Here’s my scenario…I volunteered to build a site for our local pop warner football association.  It turned into adding sites for track and cheer as well. All of these were built on our Wordpress platform (the one that kicks ass).  Anyway, I had a GoTo meeting to do some training with the moms that had volunteered to run the sites.  Hands down, they hated the RSS button.  They wanted it gone and didn’t care that it offered a feature to users that subscribe to feeds.  They said that they had received phone calls from parents complaining because "they clicked on it and ended up on another site, then they couldn’t figure out how to get back".

So fine, we took it off.

This really frustrated me because I enjoy teaching people about the internet and 99% of the time everyone is very receptive to the learning.  So when a group puts up the hand to one of the best things to come out of Web 2.0 it blows me away.  Whatever.

The way I see it the button should be displayed prominently at the top of your blog kinda like how it is on mine:) I can’t stand it when I spend 10-30 seconds trying to find an RSS button. 

The worst are the blogs that have it in a text link at the very bottom where you can barely see it like this:

I’ve built a few feeds in my day and trying to find the feed button is very difficult most of the time.  I have found blogs that are actually SEM blogs and they don’t have a button at all.

So please, if you have a blog display your RSS button at the top so it’s easy for your visitors to subscribe.   Just slap it up there and who knows, you may be pleased at the results.

]]> http://www.seowife.com/digg-algo-changes/feed/ 0 http://www.seowife.com/computer-pack-rat/ http://www.seowife.com/computer-pack-rat/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2008 02:03:48 +0000 admin
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/dog/public_html/wp-content/mu-plugins/autometa/autometa.php on line 333
http://www.seowife.com/computer-pack-rat/ Over the holiday break Greg cleaned up both my laptop and desktop.  Apparently I am a computer pack rat, based on all the "OMG, you still have emails from 2005" and "OMG, haven’t you ever emptied your recycle bin"?

Yes.  It’s true. Whenever I save something I think I’m going to use in the near future I save it to my desktop.  I do save every email that is sent to me, even all the ones telling me that somebody wrote on my Facebook wall.  The recycle bin has not been touched in well over a year and when Outlook asks me to archive, I close the window.  There… it’s out, I said it and I’m not going to do it anymore.

Funny thing is that with everything else I am not that way.  I give things away, shred documents I don’t need and throw things out regularly.  I hate clutter.  For whatever reason though, I like having 100 icons on my desktop to have a click away.  I don’t mind it at all and I know where everything is.  Or should I say, I knew where everything was.  Greg was nice enough to organize and delete things for me and what do you know, my computer runs so much faster now. 

So the only New Years resolution I made this year is to stay on top of my recycle bin,  archive my email and file away my docs and spreadsheets. 

Am I the only one that does this or are there other computer pack rats out there?

I actually wrote the following while I was on hold with these two companies on and off for over 3 hours and since I was so upset that evening, I decided not to publish it because I wanted to give them the opportunity to address this with me, but It’s now Friday morning and I have yet to hear from the customer relations department, so I figure I want to share my experience with all of my internet friends and maybe someone from Travelocity will respond to the letter I faxed to them at 1:30am on 12/13.

Here goes… 

I have been sitting on hold trying to use a flight credit that was issued to my daughter this past July.  At about 9:30pm I logged in to Travelocity to search for flights for a trip we are taking to Oregon.  I figured it wouldn’t be too big of a deal.  After all, I have a trip ID number, cancellation number, credit number and the name of the person I spoke with back on July 23rd. 

It’s now 11:43pm (yes, over 2 hours later) During this time I have been on the phone with Travelocity three times and American Airlines twice.  Currently I am sitting on hold with Travelocity waiting for a manager to pick up the phone.  I called them at 11:21 and have been on hold hating Travelocity and hating the person that originally processed my credit and made some lame error that has resulted in this enormous waste of my time.

Here’s what’s happening…

I called Travelocity the first time because when I went to check out online, there was no option for me to use a flight credit.  I spoke with a representative who transferred me to another representative who informed me that their system was down and I should call American Airlines to use my credit anyway.  Fine.

I went to American’s site and found the ame flight for $20 less.  Super.  Same thing happened, at check out, there is no place for me to enter my credit code.  So I called American, who transferred me to aa.com.  That was pretty quick, so whatever.  The rep at aa.com informed me that my credit code was coming up as UNK (Unknown) and I’d have to take it up with Travelocity.

Frustrated, but I understand that shit happens so I called Travelocity back and explained the problem, the rep there seemed to be investigating it  and got back on the phone with me to tell me that it had to be processed through aa.com.  She had called aa.com and told me she had an aa rep on the phone that said she could take care of me.  Sounds easy, the two ladies spoke and one told the other my information and the other said she could help me.  After holding with the aa rep while she investigated further, she got back on the line and told me the credit number I had isn’t really a credit number, it’s an itinerary number and it appears to be blank, so there is nothing she can do.  She told me I had to call Travelocity to get this resolved.

At this point I’m extremely pissed.  The tone I’m getting from the reps is insinuating to me that I don’t have a credit at all and at one point the woman implied that my daughter did use her ticket.

