however one heavy unit. That is part of the reason I still like my Kindle for actual book reading. I’ve found that after about twenty minutes of reading, while holding the iPad without resting it on anything it starts to wear on the hands and arms.

I also think as a book reader there are two other issues. One is that the screen hurts my eyes, especially in the dark. I’m OKay reading email and feeds on it, it the long term page after page reading of a book that gets to my eyes. It also does to much. Too many distractions that just are not there on the Kindle. I used to think a clock on the Kindle would be nice but I kind of like that it’s not there to distract from the mission when picking up the Kindle. Neither points are a big deal, don’t get me wrong I love the iPad. It just isn’t a book reader replacement for me.

While I was first setting up the iPad I did find the App compatibility frustrating. One app doesn’t work at all, some work with scaling, some are universal and some are iPad only. Just sorting it out is a job, don’t know how this can be made easier. I also think there are some apps that are not universal that are a rip off. The iPad version doesn’t add functionality but you have to pay, often more, to get a version that works. This isn’t Apples fault but cmon guys, give me something extra or make it free.

There are a lot of things about this thing that are just magic! It’s an amazing device in a lot of ways. I’ll be working on some write ups of some of the things I’ve learned. I can do a lot of neat tricks mashing up a few apps and other tools that I’m looking forward to sharing. Probably in the near future so stay tuned.

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Technorati Tags: apple, iPad