Denny’s Still Blows: Ryan Stemkoski #FAIL
Some of you may remember way back in February I made a post about the big Denny’s free breakfast promotion announced during the Super Bowl. If you don’t remember that post, or would actually like to read it, click here. This is a follow up to that article so you might want to check it out, or if you don’t care, then read on:
So yesterday morning, Kayla and I headed out on an adventure to find some plants for my yard. We got started early to allow us plenty of time to find the 31 plants we needed to acquire before heading home. At about 10:30 AM Kayla was already hungry so we looked around trying to find a place to eat. At that time of day your options are limited, and the only viable option in sight was our friendly neighborhood Denny’s. I quickly remembered the February promotion and told Kayla about the “improvements” that Denny’s had supposedly made to their food and service. Against our better judgment, we decided to try it out.
I was optimistic as we walked to the door but I knew we were in trouble as soon as we entered. There were roughly 6 older men waiting in a cramped line to pay their bills and there was nobody waiting to be seated. We looked desperately for the “wait to be seated sign” most restaurants have but could not find one. There was no hostess, or anything that would indicate where we should be waiting. After a 4 or 5 minutes of trying to figure out where we should stand a male teenager walked up to us and asked us how many. I said two and he turned and bustled off without saying a word. We decided to follow him, hoping he would lead us to salvation. We made it about 10 feet before another older angry looking female hostess stole us away from the pimply faced kid. While most the restaurant was empty, she seated us at a recently cleaned and still sopping wet table between two couples whom were already waiting for their food. I understand it is easier for the wait staff to have customers seated in the same general vicinity but a little personal space is nice, especially, in an open restaurant. I hate being forced to listen to the conversations of the people around me. I don’t really care when the guy behind me last made #2. I am sure the next time won’t be too far in the future if he ate the biscuits and gravy. Perhaps, that is why so many older people eat at Denny’s. Moving on…
Once we were seated, we began to browse the menu. I was surprised at the prices. After the free breakfast promotion, I figured Denny’s would be a good value meal but that is not the case. The prices were completely out of line with the quality of the food. Kayla and I both got the Grand Slam, which, was the cheapest thing on the menu. The grand slam was about the only thing we could find under $8. At that price, I would rather go to Red Robin or have 3 meals at Wendy’s. Anyway, after a reasonable 10 minute wait our food arrived. Mine must’ve been done long before Kayla’s. My eggs were cold and overcooked may bacon was so thin it was literally transparent and I think they forgot to put my toast in the toaster before they buttered it. In defense of Denny’s, Kayla’s meal looked much better than mine. Her toast was toasted, her pancakes looked like pancakes, and overall she said it was edible.
After my experience, I feel like there has been no visible change to the quality of the food or customer experience at Denny’s. Admittedly, Denny’s Super Bowl promotion did get me to go in and try the food one more time, even though it was several months later. I expected more. I expected some real improvement to the customer experience but my experience was nothing compared to what was touted back in February. I don’t think I will be returning to Denny’s anytime soon, it was just as awful as I remember it. The only real positive thing I can say about my meal is that I didn’t get diarrhea afterwards.
Still no Flash for the iPhone
Adobe announced they are going to introduce Flash Player 10 for most mobile operating systems. I say most, because there is still no Flash Player for the iPhone. Later this year, users with the Google Android, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Nokia Symbian, and Palm WebOS operating systems will gain access to Flash content. Those of us on the iPhone are still going to have to wait, quite possible forever.
Although, Steve Jobs feels Flash is not good enough for the iPhone, I must disagree. Flash is widely used on the web for presenting content, games, and most importantly video. The inability for iPhone customers to utilize Flash content is a huge disability and will be a real sales disadvantage when the other major mobile operating systems integrate Flash later this year.
