Yesterday evening I was forced to smile about two things ….  and people following my blog might be aware about two things I have mentioned here during the past.

One was Google nearly driving me crazy with their wish to verify my Google Adsense Account with a prior received pin - I never had received - until yesterday!!

Wasn’t there a shiny neat postcard directly coming from New York City within my P.O. box yesterday?? Just sadly the verification possibility within my Google Adsense account had mysteriously disappeared in between …. and I would have so much loved to show them that I’m a real trust worth user of their service!

And 2nd, finally my iTunes told me that Apple had written a new firmware upgrade for my iPod :-)  …. isn’t that nice of them taking so much care about me and my iPod?

Giving again the loyal and compliant customer, I agreed with iTunes updating my player and … “OH Wonder” … the problem with the amplifier not really switching off anymore, was fixed again!

I love so much seeing that all these big companies do really know what they are doing ……

“can we bring shampoo to great barrier”

That was the search string used at Google’s search engine leading a visitor to one of my pages. Besides the fact that Google did send me a new visitor and this fellow was obviously environmental friendly…… I felt very annoyed about seeing this query string listed in my sites search statistics.

Doesn’t it dramatically show that normal internet user (surfer) are helpless overstrained with actual technologies?

Sure, Google - as also all other modern search engines - does work with modern full text search algorithm, knowing all about high sophisticated way to optimize the user query. Stripping away useless filler words and picking up reasonable searching term is usual practice today without question!

But what does this people expect? Just a quick “Cut&Paste” of the first chapter of the bible does not give you a valid search result directly leading you to god and the ultimate answer to everything!!

Looking behind, search engines are nothing different than highly specialized databases running with a “user friendly” interface allowing an easy querying of the stored data basis within. And even the order of the given search terms have a significant influence on the fact whether or not you will get a useful result.

Think about and try it your own …. searching for “shampoo & great barrier” will for sure come back with much more search results than a “great barrier & shampoo”. This is easy to understand, when you are aware that it is a given fact, that it is much more ususal to publish general info about shampoo, than writing about shampoo carried to the Great Barrier Reef!

Years ago, within a private discussion with a friend, I pointed out my opinion that, considering about the growing amount of data daily published on the internet, a new profession like an professional and reliable “Internet Scout” being trained to find authentic and trust worth information on the net quickly and reliable will become an urgent need in future ….. looks like I was right ….

As a biker with a bike running with a seasonal license plate from 04 to 10, it is nearly annoying to stand such lovely sunny weather conditions like we have actually.

Since two weeks we are able to enjoy a lovely weather high with sunny and mild (5 to 7°C) conditions and I’m always jealous looking at those bikers already enjoying their first rides this year. Not that you could stand the cold wind for long and even the warmest hours of the day does still feel cold in the breeze. But even a short ride for just a few minutes would do for sure.

Perhaps I really should go and re-license my bike again as planned and thought about since years. Looks like there might really come something good with that global warming at the end.

I’m curious anyway how the new season will turn out for me. After years being a loyal pillion rider, my wife has now discovered push bike riding for her …
Not only that all that new equipment nearly cost us a fortune, I might now have to look for new company on the “real” bike also ….

Nice lovely motorbike daytrips through wonderful countryside (or even a short 4 day long weekend trip into the alps) with a well powered GSX 750F. Always ready to break down and stop for a spontaneous and leisure cold drink, coffee, ice , lunch or dinner …. any takers?

Being a member of an Internet Discussion List, early this week I was allowed to enjoy the newest weekly published cartoon of another list member there. For my feelings this cartoon asked a very interesting question, trapping my mind thinking about it all week.

It was plainly about the question why designer and programmer never will come together …. An interesting question that is! Isn’t it?

Thinking about this question, I found out about my personal answer to it - Not sure I’m right or not with it! But for me it works.

Looking at myself, I’m aware that I have an analytical working brain, while designers for my feelings needs to have a mainly creative working brain for being able to do that they do. This is no absolutism and for sure every brain has both abilities. It is just your very own personal way to deal with or solve your daily problems or more basically just to do what it needs to do for you.

Whenever I’m confronted with something new, like work I have to do, a problem, a decision to make or even just with a new person I meet or I have to deal with, I start to analyze it, him or her … Make my personal plan, decision or judgement about and follow my intuition which is in most cases “more or less” the right one.

This does not mean I’m not able to correct or adjust myself later on again when I recognize that I was wrong. In a difference to that I’m mostly “too quick”, or depending on the way you like to see it in some situations “too stubborn” following and staying with my plan without doubts, for others.

This works for me very well, as for it’s my personal nature to do so. Just for others it often appears cold and rational which is a bonus for work or any critical situation within it needs to keep a cool head. But can turn out into a problem when it means to deal with other humans on a more emotional layer and they start to think about me as arrogant, pushing or demanding.

Guess you just have to know me and to know how to deal with me, for making it working!

Getting older, the more I understand about that issue and the more and the better I can deal with it. Just I often still feel sometimes helpless, when my opposite just plainly acts emotional no longer being able to listen to some given facts and me not being able to follow.

What kind of brain does work for you my friend?

Search for some basic website monitoring I one found an easy to use solution called WebSecretary. It is fairly easy to install and does a really reliable job at all. I do call it in a cron job and monitor several own and customer pages with it. What I really like is that it sends me an email if the pages has changed, highlighting the differences by comparing it’s stored copy from the day before.

Today I found a customer page, I had made once, reported as changed and in fact it was totally messed up by the customer itself had tried to update it himself. Mainly surprised to hear from me, he told me about his bad luck changing the pages, when I called him this morning with the intention to tell him about the overall ugly actual appearance of his pages.

With the automatic info stored from the day before, I was able to repair his frontpage in seconds and now he even pleased me to come over discussing a redesign of his pages with him.

I really like my little helpers … yeah I do!