World Record for Largest Observed Snowflake … on a Google Doodle?
The World record for the largest observed snowflake …
according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was attained this day of January 28th in 1887. The city was Fort Keogh, Montana and the observer was a farmer.
Google’s doodle of today celebrates his discovery, though it appears he may have been the only witness to this frozen snowflake miracle of nature.
From Wikipedia we learn that Guinness’ recognized the world’s largest snowflakes as those of January 1887 at Fort Keogh, Montana; allegedly one measured 38 cm (15 inches) wide.
What’s Up Joe Duck?
It’s always annoying when folks say how busy they are when – almost always – - they are involved in many hours per day of unnecessary TV watching, Facebooking, gaming, making your own hair gel, hobbies, gardening, etc. Nothing wrong with all those things but it’s not the same as “being busy” doing things you MUST do because of work and other “essential” committments.
That said, I think I’m into the “busy” realm now with more projects than I can possibly complete for some time. It’s been a good motivator for me, but it’s a little intimidating too.
Here are some of them:
Retire USA Retirement Information. This is a big project with four other partners where we’ll showcase retirement options in all 50 states. States and cities are online and I’m building the connections to the 5000+ category records now. We’ve had an Oregon retirement website for some time and a retirement blog for some time but will be revamping that soon to include more information from more writers and many experts in retirement.
US History, US History Blog, Online Highways Travel, Travel and History. These are the sites managed mostly by my business partner but with some input by me, especially at our two travel blogs US History and Travel and History. I LOVE travel blogging and wish I had even more time to travel and blog, but blogging is playing mostly a weak supporting role in my internet projects. I still need to get my Vietnam trip of Feb 2011 integrated into Online Highways as well as create more opportunities for small businesses at the site.
House Remodel. My son Ben and I bought a house for him to live in when he leaves home. It was a good “REO” post foreclosure deal but it needs a huge amount of work to become a great place. We’ll get some contractor help but do a lot of the work ourselves. After a few days of pulling up flooring I’m sure glad they invented Ibuprofen.
The QuickAid.com Airport Information Directory. This project started me off over ten years ago as an internet entrepreneur. I bought the website and data from another company and revamped it to include advertising. However after good initial success I fell victim to Google’s changing algorithms. They seem to be liking QuickAid again so I’ll be posting to that blog more often and revamping some of the old content about airports all over the world.
AirportCityCodes.com This is my Airport Codes database of Airports and world airport code and airline code information that also needs some attention.
Twitter. @JoeDuck I still love twitter but not quite sure how to use it to business advantage. I’m setting up individual accounts for many of my websites, but it’s hard to keep engaged with them all.
…. to be continued …
Retirement Information at Retire USA
Wow, I’d forgotten how hard it is to build and troubleshoot a huge website, but things are finally coming together at Retire USA, a project I’ve got going with three other partners. The plan is to showcase retirement options across all the states in the USA.
Although comments about this are welcome, you’ll find things still a bit rough and there’s lots of data (thousands of individual records) yet to be linked up to state and city pages, though some of this can be found via the Google custom search engine which will seek out Retirement information at our site, combine it with ads, and post the results.
By tonight all the state pages will be active, most with links out to city pages. Much more to come … soon!
Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida GeorgiaHawaii Idaho Indiana Illinois Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan MississippiMissouri Minnesota Montana Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York Nevada North CarolinaNorth Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee TexasUtah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming
Google Custom Seach Engine = Brilliant! CSE Troubleshooting Tips
The Google Custom Search allows a simple addition of code to your site that creates a customized search engine run by Google. This is often added via your adsense account (under ads / search) and it is a brilliant way to add search to you site that helps monetize your peeps with google advertising placed next to a list of your web pages.
HOWEVER I just spent a bit too much time fixing a simple problem so I thought I’d start a list of Google Custom Search Troubleshooting tips:
ONE: It’ll only show indexed content so be sure to create a sitemap for Google. Also a good idea to place some links to your pages from other sites so Google can find them more easily.
