the fire project This little viddy is what happens when you mix, a roommate, some ninjas, (no wait that was my imagination going off there) a barking chihuahua, kerosene and a match.6.3 MB
Goo I think Goo and I are going to be really good friends. See the encounter for yourself.2.4 MB
Action figure Jesus Action figure Jesus starring in "jesus…jesus christ." He's so holy.5.7 MB
Hey man (Amen) Action figure Jesus is back in "Hey Man (Amen)". I don't know why he speaks German when he meets the devil.7.2 MB
iSwitched Here's what happens when you mix a new Mac with a former PC user. Rean switched.6.7 MB
RedRocket Crotch This is a typical Friday at school with my students. No seriously.6.9 MB
Outdoors + Gi At the karate bug bash, I gave unsu a go with the cam rolling.5.8 MB
Punchin out candles It's only fun when it works and you don't get burned. Ugh, that was a silly play on words.1.9 MB
It's loaded with Andriod 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and that OS is very slick. It's solved some of the clumsiness of 2.0 which I'm running on my WonderMedia Andriod tablet currently. With 2.0 I still get the feeling that I'm running Linux and the year is 1999, when I know what I want to do but am not sure where I need to explore to find it.
Overall the Novo7 is very cool for the $100 price tag. It comes loaded with a bunch of apps which leaves you in a better position than trying to install them yourself. However there's no access to the Google marketplace. Facebook pre-loaded is a definite plus as my WonderMedia tablet could access the Marketplace, but as a Chinese device so not all of the North American apps, such as Facebook were available. The Novo7 is really well suited for social media. I found myself using it for Facebook almost exclusively. Games also worked great on it. I played a few rounds of Angry Birds and Spiderman. The processor performed well with those games. Where I found myself questioning the hardware was running YouTube. Although this comes pre-loaded as well, I had two crashes watching YouTube videos. Outside of the crashes it played video very well and would certainly be fine for watching the odd video. It especially performs well if you use the video player that's installed to watch videos.
The price can't be beat as far as performance goes. I honestly don't know why people buy ebook readers instead of one of these. For the price you get so much more value and Kindle is also pre-installed. It also comes with a high definition camera that honestly I didn't play around with much. A front and rear facing camera make this tablet perfect for Skype...if only Skype was pre-installed. :(
Overall it's a fun little tablet to play with and there's a lot of value based on it's price tag.
Overheard on the subject of companies sharing our cloud data with government: "I refuse to take part in the cloud movement. I don't trust any of them."
I read a book a few years back called "Mind Manipulation Ancient and Modern Ninja Techniques". The section of the book that really stayed with me was recognizing common ploys to control your enemy. Ploys such as Anger, Greed, Fear, Sympathy and Lust were outlined. While I was teaching graphic design, I tried to impart these ploys in advertising and marketing, to my students so they would be able to become better communicators, analyzers and ninjas!
Today I discovered a marketing ploy so cunning that I have to share.
Introducing the Starbucks Gold Card
How do you as a food and beverage establishment find out who your customer is? I mean do you really need to know who's buying a latte from you to continue selling them coffee? Good marketers know that it's a lot easier to reach your customers when you know who they are, and it's a lot less expensive to market to them when you don' t have to use traditional advertising to reach them.
How do you make customers give you all of their sweet little details so you can continue to market to them and make them feel elite at the same time? You create a rewards program so cunning and perfect I could see the "value" and merit instantly. In fact, it's marketing genius.
Here's how it works. You buy a gift card in store. You charge it up with the amount you want. You register online, essentially give them all your deets. Then you behave like a good little consumer and charge it not once but a number of times. They will eventually reward you with another piece of plastic to replace your common card. Only this plastic is gold Oooohhh Aaahhhhh!, and it HAS YOUR NAME ON IT.
Then instead of giving your customer every 10th coffee free, I mean coffee cards haven't been invented yesterday, they give you every 15th free. I quickly did the math. I spend about $4.50 for a grande latte x 14 = 63 dollars, before you get a $4.50 latte "on the house". That works out to 7% savings. That's even under the 10% norm for similar membership based loyalty programs.
