HOEI

This domain is ten years old today.  You can see the many phases of HOEI.com on the WayBackMachine.

I am a Blogging Idol competitor.  I have joined this battle of the blogggers to help motivate me to do more with this blog and potentially win three thousand dollars.  Check out the details over at DailyBlogTips.com.  The contest winner will be the blogger that increases the most in RSS feed reader count between now and July 31.  That said you should subscribe to my feed in the upper right sidebar of this page to help me win the $3000 prize.

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This is a capture of my current iGoogle Page. We talked about iGoogle a little last year when the new name surfaced. Today I want to share with you how iGoogle and some cool add-ons like Google Reader can be used to make you more productive. The following list helps you understand a few things I am doing with my iGoogle page.

A – I track the weather in the two cities I spend most of my time: Goose Creek, SC and Washington, DC

B – I track the feed of a group blog that I manage (GrowingKids.org)

C – I track current events

D – I track the feed of Simply Recipes my 2nd favorite food blog

E – Google Reader copy #1 tracks Information Security related feeds that have been placed in my Security folder.

F – Google Reader copy #2 tracks blogs that I placed in my General folder.

You will also note that I use multiple tabs. The BLOG Watch tab is a post for another day. There I track blogs using custom feeds created mainly from Google Blog Searches.

I want to offer a few more comments on the multiple copies of Google Reader found on my iGoogle page. You can add multiple copies or you can switch between folders using the pull-down on one of the readers. Using Google Reader in this way allows for a quick view of a hot subject (folder). For instance, I subscribe to several dozen blogs in my general folder. It is pretty easy for a high priority topic related network security to get lost in the midst of dozens of other posts in a general category. The security folder for me allows for a focus on blogs and new sites that provide RSS feeds related to information security. These RSS feeds are related to announcements on the release of patches from vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, Red Hat, and Oracle to address security vulnerabilities.

Today’s message from DVD host Omar Wasow is titled “Windows Vista IS for Dummies, buy a MAC if you really want to get some work done.”

Fox News ran a short segment today titled Picking a PC. The guest of the segment was Omar Wasow whose claim to fame comes from being the host of the Windows Vista for Dummies DVD. Wasow also credits himself with teaching Oprah Winfrey how to use email according to this news story.

The Fox News hosts along with their guest (Mr. Windows Vista for Dummies) actually give MAC the big endorsement. The most interesting part of this HOWTO pick a PC story is that when Wasow is asked which machine he uses, his answer leads him to admit that he is a MAC user. He does slip in there that he uses Windows too, but his reaction shows a clear preference for the MAC “Road Warrior ” machine. The Dell laptop shown in the clip gets the worst press of all as being the cheap choice for the college kid.

I found this bizarre behavior in the title bar of my “My Yahoo!” page.  It seems to only happen in Firefox and I can not recreate at will.  It has happened several times in recent weeks, but I have not been able to find any information on why this mysterious counter appears. The counter will continue incrementing for hours if you do not close the browser.  Any help identifying the cause of this behavior would be greatly appreciated.

I saw an article in the NY Times this weekend that pointed out how some companies are paying ordinary people to have their cars wrapped up like a NASCAR. The article states that folks get as much as $800 per month and free gas to place ads on their cars.  In most cases you are encouraged to obey the law and maintain a certain social standard.  That means no cussing, fussing, smoking, and certainly no consumption of competitor’s products or alcoholic beverages.  It is a good thing the cussing and fussing rules are have not been strictly enforced as a prerequisite for decals on the cars of Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Robby Gordon and a few other lively NASCAR stars or these guys would be sporting “Sponsor Wanted” on their cars.

That said, I have been pondering another idea and wondering if anyone has already tried this. How well does ad space on cars and road signs work for driving traffic to a blog and/or web site? No…Really? I know all the major marketing companies know the answers to my questions, but that data is hard to come by without forking over some fat loot. Has anyone tried it? If so, how did you advertise and how successful were you?

I have seen some pretty creative billboards recently that actually left me browsing the URL from the sign. I am sure there is some degree of success, but is it worth the investment?