Kaizen (改善): David Beroff's Journey

2:31am: Recent Documents?
Uh... where did the Recent Documents menu disappear to in Windows 7? That was actually a useful feature in XP.

Also, (unrelated, I hope?), I can't find the ability to search for a file name in a directory tree, although I may have done that one to myself when I had turned off Search Indexing. i.e., There's no need to optimize searching within docs, but I should still be able to find docs by name, right?

1:24pm: Save Me from a Fate Worse than the Junkyard! ('89 CRX 38mpg)
Hi, I'm a 1989 Honda CRX. Maybe you've seen me cruising on 81?

I've served a good long life, and now all my ignorant owner
wants to do is to chop me up into tiny parts and ship pieces of
me all over the country using some computer thing called eBay.

Please don't let this happen... only YOU can prevent my mangling!

I'm basically a good, consistent provider; I've been getting
friends from point A to point B for 24 years now. I may not
offer luxury like that uppity little BMW across the street,
but I can certainly offer you a good value and a great ride.

I'm a real cheap date: I won't make you buy me jewelry, and
I offer you a VERY sexy 38mpg! I can even hit 41mpg on the
open road in the summer. (Hey, I was "green" before it was
ever hip to be green... and I'm not even a hybrid!)

My owner is pretty strict about not smoking, so I smell good,
and I don't even need fancy perfume. I'm clean, and so's my
title. My radio offers you good sound, and I'll let you
listen to your music all... night... long! I hope you have
strong arms and a good, steady hand, 'cuz I want you to treat
my manual transmission just right. Oh, and in case you were
wondering... behind closed garage doors... I'm RED!

Yes, yes; I've got issues. Who doesn't? I need some surgery,
because I won't pass inspection, due to a rusted out bottom.
There, I said it. Can you still love me after you patch that?

Also, my engine won't always start when it's warm; it'll turn
fine, but it won't catch. After I've been sitting in the rain,
you'll feel some slight hesitation on my very first acceleration.

(Hey, can YOU perform perfectly outdoors, Every, Single, Time?)

My air conditioner is real flaky and you gotta turn my A/C
compressor on and off manually. You'll hafta slam my rear
hatch; it's sometimes tough to close. I have a minor shimmy
over 65mph. And after 137k miles, I've got... rust. {blush}

So, I'm not perfect, OK? But maybe I'm perfect for YOU. All
I really need is some tender loving care, (and some body work),
and I promise... I'll show you a REAL good ride. Just slip my
owner $1500 cash, (OBO), and he'll let you drive me ANYwhere
you want. ;-)



(as posted to Craigslist)

11:18pm: Early fruits
The first two schools responded to my http://SafeAmericanKids.com marketing, which is actually a great start!

Cat Lady and I went to visit my folks in Bridgewater yesterday.

5:37am: Cat and I share same marketing interest
I bought the WSO offer that I was considering, and I'm now taking a look at the highlights of Guthy|Renker's history (major infomercial company). Lady (the cat) is absolutely enthralled by that page, as I move through the timeline. First she was just watching the moving tiles (perched atop my monitor), and then she started trying to actually catch them.

3:51am: Restoration
Sleep has been pretty wacked last few days, but I got a solid eight hours last night, and I'm feeling much better now. (Well, if you're ok with defining a "night" as 6pm-2am.)

I'm feeling comfortable enough with my computer to have transferred over about 80 gig of data from the portable drive to its primary disk. Still seeing very minor glitches here and there, but finding ways to work around them.

My first "none-for-you" moment at my day-job: They had already told me that I would not be eligible for shift bid this cycle, given my transition to half-time status, so it was no surprise, and, sure enough, everyone else got the memo last night except me. {shrug} :-)

12:56am: Impulse buy
I try to avoid impulse buys, but... for $3, I couldn't resist picking up the (completely undeveloped) domain Learn-the-Secret.info . :-) I'm considering this WSO and getting up to speed with PPC as a second "small" cashflow.

3:20am: Roles for AboutTh.is
Cat Lady asked me yesterday about who performs what basic roles with AboutTh.is. It's a good question. Let me lay out here what I have so far:

Members can record an audio opinion about any page on the Web. That opinion will then be published on top of that page. The general public can listen to any of these.

Most members will choose to not pay anything. The Basic (free) service will display a small advertisement on the opinion pop-over. An advertiser will pay for that ad space (typically with a pay-per-click model) in hopes of attracting the attention of the general public. Future ad space could also include audio snippets before and/or after the actual opinion audio, as well as web and email advertising targeting the site's members.

Some members will pay a monthly fee; I'm thinking US$6.95/mo. The Pro (paid) service will display a small lead-generation form (configured by the paying member) on the opinion pop-over. This form encourages the general public to voluntarily enter their name and email address if they like the member's opinion. That data gets sent to that member to help build and grow their own opt-in mailing list.

All opinions will offer sharing buttons, to allow the general public to voluntarily share the opinions with their own friends using email or other social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. This will help bring new people to listen to specific opinions.

