Now Sporting Wordpress 2.3.2

January 2, 2008
Filed Under Wordpress | Leave a Comment

Please clear your cache! I’ve installed the latest version of Wordpress and made several theme tweaks and additions. I’m pleased to announce that all of the plugins I now have are compliant with Wordpress 2.3, I hope this cycle time continues to improve. If you have any problems or have suggestions for improvement, please advise! I welcome your thoughts.

Some Wordpress Tips:

- If you have a have inactive plugins you should delete them to make your blog run faster.

My Wordpress 2.4 wishlist for Matt Mullenweg and friends (pretty short):

- Post previews that are forwardable to people for feedback in proper link structure with content.

- Reduction of cycle time of plugin incompatibility.

- stop emails from being sent from a spam trackback.

Chicago Tribune User Generated Content Pioneer Terrence Elijah Armour Passes Away

December 31, 2007
Filed Under Chicago | Leave a Comment

(Chicago Tribune photo of Terry Armour shaking Sam Zell’s hand by Charles Osgood / December 20, 2007)

The Chicago Tribune has communicated that Terry Armour has passed away. This is both sad and shocking as Terry Armour was so relatively young and full of life in every thing that he did. You can see how much he was loved by his coworkers and the public so clearly in the stories readers have told.

Chicago Blackhawks beat writer Chris Kuc discusses Terry’s universal appeal:

People knew him by sight, and if they didn’t, they instantly recognized him as soon as they heard his distinctive voice. And Terry enjoyed that. He relished being recognized and loved talking with people, whether he knew them or was meeting them for the first time. Sitting with Terry in the Stadium Club during a Sox rain delay would bring a steady stream of admirers by the table, ranging from celebrities to fans to concession-stand workers. It prompted me to once ask him, “Is there anyone you don’t know?” He said, “I don’t think so.”

These tributes are emotional and show his personality. But they miss his most under appreciated quality – encouraging interaction with people, listening to their thoughts and creating stories from these interactions. He lived user generated content long before the term was fashionable. My favorite experience with Terry was in 2003. I had breakfast with a friend and his column that day asked for people to send in thoughts on their favorite horror flick of all time. I jokingly said to my friend “Cubs NLCS Series 2003″ (the year of Steve Bartman). My friend said, “You should email that answer in to Terry”. What you see below is the email thread (read it from the bottom up) where he eventually joked that I was trying to take his job!

Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 16:54:21 -0500 [10/20/2003 05:54:21 PM EST]
From: “Armour, Terry” <TArmour@tribune.com>
To: Me
Subject: RE: Favorite horror flick
Headers: Show All Headers

jeez, what are you trying to do, take my job? funny stuff. i’ve got to get
the sequel stuff in there, too.

—–Original Message—–
From: Me
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 4:52 PM
To: Armour, Terry
Subject: RE: Favorite horror flick

Finally, you already know that there is a sequel in the making…FOR
SURE…you just have no idea when or where it will appear on your screen…

OK, that’s it, I’m done with that, it’s taken it’s full course.

Quoting “Armour, Terry”:

boom shakalaka, thanks d……..

—–Original Message—–
From: Me
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 4:42 PM
To: Armour, Terry
Subject: RE: Favorite horror flick

“Why create fiction when reality is far more frightening?”

(just so you have my reasoning down)

Quoting “Armour, Terry”:

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…..dude, this rocks. you
made it. you will be in on sunday. christ, that’s pretty effing funny.

—–Original Message—–
From: Me
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 4:36 PM
To: Armour, Terry
Subject: Favorite horror flick

Cubs NLCS Series 2003

The article which he eventually printed that I can’t seem to find online (maybe the Tribune can help out) but I remember it saying “Let it go, Dave. Let it go.” as a mocking reference to the Cubs and Steve Bartman. That friend who asked me to email Terry still says “Let it go, Dave. Let it go.” to me about things all the time! It’s my most personal interaction with Terry, but it’s where I noticed how he turned to others to create user generated content. I noticed this pattern of user contributions in so many of his future articles. So my friend, I thank you for your contributions and let you go onto that great newspaper in the sky…

San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit Commission Increases Nightly and Weekend Service in 2008

December 27, 2007
Filed Under Chicago, Customer Experience | Leave a Comment

I’m planning an upcoming trip to San Francisco and I was startled by the massive difference in both service level and tone between BART and the CTA. As you likely know, the CTA here in Chicago is threatening major service cuts and fare increases($1.75 to $2.25 with transit card):

Due to insufficient state funding, the CTA will be forced to raise fares and eliminate service on January 20, 2008.

The CTA will eliminate 81 of its 154 bus routes; lay off more than 2,400 employees; and raise fares to record levels. In addition, with more than 700 fewer buses operating due to the bus route eliminations, the CTA will close three of its eight garages. Service on the remaining routes will be provided by other locations.

The CTA is fighting for funding to avoid these cuts. Contact your state legislators and tell them how important mass transit is to you. Go to SaveChicagolandTransit.com (UPDATE -site is offline 7/2009) for more information.