So it’s now 11:53, I’m still on hold with Travelocity from when I called them at 11:21 and asked to speak with a manager.  Good to know managers keep customers on hold for 30 minutes.

The likelihood that I’ll use Travelocity again is zero seeing as this is the 2nd most horrible customer service experience I’ve ever had.  The first (btw) was with my cable company a few years back when they shut our cable off after I called to cancel the internet.  Our cable was off for almost a week with two young kids. No Nickelodeon, no Rugrats.  It was horrible.  The cable company at least gave me 3 months of free cable to compensate me.  It’s doubtful that Travelocity will do anything, but we’ll see if the gnome makes appearance and takes care of me.  So far no gnome in sight.

Now 11:59, hanging up and calling Travelocity back…again.

Now on hold again (12:10) talking to Travelocity rep ‘Marcus’ sounds like there is progress in sight. Bad news.  Marcus came back and repeated the same thing the other Travelocity reps said, that I have to call aa.com to use the credit. I asked Marcus to please conference call with aa.com so I could avoid the he said she said fiasco.  He was able to connect with Derik from aa.com who (with an ‘I don’t give a crap’) attitude told me he didn’t show the ticket at all and there was nothing he could do. 

Marcus is now saying Travelocity cannot re-issue the ticket and that I’ll have to take it up with their customer relations department.  He was kind enough to give me the Fax # 800-944-0005.  Rather than writing a lengthy letter, maybe I’ll just copy and paste this blog post.

What I don’t get is that this credit is for about $700 or so.  Travelocity is a multi-million dollar company that has left a customer of over 10 years lost in between a conflict between them and aa.com.  Travelocity says they cannot re-issue the ticket and aa.com says they can’t find the credit.  So were is my credit?  Maybe the gnome took it?

It’s now 12:48pm, before I publish this article I’m going to give the Travelocity consumer relations department the benefit of the doubt and see if they can resolve by tomorrow.

Updated 12/20

Last night I received a survey to take about my recent experience with Travelocity’s customer service.  Of course the review I gave was horrible.  Today I received this via email:

RE: Credit for the cancel reservation

Sincerely,
Shirley P.
Travelocity Consumer Relations

Note to self…it takes 1 week for Travelocity’s consumer relations to respond to their customers so they must be VERY busy! 

Having nothing better to do this morning I searched the web to try and find out if it was true. So here’s a post dedicated to some of my favorite SEO’s (no links here).

April 20th is known as National Marijuana Day, not because it is Bob Marley’s birthday, but because of a group of high school kids at San Rafael High School in Ca. Back in 1971 these kids would meet daily at 4:20 to light up. Over the years, the 4:20 time evolved into 4/20 and is now referred to as National Marijuana Day.

BTW-Bob Marley was born on February 6, 1945.

Here’s another SEO that has recognized another National Day.

Any suggestions for a National SEO Day? When is Danny’s birthday? It’d be another excuse to have a party conference.

Happy celebrating!

When you walk into ESCA you will immediately be greeted by some of the most courteous and welcoming staff you will ever encounter. Our table was located in the main dining room right by the wall of wine. As we were being seated we noticed that Chef Dave Pasternack himself was sitting with a friend at the table right next to us. We immediately recognized him and introduced ourselves and asked if we could take a photo with him. He was very kind and obliged us all, then even sent over some delicious appetizers ‘compliments of the chef’.

The menu at ESCA changes daily based on the fish markets and farms’ availability or perhaps on what Chef Pasternack has caught on his latest fishing trip. The menu offers many choices, Oilman recommended that we try the Tasting Menu and I am so glad he did. This is a five course meal that will keep you busy for about two hours eating and drinking some of the best food and wine you will ever eat while being surrounded, bar none, by the best service you will ever have.

My favorite course was the Primi-Spaghetti Neri (Black Spaghetti). I had never seen black spaghetti before. It was fabulous! They are house made noodles combined with calamari, green chilies and roasted garlic.

This was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. If you ever have the opportunity to meet Dave Pasternack I’m sure you’ll agree that he’s kind of like a character on the Sopranos, but man can he cook!

You won’t have to search too hard to find ESCA, just tell the cabby to take you to the ‘five star restaurant’ located at 402 West 43rd Street. Make sure you call and make a reservation – 212-564-7272.

We will definitely be returning there on our annual trips to the big apple!

Here are some of the pixs of Greg Boser, Todd Freisen and Michael Gray from the dinner. Also there, but not in the pictures were Dax, Cesar and Jonah.

I have been really enjoying watching the traffic to my blog and I am so flattered that folks have taken an interest in what I thought was a fun idea. I’ve gotten some new ideas for some more SEO/Celebrity look-a-likes, but I think I’ll hold off until the next conference to post any more.

I am really loving this right now, you have no idea the SEO bragging rights this gives me in my house. (Even if it only lasts for a couple days.)

Special thanks to all the look-a-likes that were such good sports and to J for a great post.

Anyway, cool feature.

I still don’t understand most of it, but I think I’ve made some progress. I’ve had 3 comments on this blog and a few members in my community so I think I’ve shown some improvement right? I mean at least now when people ask me what my husband does for a living, I can actually explain it to them. Even though, they don’t understand any of it. It’s easier to let them keep thinking he builds websites.