I have been watching the debate about Flash on the iPhone for quite some time. Many experts like Robert Scoble feel the real reason that Flash Player hasn’t been implemented on the iPhone is not because of technical difficulties but instead because of Apple’s reluctance to use Adobe’s PDF renderer. Whatever the problem, Apple better figure out a viable solution soon. The developer version of Flash Player 10 mobile is expected to be available in October of this year. It is only a matter of time before innovative new applications are available, not to mention Android users will be able to watch Jon Stewart on Hulu.
Big Green Ape Cartoon Character - Ryan Stemkoski
That’s right folks I am officially a cartoon character. My business partner Shawn Davis is developing a cartoon strip about the antics of our office, the web design / advertising industry, his life, and whatever else he feels like illustrating.
About Big Green Ape - Cartoon Strip
So far, the cartoon is really still in the development phase but Shawn has a couple of the characters created and several more in various sketch stages. The first installment of Big Green APE can be found at: http://biggreenape.com/?p=146. Shawn has been taking input from everyone in our office, our vendors (Ed), our clients, and as of this week even his mom. The sexy character to your right is me! Currently I am the only human in this cartoon strip, everyone else is some variety of animal.
So far the list of characters includes:
Shawn as the Big Green Ape - View
Thomas as Skat Kat – View
Me as Myself complete with polo and iPhone – View
Deanna as an Unnamed Kangaroo – View Sketch
Characters Still to come:
Kate possibly as a Flamingo
Karen as ?
Jessica as ?
Sheldon as a Kiwi or ?
Megan as ?
Random Cliet as ?
Random Sales as ?
If you have any good ideas for a strip or for characters leave a comment and I will pass it on. Hopefully as soon as the strip gets up and running I will be featuring each installment here so that my subscribers can enjoy them. If you want to keep up with the development of the cartoon strip you can find more information on it at Shawn’s Blog http://www.biggreenape.com.
I really don’t want your vCard
The picture and title for this post may imply this post has something to do with a v-card but that is not the case, although, that article may be more interesting. That crafty photo was just to entice you suckers to read my drivel. Moving on…today I was browsing through the website of one of our newer clients when I happened across the bio of a guy we will call Terry. At first glance, the bio page seemed fairly standard issue. It featured a generic photograph of Terry in a suit and tie, a long list of accomplishments, and some cheeky copy about his hobbies and family. Everything was fine and dandy until I read the last line which said, “Click here for Terry’s vCard.”
This short statement got me giggling like a little school girl. Now, I know they weren’t talking about the same kind of vCard that first came to mind when I read that statement on their website. However, after capping a sleepless night with an early morning blood work appointment my brain is clearly not operating at 100%.
Does it seem odd to anyone else that two things so drastically different in meaning could be named the same? Mary was a virgin and unless god impregnated her with Microsoft Outlook I think the v-card came before the vCard. So why then, would the name for a useful modern tool, intended for business, use something that could be confused with a popular slang term? It doesn’t make any sense. It just goes to show that you need to do some real due-diligence when putting a name to a product or idea. Imagine the disaster that would ensue if Kool-Aid unveiled a new drink called Donkey Punch.
PHP Quick Profiler
Have you ever wanted a Firebug for PHP? Thanks to Twitter I came across the PHP Quick Profiler or PQP for short. It is a script that was developed by the team at Wufoo that helps analyze and debug performance of PHP scripts. An example of this script in use can be found at: http://particletree.com/examples/pqp/. Discovering this is actually very timely for me because we have just recently finished up a large web based management module and it could use some optimization.
This cool little tool is actually very powerful. It can help monitor PHP Objects, analyze memory usage, monitor query performance, monitor execution time, and overall help you keep your files under control.
I will say, it was a bit difficult to get running at first. Once I was able to get it up and running it provided some pretty handy information. The authors have done a good job of documenting the installation. That being said, I have a feeling that many will have a problem getting the database configuration working. If you’re a PHP developer you should give it a try. It is a handy tool and something that I have always felt should be built directly into PHP.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling. They have good information over on their site so go check it out:
http://particletree.com/features/php-quick-profiler/
The SEO Rapper… Again
I am not a big YouTube person. Every once in awhile, I will watch something like Charlie the Unicorn or Lebron James high school highlight reels when I am super bored. Today I had a web developer friend send over a link to a video called Design Coding. Obviously, many of you beat me to this video because as I am writing this it has nearly 445,000 views.