Meanwhile, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit Commission (BART) is scheduling a 33% increase in service while increasing fares a nominal amount (about 5%):

“Just as everyone is winding down with their holiday gift giving, we’re going to deliver our customers a goody bag of great service,” BART Board President Lynette Sweet said. “We hope our plans for richer service will put a big smile on the faces of all our 360,000 weekday riders.”

Starting January 1, 2008, BART riders will see enhanced service including:

More trains, more often after 7 p.m. Monday-Saturday & all the time Sunday

Double the trains to most stations on the San Francisco International Airport (SFO)/Millbrae extension

Faster commutes times and direct service from Millbrae to downtown San Francisco

Earlier start time for train service to SFO

33% SERVICE INCREASE MEANS MORE TRAINS, MORE OFTEN
The new schedule change will mean more frequent service after 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and all the time on Sunday. During this time period trains will run every 15 minutes instead of every 20 minutes.

“That’s a 33% increase in service,” BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger said. “We’re extremely excited to be able to offer the same frequency of service at night that our customers currently enjoy during the day. This will be a boon for drivers who are becoming increasingly frustrated with nighttime and weekend traffic jams. We have plenty of parking during this time, giving people a greater incentive to avoid the traffic tie ups, save the environment, jump on BART and enjoy a hassle-free ride.”

FASTER, MORE FREQUENT SERVICE ON SFO AND MILLBRAE LINES
Starting January 1, the popular Pittsburg/Bay Point (Yellow) line will begin serving SFO at all times while the Richmond (Red) line will go directly into Millbrae Station starting January 2 (January 1, BART will run on a Sunday schedule). This means that commuters going from Millbrae to downtown San Francisco will see a six-minute (16%) drop in their travel time.

Which region is truly more green? Which region is more focused on quality of life? It’s amazing how two similar web sites in terms of function can send such massively different messages, isn’t it?

ReadWriteWeb’s 2008 Web Predictions

December 25, 2007
Filed Under Blogging, Change Management, Customer Experience | Leave a Comment

A nice list of the things related to search that might affect you next year.

Many of my thoughts are contained here and I’m kinda busy lately, so linking to this post will serve as a proxy.

I hope your 2008 is most outstanding and prosperous!!!

Techcrunch Announces Tech President Poll

December 20, 2007
Filed Under Blogging | Leave a Comment

Michael Arrington announced his Tech President Presidential Primary Poll. So research the candidates – you know actually spend some time educating yourself on the issues like the national debt – then and only then should you vote here.

Analysis: Smart move for Mr. Arrington. This will put focus on not only tech issues, but broaden the Techcrunch base of readership most likely. The alternative media continues it’s increasing role in our society. Good luck to Michael with the project. Just remember that all of those Chicago ip addresses have the historical right to vote more than once as do the dead.

Tmobile Coverage Map Presently Inaccurate in Chicago

December 19, 2007
Filed Under Customer Experience, Mobile / Cell / LBS / SMS | 8 Comments

I presently can not get a good signal at my residence, yet Tmobile is showing an inaccurate map my area saying the coverage is the best they have. Well let me tell you, I’ve missed calls where the phone has not rung at all in the past few weeks – that is not excellent coverage or 5 bar signal strength.

I’d like to see this problem fixed by Tmobile preferably (or the map updated) no later than December 28, 2007.

The address is 1000 West Roscoe, Chicago, IL 60657 (Roscoe and Sheffield)

Some Outstanding Blog Posts…

December 15, 2007
Filed Under Blogging, Google (GOOG), Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Yahoo! (YHOO) | 3 Comments

Andrew Shotland has a nice post on Google Trends Works for SEO…I think hot trends might even be better in certain cases , it’s certainly a thought provoking post that caught my attention and worth some experimentation – it might even prove successful at your next tea party!

Rich Skrenta is doing some interesting blogging lately. Be sure to check out his post Pagerank Wrecked the Web.

Bill Slawski, published an extensive Google patent from 2003, entitled Google Patent on Anchor Text and Different Crawling Rates.

Michael Gray wants Matt Cutts to talk.

And finally Shoemoney wants to know why Yahoo! is asking him to check credit card numbers for validity…

Snowy Chicago Blogger Brunch

December 15, 2007
Filed Under Blogging, Chicago, Social Media, Wordpress | 1 Comment

Several Chicago area bloggers, including Joi Podgorny, Liz Strauss and Jean Russell joined out of town visitor Tara Hunt for some breakfast grub at Over Easy where the delightful server Gwen brought us quite tasteful helpings quite flavorful food!

Though I’ve exchanged many emails with Tara before, I had never met her in person. After the meal we chatted and did some shopping. It was really nice talk to Tara as our conversation was focused and introspective – the kind of conversation that makes both people better for it, it was fun. Great fun with everyone chatting about things they are working on and things they want to achieve in 2008 and beyond.

Thanks to everyone who came out on a snowy Chicago morning (and those who didn’t) for some blogger bonding! May many future trackbacks take place…

Tara and Joi are fans of the site Ma.gnolia, is anyone else out there a big fan? I might have to try it out.