Road trip!

I'm off on a road trip today. No Halloween party for me, unless you consider being stuck in a car for 6 hours with Yom a 'party'. I'll keep my Twitter page updated with all the happenings over the next week while I'm out of town.

-Trent

Photoshop App

This what I needed! Well between the Photoshop.com Mobile app and Flickr's new app that lets you download pictures onto your iPhone. Makes it just one step closer to being able to do some work on my phone(besides email and twitter).


-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

Deadline

There's nothing more daunting and more motivating than an upcoming deadline. I'm running into a few of those because I am going out of town next week for a convention for my day job. So that means I've got to hustle and get some projects done before I leave. Is it possible? Yes. Is it going to kill any chance of sleep? Most likely. If my blog posts are just a bunch of letters over and over again, I've fallen asleep on the keyboard again.

-Trent

Busted!

It seems like things are breaking on me a lot lately. This just happens to be one of them. The USB cable that I use to charge my iPhone is shown here with newly exposed wires. It still works, but I'm not risking it. I can dig another one up somewhere I'm sure.


-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

Customer Service-When is it really service?

For 3 years I worked at a retail giant that consistently had complaints about it's service. It was always drilled into our heads that the customers needed to have a good experience so it'd show up on our scorecard. At no point was there a talk about how happy customers are repeat customers or anything to that affect. If the customer wasn't satisfied, you just didn't tell them about the survey we had.
Can you call that customer service? Of course not. Most often you're not actually getting good customer service and just lip service so they get a good score.
How do you stop this horrifying trend? Get rid of scorecards for one, but pay attention to your customer. Do they have a dog, use that. Make sure they notice that you're actually listening. It's all about building rapport with the customer. If a salesman at Company A tells me that I should buy a product because it fits my needs and a salesman at Company B tells me I should buy a product because my kid's favorite color is yellow and the
product is yellow, I'm going to pick Company B.


-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

Next MacBook? Pt. 2

Already, I may have changed my mind. I wrote about the New MacBook recently and how it was a better option than the 13" MacBook Pro. I've been wronged. I overlooked a couple things. The 13" MBP has a Firewire port which I wouldn't use often anyway, so that's not a factor, but the screen has a 60% wider color gamut and a backlit keyboard. Both things I want. I can deal without the backlit keyboard, but having the nicer screen when I'm working on video/photos on the go, kind of important. Again, the serious stuff that really rely on color correction, I'll go to my iMac, but it's nice to know that I'm at least closer to correct color. We'll see what happens.

-Trent

Photo Shoot Results

Last week I went on a photo shoot. It's up on my personal Flickr page at the moment, but I'll put some on the FNM Flickr page too. Here's a sneak peek until I get some more edited.

-Trent

The Search War has begun

Things become old news quickly, and unfortunately I tend to write my blogs 1-2 days in advance. When the mood hits, I gotta write. Anyway, Bing announced it will now include Facebook status updates and Twitter 'Tweets". Soon after, Google announced it will include Tweets as well. This changes a lot! I've been following Google Caffeine for awhile because it planned to integrate more Twitter updates, so I'm kind of prepared, but you better believe I'm convincing every client from now on that they are using Twitter for part of their SEO needs.

-Trent

Next MacBook?

Yesterday Apple released a bunch of new products, including a revised white plastic MacBook. It got me thinking, my MacBook Pro is a few years old now and has it's issues. It is a 15" MBP and has served me well, but I no longer need a dedicated video card because I'll do most of the editing on my iMac. So I want something more portable. Tossed around the idea of a MacBook Air, but ultimately decided on a 13" MacBook Pro. My wife has one and I like it. However, this new MacBook came out and I'm second guessing my decision. It has the same processor and graphics card as the basic 13" MBP, larger hard drive, and is $200 cheaper. Sure it doesn't have the aluminum enclosure and no SD card slot, but I could care less. So, if I write a post about my new basic MacBook in the next couple months, you know why.

-Trent

Something cool I found

This will only apply to you if you use Twitter, so I apologize for this post if it doesn't concern you. I just recently discovered the site TweetStats. Simply, it tells you specific details about your tweets such as what hour of the day you tweet the most in, and the percentage of Re-Tweets you do and who you Re-Tweet. Pretty cool and it's free, so no complaints here.