All opinions will also encourage the general public to join AboutTh.is themselves, so that they can record their own audio opinions. A member who posted a particular opinion is credited with being responsible for having brought in those new members. This becomes the foundation of an affiliate program, where members will be able to earn a portion of the monthly cash stream paid by the members that they recruit, as well as possibly a portion of the advertising revenue.

A two-tier affiliate program means that members will also earn a (smaller) portion of the affiliate income earned by the members that they recruit, which encourages people to promote the affiliate program itself. e.g., Charlie pays $7/mo to be a Pro member. Charlie originally learned about AboutTh.is by listening to one of Betty's opinions, so Betty earns a portion of all of his monthly payments. Now, Betty originally found out about how she can make a few extra dollars this way when she read Adam's email newsletter, so Adam now earns a small portion of all of Betty's affiliate income.

The initial launch will be done with a crowdfunding site like Indiegogo. Early funders will be able to participate in each of the above roles at a significant discount. For example, one will be able to purchase the right to 10% of all opinion display advertising space that will be broadcast throughout the entire network for one full month, starting eleven months after the funds are raised. Obviously, no one will know what that traffic will be, or what it will be worth, but each of the features described above are intended to promote exponential ("viral") growth, and thus, it should be worth more than it is at the site's beginning.

One approach to promoting the crowdfunding will be a contest, using AboutTh.is itself, where the members who bring in the most traffic (people who play their opinion audios) will be given a total of 20% of all funds raised. Half of that goes to just one top grand prize winner. No purchase necessary; void where prohibited.

I also want to promote a Warrior Special Offer ("WSO") on the WarriorForum to sell three-month subscriptions to the Pro service, (valued at $20.85), for maybe $0.85 each, so as to give me an opportunity to explain each of the above features to these paid customers, and attract and encourage additional early funders.

I'll be looking to raise thousands, not millions (like I was trying with note.com in the late 90's), but this feels like it's going to be a lot more fun than dealing with vulture capitalists.

7:11pm: David Bowie's Space Oddity, covered by Commander Chris Hadfield, recorded on the ISS

12:53am: Smearing?
There was quite a range in work quality from the six contractors selected for recent outsourcing. I'm continuing to work with the top person as I build out the SafeAmericanKids.com project. Good progress, good use of time. It of course also helps that this new computer doesn't take hours to perform simple tasks.

Speaking of which, most aspects of this new machine are going well, as expected. I still have about three issues which I hope to address shortly:

1. Some driver questions, e.g., how to install the one that doesn't have a setup program included.

2. I got a new set of headphones, but only one side has sound. Not yet sure if it's the computer or the headset.

3. A very odd "smearing" of small parts of the screen. It's not the monitor, as it can always be corrected by changing tasks or tabs and then returning to rewrite the screen. I found that I can also screencap it, which I actually didn't expect to work, given its apparent self-healing nature:

Source: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

5:33am: Yesterday was May 13
I thought people at work were kidding, but the evening news confirmed it: Parts of the local area got snow and graupel yesterday.


Source: WNEP

7:38pm: Getting closer... I think
OK, I'm typing this on the new computer, sans Acer-specific drivers.

4:51pm: Progress on new computer's new disk
Though he had a real tough time communicating it, the computer seller had me go into BIOS and change RAID to AHCI, and now the Windows 7 installation seems to be progressing much further than before.

12:11am: 0 for 2
Well, that was frustrating. I correctly replaced the hard drive, and the bootup sequence from the CD didn't change. Ball in seller's court once again. :-(

10:05pm: Embarrassing question?
The computer seller sent out a replacement hard drive, exactly as promised. Now, step one is to open the computer case... except I can't figure out how. :-( I've only gotten as far as unscrewing all the main screws, and can't slide off the plastic cover from the main metal frame. It's a refurb'd Acer Aspire AM3450 desktop. I've searched Google, YouTube, and Acer forums (with phrases like "open case", "disassemble" and "take apart") to no avail. I then downloaded the only manual from Acer's support site, and it literally says just this:

Opening the computer

Before removing any panels or covers, please make sure to shut off the computer and unplug the power cord from the outlet.

• Remove the screws on the chassis.


• Slide the panel off.

Yeah... real helpful. :-( Any ideas?

Update: I figured it out ten minutes after I wrote that. I had been assuming that the cover came off as a single piece. Once I looked at each side of the case as an independent part, I was able to find the one side that slid off separately. Yay.

9:18am: That's my gi..., uh, young woman! :-)
Some of the equal-rights advocacy work that my daughter did in Philadelphia back when she was a teenager helped to bear some fruit this year: Gender-Neutral Restrooms Become the Law: Philadelphia passes sweeping LGBT-friendly legislation that includes gender-neutral toilets

5:19am: Every entity has an underbelly... some are softer than others
The Warrior Forum is mentioned in a less-than-flattering way in this Yahoo article: Facebook Scam Alert - What Really Happens When You "Like"

2:34am: Don't be the rocks; be the water!
It figured; the day I wanted to start posting some jobs to oDesk, they have a partial meltdown, where that particular ability was unavailable for a good chunk of the day. Ah, well. Once everything seemed to be back and running, I posted the first job, and got 13 applicants within five minutes, for as low as US$0.50/hour (from Bangladesh).

