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30 October, 2002

What's Worse Than Spam?

And what's worse than telemarketers? According to this CNN article, the answer is the telecommunications industry (Verizon, Qwest, SBS, BellSouth, and others).

"The phone companies are like arms merchants in a technological war between telemarketers and phone subscribers," said privacy advocate Jason Catlett. "They profit from both sides."

I work at home, so I get more than my share of telemarketing calls. Thanks to the new "predictive dialing" software, about half of the telemarketing calls that I receive are hang-up calls -- the computer makes too many calls, and there aren't enough sales monkeys to handle them. So I'm left holding a dead phone. And it seems that an increasing number of the junk calls that do get through are recorded messages. I figure that about 1-in-5,000 people are stupid enough to actually listen to a recorded telemarketing call.

Many people think that the best way to deal with telemarketers is to simply hang up on them. In fact, that's the worst way to handle them. Simply hanging up is exactly what they want. Then they can move on to their next harassing call. The best approach is to keep these scumbags on the line as long as possible -- and it can be kind of fun. I usually act very interested in their pitch, but play dumb and ask as many stupid questions as I can. Pretending to be hard of hearing is also a good idea. Just when they think they've hooked a sucker, I tell them that I never do business with a telemarketer and ask to be put on their Do Not Call list.

Posted on 30 October, 2002

Googlism

Now this is interesting. Enter a search term (a name, a place, a date, etc.) into the text box at googlism.com, and you'll get a concise list of how that phrase is used in web pages in Google's index.

For example, I entered my own name and here's the result:

john walkenbach is superb
john walkenbach is to be commended for producing a book which holds ones interest
john walkenbach is a principal of J-Walk and associates
john walkenbach is the ideal author to make excel programming understandable
john walkenbach is a spreadsheet consultant
john walkenbach is a recognized expert in excel and vba for excel
john walkenbach is an excel mvp and has written more than two dozen excel books
john walkenbach is one of the country's leading authorities on spreadsheet software
john walkenbach is auteur van meer dan twintig boeken
john walkenbach is also authors of several excel vba books
john walkenbach is the excel guru
john walkenbach is the author of excel 2000 formulas
john walkenbach is a contributing editor
john walkenbach is a prolific author of books concerning excel and visual basic for applications
john walkenbach is an author who has several titles to his credit
john walkenbach is justly hailed as the foremost excel expert
john walkenbach is pretty well known in excel circles having written a couple dozen books
john walkenbach is a great author
john walkenbach is considered by most to be "the" excel guru
john walkenbach is a top us excel guru
john walkenbach is a san diego consultant who writes
john walkenbach is a pc world contributing editor and writes the magazine's monthly spreadsheet tips column

Man, computers are getting smart!

For a laugh, try using "bill gates" or "microsoft" as the search term.

Posted on 30 October, 2002

X-Ray Specs - They Finally Work

Comic book fans have always been lured by the potential power of X-Ray Specs. Countless children have been disappointed to discover that it's a scam -- they really don't allow you to see through clothing. Now, for $2,400, you can buy X-Ray Video Goggles that actually work.

Posted on 30 October, 2002

Halloween Tips from Martha Stewart

Posted on 30 October, 2002