Happy System Administrator Day, everybody!

How to Please Your I.T. Department

1. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children's art. We don't have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
2. Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.
3. When an I.T. person says he's coming right over, go for coffee. That way you won't be there when we need your password. It's nothing for us to remember 700 screen saver passwords.
4. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what's keeping you from getting it. We don't need to know that you can't get into your mail because your computer won't power on at all.
5. When I.T. support sends you an E-Mail with high importance, delete it at once. We're just testing.
6. When an I.T. person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.
7. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
8. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There's electronics in it.
9. When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on an I.T. person's chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.
10. When an I.T. person tells you that computer screens don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.
11. When an I.T. person tells you that he'll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice: "And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That motivates us.
12. When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.
13. When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them is bound to work.
14. Don't learn the proper term for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by "My thingy blew up".
15. Don't use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.

¿My Questions?

Can pimps and whores write off pregnancy tests and condoms as business expenses?

Yelp - a great idea, or yet another ... ?

I'm going to have to disagree with my co-editor Jay on the last post regarding Yelp.com. While it's a somewhat new twist, combining the review system of citysearch with the Web 2.0 social networking features of MySpace, my prediction is that Yelp will never be the juggernaut MySpace has become. Why?

1. One needs to register to belong, and this adds yet another thing to check to most surfer's portfolios
2. It's purpose is too specific
3. There are just too many alternative websites, both for entertainment reviews and social networking, that have already achieved critical mass.

The best-case scenario for Yelp, in my opinion, is that a bigger general-purpose social networking site will buy the company, and roll the reviews into its own database. Yelp will not achieve critical mass on its own. Even if early adopters flock to it, it will eventually languish when no new content is being added, and will plateau.

Here are my stream-of-consciousness notes on the subject, before I wrote the coherent summary above:

• Yelp is an online database of user-published reviews - and they can avoid having to pay for well-researched content.
  
• It has some web 2.0 features, such as auto-mapping, and nearest business map, as well as messaging, but it's really a re-hash of functions other sites provide as well.
  
• From MySpace, they stole profiles and messaging - which was stolen from Friendster, SixDegrees, etc. in the first place.
  
• From CitySearch, Zagat, and DigitalCity they stole the idea of entertainment service reviews. At least those services have critics publish a review, with user reviews underneath. With Yelp, you lose the "expert's" opinion (and I use the term "expert" VERY loosely).
  
• Yelp vs. dodgeball - dodgeball has profiles, reviews - pretty generic stuff. However, dodgeball's strength - mobile presence awareness - is missing from Yelp. This is what got me started writing the rebuttal to Jay's post. I would toss out the dodgeball comparison altogether.
  
• Yelp's not really a blog (a misused word if I ever saw one). In their own words, it's "a perfect place to collect and archive all your reviews -— sort of like your own personal yellow pages."

Yelp!

Great Little Site

http://www.yelp.com/


Its a cross between a Blog- "My Space" - "Dodgeball" and more

Christian group urging parents to smack their kids puts out Smacking Guide

A religious group in New Zealand suggests smacking is a good idea, and put out a "Guide to Smacking". The group believes "it is right and wise to bring our children up with loving corporal correction" and is opposed to "unjustifiable government interference" in family life.

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