Business is up, the tourist crowd sure makes a difference. Not much to report today and some of that is not good. At least I got a picture that is destined to be another classic. In my parlance, classic means the picture gets used for any kind of background. This scene is off a bridge on Dixie Highway just south of 163rd Street. Miami streets run east-west, another example of great city planning. How do you like this? This was taken with the Argus.
Right next, I’ve included another picture taken with the Digital Concepts. Notice it is darker and less defined. The lighting was different, though hardly enough to explain the quality shift.
I spent the morning at Don’s, he is catching on to how nicely the new system works, but that is not to say he is sold on it yet. He is still old-fashioned, wanting the work done “by hand on the computer”, a phrase I coined, I think. Each of his reports has to be studiously handled, often looking for quirks or overtyped formulas. No two of his were alike, whereas my offerings are brutally standardized.
You see, the real difference is that with his system, you had to think. With my system, all the thinking is done up front. After that, you need only check for reasonableness. He gave me some wrong information by not understanding one of my questions. Kudos that my system easily adapted to that, where his would mean going back and changing [up to] 68 customized reports.
The book distributor can, it turns out, raid your overall account. That is so wrong that only banks do it. I recall when I was in college, I had both a savings account and checking account – not because I had money, but because the only bank on campus insisted. Somebody gave me a check that bounced, and the bank took the “fee” out of my other account. Peckerheads. Hey, you take the fee out of the guy who wrote the rubber check. There is no legal reason why banks bounce the whole check and not pay you at least as much of it as the crook has in his account. No legal reason at all.
Back to my point. If the author has more than one book, the distributor can raid the positive balances to offset any negative balances. I suspect this complicated system came about because some shifty types realized that creative people who write books aren’t the best at figuring out technical number-juggling. For the record, I advise all my clients to print extremely clear reports. It only takes one author to call up the IRS and you will wish you had seen the light. You always get away with it in the short run but don’t be foolish enough to think an auditor will stop at your bank account, they will go into pores you didn’t know you had.
The bad news. I biked over to Ruth’s to find only one email concerning the doggie wigs. Upon close examination, it turns out Ruth’s web page has one of those forwarding email addresses. Nearly the exact same address is used for her AOL account. I chose the wrong one. Ruth is convinced many people would call, but folks, in all of America, there were only 3724 hits on that page, and most of those were pass-throughs.
I understand how Ruth is thinking, that she should have been swamped with orders after the Letterman re-run. No dice. Furthermore, I have not had time to review the page until now, when I had to collect another favor from Justin to change it. Furthermore, I make it very clear to people all the time that I do NOT HAVE INTERNET AT MY HOME. I have to go over to Fred’s and I do not do that unless I have a reason of my own. Your reason is not my own. The fact remains Fred is two miles from here and that is independent of what you need to know about computers.
I have repeatedly warned Ruth not to be booking appearances and advertising (soliciting email orders) until the pages are up and running. True, she must charge ahead now that she has committed tons of money but she has nobody to blame but herself when things go wrong. It is not a matter of saying I told you so, in fact, that would be malicious, because very few people can describe or understand the process. It is very likely that somewhere she was told the things she wanted to hear about a web page.
She knew about the hit counter, but did not know that professional sites don’t really use them. I had to explain it is like putting up a billboard and counting the cars that drive past. You have no idea which or how many read your sign. Meanwhile, anyone who clicked on the hyperlink I programmed did not get through for the first 36 critical hours. I used her domain name where I should have used her email name, something that would not have happened if her email had been on hotmail like I wanted. I say two things in my defense.
One, I advised her on my first day to get a totally different email account than her ISP. No, she wanted the same AOL address out of habit. That was her bad decision number one.
Two, I told her not to check the little boxes that say “remember” her log in and password. No, she insisted on having AOL remember her name and password. I strongly told her that was not a good idea; that you should always type in your email account and password each time. It forces you to memorize your own email address. She came back with that was too complicated and took too much time.
I’ve got ten bucks that says she has also forgotten her own password. I have not, and my code to remember it is “fifth in dollars”. I normally charge $45 per forgotten password, and no, password storage is not part of a package deal at all. Suggesting that is one way to get laughed out of town.
After thinking it over, I do not want to take over the account no matter what she pays me. Sadly, the business pressures make her a bad student. It costs the full teacher’s rate to have me there and you are losing money unless you stop everything and take the lesson. That has never happened. Instead, as soon as the computer is on, she wants email checked, but as soon as she does, some pressingly urgent task will take priority over the lesson. An hour later, one or two emails have been answered, but very little learning has taken place. I’m beginning to wonder and understand when the staff says to the effect that she has never had anyone in the office like me.