How can they get away with this and all of your consumer details too? They wrap it in a pretty bow, and make you feel better than the average customer. When I waited tables years ago, a gold card meant you qualified with a high salary. Not everyone had one. Today they are common. Banks use the same ploy to try and get you to pay 19.9% interest - since the color of the card is gold, so you must have elevated social status. Hogwash!!!
Here's the hook. In reality you likely over time will buy 14 lattes, so how valuable is your private details to you anymore? Is it worth revealing all to get a discount and a few extra pumps of syrup on the house?
I think things are moving in the direction where our personal information will become currency to barter with. Perhaps in time it's a simple chip in our forehead, or the mobile in our pocket that will be scanned as you enter the door of the store. And now to discuss an online store that is doing just that.
Step right up and join Groupon!
What's that you say? Groupon. In case you haven't joined, be prepared to give them your email address immediately upon browsing their website. That's right they've locked access down to segment their customers by location, and close the sale with a quick email signup. I signed up using shutup@hotmail.com to bypass their modal window. It let me in even though I made the email up on the spot. I wasn't there to join I was there to snoop. I was impressed by their application though as a few minutes went by and it alerted me with a message in red at the top of the page that my email wasn't valid. Tee hee.
Their tactic is a lot less pretty than the Starbucks loyalty program, but the end result is the same. You get to save money by becoming a member. Which makes me question their actual market penetration when they are skewing their membership numbers in that manner. Even to see a press release, or contact them, etc requires getting by that sign up barrier.
Someone finally had the balls to turn every single website visitor into a member whether they want to join or not. I found it highly offensive today but again this is where things are heading, and consumers are becoming less and less restricted in giving out their details in exchange for something, whether it be access, savings, or elite status.
The world is changing so rapidly. A few years ago brands were big on contests as it was a way to create a huge warm lead customer database to continue to market to. Loyalty programs soon followed, but the landscape is changing again to better marry technology at the point of sale. Big brands lead the way and soon smaller companies will follow along in effort to stay in business and adapt.
An old Chinese adage comes to mind: "Under fragrant bait there is certain to be found a hooked fish."
Well it's been 10 years blogging. Shizamo has seen it's share of fun, good times, laughs and tears. As promised, I've complied a list of my favorite 100 posts for the last 10 years. The exercise of reading through my archives started 2 days ago. Lunch hours and evenings dedicated to going through every post. Thanks Jeff for feeding Vaeda. :)
This cross section is a nice summary of my life over the past 10 years. I'm so glad I started this, and so glad I continued doing this. For whatever reason propelled me it's so valuable to me now to look up milestones over the past decade. Milestones such as getting my black belt in karate, buying a house, getting engaged, my Dad passing, my 18 year old chihuahua Ren dying, and having a baby. Vaeda Zo you are so loved, maybe you'll read this someday who knows?
As I was scribbling down post ids, I wrote a simple word or two to sum up the post. Rather than cutting and pasting the actual titles of all of these posts, I'm a mom now, I can't stay up past midnight, and I need to make this post on Dec 8th! I'm writing my notes with the posts. Think of it as a Shizamobot index. So here it is, dig in and please if you've stuck around this long, continue on the journey with me. I'm still going strong and love your company. xo
Photos of Belize, Jul. 26th - Aug. 10th, 2003. Vacation, Mayan ruins and snorkling.
Funsies!
For your mathly addictions. My java calculator...(You need the Java Plug-in to view.) Psst...try dividing by zero, I think I handled that quite nicely. ;) Check it...
How do you become a geek you ask? Hmmm. I dunno. All I can tell is how it came about for me... Here's an except: 1981: I use a commodore Vic20 for the first time. 5 kb RAM + 15 kb ROM = 20 kb. I want to learn Basic.. Read More...
Ren had a bad attitude most days, he bit people, but he knew tricks too.