TWO:
be sure to add *.* to the specific URLs you want to custom search. For our RetireUSA retirement custom search I needed to add this to the URLs box to make sure it picked up all of our indexed content:
http://www.retireusa.net/*.*
http://blog.retireusa.net/*.*
Check out our Retirement Search tomorrow at RetireUSA.net
Affiliate West Summit Contest from Shoemoney
Dear Staff of Shoemoney (SOSs), Shoemoney, and fellow Affiliate Americans -
Honestly you probably will not and probably should not choose me for the Shoemoney Affiliate Summit West Contest.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a pretty good guy, fun to hang out with, and fairly well informed. Heck, I might even have a few tricks of the trade you haven’t heard about, although I’ve always been impressed with Shoemoney’s well informed, no-nonsense, experimental approaches to internet marketing, particularly his very clever experiments with Facebook advertising a few years back that were very cleverly written up in a powerpoint for, I think, an Affiliate Summit conference.
I also appreciate how Shoemoney and other world class search marketing fellows like Aaron Wall, Dave Naylor, and Todd Malicoat will share a lot of valuable insight and information both at conferences and online, even to those who don’t buy their stuff. These are smart and clever guys and prospective internet marketing folks should listen to what they have to say, though they should also be aware that “hype” is very much a part of that business and very few people are able to make a good online living regardless of their approaches. Most of the folks who do have been around a long, long time and benefit from old websites with high authority and the free Google traffic this provides to them. Before you spend much money on advice you should read the free stuff, especially the single best source for search optimization and search penalties – Matt Cutts blog. Matt is a great guy and is Google’s spam cop. You cross his search optimizing advice at your own peril. Believe me, I know this from a lot of experience with many sites over many years.
So even though I’m well aware of Shoe’s great personal success I’m generally skeptical that his good advice will transfers well to the degree others need to make enough money online to drop the day job. You’ll be hard pressed to convince me otherwise which is probably the main reason I should NOT win this contest – however it shakes out I’ll blog the results honestly.
Another reason is that I’m already scheduled to fly to Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show – CES 2012 – on the 9th. I’ll be reporting that conference for my tech blog “ Technology Report ” as I have been for several years. Of course since I’ve never been to an Affiliate Summit I would change my flight to a bit earlier to hang with the Shoemoney Man. I have a lot of questions for him about my modestly successful internet projects and some upcoming ones and how affilations (vs Google Adsense) might help improve our bottom line.
Another reason I’m a bad choice is that I’m already doing pretty well with my online ventures. Nothing amazing yet, but we do OK with a US History website, US Travel site, and a really neat new Retirement planning project I’m finishing up right now. As much as I’d like more advice from Shoe and his clever staff, it might be better used on somebody who is just starting out.
Oh, there is ONE reason you SHOULD choose me for the contest. If I win I will consider Shoemoney’s expert advice enough reward for me and I will donate *all* the proceeds to my favorite charity “Room to Read“. They build libraries and schools in poor countries and are simply an awesome way for those of us lucky enough to live here to give back a little and help make the world a better and safer place.
This donation will include any blackjack winnings. All I’d ask from Shoe and the great Shoemoney gang would be to help me promote Room to Read however he sees fit.
So, there you have it! Good luck to everybody with the Affiliate Summit Shoemoney contest and, win or lose, I hope to see you in Vegas baby!
Joe Duck / Joe Hunkins
You’ll probably want to ignore this post unless you are … Googlebot! Or Retired. Or a Retired Googlebot?
Retirement | Poudre Property Services | Cadence Bank | UT Medical Group | Eskaton | Palm Springs Family Care Center
OK, so this is kind of clever and kind of pathetic all at the same time. Google can take too long to index new content, but Joe Duck has good “authority” with Google (ie Google knows the blog is legitimate, regularly updated, and thus sort of assumes it’s actually read by real people who are breathing real globally warmed earthly air). Links from this blog are therefore often “indexed” by Google, which again reasonably assumes those links are not spammy junk. Often Googlebot will “follow” the links at those links in an effort to fully index and rank new content as it pours online.
