The Island Peace Committee has a website. Included there is this news release from the Council of Canadians calling for George Kells’ reisgnation (see earlier discussion on this topic).
If you look at the listing for Reinvented Inc. in the Island Tel white pages, you will see that our address is listed as “Charlottetown.” Although I could have had our actual street address listed, I decided there was no point in advertising this, as it’s not a place we do business with the public, and there’s no point in sticking a big “hey, there’s computers here” sticker out into the public domain.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I went to YellowPages.ca to see how the company was listed, and found that they’d included a link to a map that shows exactly where we’re located.
I phoned the Yellow Pages office (888-490-3001) to inquire about this, and I was told this was an inadvertent side-effect of our postal code being “on our contract.” The (very helpful) sales rep told me she would remove this postal code, and the map link would disappear on their next monthly updated.
If you’re in a similar situation, you may wish to verify that your address hasn’t been inadvertently leaked onto the Yellow Pages site.
Sometime last year, I received intelligence to suggest that the friendly folks at silverorange had rigged up a gizmo so that whenever anyone purchased something from one of their clients’ online stores, a cash register sound rang out throughout their spacious atrium.
Reasoning that this sort of positive reinforcement would be good for my clients too, I shamelessly stole the idea, and installed a tool that my friends at Yankee could pop-up on their desktops with a similar purpose. Much to my surprise and delight, the last time I visited, I saw the tool in use all over the company.
The success of this idea (thanks, silverorange) points out that simplicity often trumps complexity. Very detailed “who bought product X after clicking on link Y”-type sales reports are available to Yankee — and they certainly use them. But the visceral sound of a cash register ringing, and the pace at which it happens, has proved a better vehicle for communicating how well the store is doing.
In the same vein, I’m fascinated by the new Recent Google tool I installed last night (look over on the right). This is simply a bit of code that detects incoming traffic to this site as a result of Google searches, pulls out the keywords, and displays them, with links back to the same Google search.
While this same information is available from the nightly traffic report, somehow the “live” nature of the information right out here in public is more compelling. Somehow the notion that someone, somewhere, just used Google to end up here — perhaps just this second — is more interesting, more “real,” than a report of the same information prepared nightly.
Interesting to note: Wayne’s comment about BBC reporter Mishal Husain is currently on the front page of a Google search for bbc mishal husain, and that’s currently pulling in the most Google traffic.
Welcome visitors from Japan, Belgium, Estonia, Portugal, Thailand, Croatia, Malta and the Faroe Islands.
When you stay up late at night, you get to see a lot of interesting television. Last night it was the BBC documentary Blair’s War. The BBC, in its liberated “hey, you paid for this already” attitude, helpfully makes the script of the episode available on the web.
Synopsis: Tony Blair is pretty well ignoring public opinion in the United Kingdom to go to war.
The Geneva Convention is much in the news these days, mostly because Donald Rumsfeld and Tommy Franks are accusing Iraq of contravening some aspect of it.
The Convention is actually a set of the following related treaties:
- Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field
- Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea
- Treatment of Prisoners of War
- Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
My previous experience with The Geneva Convention was limited entirely to its application to Colonel Hogan and his wacky bunch of heros on Hogan’s Heros (warning: website plays theme song automatically; may be annoying).
Some more site renovations:
- Search the site
- Site archives (1999-present)
- Recent searches (right-hand side)
- Recent incoming Google searches (right-hand side)
The site archive goes out to my father, and to the departed Alan McLeod, who has gone on to the place where history and innovation thrive, who where the most frequent requesters of this feature.
My friend Stephen Good has returned to his long-dormant weblog. I introduced Stephen’s weblog when it went online last August.
About the closest thing you will find to unvarnished anti-war opinion on the CBC is on Global Village [warning: insane multi-media website]. It’s a good antidote to Aaron Brown et al.
About This Blog
I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
To learn more about me, read my /now, look at my bio, listen to audio I’ve posted, read presentations and speeches I’ve written, or get in touch (peter@rukavina.net is the quickest way).
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