-Trent

Called it!

In a previous post, I talked about the Apple Mighty Mouse and mention the no-click thing, well, here's the new multi-touch "Magic Mouse".

It has multi-touch gestures, and yes, I am intrigued by it. Will probably test one soon.

-Trent

New Goal

So I managed to do my 30 blog posts in 30 days no problem. So I'm starting a new goal. This post will be my 72nd of the year. I'd like to make that 125 by year's end. This will allow for some time off from blogging during the holidays, but who knows, I may be inspired to write a post after I stuff my face full of turkey and mashed potatoes...mmm...mashed potatoes....sorry, was daydreaming for a second. Forget it, I'm slipping back into that daydream.

-Trent

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Flickr Update

Quick update on my Behind the Scenes Slacking. I've managed to upload 5 pics since then. Sticking to it and I've got more to add to it soon. Hopefully more interesting pics will be taken.

-Trent

Photo Shoot!

Today, I'm getting ready to head out to a photo shoot. My favorite kind too, cars. I've always been into cars, doesn't matter what it is, I can find a reason to like it. This happens to be a car I like without having to think of reasons to like it. It's a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X GSR. Say that 3 times fast. I'll post a pic on the Flickr page later.

-Trent

Jazz Game

Here I am at a Utah Jazz game with the infamous Yom from Yom's Random Stats. I managed to score some free tickets from the Utah Jazz Twitter page. Can't complain about that. This is a great perk the Jazz have set up and it makes me think more about my own customer service. In the meantime, here's Yom updating his Twitter page.





-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

Halo

When you want to show off your skills, you create a halo. Car companies create a halo car. Me, I'm going to work on a halo site. Admittedly, I'm not the world's most amazing web designer, but I'm always trying to push myself into harder projects. My sister, who happens to be a photographer on the side would like a site to show off her portfolio. I'd like to turn it into a halo site. I want to push my skills even further and fortunately I have an understanding sister who will let me experiment on the site. I'll let you know how it goes.


-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

I did it! Now a question...

I set out a goal 29 days ago, to write 30 blog posts within 30 days. I completed my goal a day early(today). So now that I've done what I set out to do, what's next? How about more blogging? Do I try and keep the daily regiment going? No promises, but I'll try. I now have the habit of blogging down, so it should be as easy as EasyMac...the kind in a cup, I've screwed up the stuff in a box before. Don't ask.

-Trent

The future of cloud

It's amazing the reaction when Twitter goes down. It's a great micro-blogging service, sure. However, it goes down a lot and is vulnerable to attacks because of it's popularity. Still, people rely on it, too much. I'm not discrediting it's unique approach to communicating, but like the T-Mobile Sidekick issue over the weekend, it makes me wonder how ready we are for a world relying on the web. I'll leave you with these words of wisdom...back it up!

-Trent

Behind the Scenes Slacking

Funny Name Media has had a Flickr page for some time now, but ever since WYRD fizzled, the Behind the Scenes pics haven't been nearly as interesting so nothing got posted. Time to change that. From now on, I'll be posting more Behind the Scenes pics of Funny Name Media. It'll mainly be of things in my office(hope you like computers!), but I occasionally meet with other people. Keep an eye on it in the future.

-Trent

Pile it on

I was just given the go ahead to start on another large project! These aren't dinky little things I'm doing. They take several weeks/months of work. And the funny thing is, I'm not really advertising either. My 'Services' page on my website isn't even up right now. Word of mouth is a powerful tool. Well, it's a short blog post because I've got to get to work!

-Trent

12,000,000

Just yesterday I talked about Alexa, and I'm going to talk about it again. I have not put as much time and attention towards the Funny Name Media site as I should. Instead, I focus on the clients I have. Well, I've done some very minor SEO work on the site in the last month or so, and my Alexa ranking changed...a lot! It jumped by 12 million spots! That's no minor feat considering the minimal amount of work I've put into it. So, time to work on it this weekend and see where I end up.