The video is from the Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) The rap is actually pretty funny. I have seen a couple other videos from the SEO Rapper but I hadn’t come across this one. Some of my favorite lines are:
“Don’t use italics use emphasis”
“Don’t duplicate it or you might face a litigation”
“Your photoshop functions, slice that design, do your layout with divs, make sure that its aligned”
“Please don’t use tables even though they work fine, when it comes to indexing they give search engines a hard time”
“The competition will get bitter, you’ll shine like glitter”
It isn’t every day you hear a rap song about web design. In fact I have only heard a couple and they were mostly done by white guys skinnier than I am. In all honestly I can’t believe this exists but since it does you have to check it out. If you’re really bored check out some of his other videos. I know some of you may have seen them already but if you’re like me and missed out on the SEO Rapper thus far, you need to check him out.
Get Venture Capital from Google
I would love to hear thoughts from others in the comments on how you feel about Google Ventures. Please weigh in on whether you think this is a good move for Google or not!
Earlier this week, Google finally got around to announcing Google Ventures. If you don’t know, Google Ventures is a new venture capital arm to the search behemoth. Google has been known for their high profile acquisitions of popular Internet properties like YouTube and Feedburner and also for acquisitions of useful services like DoubleClick and Trendalyzer.
I have seen a lot of disagreement on this move in the blogosphere. Some have argued that staring a new ventures lab at Google may not be such a great idea. Some feel that Google could deploy capital better in other ways. Some feel that new ventures participating in the Google Ventures program will have an unnecessary target on their backs. These critics feel the companies in the program will face unnaturally high levels of competition as others try to emulate their website or service early in the development process before it has had a chance to reach maturity.
I personally think Google Ventures is a fantastic idea, problems aside. I realize Google has been doing VC at some level for quite some time. This isn’t a totally new service from Google but this will give Google a much increased exposure to new startups. Google has enough capital and clout to help almost any ORIGINAL idea grow into a successful company. (No Twitter copies allowed, I hope) I still feel Google paid way, way too much for YouTube even if it does pull in an extreme amount of traffic. What if they could’ve invested in YouTube when it was a profitless start-up with a newly launched but quickly growing product? Google could have bought the company for next to nothing in comparison to the massive sum they spent to acquire it once it was the market leader.
The amount Google is devoting to the Google Ventures arm is only 100M this year. To you and I, this is an enormous sum of money but to a company with a market capitalization of 116.7 billion this is a drop in the bucket. As a Google shareholder I think this is a great idea. Google was the product of massive innovation. To continue to be successful and grow they’re going to have to continue to innovate. As can be seen in the newspaper industry this gets more and more difficult the larger you get. Google Ventures may be one area where innovation can occur outside the main company circle. I am excited to see how Google Ventures develops over the next couple of years.
Is it your fault if your clients suck at what they do?
Let me tell you a weird but funny story. (It’s worth reading, trust me) Over the weekend, I was chatting with a web developer friend of mine who shall remain nameless. For the sake of this post, we will call him Herman. Late Friday afternoon, Herman was working away in his office when he got a phone call from a number he didn’t recognize. Hoping for some new business in a slow economy he answered the call against his better judgment. What he found on the other end of the line was not a new lead but instead a very, very, dissatisfied customer. The twist to the story is the customer on the other end of the line wasn’t his, nor did she even own a website.
It turns out this Ann Coulter like figure, was in fact a CUSTOMER of one of Herman’s previous web development clients. So things don’t get too confusing, we will call this angry lady Rosie O’Donell for the remainder of the article. Anyway, it turns out Rosie was irate because she had hired a contractor to assist with some remodel work at her home. The contractor had taken her money, started the work, and had disappeared for weeks without notifying her or returning her calls. Her house was now a disaster, her money was gone, and she didn’t know what to do.
