Keep your balance

Posted by

0

Here’s a tip for staying on top of everything in your life: check your bank balances every day. All of them.

I’ve been doing this for the last 1,044 days without fail and that means quite a few things. Firstly, it means there are days I really don’t want to do it but, so far, I always have. And there are days where I’ve done it just after midnight because I couldn’t wait to see if a particular fee had been paid in.

Most of all, though, it means I know everything. Yes, the finances, but also I know who’s paid and I know it just about the moment they have. There’s one firm I work for sometimes who is really quick at paying. They could be terrible people but I’d carry on working for them because of that.

So what does accuracy and guaranteed mean again?

Posted by

0

In the story on how one’s email address can give people a poor impression of you, I mentioned this little extra tip:

But I also have any number of other addresses you like, specifically because I own williamgallagher.com. Yesterday I set up a new address for an author I’m working with to send me text. Earlier in the week I used a groupon offer but I signed up as groupon@williamgallagher.com. If I get a sudden spike in spam and it’s all to groupon@williamgallagher.com, their mailing list policy is rumbled and I switch that address off.

Don’t put people off with your email address – William Gallagher, The Blank Screen (27 June 2014)

The truth is that you can send to any name you like so long as it ends in @williamgallagher.com. Try it: email isthisforreal@williamgallagher.com or thickeejit@williamgallagher.com. I’ll get it.

So that’s how I’ve seen that this week I’ve been receiving emails like this:

Would you be interested in email list of any industry specific Top key decision makers?

The List contains Opt-in business and personal email & Phone number, Contact name, Physical address and mailing address

List format – Excel/CSV

Accuracy is guaranteed – as per industry standards

You can acquire Top key decision makers with complete verified contact details and business email addresses from following industries…

I’ve had that three times this week, all to different people with just two things in common: their email address ends in @williamgallagher and they don’t exist.

I’ve emailed the company back pointing out the mistake but so far they’ve ignored it. I get quite a bit of this and I go to some trouble to make sure the sender knows they ain’t gonna get a reply back from who they hope. But this particular firm is ignoring me.

Which means you have to question their standards as well as their accuracy.

Tips For Crafting A Strong Password That Really Pops

Posted by

0

From Clickhole, The Onion’s version of those Buzzfeed sites that we keep getting friends sending us links about. I realise I’m sending you a link to this site which is a parody of people sending links, but.

Crafting a smart, snappy password that engages the reader right from the first character is tricky, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the form. And make no mistake: The best way to start writing truly great passwords is through years of diligent practice. You’re not going to sit down at a keyboard and just produce an all-time classic password like “let$g3titstart3d” on your first day.

Still, anyone can benefit from these tried-and-true tips as he or she stares down the blank input field and prepares to compose a strong, succinct password.

1. Avoid clichés: These include “password,” “123,” and “letmein.” Such trite expressions have no place in a serious password, unless the author makes it very clear they are intended ironically.

2. Keep it short and sweet: Say what you have to say as concisely as possible. It’s nearly always correct to abandon the strained clunkiness of something like “90sbulls4everJordan23” in favor of the classy simplicity of “23.”

Tips For Crafting A Strong Password That Really Pops – Clickhole (27 June 2014)

There is much more.

Don’t put people off with your email address

Posted by

0

The one thing everybody can do is have a decent email address. Don’t share one with your partner, especially not if that’s really clear in the address. At best, it’s confusing because you’re both getting the emails and are bound to miss one that’s for you. But at worst, you look like you don’t use email much and today that equals you not being professional, mr-and-mrs-hullabaloo73@hotmail.com

The very best email address to have is one that ends in your own or your own company’s name, so something like @myself.com. You get those by having your own website, which you need to have anyway, and when you do, then @myself.com is an advert for myself.com every time you use it.

If you like your email service and your address, still think about leaving it if you’re on hotmail or the like. Actually, there’s a technical reason here for moving away from certain email services. If your email solely lives on the web rather than on your computer, if you can’t read your old email without an internet connection, move to somewhere that lets you.

It’s convenient to have the emails online but it’s inconvenient to have them only online. Plus, if that service closes down for any reason, you’re at best scrabbling to copy it all off and at worst you’re screwed.

But back to email address snobbery.

To be harsh about it, @hotmail.com says you’re playing at email; @outlook.com says you’re playing but you signed up too recently to get a hotmail account. Then @aol.com says you’re an occasional email user who only sticks with AOL because you’ve given that address to so many people.

If you’ve an @btinternet address then that’s okay but its an ad for BT and if the address is one of those @myself.btinernet.com then either you look sponsored or that you can’t make up your mind.

Similarly, older Apple email addresses are @mac.com which is just an ad for the company’s Macs; slightly newer ones are @me.com which is doesn’t advertise them, doesn’t advertise you and looks a bit egotistical. Currently all new Apple email users have addresses that end in @icloud.com which is fine: at least you look like you know what the cloud is.

But unless you’re really invested in an older address, if you can’t get @myself.com, then go for Google Mail. This @gmail.com is best because it’s short, it’s modern and it tells anyone who knows about these things that you may be a power email user. Gmail comes with a huge array of tools for managing immense numbers of emails and for something that’s easy to use and even easier to sign up for, it still has that faintly geeky air that you may or may not like.

