Z Trek: The Alan Zeichick Weblog

I’ll skip the Heart Attack Grill

I love a good burger... but oh my goodness.Since owner Jon Basso opened Heart Attack Grill in December 2005, it has achieved widespread publicity for its 8,000-calorie Quadruple Bypass Burger, a medical theme, and a buxom waitstaff dressed as…

If there is ever any confusion, the fuller beer is yours

The 86 Rules of Boozing are pretty darned funny. The rule listed as the blog title is #69.#67 is, "Never ask a bartender 'what's good tonight?' They do not fly in the scotch fresh from the coast every morning."Yes, this is old, but who cares?…

Re-energize your spirits by sharing time with like-minded Chief Compliance Officers

Perhaps some chief compliance officers and financial-industry governance professionals are among my friends. But whoever decided to spam me from the Regulatory Compliance Association did a poor job of list selection.I'm sure that they're wonderful…

Secrets of social site success

You’ve got to trust your community to do the right thing – but also make it easy to clean up after people if they misbehave.That’s a major point that I took away from Tuesday's opening keynote from EclipseCon. The speakers were Jeff Atwood,…

Advertise in a recession? You bet!

“There’s a saying: ‘When times are good, advertise. When times are tough, advertise more,’ ” said Dan Beem, president at Cold Stone Creamery in Scottsdale, Ariz., the ice-cream chain owned by the Kahala Corporation. “We want to stay…

No, I didn’t order a bandsaw!

The strangest thing... a big truck pulled up outside the office, and tried to deliver a 500-pound palette with an industrial-grade bandsaw on it.The trucking company's bill of lading showed that this was an order from Amazon.com to be delivered…

Maybe I should get into the bus business

You think? The prices do seem competitive.From: "Youyi Automobile"Subject: Manufacturer World Recession SalesDear Sir / MadamWe are please to offer you directly from the Manufacturer, Buses at World Recession Prices.6M 17+1+1 Diesel Bus from…

I can’t believe it’s not a kinky gonzo!

In today's off-topic press release department, two noteworthy entries came in. You can read them both on my new "Stop-the-PResses" blog.The first is from Unilever, and involves a computer game designed to promote a new product:The "Bake It To…

See Judy Butterfield in San Francisco, May 17

We're huge Judy fans — and not only because she's a family friend!See her Sunday, May 17, at 2:00 pm, at Bay Area Cabaret, the Commandants Room, Marines Memorial Club, 600 Sutter Street, San Francisco:Winner of this year’s Mabel…

The Seven Levels of Approval Hell

Ted "call him Dante" Bahr is back, and describes the advertising sales cycle in terms that every salesperson can relate to. Here's the first of "the seven layers of approval hell":First Level: Customer agrees with your proposal, is excited,…

An email almost too weird to blog

It's almost too weird to blog. Most of the junk bulk messages I receive are easily classifiable: phishing attempts, spam, 419s, viruses and so-on. This message, which came to one of our info@ addresses, is just weird. "Oliver" sent it using…

How did he know that I need faucets?

This came in today's mail. I wonder if their ISO9001 certificate includes documented processes for email marketing?From: Floyd TanSubject: Business cooperation in faucetsDear Sir,How do you do ?We are the manufacture of faucets.I have learnt…

Beware of Parallels 3 build 5634

Grrr! I'm in the middle of reinstalling Parallels Desktop 3 on my MacBook Pro, and I'm not happy about it.I use Parallel 3 on my Mac so that I can run Internet Explorer under Windows. Every so often — such as when doing remote admin to a few…

TechWeb kills SD West, SD Best Practices

SD West and SD Best Practices are dead.If you attended last week's SD West, you know that the event has become a shadow of its former self. As TechWeb (formerly CMP) continues shifting its focus away from the software development market, the…

Faux Amazon spam scam – don’t fall for it!

This message appears to be sent from Amazon, but it's a phishing scam that's trying to steal your Amazon account login. Don't fall for it! The links in the three copies of this message that I received go to szm.sk, a hijacked Web server in Slovakia.…

Good luck with that, Jacques and Judy

This spam scam is possibly funnier than the sender intended. Needless to say, this is indeed a scam.From: "Judy Lau" @worldwidenetwork.asia>Date: March 17, 2009 10:43:15 PM PDTSubject: checking the [domain] company's domain registrationDear…

No ‘editorial opportunities’ here

This afternoon, I received a pitch from a public-relations professional, who was inquiring about a special report listed on the SD Times editorial calendar. (I'm sure that Sylvia got the info out of a stupid media directory, since if she had…

See my new blog, "Stop the PResses!"

Many dozens of press releases arrive in my email inbox every day. A small percentage of those are relevant, and spark a follow-up call by me or one of SD Times' reporters.Most of the remaining releases are deleted after a quick glance.However,…

If you have a teenager, read this book

"Not Like You," newly out in paperback, is a book that every teenage girl should read. Parents, you can read it too. (It's also okay to read it if you don't have a teenage daughter.)To quote from the book's "official description":An emotionally…

Free hall pass for SPTechCon

SPTechCon is June 22-24 in Boston.Click the image for a bigger version!Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick

‘The Well-Tuned Piano’ is an expensive album!

I won't be purchasing La Monte Young's magestic suite, "The Well-Tuned Piano," any time soon. Wish I could, though."The Well-Tuned Piano" is a suite of minimalist music composed in the late 1960s. On a recent trip to New York, I heard the third…

Microsoft sues TomTom, but might have egg on its face

Microsoft might be violation of the GNU General Public License. What does that mean for its recent patent-infringement lawsuit against GPS maker TomTom?SD Times reporter David Worthington is on top of the story, which you can read at "Experts:…

Today’s silly joke

This was passed to me...A mechanical engineer, chemical engineer and software engineer are driving on a beautiful spring day. Suddenly, their car breaks down. The three engineers discuss how to fix the problem."It must be a mechanical fault,"…

Please come to Boston for the SharePoint

Please come to BostonFor the SharePoint.I'm at the Hyatt with some friendsAnd they've got lots of room.You can optimize your searches on the serverWith some documents we’ll be sharin’ soon.Please come to Boston…She said yes, boy, please…

A quarter century of GNU

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Free Software Foundation. The FSF project that gets the most buzz in the media, of course, the GNU General Public License, which serves as the underpinning of many high-visibility open-source projects.Writing…

iPhone apps — love ‘em and leave ‘em

Apple has created a new software marketplace with its iTunes App Store. Thousands of developers, some corporate, some independent, have found a huge opportunity writing software for the iPhone and the iPod touch. There are more than 20,000 applications…

The Endowment Effect meets software development

I believe in the Endowment Effect. That’s an economic hypothesis that says that people place a higher value on things they already possess, compared to its nominal value if they didn’t already possess it.Imagine if you own a 2005 Toyota…

Reader nominations close tomorrow for the SD Times 100

Speaking of awards: You may still have time to submit a reader nomination for the 2009 SD Times 100!Nominations close on Friday, Mar. 13 (that's tomorrow).The 2009 SD Times 100 will be published in the Jun. 15, 2009, edition of the newspaper.Z…

A big shout-out for Andrew Binstock and the Jolt awards

Last night, SD West gave out the 19th annual Jolt awards. As one of the creators of the Jolt awards, there’s a soft spot in my heart for what they represent.Each year, the Jolt award judges (and I was one for many years, until the award owners…

A few words about cloud standards

Does cloud computing need standards? In a word, yes. Should we have push cloud companies to create those standards now? In two words, not yet.Open, honest standards are vital to the widespread adoption of technologies, because they foster interoperability,…