-Trent

Alexa

The picture of the toolbar you see above is called the Alexa Toolbar. I have it installed on my computers in my Firefox web browser. Very simply, it allows you to see a site's Alexa ranking which basically shows how popular a website is. It's a very handy tool when you deal with SEO. It allows me to keep tabs on where my sites and other sites are ranked. The pic above is of Blogspot, the 7th most popular website. Where do my sites rank, well not #7, but I'm working on it.

-Trent

Photo project

I've been pushing myself into more photography lately, which is a good thing, because I miss it. It's always fun to manipulate photos in the camera rather than Photoshop. Well my timing couldn't be better, I'll be down at the SEMA Show(big car show) in Las Vegas the first week of November and I'll be shooting some pictures for a SEMA Gallery Site. Starting the first of November, I'll be uploading some of my pictures there, so keep an eye out for it.

-Trent

I've done the impossible

I've done it. The uncloggable vacuum that never loses suction, has lost suction. Granted, I don't think Dyson considers what I vacuum a normal household. I have two mini schnauzers that like to tear up stuffed animals, my house is constantly covered in cotton. I pick most of it up by hand, but occasionally I'll vacuum some of it up with the Dyson. Therein lies the problem, cotton clogs. I think I'll have to have the dogs start up some manual labor to earn enough money for a new vacuum. Time to strap a shovel to their necks so they can plow the field.

-Trent

Jailbreak?

As implied in my New iPhone post, I no longer have a need for my old iPhone. My wife is using it right now until she's due for an upgrade and then she'll get an iPhone 3Gs as well. This leaves me with an unused iPhone. What to do? I think I'm finally going to dip into the jailbreak world and see what that is like. I've never really needed it as I can do most things I need to on my current iPhone, but curiosity is getting the better of me. Will it end up as a brick? We'll see.

-Trent

My eyes!

These are my glasses. Correction: These are my broken glasses. I'm not blind without them, but it certainly helps, that's why I wear them all the time. Fortunately I've got a warranty on them, but it'll take at least a week before they're fixed.
I do have backup glasses, but the lenses are scratched(thanks puppies). So, it should be an interesting week of work.

-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

New iPhone

So I broke down. I bought the first iPhone the day after it came out, and got the 3G iPhone two days after it came out. However, I was able to hold out for awhile longer on this one. The thing that sealed the deal was me going to the Apple Store and comparing the speed of opening applications with my phone and the 3GS demo unit. It was significantly faster and I'm always waiting for the Mail App it seems like, so I upgraded. Stuck with a 16GB because I only have about 6GB of music on this computer and I can rotate my videos around. I'm looking forward to using the video feature here soon...maybe a vlog is in my future. The return of TFAM2000?

-Trent

Mighty Mouse

This you see here is the Apple Mighty Mouse. I hated this thing when I first used it(no right click?!?). However, I have been using Photoshop more and more and it's benefit is shining through. That trackball that allows me to side-scroll is really smooth and easy to use. It makes navigating photos that I'm zoomed in on a lot easier. There's rumors of a new Mighty Mouse after a filing hit the FCC, so we'll see if the new one will be better or worse(no click at all?!?).

-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

New project

Wrapping up one, starting another. Even though there isn't a hard deadline, I'd like to have this one done in roughly two weeks. And then it'll take probably another week or so as I build up the SEO aspect of it. At the end of October I'm going out of town for work, so ideally, it should be done by then. I'll post details when I get the main page done. I tried right here to give you a hint of what I'm doing, but it's too early to try and be funny, I'd end up offending someone.


-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

4%

Doesn't sound like much, does it? But this is in addition to 15% originally, then 11% more, now an additional 4% on top of that. Of course I'm talking about the increased web traffic of an established site I'm working with that I've mentioned before. They literally stayed within a hundred visitors difference through 3 years using numerous marketing methods, but never social media, and that's where I came in. The amount of time spent on this has been minimal, but the impact is there. All I know is the difference between Fat Free and 2% milk is HUGE.


-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

Digg it

We're on Digg! Want to see what we're digging or become our friend? http://bit.ly/FNMDigg
I'm also experimenting with a new look on the logo(if you can call it that). It's more like a profile pic.

Let me know what you think.

-Trent
Posted from my iPhone