I received an awesome present – my first ever business cards. What made them awesome was the fact that the company’s name was MY company’s name – Innovadix.

xbox 360, logo, controller

My XBOX 360 is kaput! It’s at the point where it won’t even turn on. Well, it does, but it immediately powers off everything but the Red Ring of Death (RRoD). It sucks. I have been having some issue with the Xbox for some time know. Recently I wrote about how I was experiencing some xbox video problems. Well, about a week or so ago, I lost video on it completely. The TV knows that there is something connected to it, but all I get is a black screen. Amanda came across a tutorial on how to check what might be wrong with the Xbox 360, through getting it to show an error code. Well, the error code I repeatedly received was 0102, which indicated that the Xbox has no idea what the problem might be.

We have had the system since 2005. So it is definitely out of Microsoft’s manufacturer warranty. I figured there isn’t much to loose by trying some of the hacks and fixes people have described on the Internet. Since it was already broken, what could happen? Brake it even further than it is? ….. hahaha, funny, now that I write this after the fact. What can I tell you … I have  indeed managed to brake a broken Xbox 360!

Back to the Xbox 360 hack on the World Wide Web. After reading number of issues and fixes described by Xbox owners, I decided to go with the 360 Hot Air Gun fix. Supposedly if the CPU and GPU, and some times the RAM chips are heated up, with a Hot Air Gun, to the point where the solder melts, it possibly can resolve the problem with the cracked solder joints and lack of conductivity between the chips and the xbox motherboard. Unfortunately for me this fix did not work, and “broke” the Xbox 360.

It will be easier for me just to go out and get a new Xbox 360 around Christmas than to keep trying to fix a 2005 Xbox 360. Hopefully newer models do not have the same issues. Although, I thought about simply picking up a new Xbox 360 motherboard from eBay, but I see that there are Xbox 360 Elite motherboards with the same issue, 4 year latter! I will most likely post this one on Craigslist for $50 or so to help contribute toward the cost of replacing it.

Wordpress in Bulgarian.

There are many Bulgarian communities around the world. To my knowledge the largest one is right here in Chicago. I’m not counting Bulgaria, because that’s a whole country! Bulgarians make many contributions to many web sites, science, industries and technologies. We have also made significant invention contributions to computers and aviation, as well. Something to be proud off.

On a side note: Here is an instructional video on how to properly wash your hands, filmed by students from ITE College East:

Personally I think step 4 is not necessary. Maybe more applicable when in hospital settings or out in the field.

Back to the subject at hand: At work we also have a new refrigerator that makes ice. Unfortunately, it does not mechanically dispense it. A person has to reach into the ice box and take out individual cubes. I wash my hands before doing that, because I know it is neither ethical nor healthy to take out ice with dirty hand. I have hear and read about the ice in restaurants.

Earlier as I was walking toward the fridge to get some ice, I remembered what I observed yesterday and realized that that very same person could also be consuming the ice. Knowing that he doesn’t wash his hands I can, without a doubt, be hapless he doesn’t wash his hands before taking ice, either. And for that matter any other person that takes ice out of the communal ice box.

Cold drinks … I guess that’s the end of that!

P.S. Please, do use the ass gaskets. They are there for a reason. Oh, and cast your vote in the coworkers’ hygiene poll below, and sound off in the comments.

I could care less when people utilize their middle finger to express some sort of emotions. But, I do find it inappropriate when amongst professional peers. Despite the fact that the environment is a party, people do notice what others at the event do and say. They do talk amongst themselves and after the party, as well as almost always there is someone recording audio or video or images. Then they get posted and someone writes something about what You did, even those who do not share opinions via writing, still form an opinion about You based on your actions. All of these do affect your reputation and your company’s reputation, because when amongst professionals you do represent your company, and there is an even higher stake when you are the founder!

Reputation + business = money The better the first the more of the last!

The finger + a camera = douchebaggery

Please, do share the reason for your answer in the comments after this post.

You can find more information about the TechCrunch party even here.

Beer and Fireworks = Bad Combination

The idiot morons in my neighborhood are already starting with the fireworks. WTF?! It’s only July 1st! There are 3 days left before I have to endure the random and unnecessary thumping of fireworks. Which, the previously mentions idiots, last year were setting off randomly throughout the night for a month after July 4th. When you are trying to sleep and when you have small children it is very inconsiderate and rude to be woken up, multiple times during the night, because the mentally lacking in capacity neighbors can’t control themselves. I was finding leftover fireworks in my yard for two months after July 4th, but it was more discouraging and enraging when I found the fireworks debris on the roof of our home.

