• I *HATE* preschool carpool pickup!! HATE!! #

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So it appears that mere mortals (by that I mean, you and I) are not alone in the blogosphere any more. According to an article on FoxNews.com a couple of members of The Whitehouse Cabinet are now blogging (Chertoff, head of homeland security and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt). Its nice to think that they have stuff to get off their chests but should public officials really be blogging about stuff that happens at work? According to the article Chertoff attacked the New York Times Editorial Staff saying:

the newspaper’s editorial staff “hyperventilates” about the department’s effort to arrest gangs and get illegal aliens off the street

Whether or not thats the case, a government official (appointed or not) should not be venting in any kind of public forum such as that. Yes, I know about the First Amendment and how its his “right” but still. Today he’s talking about the NYT Ed staff, tomorrow he could be talking about the Russian Premier or Hugo Chavez. Figures in public office have always had to be a little more careful with what they say and who they say it to. But thats what I think I want to know what you think. Should Government Officials blog like the rest of us??

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Every once in a bluemoon I come across some web trinket that I think could help change the way people use websites. On one of my other sites, I have an IRC chatroom online with a javascript page setup so members can log in and chat directly from the site. There are a couple of solid members who are in the chat room most of the time in case anyone has any questions or needs any help with something. I’m rarely in the IRC chat room these days so I’m looking for other ways to help members on the site. Thats when I stumbled across the perfect live support solution.

A cool, hosted service for support chat from LiveHuman.com. A simple line of code added to my site and I’m off and running. When I’m in the room, the message on my site lets my members know I’m available for help, when I’m not, the online equivalent of a closed sign is up. Its pretty cool. The “face” time opportunities have been increased on my site and now my members feel that if they need anything all they have to do is ask where as before a request could sit for a week in the boards before I’d get to it. Its pretty good and like I said it was easy to implement as well.

The only down side to the service is that its not free. They have plans starting at $13 a month per operator on your site, but that allows for an unlimited number of member/user connections. Its a pretty cool service. Chats are logged and retained for two months and you can even edit the styling of the chat window to suit your site. You also get all kinds of useful information from the chat as well, user location, pages visited and more. In all its a pretty good way for a site or company looking to expand their support options in an inexpensive manner.

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Linuxtracker.org is pleased to announce the availability of Mythbuntu 7.10 Release Final - i386 on the linuxtracker bittorrent network. For faster downloads, more accurate statistics and to see all of the available torrents, please visit http://linuxtracker.org.This release is based upon Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon).

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Well, its official… Chuck Norris just solidified who I am voting for in the upcoming primary and I think this can do nothing but good for the candidate in question. Norris is official going to Support Mike Huckabee, the one candidate who’s stood out to me from the start.

According to Norris:

“Mike is also a respected and fearless leader, and he does not cower to the cries of any majority or minority,” Norris added. “He doesn’t abandon his values for what’s expedient. Like our Founding Fathers, he’s not afraid to stand up for a Creator and against secularist beliefs.”

If chuck norris’ fists say vote for huckabee, then you better vote for Huckabee or Walker Texas Ranger will make you eat some of CD’s cookin…

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One of the first trips Amy and I took together was down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in what would have been my Junior year of college. It was an easy trip and one I’d made with friends before (I had a friend in school who lived in Kenner just outside of New Orleans Parish). This trip was cool because Amy’s Grandparents live there. Her grandfather has passed on but we still like to go and visit her grandmother even with all the devastation that occurred in the aftermath of Katrina. I like going to places like City Park, St. Charles St, Rue Burbon and other places and just taking in the culture. Even with everything that has happened there, N.O. is still full of spark, culture and history that make it as fun as ever to visit.

One of the things that I haven’t done there yet is one of the New Orleans Tours. They have some pretty cool tours too. Grave yards, restraunts and other cool places. We did one in Savannah, which was neat (got to see the house from the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) and some other interesting things and I think a tour like the Cemetery and Gris Gris tour would be a cool one to do. Amy has taken me around and shown me what she can, but there’s still so much to do there (like a swamp tour to see some live gators) and the girls are getting to ages where they’ll like tours like that as well. (the last time we took grace on a tour… it wasn’t fun…).

I think we’re going to see if we can make it down there this year for Mardi Gras but we neve know. It may end up being a last minute thing again.

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There was a Republican Debate this past weekend (collective gasp - “There was? How come we didn’t know about it?”) which would have been a surprise to anyone watching the GOP field this political season. One of the major problems is that instead of coming out with programs or ideas of their own, they all are (with the exception of maybe Huckabee or Paul) going after Senator Clinton instead.

If the candidates for the GOP nomination would focus on actually running in their own primary instead of running in the democratic primary they might actually get something accomplished. Instead this bicker about who is least like Hillary and who is more conservative than who is getting to be silly and old in a time when we care more about what they are going to do for the country then what they have done to screw things up so far.

