THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE. GO TO THE HOMEPAGE TO FIND OUT WHAT TO DO NEXT.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. arch emisou panton
	Phil's Blogservations Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Posted by philgomes 5:59 PM Madge Miller Gets Published Madge Miller Gets Published Delivering further proof that hawking seamlessly integrated, feature-rich widgets only takes the most creative ones among us so far, my friend, former colleague, and most recent blogroll addition Madge Miller recently got one of her short stories published. Congrats, Madge! Monday, November 22, 2004 Posted by philgomes 5:48 PM RIP: Brother Ray Berta, FSC RIP: Brother Ray Berta, FSC I was saddened to hear this afternoon that a former professor of mine, Brother Ray Berta, passed away over the weekend. He would have been 64 this coming Saturday. He was my oral communications teacher and, thereafter, a consistent presence in my academic growth. From the note I just received in my email from St. Mary's College: Brother was born on November 26, 1940, in Ottawa, Illinois, the son of Raymond Joseph Berta and Evelyn Marie Hertzner. He entered the Novitiate on June 16, 1959. He received the religious habit on August 30, 1959. He made his perpetual vows on July 16, 1965, at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. Brother Raymond is survived by his brother, James Berta, San Diego, California, his sister, Joanne Rosencrans, and nieces and nephews. Brother Ray (or "The Unabrother," owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding that he at least publicly laughed off with characteristic humor) was the kind of teacher that they write movies about. He was able to excite and inspire even the most jaded within the classroom's attendance. A keen instructor, Brother Ray created a classroom atmosphere that brought the students together as a group and enabled them to achieve their individual best. He will be missed. Thursday, November 18, 2004 Posted by philgomes 5:39 PM The Award For Most Unusual Search Term Goes To... The Award For Most Unusual Search Term Goes To... ...whomever used this to get to my site: burning down my master's house and culpability No, this isn't evidence in a potential arson case. Likely, this person was looking for information on Jayson Blair's book. Strangely enough, the most popular search terms that have brought people to my site include: My name PR, blogs, RSS, or some combination thereof James Carville The names of people — particularly women — that I've worked with in the past, which is all probably due to this post Musicians' names Sisters Of Mercy lyrics (particularly off of the Floodland album) Anyway... I'm probably going to follow this more closely. It's kind of entertaining. Posted by philgomes 1:06 PM The Cost Of Complicated Marcom: $3B The Cost Of Complicated Marcom: $3B According to a recent study, confusing marketing from the wireless providers costs them $3 billion in revenue. Described as highlighting a "clarity opportunity" (oh, my), we now have a study that clarifies what we all pretty much already know — people aren't going to buy what they can't understand. Even then, get a load of this: The company voted to have the worst marketing brochure offered the clearest description of the calling plan. Sprint PCS garnered the most criticism with 56 percent of those surveyed saying they "would definitely or probably not subscribe to Sprint" after viewing the calling-plan brochure. Just over half of those surveyed came to the same conclusion for Verizon Wireless, while Cingular and T-Mobile USA turned off 39 and 38 percent of respondents respectively. Sprint PCS did much better in customer comprehension of its pricing plans with 68 percent of those surveyed correctly answering the test question, followed by 57 percent for Verizon Wireless, 46 percent for Cingular and 33 percent for T-Mobile USA. Guess what wireless service your favorite blogger uses? Tuesday, November 16, 2004 Posted by philgomes 4:35 PM GGU Marketing Class Starts Blog GGU Marketing Class Starts Blog Kudos to Rob Gelphman, whose Marketing 100 class at GGU's Silicon Valley extension is publishing a blog "as part of a class project and as a new learning tool." The inaugural post says: Marketing 100 Opinions is a place where we can discuss the topic of Marketing. We'll share what we like and don't like, what works and doesn't work, and have fun doing it. :-) We are three Generation X's and two Baby Boomers, so you may see some generation gap issues as we discuss topics relevant to us. Please comment on anything we post, as we want your participation and feedback! Thanks! ;-) This will certainly be very interesting to follow. Posted by philgomes 9:20 AM Gillmor Mourns COMDEX Gillmor Mourns COMDEX Well... Sort of... Me? I don't miss it. At all. I spent the first four years of my career in blissful avoidance of that show. My Adaptec work eventually brought me there and, frankly, that was one company that did it right. So moved was I years later that I wrote this post. This pretty much sums it up: Times changed, and Comdex didn't change fast enough. CES did, and turned into the place to be. Comdex was a legend in its time, and for good reason. Part of me won't miss it a bit. But I want to remember that when the show did matter, it mattered more than anything else of its kind. Monday, November 15, 2004 Posted by philgomes 10:57 AM Bill's Booger Bill's Booger Oh, my... In covering the launch of Microsoft's new search tool, Google News picked the most unflattering picture