Remember, too, that nobody says you can only have one email address. I have the one I’ll give you here for when you want to complain over my being snooty about your address. That’s wg@williamgallagher.com.

I also have a personal @mac.com address and I keep it because I like it, so there. But I also have any number of other addresses you like, specifically because I own williamgallagher.com. Yesterday I set up a new address for an author I’m working with to send me text. Earlier in the week I used a groupon offer but I signed up as groupon@williamgallagher.com. If I get a sudden spike in spam and it’s all to groupon@williamgallagher.com, their mailing list policy is rumbled and I switch that address off.

So you can use your address as a tool but the one you choose to send people can reveal much more about you than you’d hope.

I’m surrounded by fools

Posted by

0

How to figure out whether or not you are a right jerk:

To discover one’s degree of jerkitude, the best approach might be neither (first-person) direct reflection upon yourself nor (second-person) conversation with intimate critics, but rather something more third-person: looking in general at other people. Everywhere you turn, are you surrounded by fools, by boring nonentities, by faceless masses and foes and suckers and, indeed, jerks? Are you the only competent, reasonable person to be found?. . .

Are You Surrounded by Idiots? Real Talk: You’re the Jerk Not Them, 99U (26 June 2014)

Read the full 99U feature for more, but then stop. The piece and that quote above is actually from a much longer article that 99U is excerpting and it’s one of those cases where the excerpt is better than the whole shebang.

Weird day at Google

Posted by

0

Just one more thing about Google, this time partly because it has a lot of news detail that it’s done much better than I could. But mostly because it’s quite funny:

After two hours of technical talk, with nary a mention of new hardware or consumer-level software, the attendees began to get a bit bored. It was at this point that Twitter briefly became a strange meta-I/O, with dozens, or perhaps hundreds of attendees hopping on their Twitter accounts to talk about how bad the show was—while it was still going on.

The Only Thing You Need to Read About Today’s Weird Google I/On Keynote – Mike Wehner. The Daily Dot (25 June 2014)

Present imperfect

Posted by

0

I do a lot of presenting now so I’m thinking about it all constantly and yesterday’s Google presentation isn’t helping. But it is fascinating. Cult of Android ran this story, We Watched Google’s 3-Hour Keynote So You Wouldn’t Have To which tells you the Android community’s take but cult of Mac, on the other hand, went for this:

As the event dragged on, the tone on Twitter went from restrained interest about Google’s somewhat underwhelming announcements to reports of sleeping reporters and jabs at the ponderous presentation’s length. “Apple just launched a keynote shortener,” tweeted Dave Pell

That’s from a piece called Copy this please: 9 things Apple can teach Google about Keynotes. It continues:

Find your Steve Jobs: Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, so Apple looked inside and found a suitable replacement to become the face of the company. Apple exec Craig Federighi emerged as the company’s new “Superman” presenter at this year’s WWDC. Google’s Sundar Pichai might be “the most powerful man in mobile,” but he’s no Federighi.

Cult of Mac writer Lewis Wallace is right that Craig Federighi is quite the star presenter now. But he wasn’t before. It takes time and standing up in front of millions of people online before you get that good. So hopefully Google will take a telling from how poorly this year’s event went and is going to come back strong.

Sort-of extensive Android coverage

Posted by

0

Strap yourself in: I’m going to name drop. Well, place name drop. I missed all of Google’s Android announcements yesterday because I spent the day in Parliament.

Oh, come on. It’s the best I’ve got, just pretend to be impressed.

Fine.

Fine.

I missed the Google announcements and I had planned to get you some proper catch-up coverage in case you missed it too. But it was a strange announcement.

It was at Google’s I/O conference which is pretty much the same thing as Apple’s WWDC: it’s an annual gig officially for software developers but which has become more. These are now platforms for Google and Apple to show off new things. That’s typically new things for consumers as well as developers, but not necessarily.

This year’s Apple WWDC didn’t have any new hardware, for instance, and it’s considered a success for how much it did for developers. It’s also a success for how Apple-slick it was with the company’s presenting style. It doesn’t always work and when it’s off, it’s a clanging bell, but when it does work, it’s the kind of presentation you would want to give. Quick but not rushed, long enough to be detailed but not long enough to feel padded. Witty helps.

It’s a lot harder to do than it seems and nobody’s expected Google to be as good. You expect Google to have lots to say and maybe to eschew style and slickness for straightforward practicality.

None of that happened.

Not the straightforward, certainly not the style. Instead, it is reported that one journalist in the audience fell asleep. It’s reported everywhere that the presentation was boring, extremely long, extremely padded and while it had many announcements, they were muddled and confusing and lost.

By today I expect us to see Android fan boys usefully explaining the actual features and details that were hidden in the mess. But for now, I want you to see a good rundown of the event in this article. Really, I want you to see the title of the article.

Do to take a read of “We watched Google’s 3-hour keynote so you wouldn’t have to” on Cult of Android.

Three hours? What the L?