In one of the organizations that I am involved with, we routinely include an “email” field on all marketing and ordering materials.  Next to the email line, there is a box marked “Yes, please add me to your mailing list.”

While this is standard procedure, it has presented an ethical question regarding adding the names to the list.  One would assume, that if they filled out the email part of the form, that they do indeed want to subscribe to the newsletter/list.   However, in the majority of cases we have noticed people are filling out their email address but not checking the box.

So what should we do?  Should we not add the email address since the box wasn’t checked, or should we add the email addresses since they were provided, and they can always unsubscribe later.  My first impulse is the latter, since you wouldn’t fill out a blank on the form if you didn’t want to be added.  Besides, it is easier to ask forgiveness later, right?

Just curious what YOU would do in the same position.

Macs suck.

I’ve been saying that for decades now. Plain and simple. Macs suck. I hate everything Apple stands for and always have. Think Different. Yeah right. Liberal propaganda. I have despised macs so much, I even refused to buy an iPod, (and got one “given” to me) just because I didn’t want to buy anything from the company that provides “user friendly” aka dumbed down computers to schools and ad agencies because people are lazy and don’t want to really learn how to use a real computer. I sometimes think that our culture is doomed to be like the planet in Star Trek the Next Generation that didn’t even know how to use their “guardian” computer system because it was so “user-friendly.” “user friendly”= “computers for people who probably shouldn’t even be using one.”

All that being said out in the open, I decided to give Mac/Apple a chance today, I finally decided to go buy an iPhone. I have been dissatisfied with my current phone/cell plan for a while, and I really want some of the Internet features that I don’t have on mine. Rather than go Blackberry, I decided to go with the iPhone. It was a HUGE decision from a mac-hater such as myself. Huge. But I swallowed my PC pride and went into the AT&T store in Ankeny, intenet on buying my first apple product.

The service associate was nice, even pulled down some accessories but wasn’t too pushy. I feigned lack of knowledge on a few things and asked him to explain activation and other small things… all of which are readily available on iphone.com. After he disappeared into the back, he came with a new 8GB iPhone, in all of its glory.

He continued to punch a few keys, asked for my name, address, social security #, etc. He then scanned the iPhone and the holster thing I picked out, then informed me there would be an additional $150 deposit.

“Hold on there, what?”

Seems as though in addition to the phone, and the activation fee, there is a credit check and my check was flagged to require a $150 deposit. I had specifically allocated enough funds both monetarily and in my pride/decision making process to allow the purchase of an iPhone at $400 and some accessories at $40-60. I did NOT know about any such $150 deposit required to begin a plan with AT&T. The sales associate, sensing his commission sliding away, tried to help things out. “All carriers require a deposit when you start them,” he said. “Not all,” I told him. “Mine didn’t.” He then explained that the $150 would be returned in the form of a check in 12 months once the first year is up. Well, isn’t that great, let’s do the math.

$150 at 5% interest = $157.50 that they would have in the bank at the end of the “deposit period” thereby making $7.50 on just me, if they held it in a 5% savings or checking account with interest. Multiply that by the number of people signing up for AT&T… and you have a nice little racket going there.

I stood there in shock, pondering what to do. I was prepared to spend close to $500. but close to $700? I just couldn’t do it. I put my card away and started to walk out, muttering how ridiculous that policy was rather loudly so other customers could hear. As I was almost out the door, one of the managers asked what was going on, was told, and tried to yell after me “but wait, we can…” but I wouldn’t hear anything of it. They deliberately hid their little $150 deposit fee, and I wasn’t going to have anything to do with a company like that.

I left the store with even more disdain for Apple and AT&T as I did before. Was it Apple’s fault? partially .. AT&T’s fault..definitely.

To have someone with $600 ready to purchase and then pull a fast one like that … AT&T should be ashamed.

Ok, so having Monday nights free is something new to me, since even before the play, I have had commitments on Mondays. So I SHOULD have been able to catch the last 2 episodes of Heroes. oops.

Luckily, more and more networks are putting their shows online, but for me its hard to keep track of “where.” Since some networks are fighting itunes, and some are here there and nowhere, it was nice to hear that the new TV Guide Video Guide web site links to the show videos right on their site.

Visit TV Guide Online Video Guide

Definitely one I’ll keep bookmarked.

Many people involved in social and community marketing google themselves on a daily basis.  While one adage says “don’t google yourself so much, you’ll break it off” – inspecting your search engine results can give you an insight into your personal brand.  What comes up first is what will first be presented to others googling your name to find out about you.  By examining the top 20 results, we can start to know if the top results are things we can control, or if others are in control of our brand (by appearing on web sites outside of our control).

Here are my results:

1. troyrutter.com – within my control
2. amazon.com profile – some things within my control, filled in a lot of blanks in my profile
3. ruttersramblings.com – my podcast
4. podshow.com – my podshow listener account profile
5. wikipedia entry – yes, my meager wikipedia entry
6. Linkedin profile
7. Heinemann authors page – my publisher’s “about Troy” page
8. 43things.com – a site I registered on once, contains minor goals
9. Technoratti – summary of all tags referencing me
10. Secretsofonlineriches.com – blog I started but have abandoned
11. ahsalum.org – article on my book from my high school
12. troyrutter.com/acting – category on my personal blog
13. twitter – twitter results
14. twitter – twitter resuts
15. Heinemann – main page for my book
16. Communitytheater.com – discussion on directing my current play
17. Amazon.com – main page for my book
18. Some other Troy Rutter
19. Ames Community Theater – the theater I am involved with
20. commodoresite.com – a site I built for my commodore 64 interest

So, out of 20 most are sites that I control myself.  This includes my personal blog, podcast, linkedin, twitter and to some extent my amazon profile.  By controlling the majority of your top 20 results for your name, you can keep control of your personal brand more easily, by  working to get sites you control into your top results.

Try it and see – do you control YOUR top 20 google results?

Only a year or so ago I went on a Commodore computer shopping spree courtesy of eBay.  I ended up with 7 commodore 64′s in various states of working order, 2 cassette decks, 2 disk drives, hundreds of disks, an old disk notcher, a parallel cable to connect my laptop to the 151 disk drive, misc. cartridges, and other things related to Commodore.   Since then I also bought two computer carts, one that I put together and almost sold the same day.   Now I have a black/silver cart with power strip zip-tied on it, and a small TV monitor, offering me the ability to fire up the 64 any time I want to.

But I never do.

I loved my Commodore 128 and grieve for the time I simply told my mother to “sell it at a garage sale.”  Growing up, I created several games, music and graphics for the thing… plus it introduced me to the wide world of online communities via QuantumLink.

But in today’s world of emulators, is there any real need to keep “real” commodore 64′s and “real” 5 1/4 disks around the apartment/house?   I have limited space being in an apartment, and having 2 giant storage tubs of antiquated computer gear does not serve any great purpose.

So, this morning I threw away 3 of the commodores, and 1 datasette unit, leaving only the unit that is on the computer cart left.   It will be lonely, and maybe it too will disappear from existence like the others.  But sometimes you just have to let go.  It’s not exatly spring cleaning, but maybe we need another things in the Fall, such as “hardware cleanup day” where we get rid of all the extra SCSI andUSB cables, and throw away the two 16MB video cards you will never use.  6 mice in your closet after you bought the “ultimate mouse”?    Throw it.

You’ll feel much better.

 (part of Chris Brogan’s 100 blog post topics)

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