possible. It's the bots' fault, I'm sure. Screengrab via Jon Udell. Friday, November 12, 2004 Posted by philgomes 3:07 PM Ahab Continues To Hunt His Whale Ahab Continues To Hunt His Whale Well, it would seem that Michael Moore is not wasting any time. The controversial filmmaker is planning to begin work on a sequel to "Fahrenheit 9/11," to be titled "Fahrenheit 9/11 and 1/2," he told the industry trade publication Variety. The new project will revisit the same issues addressed in "Fahrenheit 9/11," which included scathing criticisms of Bush's presidency, as well as terrorism and the war in Iraq. He's looking to have this new film in the can within two or three years. At his current C2GPM* rate of 0.15, he'll be up to at least 6.6. C2GPM = "Chin Count Growth Per Month" Posted by philgomes 11:50 AM A Firefox Browser Extension For The Paranoid A Firefox Browser Extension For The Paranoid I don't know if this is a poignant comment on these paranoid times or something far less profound, but I just downloaded a plugin for my Firefox browser that gives me updated threat warnings from the Dept. Of Homeland Security. Clicking on the above icon opens up a new tab to the DHS public site. Thanks to ExtremeTech for the tip. Thursday, November 11, 2004 Posted by philgomes 3:53 PM IMHO, WTF Is Up With These Acronyms? IMHO, WTF Is Up With These Acronyms? An amusing posting, courtesy of InfoWorld's Paul Krill. Perhaps it's time to stop immediately taking the acronym path to labeling a technology or concept. The clarity of acronyms has clearly become the confusion of acronyms. Posted by philgomes 1:11 PM Random Thought Random Thought Whoever decided it was a good idea to mix Nestle Crunch bits with Skippy peanut butter deserves to be in the space program. Tuesday, November 09, 2004 Posted by philgomes 7:15 PM "This Computer Is Not Human..." "This Computer Is Not Human..." "...it feels no pain. It can't be reasoned with." Yeah... So, up until very recently, Ad-Aware updates would crash. I wondered if there was some new adware that flummoxed the update processes of leading cleanup tools. Then, I noticed that the open-source Firefox 1.0 browser came out today. I've been happily using version 0.9.1 for a number of months and discovered that my adware counts went way down compared to Microsoft's Infernal Explorer. I installed it. And, now that I've installed Firefox 1.0, Ad-Aware happily updates its reference files. Coincidence? It's the only new thing to get installed onto my computer in months. Also, between the last time I heavily used Explorer (two months ago) and today, my weekly adware counts have gone from 60 to zero. For the record, this new browser rules. I like how it identifies feeds on the page and offers to turn that feed into a "live bookmark." Don't bother downloading Firefox from the Mozilla site, 'cause it's slammed. I couldn't even access the page of mirror-site links. From the article on CNET News.Com: The browser was made available for free download at 1 a.m. PST Tuesday. But by early Tuesday morning, only 45 percent of those who tried to gain access to the Web site were successful, said Stephen Pierzchala, senior analyst at Net performance management firm Gomez. And for those who were lucky enough to gain access, it took an average of 40 seconds to 50 seconds to load the page via a T1 line or better. For popular sites such as Amazon.com and Yahoo, it takes about 4 seconds to load the entire page, he said. "Firefox is suffering from a success crisis," Pierzchala said. "The bad news is so many people can't get to the site. The good news is its popularity." When I surfed to CNET's Download.Com this morning, there were already over 950,000 downloads. I guess I got my copy from there just in time, 'cause I can't open the site now. Monday, November 08, 2004 Posted by philgomes 1:45 PM Most Execs Don't Want To Be CEO Most Execs Don't Want To Be CEO In the mid-seventies, William Burroughs wrote a great piece for Harper's called "When Did I Stop Wanting To Be President?" (Answer: "At birth, certainly, and perhaps before.") According to this study, it seems like plenty of executives feel pretty much the same way: The number of executives who don’t want to be CEO has doubled since 2001 (60 percent today versus 27 percent in 2001), according to new research by global communications consultancy Burson-Marsteller. Only about one-third (35 percent) say they want to be CEO (versus 47 percent in 2001). Most executives have solidified their opinion about being CEO or not – only five percent are unsure compared to 26 percent in 2001. The study was conducted among Fortune 1000 executives by WirthlinWorldwide.) Thanks to Lish Nieva-Woodgate for the link. Saturday, November 06, 2004 Posted by philgomes 7:48 PM Linux Evangelist Gets Name In Lights Linux Evangelist Gets Name In Lights My buddy Tim Tuck, owner of Pervasive Netwerks, got a case study in NewsForge. Read all about how he took a small pharmacy and moved the lion's share of their operations from Windows to Linux. Friday, November 05, 2004 Posted by philgomes 9:33 AM Don't You Hate It When... Don't You Hate It When... ...someone takes some relatively throwaway (though nevertheless witty) comments you made during a talk, cocktail party, presentation, pitch, or some other extemporaneous situation and lifts from it without any attribution whatsoever? God, I hate that. No, I'm not going to link to it either. When some of you people — and you know who you are — start to run out of my ideas, make sure you give me a call, then. HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.