Fittingly, here is a video dedicated to fireworks idiots. Enjoy!

P.S. I like fireworks, I like watching fireworks shows. When we were on out honeymoon in San Diego, I watched a fireworks shows that was coordinated between 12 different locations throughout the city. I could see 9 of those. It was great. It was awesome. But as a home owner, I prefer to keep explosives that I’m not in control of, and knowing that if  something happens no one is going to take responsibility for, away from my property and loved ones.

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt

I’m all for “Made in America”. There are American made products that can be competitive in China, but we have to remember that Chinese workers work for very little, long hours, and under conditions that will not be allowed in America. These and number of other factors, like unions, cost of living, health care, taxes, etc. are affecting the cost of manufacturing these “competitive” products for the Chinese market. Because of the labor laws, or lack there of, and inexpensive manufacturing cost so many products are made in China and so many American jobs are outsourced to that country and its serfs! What makes a big difference in why the more expensive American made products/exports will sell and succeed in foreign and overseas markets is quality. American made products are better made, they last longer, they perform better and they are more desired (when they can be afforded).

I blame it on the Portillo’s food we had for dinner the night before. Amanda thinks that it’s either the food or the flu. Although, thinking about it, it could be also something from Alexandar’s daycare. He had similar symptoms on Saturday. He was fine on Friday, but he started Saturday not feeling well, occasional  diarrhea and being sensitive to the touch. The culmination was at 1:30 AM when his dinner came out the same way it went in. The rest of the Sunday he was fine again.

Same here, we feel fine today.

“Yoo”?!!? WTF is that. First of all – I have a name, and that person is well aware of it. Second, a similar response or something in the lines of “What’s happening” will be more in line of the “topic” of what should be a dialog, but a lot of times ends up being a monologue for many people.

If it takes someone more than half a second to a second to provide a response, which at this point in their life should be automated, then don’t bother responding. It won’t be the first time. Same applies if you have to think about responding or not in the first place!

In my opinion, the time limit rule for comebacks also applies in this case.

BTW, most of the time, my verbal response to the lack of one in cases of “Good morning”, “Good afternoon”, “Good day” or “How is it going?”, is “That good, huh?”.

What topped everything was when he was done with his calculations he asked me if I would like to guess how much it would be. So, knowing about how much things cost, what others have paid, and how much we wanted to spend, I said:

$15,000

A little bit more. - He retorted!

$16,500 – I said.

A little bit more. - He retorted, again.

$18,000 - I replied.

A little bit more. – Was his answer once again.

At that point I became annoyed and I said – “We are past the “A little bit more” point. We past it $1,500 ago!“. So he gave us his figure – $36,000 and few hundred more!!! What the heck? That number does NOT even qualify for a “much more” response. It’s double what I said, plus another $6,000.

That number is unacceptable, even if the windows are guaranteed for the life of the house, and to be replaced for free if an object ever happens to go through one.

To cream that, he spend the following 15 or so minutes somewhat refusing to leave and trying to get us to place an order. At least for some of the windows, which he estimated at just above $4,000 – for 3 small windows.

The cherry was when he told us that if we don’t place an order that evening and he has to come again, so we can place an order, we will not be eligible for the 20% first time discount. Huuu?!! Everyone else I have ever done business with, worked with, worked for, as well as it being a standard in doing business, gives discount on the first order, NOT on meeting for a first time.

Unbelievable!!

Pressure sales do not work on me. I come from a family with generations of entrepreneurs and business owners of various types. As well as, I married into one of the same type. Needless to say, both my wife and I are on the same path. Same applies for my sibling.

I have the options, skills and knowledge to do things myself. Just like I have been doing for many years. But, in the last few years, available time has become a factor.

Anyways, as my Mom always tells me – “Be cheap on the expensive thing.”. In my opinion $36,000 is at a premium for hand full of windows and two sliding doors.

Something my cats can’t seem to comprehend. By the way, how many cats do You have?

A Dad Moment

Ricky held his one-year-old daughter Emily in his lap. She was jabbering in baby talk as she flipped the pages of a picture book. Nearby, Ricky’s five-year-old son Tim said, “Dad, make her read it in English instead of Spanish.”.

I extremely enjoy listening to my son talking in his own language. It is fun, entertaining and animated – full of facial expressions and gestures. Moments like these are priceless, which only parents can appreciate for their true value and not just their comical relief.

Employee Financial Stress costs businesses more than $300 Billion Each Year. - Todd Gilmore.

