I have been working on and off on developing a business website with functionality other than this is who we are, this is what we do for some time now. It has been taking me some time now to make some progress on the DomainVentory project for Innovadix, because of duties like family, day job and simply being tiered from everything that needs to be done every day. But anyways, every thing with its time.

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.

‘Bike Hero’ viral video not a dud, but not a hero either thanks to ad agency Droga5 on behalf of Activision. A coworker pointed me to an article on Game Cyte giving some background on the video below. Good job on the video, but who the hell names their company drug 5. Droga translates into drug! Unless they are looking at viral and drug as synonyms it’s an odd choice for a company.

Last week I was contacted by a GoDaddy company representative by the name of Logan, who provided me with a list of my expiring domains  until the end of the year, informed me that he has been assigned to my account and can offer me a discount. I responded to him by asking for more information about the discount. The discounted price per domain he provided me with, in his replay email, was the same price I receive as a member of the domain discount club.

One would thing that when offering discount to their customers GoDaddy would check to see if it is worth doing so, when the customers are members of the domain discount club, and the company is not willing to offer a greater discount! I suppose it makes no difference, because this is a courtesy service and a money raising act, but if it was me I would have taken a different approach.

My experience with GoDaddy, as a customer since 2003, has ALWAYS been positive. I have always had a good experience with their customer support, which I am glad is located in the States and I can call them at any time. To my knowledge GoDaddy does not outsource, so I must give the company and Bob Parsons props for doing this and keeping Americans employed. I know that part of the company’s customer relations strategy is to provide courtesy services, like company representatives personally calling me and emailing me to remind me of my expiring domains. In the past I have benefited from it, I enjoy it and appreciate it.

Courtesy of Screw-PayPal.com

PayPal, not only does your customer service blow you out of the water in being able to be at the top of the WORST customer service I have dealt with since I have been on the Internet (20 years now), but there are some really stupid rules in place. To shop I need to add a credit card, when I already have a bank account added. When I add a credit card and remove the bank account, because it is pointless to have the first linked when it canNOT be used to show with, my account becomes unverified, even though I have been a member for NINE years and have been “verified” numerous times before. Pathetic!

I used to wonder why so many people hold a poor opinion of PayPal, but recently I have been able to understand why, by developing my own negative opinion of the service.

Courtesy of PayPalSucks.com

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.

I have created an Invites request page where you can view my reviews of various web sites and services on the web that require invites to become a member, or did required one at the time of the review. As I spend a lot of time on the Internet, I register on many websites and thus come in possession of invites, which I am more than glad to share with others interested to test the web site in question as well.

You can request an invite via two methods;

1. You can leave me a comment on the blog post about the website you are interested in.
2. You can use the Invites request form on the Invites page, where you can request invites to multiple services at once.

Either method will get you an invite, IF they are still available. If I run out of invites I will look into getting more, but not all web sites will be willing to share more. If you have invites that you would liek to share, either let me know and I will let you know when someone wants one, or just comment on one of the invites offer posts for others to get a hold of you. In cases when you have invites to a web site that I have not posted about, contact me and I will make a post about it.

Recently Amanda and I went car shopping. Now that Alexandar is growing bigger and we are planing on having a family expansion we needed something other than the Jeep. So, we went looking at minivans. After looking at the 5th minivan I was becoming more and more bored of the activity and pretty much all of them started to look the same to me - a vehicle with lots of space inside. Having gone through the majority makes and models of minivans on the market we decided to go to CarMax and see what they had to offer in addition to saving $20,000 from the price tag. What I noticed in majority of the minivans and crossover vehicles we had looked at is that ashtrays are no longer a build in feature. Ashtrays seem to have become an extra feature you have to request.

Personally I don’t care that there is a lack of ashtrays, but I do not think that it is fair to those who have chosen the slow suicide. Yes it is an option to order one, but what if you are reselling the car. Some people won’t buy the car for the lack of one. I suppose it is a marketing and economic decision. If the manufacturer does not have to make the space for it, they won’t. Same goes for spending money on the materials to make it.

I just find this trend strange. What do you think? What new trends have you picked up on that have surprised you?

Why do people and business say “custom build computer”. They are not custom build, the products are custom selected and put together. Custom building involves the process of fabrication. Creating and building components from raw materials or almost from scratch. I guess the fraze is simply used for braging and gaining more business.