The APAL system of last day got junked. First of all, it was a complicated install. Who needs that? After that, it required expert tinkering to get basics to work, had no simple setting to count the pages, and the manufacturer’s claim that the trial version was full-featured was a falsehood. There were dozens of grayed out commands running interference with what I needed to test.Thus, I moved on to a Mexican product called “CyberPrinter”, also less than ideal but at least it displays a line of relevant data every time somebody prints. This still has to be manually counted up at the end. Still, the increase in revenues should more than offset this factor while I continue looking for a better solution. Again, all I want is a simple program that tallies up the number of pages each computer prints, and resets to zero when I hit the clear button.
My left ear is still “plugged”, a condition I get every fifth year or so. For that reason, I did not perform tonight. I used the unexpected break to do some planning for my new signs and advertising. Mike reports that more people are coming in saying they saw the Internet sign. This proves more effective than newspaper ads, especially if I make the signs myself. Now that I finally have a decent workshop, I’ll start on that tomorrow.
The dollar change-giver is a challenge. It would seem such a device would be common, but no. I’ve already described it, so you may find my reasoning more interesting than my search. (My search on “change-giver” led me to a site pushing Obama.) I timed myself at the Thrift, and the checkout lineups at Winn/Dixie. The average clerk makes change for 12 people per hour when it is busy. So no, it is not your imagination that the lines are moving slow, but that is another story.
What surprised me was the amount of change in coins and the time needed to deal it out. Thinking this through, in the long run a cashier would give out an average of fifty cents change per transaction. Let’s generously assume the clerk is costing $12 per hour (as opposed to being paid that much). In raw terms, the clerk is adding a dollar to the cost of each transaction while dishing out fifty cents change. Are you still with me?
If the grocery store got rid of the clerk, they could charge a dollar less per sale, but I know that is not realistic. However, there is a real but theoretical point at which I would make the same money by rounding my price down to the nearest dollar. Instead of charging you $6.15, or $6.56 or $6.98, I just charge you $6.00 and move on to the next sale. The position I’m making here is that I most definitely did not assume it was evident there would be a savings. I have not calculated that breakeven point; just knowing that it exists is enough for our purposes.
In unrelated news, I see that a record number of subpoenas were served in 2007 upon people whose identity was established using IP addresses. What sticks in my craw is that these were civil, not criminal proceedings. It would not be too soon to begin to protect oneself from this type of intrusion. They can’t sue who they can’t find. I find it sad people are just now waking up to what a mess they’ve made of their privacy on-line. Do you know what being “dooced” is? That is when you get fired for something you blogged. Yes, blogs can be and are traced. Let me pass on a hint as a first step to keeping ahead of snoopers. Use the time option feature of your blog to post a few hours ahead, that is, into the future. Remember, one tiny techno error is enough these days to sewer your life or career.
On the other hand, my blog needs all the attention it can get. I have noticed, without any expense or exertion on my part, this blog can be found by any search engine. The significance is that I did look into paying to get this blog into circulation via the “services”. My conclusion was that they were all rip-offs with high fees and no guarantees, and that it would be smarter to focus on one’s own content.
What’s more, I place near the top and sometimes with multiple hits on the first page. This attests to the SOE discussion we had several months back, recall Search Engine Optimization? The smarter versions (AltaVista, Yahoo) must be parsing the html body section for relevance. Wallace got a surprise demo of this when he accidentally entered the phrase “bachelorcookingclub” into a Google search field instead of his gmail text box. Try it.