I am not sure what is the background of his statement. I did not inquire about it, but I did respond to it with:

maybe if we get this resolved, businesses won’t need a $ bailout and thus cause employees financial str ess from taking their $$

Logically, people won’t stress out about their finances, if either salaries were more suitable to the current costs of living, or businesses did not receive bailout money without sharing them with their employees. The latter is most likely what causes employees’ financial stress, because businesses receive money to cover their deaths, and employees see their hard earned money disappear in a void. Businesses are also still firing employees, while still guaranteeing the executive salaries, their bonuses, and partners performance bonuses with the bailout money – another contributing factor to the employees’ stress.

If companies shared the wealth with their employees, employees will be happy, stress free, and thus performance will increase. With higher employees performance come higher profits, because work is done quicker, it is not over looked, skipped or delayed.

Twitter can be addictive! I never got into FriendFeed, only because I find it cluttered, or better yet – way too much going on. There is way too much going on in the activity stream to keep track of and to pay attention to comments. That is not to say that I have not picked up on some good images or links from the activity stream, but I do not use its commenting system. Actually, even thought some times I spend 50 to 60 hours per week on the Internet, I really do not find it useful. I know that many content creators, just like me, prefer to have/own comments either by us or to us. What happens if these services go down? All those comments will be gone.

I used to be addicted to Twitter. Just look at the graph below. But thanks to the type of work I do and its needs I was able to realize how much time I was wasting posting and refreshing all the time. At times I would simply sit and refresh the page for minutes at a time, hopping that “I won’t miss something”. Pretty ridiculous, huhh?! To me that was the biggest waist of time, because even though I was micro-blogging I was still spending more time REFRESHING A PAGE.

Twitter Stats by TweetStats.com

Some say that Twitter and micro-blogging is the next evolution of blogging. I disagree. I think that 140 character blogging, if you can call it that is a digression, not an evolution. I have concluded that Twitter and 140 character blogging is simply a retarded form of a chat(instant messenger) system. First of all, as a blogger, I hate the character limitations. Listen I have A LOT to say. If you go back in my Twitter history, you will see that I used to use TinyPaste to compensate for the limitations and to say what I have to say. Some would say why don’t I simply write an email or use an instant messenger. Well, because emails take too long to get a response to and not everyone uses an instant messenger. The Twitter users, with whom I communicate, they would hardly be willing to spend time writing a lengthy email, when they have the wonderful use of Twitter’s instant response – in short. I’ve also expressed on many occasions my disgust with how Twitter and services alike are forcing users to become grammar unintelligent so they can say what they have to say.

Probably about a month or so ago I decided to cut down on Twitter. I still get my urges to check it out, and I do. I do glance over what others are doing, but I hardly post now – mostly in response to others. Lastly, I found Twitter to be damaging to one’s social environment. That is not to say that Twitter is not good to start new friendships, keep up with people and expend one’s views, but that’s how far its usefulness should extend. A good personal example is from my work environment – instead of simply using my voice or getting out of my chair and making 5 steps, I communicate via Twitter with my coworkers. This also goes back to my statement that Twitter is a retarded form of chat/instant messenger.

Maybe it is time to evolve from Twitter and micro-blogging back to blogs and maybe then we can come up with a new better form of instant online communication. There are web sites which are trying to compensate for the character and hopefully grammar limitations by starting services, which mimic Twitter and such, but also allowing for longer post. But, again, if you think about it, isn’t that simply creating another blogging platform?!! Looks to me that people are evolving back.

BTW, what exactly is the point of having private domaining forums? Some of the biggest and most successful domaining forums have succeeded not by being private, but by charging for services and features.

Anyways, after couple of weeks I did not receive a response to my message. So, I simply registered on the forums, while doing so I was asked to provide 3 domains to verify my identity. I listed TitanFusion.net, Innovadix.com and DomainVentory.com. All three have my name on the domain record info. The following day my registration was rejected – “did not meet our membership requirements”?!?! As domainer with few hundred domain names to my name I’m pretty sure that I do meet the “requirements”, but, whatever. The point of this post is to illustrate poor customer service and public relations. Why? Because after I received the registration decline email, I emailed back to ask Donna what gives, because she was already following me on Twitter as domainventory. I did not receive a response from her, nor did I receive one after I tweeted about it.

Not responding to a potential customers or partners after multiple attempts via different channels is a poor way to do business. Do not write off the small ones, because someday the stands might be reversed and you might be in their place. Be prepared to be treated the same way you treated them!