We have a great new project launching any minute now called “RetireUSA.net” The idea is a database of Retirement related information, organized by about 250 popular retirement city / regions across the United States.
So Googlebot, please start indexing our thousands of records at Retire USA! Thanks Google! Any humans reading NOTE that these records will be changed and improved over the co ming weeks as I complete the templates for this project. The index or “home page” will soon have a clickable map of states from which Retirement folks can drill down to cities of interest and from there to categories of interest. We’re also enlisting quite a few folks to help with the blog portion which will feature writing about retirement issues from experts all over the country.
If you are interested in writing about Retirement issues such as travel, retirement communities, real estate, or travel please send me an email at jhunkins@gmail.com. These are NOT paid positions but fame may await you if we succeed … and you are patient …
We’ve faced many challenges
CHECK your computer’s DATE stamp before Gmail, Twitter, and other account login troubleshooting
I just spent a half hour troubleshooting a problem I’d never seen before.
If you don’t want to read on simply remember to CHECK YOUR COMPUTER FOR THE CORRECT DATE and TIME before you proceed with other ideas.
I was having lots of trouble accessing gmail, getting a cryptic message about an invalid security certificate. Twitter too – in fact chrome was giving the “red alert of death” message that made is seem like Twitter had a virus. Unlikely, but odd.
Assuming this was a cache issue I cleared all that but the problems remained. However I noticed that gmail was fine on another computer and my mobile android phone, so clearly this was a problem with my desktop PC.
I don’t show the date below, only the time, so I’m not even sure how I stumbled on to the fact that I’d managed to change my date accidentally earlier this morning from November to February. Since my browser was working fine I’m still not sure why Google Chrome wasn’t clever enough to warn me that my computer was out of sync with the real time, but instead of that it appears Chrome simply assumed my computer time was CORRECT and the security certificates for logging in at Gmail and Twitter were bogus or dangerous.
In any case, CHECK YOUR DATE when troubleshooting login problems.
[updated - CARDILLY is FRAUD and NOT a legitimate business - Gift Cards NOT Received, Cardilly Security Certificate has been REVOKED.
DO NOT USE Cardilly. GeoTrust has revoked their certificate. Cardilly is a scam.
These clowns went under the name of “SG Marketing” operating via a bank probably in Etobicoke, Canada. Note that there appear to be some places named “SG Marketing” that are legitimate as well as the fraudulent Cardillians.
In December 2011 I’m informed by Citi Cards that they have permanently credited me back the $100. I’ve sinced cancelled this card as well.
[well, it's been about two weeks since they reported my order "shipped" and it's not here, so I'm reporting Cardilly to the fraud department of my credit card company].
Still pretty confused about how blatant they have been with this approach, and not clear how they expect to make money, but certainly this is not a quality business and it’s probably a scam.
Yes, something seems very VERY fishy about Cardilly, but it also seems odd that scammers would be so persistent in the face of so much negative buzz. How are they doing to avoid the fraud departments of all the credit card companies of the people they are scamming? My tentative guess at this time is that this is a somewhat questionable ”gray hat” business, perhaps testing out something to see how it flies. At worst I’m guessing they are sending out stolen or hacked discount cards.
I have yet to see somebody report they received their cards – definitely a red flag – but Cardilly has only been in biz for a month or so. They seem to be using a Groupon style model which *might* explain the great deals. Since they limit the number of cards per day it
As I noted in the earlier post Cardilly is either a scam or a very odd way to get huge, but negative, buzz for a new business. Although many online are stating this is a scam, it appears to be a fairly profitless one since all these online charges are via Credit Cards and they’ll all honor chargeback rules.