The seller of the new computer had thought that the issue was a failed Windows 7 installation, and so he had sent us CD's to reinstall. Time lost, about a week. Now he thinks its a hard drive failure, and he's shipping out a replacement. So, it'll be another week, and no guarantee that that'll resolve it. We'll see.

Three minor issues with my left leg this past week: The inside (back) of my knee has been "tightening" in recent weeks, gradually getting more noticeable. Cat Lady lent me a knee brace, and that seems to help things, but it's not completely gone, yet. Unrelated, I had gotten a tiny splinter in my left foot, and I wasn't able to find it at the surface to remove it, but thankfully, it worked itself out after two or three days. Then, thanks to those two points, I've been walking slightly differently on that side, and so I've felt minor pains around the ankle.

Some drama with Alpo. As soft and affectionate as he is, the cat still definitely has mental issues.

7:07am: Cat-and-Cat-and-Cat-and-Cat-and-Cat-and-Mouse
Hrm; my blog doesn't appear to be as well-indexed by Google as it used to be. Annoying. Oh, well.

I commissioned Chris Yuwono to assemble for my http://SafeAmericanKids.com project an animation of past sponsors, and, as usual, he produced great work (right). :-)

It took a week, but my day-job eventually did formally accept my transition proposal, so the June 1 date for half-time is now official. Unrelated, they pulled me into a meeting with Marketing yesterday to help review the performance of one of their vendors.

About 5am yesterday, all five cats gave chase to a lone mouse. The last time a mouse had appeared, maybe a month ago, Molly had gently grabbed it by the tail with her mouth, and then looked at me with a confused expression, as if to say, "OK, now what am I supposed to do with this wiggly toy!?" This time, all five spent about a half hour terrorizing the poor thing, but never being able to actually catch it. I finally got tired of the cats trashing the house as they sped around, crashing into absolutely everything, and seeing as all six parties were thoroughly exhausted by the extended chase, I was able to easily catch the mouse myself and take it outside to let it escape into the woods.

Speaking of exhausted cats, right now, Pepper's snoring so loudly that he keeps waking up Alpo.

5:05pm: 11
Yesterday I worked a (pre-planned) 11-hour shift at my day job. Scheduling agents is a rather tricky art, as the goal is to hit a tight balance between supply and demand. Too many agents, and there's a lot of dead time between calls, and everyone still has to be paid. Too few, and calls start backing up, sometimes severely. Some call-inducing events are known in advance, others happen when things start to break. Yesterday was more-or-less the right balance, i.e., I was actually needed for the overtime that was scheduled weeks in advance.

4:22am: Ready
Despite computer problems, I was able to publish the website for the first "small" business: http://SafeAmericanKids.com . Simple presentation, very low-tech, but functional.

12:18pm: Well, that didn't last long
After two or three hours of usage, the new computer suddenly rebooted, and now no longer can boot back to Windows 7.

11:26pm: It's here!
I took delivery of my new computer, set it up, installed Firefox, and turned off as much file sharing settings as I could find. Microsoft seriously left all of this open as a default!? Is there some sort of guide to locking down Windows 7?

9:11pm: "Small" business design done, now on to content
OK, I've fooled around enough with the CSS that I'm comfortable with the presentation. It's certainly not gorgeous, but I won't be embarrassed by it, either. Now on to adding content, so the site actually has something to say. :-)

9:32am: "Perfect is the enemy of good" -- Voltaire
I was originally going to strip down an existing CSS template to learn how it works and fine-tune it to precisely meet my needs... but scr** it, I'll just use it more-or-less as is, and continue moving forward. I'm not trying to win any design contests, here. I can always go back and clean things up later (which you know is never going to actually happen).

Also, I'd been using watermarked pictures as a placeholder, but now that I purchased the rights to use them, I'm going back and replacing them with the real things. OK, that sentence wasn't the best way to write that, but I think you understand what I mean.

6:10am: You don't have to climb the whole staircase, just take the first step
Completed task number one: I bought a refurbished Acer AM3450 desktop with 3.8 GHz quad core, 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM, 1TB disk and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

I had originally intended to buy a machine from Newegg or TigerDirect, but ended up finding that eBay's search methods were far easier, and I was able to drill down through thousands of choices pretty quickly.

Next step is to spend some time refining a CSS file I'd been working on for a small cash-stream project. I can always get fancier later, when it's up and running.

Today's the last day I can drive the CRX. I'm intentionally letting the inspection lapse. I'm keeping the insurance for now, in case a potential buyer screws up while test driving it.