The reason why I am saying that I underestimated the time it will take me to develop the site is because of all the things that pop up in my head that needs to be included in the web site as I work on it. Unlike other website project I have worked on, this is the first time I am developing a business and a websites with a variety of features and needs from the ground up. Granted I contemplated for a very long time if I should use a CMS or build my own interface, I decided to go with using one of the more popular CMS simply to get he project off the ground. Once the website and it is functional and servicing clients it can always be upgraded. It won’t be anything new. Over the years I have seen many websites which have switched from one CMS to another, or simply gone with developing a proprietary interface and vice versa. Every time I sit down to work on the site, as I am working on something at least half a dozen other things come to my mind that need to be included and once I place them on my to do list, half a dozen more pop up for each of them. For example tonight I am working on documenting  how customer’s will be referenced across multiple sites, especially ones that are not mine. As I figured out how I am going to do that and started to document it, the fact that I also need to collect and maintain customers’ personal billing information also came to my mind, and as I typed the previous I realized that that data needs to be encrypted.

It is definitely a learning experience. Even though my grand parents, my father and my Amanda’s father all owned or still operate their own businesses, being an entrepreneur was not something that interested me until 3 years ago. Thus I do not have much knowledge or experience with it. The who start up and get going process can be difficult especially when building everything solo with limited resources and the most valuable of them being time to work on business development.

So far the planing stage seems to be taking long time, but not as long as documenting how everything is going to work. The most important thing is to make progress. Some times it is a lot, other times it is as little as few words, or paragraphs.

yhoo stock rebound - image from TechCrunch

Last week I tweeted that Yahoo’s stock was at $10 per share and it was time to buy. Comments on my tweet (Micro post.) said that it is pointless to do so. As I was on my way to New York, I wasn’t able to provide a response to the comments.

With today’s reports about Yahoo’s CEO, Jerry Yang, stepping down I wish I had listened to my own advice. But there is still time to buy, buy, buy. People have been complaining about Yang and wanting him out of the decisions circle. Now he is out and I can only imagine that the stoke will continue going up as the company finds new leadership or is bought or merged with another one. I would like that company to be Microsoft.

[cb type="company"]yahoo[/cb]

Last time I saw my dad was at the Sofia airport in Bulgaria in August of 1998. Since that time I have talk to him on the phone, but I have seen only 1 picture of him and that was probably 4 or so years ago. I was very excited to see him and I really wanted for him to see me! Thankfully I had Amanda’s web cam.

Skype is just a technology. There are many other methods making video conferencing possible. Skype is simply one of the more popular ones.

No matter the methods, the moment we were able to see each other was overwhelming with joy. I can’t wait to do it again.

[cb type="company"]skype[/cb]

Luckily I’m not easily bothered by my environment, because I realize and understand cause and effect. I am a human, I evolve and adapt. Kind of contradictory to the leading sentence, but every once in awhile there are moments that help keep oneself in check.

The way out is through progress and opportunity. Sometimes they just happen at slower pace than one might want them to progress at. Therefore patience is a virtue, remaining calm “and collect” is a nice bonus.

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So, I ended up searching for possible WhoIs scripts and how one could query the domain record information and ended up coming across the whois.php script, which is currently utilized on Domain Record Info. Also accessed via WhoIsMesh.com and DomaIndex.Info.

There are few other options/functions I would like to add to the page – ping, dns report, and various help and tutorials information. Eventually I would like to do something similar to DNS Stuff, but for the moment it will have to wait. Right now I have many other projects.

It is good to be back.

I wonder how the owners will feel when the SPAM flow is reversed?!

Since the beginning of the week I have been working no the billing system. When I first started working on it everything was so overwhelming, but after referring to the manual few times things now seem some much simpler and easier to understand. Thank God for technical writers. I should have the system fully configured and implemented with the web site within a week (amongst everything else I have to do). Following will be some dry testing. Configuring an automation and order processing system is new to me, so I want to make sure that everything is hooked the way it is supposed to be and will not brake in the middle of some ongoing process.

Hive Minds Hosting’s opening is scheduled in the first week of April

Last night she playd for 15 or so minutes and then wanted to switch with me. Today though! Today is a different story. I had her sit and play on her own instead of watching me. At first she was unsure of herself, but that soon changed! After playing for only 20 minutes she started to turn things around. I mean, her score was way better than my average, and I have been playing the damn game for years. When she talks she uses all the game’s terminology. In-game she moves and has an attitude like a veteran gamer. She puts my years put-in to shame.

All of her advancements in skill and attitude surprise me greatly, because tonight, unlike yesterday, most of the players on the servers are a-holes. I love all this, in addition to having a geeky and smart girlfriend, I have a girlfriend who likes to play games, also. A play all, in so many ways!! Simply awesome.