I thought Thompson might be good for the race, however, he’s turning out to be a severe disappointment and my money is still on Huckabee. If he can raise a little more awareness and actually let people know he’s in the race, we might (and I do mean might) have a candidate worth nominating. Its a shame newt won’t run.

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The sales people at the printing company I work for are always trying to find new leads, new customers and new revenue streams for the company (it benefits everyone right?). One of the things I’ve been looking at is CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software to help make their jobs easier. AIMpromote appears to be one of the leaders in the CRM field and they even offer a free 14 day trial. Plus they’ve recently launched some new features to make things even better.

Traverse City, MI October 19th 2007 – AIMpromote, provider of lead management and customer relationship management software, has launched a significant upgrade to their CRM offering. The newly added white-label CRM software feature enhances the value that lead aggregators can offer to their lead purchasing customers. The enhanced reselling functionality provides an intuitive interface to completely manage the selling of a privately labeled CRM as their own.

Lead aggregators operate in the highly competitive B2B space, and need ways to add value to their offerings. Michael Myles, President and CEO of AIMpromote said “The significant added value provided by the AIMpromote white-label customer relationship software gives lead aggregators a way to differentiate themselves in what has become a highly commoditized market.” He went on to say that “this product also provides an easy way to leverage existing client bases to more rapidly increase sales.”

The close tie-in between the selling of leads and the powerful sales management functionality of the AIMpromote customer relationship software enables the end-users of the system to easily purchase leads that are then available to be worked directly in the system. There is no importing necessary. Billing is also consolidated, providing an easy way for the end-user to manage their funds and billing profile. The system has been designed from the ground-up to offer high levels of customizability and advanced functionality for everyone involved, while requiring little investment in time.

The CRM reselling and lead sales functions functionality includes the ability for lead aggregators and CRM software resellers to completely customize pricing, including setup fees, discounts, and free trials. This flexibility empowers the resellers of the system to enhance their profit margins as they see fit. The CRM reselling system allows lead aggregators and consultants the ability to brand their system with their own logo and contact information. Integrated Authorize.Net payment processing gives an interface to take credit cards automatically, and have the funds deposited directly into their bank accounts. The advanced accounting and reporting pages in the AIMpromote system give a top-down view of the business as a whole, as well as for each individual account.

The tiered approach that AIMpromote has taken to the reselling of their powerful customer relationship management software gives even the end-user clients the ability to also resell the system. The billing and accounting system automatically takes care of everything for them, even automatically setting up accounts. “The ease of use and flexibility of the AIMpromote CRM for those providing business-to-business consultation services and those selling leads has created an opportunity to significantly improve the bottom line, with very little time or expense,” said Matt Wolfe, Vice President of Operations for AIMpromote. Wolfe added, “The service and functionality of the system is unique in that customers are supported through an integrated support ticket system by their parent account. The end-users of the system will never know that the service they are using is being resold, or that the company from which they are licensing the software are not the actual manufacturers of the software. To them, it won’t be AIMpromote at all, it will be ‘ABC Software Company CRM’, or whatever name the company reselling the software chooses.”

About AIMpromote
AIMpromote leads the market in growth and technology for on-demand lead management and CRM reselling solutions. AIMpromotes enterprise lead management software empowers companies in any industry to more effectively generate, delegate, and report on leads and the teams that manage them. AIMpromote is the only solution that integrates detailed web analytics with sales and marketing analytics to provide a complete closed-loop view of the sales process. The AIMpromote lead management software offers a completely customized solution that can be tailored to fit any organization’s customer acquisition workflow. The unique combination of having the most functionality, and the lowest total cost of ownership, AIMpromote is the most cost effective solution for improving close rates and marketing efficiency.

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I was perusing the headlines at CNN.com this morning and several among them leaped out at me…

• Dumbledore is gay, ‘Harry Potter’ author reveals

• Report: Man dies in monkey attack
• Red Sox blast into the World Series

Ok, that last one isn’t too suprising considering their go at it last year. However, the fact that it was the Rockies vs. The Diamond Backs and the Indians vs. the Red Sox… What the hell has happened to MLB? None of the heavy teams (except the red sox) were even contenders this year in the play offs (well, the Phillies were I believe weren’t they?) Where were the Yankees? (Wait, they were out after the first round of play offs). What about the Braves? (Oh, right, they were above 500, but still 3 or 4 games out of the play offs). WTF has happened to MLB?

Also, who gives a shite if Dumbledore is/was gay? Does it really matter? In the article, rowling talks about his love of Gellert Grindelwald. As thats the only reference to Dumbledore ever being “attracted” to anyone else, I really have to question if he was gay or if JK was just trying to stir the muck and sell more books.

The article I liked was the Man killed in monkey attack. It was ‘a senior government official’ in India who was attacked at his home and he actually died from injuries from a fall. Apparently the monkeys are a problem in New Delhi, where the local religion believes they’re a rendition of a god. Its a little odd but if people would stop feeding the monkey’s they’d go away. Of course a .22 calibre rifle would take care of the issue as well…

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