I called Capitol One who advised me to wait to file any fraud actions until I fail to receive the promised cards – then they said they’d happily refund my money and initiate a fraud action.
I’ve inquired about my order status (I “bought” two $100 Wal Mart gift cards for $50 each last week). Cardilly replied:
—————-
Hello,
Delivered-To: jhunkins@gmail.com
Received: by 10.204.145.92 with SMTP id c28cs168643bkv;
Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:35:34 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.231.68.205 with SMTP id w13mr6206623ibi.46.1314484533029;
Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:35:33 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <support@cardilly.com>
Received: from cardilly.com (cardilly.com [72.20.12.85])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id g4si3908109wfe.41.2011.08.27.15.35.31
(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER);
Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:35:31 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of support@cardilly.com designates 72.20.12.85 as permitted sender) client-ip=72.20.12.85;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of support@cardilly.com designates 72.20.12.85 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=support@cardilly.com
Received: from d24-150-156-14.home.cgocable.net ([24.150.156.14] helo=DubbsPC)
by sparkle.universehosting.com with smtp (Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from <support@cardilly.com>)
id 1QxRTO-00037E-2S
for jhunkins@gmail.com; Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:35:30 -0700
Message-ID: <6E1E003FAE76421C82A07BAC0A68FA46@DubbsPC>
From: "Cardilly.com " <support@cardilly.com>
To: "Joseph Hunkins" <jhunkins@gmail.com>
References: <CAN2zEZ3CzBwVk8ZkQS88YPmt+ocXvU7V+a6ep7BUcbqnw2oh_A@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAN2zEZ3CzBwVk8ZkQS88YPmt+ocXvU7V+a6ep7BUcbqnw2oh_A@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Order status please
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 18:35:02 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_02AF_01CC64E8.089F9C50"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
Importance: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Windows Live Mail 15.4.3538.513
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V15.4.3538.513
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - sparkle.universehosting.com
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - gmail.com
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - cardilly.com
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
------=_NextPart_000_02AF_01CC64E8.089F9C50
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
[updated] Cardilly is NOT a legitimate business. Security Certificate REVOKED. DO NOT buy from Cadilly!
Cardilly.com is either a scam or has a very unusual social media strategy going, since much of the buzz about Cardilly is very negative right now with many people insisting it’s a scam. I think it’s probably NOT a scam [update - I'm leaning to "scam" based on all the unaddressed negative feedback and undelivered cards], but surprised they are not addressing critics, and fast. Is this all part of a strange ”negative news is still news” strategy? If so, it’ll be interesting to watch the Cardilly saga play out.
After responding to an online advertisement from what appeared to be a Google ad at a major site I wound up at the new website “Cardilly.com” that was offering $100.00 Wal Mart Gift Cards for … $50.00 . Some would say that’s “too good to be true”, but in the online world it seemed to me this might indeed be a legitimate deal, especially in light of Groupon’s spectacular success and company valuation. Seemed to me that Cardilly might be offering a handful of “loss leader” card deals in an effort to generate buzz and traffic.
Given this and their GeoTrust Certificate (which I later learned ONLY guarantees that the transaction is “secure” and not that the company is legitimate) I did make the purchase. The long wait time is also a bit suspicious, but understandable because extending this time will increase their profits quite a bit on a big operation.
There’s a very active conversation about Cardilly online, with most people citing the red flags and asserting “Cardilly is a scam” without much evidence to support that claim. [update: Few (nobody?) has reported getting cards so the red flag is getting bigger each day]
This is an area where Google could do a much better job in my opinion – basically guaranteeing that anybody using them to advertise will have a physical address and complaints person identified online. I’m always surprised how few people want to demand that kind of accountability from ISPs and other key online players like Google and Microsoft. The solution to online fraud is fairly simple – you CANNOT sell online unless you provide a verified support contact.
Richard Scarry
Richard Scarry
So, Happy Birthday Richard Scarry!
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