Why was she mad at Herman though? Well, Herman had created a very nice and professional website for his client, the contractor. In fact, the website was so good and professional that Rosie hired the contractor without meeting him in person. The website was so professional, that she thought she was working with a large construction company and was incredibly surprised to find out it was one man show and he was a part-time handy man working out of his home.
Rosie’s argument was that Herman had helped the client misrepresent himself. Herman’s argument was that his client was a nice guy and he has no control over how he performs his business. Herman, like most of us, was hired to help his client create a professional image. This story really got me thinking though. As web developers and marketers, we often try to position our clients above where they actually fall in their market. Are we doing consumers an injustice? In addition, should we be liable for misrepresenting our clients? Is it wrong for us to help companies try to look better than they actually are? Should we actually be positioning them on par with comparable competition?
This is an interesting story that brings up some intriguing questions. Let me know what you think! I am anxious to hear thoughts from other marketers and web developers on this story.
Check out the 4G web site blacklist
I came across something today that I had to share. Over at the Perishable Press they have released a really cool “firewall” for your website. Here is their description of what they’ve created:
The 4G Blacklist is a next-generation protective firewall that secures your website against a wide range of malicious activity. Like its 3G predecessor, the 4G Blacklist is designed for use on Apache servers and is easily implemented via HTAccess or the httpd.conf configuration file. In order to function properly, the 4G Blacklist requires two specific Apache modules, mod_rewrite and mod_alias. As with the third generation of the blacklist, the 4G Blacklist consists of multiple parts:
• HTAccess Essentials
• Request-Method Filtering
• IP Address Blacklist
• Query-String Blacklist
• URL Blacklist
Each of these methods is designed to protect different aspects of your site. They may be used independently, mixed and matched, or combined to create the complete 4G Blacklist.
Everyone hates spam bots, automated hacking attempts, and mindless spiders. I really dislike all of the tools that are out their scanning the Internet looking for holes and places to commit their malicious attacks. I am testing this on a couple projects and watching my logs. I have also added a couple of the really annoying form spammers to the IP blocklist already . I will keep you posted on how this script works at blocking the junk hacking attempts and other garbage from our websites.
If you want to check it out you can get the 4G Blacklist here:
http://perishablepress.com/press/2009/03/16/the-perishable-press-4g-blacklist/
Help .net Magazine Execute IE6
Everyone knows how much I hate Internet Explorer 6. I personally wasn’t a fan when it had 90% market penetration and I am even less of a fan now that it is somehow hanging onto a 20ish% share long after it should be dead.
The unfortunate reality is that IE6 is still important. Although, its market share is slowly dwindling there are still a large number of important business users on IE6. .net Magazine has started a new campaign called “Bring Down IE6.” You can check it out here: http://www.bringdownie6.com/ which is trying to help combat this problem and they’re looking for web developer support.
Obviously, I support this campaign, hence this article. I don’t think this is enough. I think as web developers we should put a header on every site that only shows to IE6 users…. using hacks of course. This bar would basically inform the user their using a grossly outdated browser and give them links to download Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera. Many of these users have no idea just how outdated their software is. They may have disabled their automatic Windows updates back in 2002 and didn’t realize that browsing technology has changed drastically since that time. We can have all the campaigns we want but if the people with the problem don’t know that they have IE6 and that it’s outdated then the problem is not going to get solved.
I look at it kind of like having cancer. If you don’t know you have it often you can live with it undetected but as soon as you find you have cancer you’ll get it treated. At any rate a campaign is a step in the right direction. It is amazing to me how many of our IE6 customers have no idea they are outdated or even what browser they use. Many of them don’t even know there are competing products to Internet Explorer. They just assume that is how everyone views the Internet.