Jason Aaron Kiesel

I came across this blog post randomly, and I had to share it with you all. Now, I know we’re in hard time, but this seems a bit ridiculous to me. Apparently, the City of Philadelphia is going to charge it’s residents to have a blog. This article on sports blog BroadStreetHockey has some very interesting insight as to what’s going on in the City of Brotherly Love. Not so much love, would be more appropriate, I think.

I know cities are hard up for cash. We’re all hard up for cash. But come on people! I’m just glad I don’t like in Phily right now. I’d have to pay them $600 / year (this blog plus my MySpace account – every MySpacer would have to pay $300 / year as they include a blog for every account). No thanks.

And I’m going to have to keep an eye out for my city on this one. I definitely don’t want them sneaking this one by.

So I, like many other tech enthusiasts, have a million email addresses. I had been using my Yahoo! email address as my personal email address for years, but I’m finally fed up with it, and I’ve set up my auto-responder to let everyone know of my new address (yes, it’s a Gmail account). Why would I go through all that hassle and make the switch to Gmail? Well, if you have to ask that, you obviously haven’t use Gmail. First off, my Yahoo! account didn’t play well with my iPhone, constantly showing me emails that I had deleted from the mail interface days earlier. Second, every time I’d go to the web mail interface, I’d be inundated with ads. Ads everywhere. I suppose that’s what I get for signing up for a free service, but Gmail’s approach is much more acceptable in my opinion. Finally, I don’t think Yahoo! is going to be around all that much longer. I haven’t seen any innovation coming from them, and all I read about in the news concerns their impending doom.

So now that I’ve made the decision, I wanted to move all my existing mail from Yahoo! to Gmail. Simple, right? Not nearly. After about an hour online and trying a few different approaches (IzyMail and ZPOPs – both didn’t work by the way), I came across a blog that explained how to do it. Once I followed the instructions, I was able to bring all my email into my Gmail account (via their POP import feature) in about five minutes.

What was this glorious solution? I switched my Yahoo! account to a Yahoo! Asia account. Apparently, Yahoo! Asia allows their users to access their email via POP3 (in the US, you can do the same but Yahoo! wants you to fork over $20 / year).

So there you have it. If you want to bail on Yahoo! and still have all your email in your new Gmail account, you can. And you can do it for free. Hit me up at my Gmail account if you have any questions – dotnetallday@gmail.com.

I was emailed this very cool story by my uncle over the weekend, and I was laughing so hard I just had to share it with everyone. Read through the story yourself and let me know what you think at the end by leaving some comments. Enjoy!

—–
The kids filed back into class Monday morning. They were very excited.

Their weekend assignment was to sell something, then give a talk on productive salesmanship.

Little Sally led off: “I sold girl scout cookies and I made $30,” she said proudly, “My sales approach was to appeal to the customer’s civil spirit and I credit that approach for my obvious success.”

“Very good,” said the teacher.

Little Jenny was next.

“I sold magazines,” she said, “I made $45 and I explained to everyone that magazines would keep them up on current events.”

“Very good, Jenny,” said the teacher.

Eventually, it was Little Johnny’s turn (you remember him don’t cha?).

The teacher held her breath.

Little Johnny walked to the front of the classroom and dumped a box full of cash on the teacher’s desk. “$2,467,” he said.

“$2,467!” cried the teacher, “What in the world were you selling?”

“Toothbrushes,” said Little Johnny.

“Toothbrushes!” echoed the teacher, “How could you possibly sell enough tooth brushes to make that much money?”

“I found the busiest corner in town,” said Little Johnny, “I set up a Dip & Chip stand and gave everybody who walked by a free sample.”

They all said the same thing, “Hey, this tastes like dog crap!”

Then I would say,”It is dog crap. Wanna buy a toothbrush?”

“I used the governmental approach of giving you something crappy for free, and then making you pay to get the crappy taste out of your mouth.”

So I find these types of email / messages quite amusing. First, that someone would actually take the time to sit down and write something like this means they have an extraordinary amount of time (read: no friends or life). Second, the message is typically so vague and cryptic, the author really just comes off as a complete retard imbecile. Third, the author rarely identifies themselves only reinforcing their cowardice and lack of utter integrity. If you’re going to call me names, at least tell me who you are you wuss.

To what am I referring? Well, I got this message to my MySpace account a few weeks ago, and I just had to laugh. I’ve now posted the message for all of you to enjoy.

So… enjoy!

In case some of you can’t see the image, I’ve transcribed it here:

“City Sourced is the most outrageous capitalistic bullshit I have ever seen. If you want a “clean” neighborhood, move to the fucking suburbs to slowly die like the rest of the feeble fucks like you. I don’t like you at all. Major fail.”

I don’t know if many of you know, but I founded a company called CitySourced recently. Very simply, we make it really easy to make your city a better place with your smartphone. See a pothole or some graffiti? Snap a picture of it with your iPhone and it automatically gets reported to City Hall. Cool, eh? Well, I think it is. (Granted, I’m really, really geeky) While our application works in over 1900 cities nationwide, we recently launched CitySourced as the official mobile platform for the City of San Jose. We held a download day on December 12th, and I have to say, the results are really impressive. In just a few days, hundreds of issues have been reported, and all those issues have been worked into the backend workflow of the city itself. The reports that get filed will be automatically updated when at various stages in the report lifecycle (submission, confirm receipt, resolved, etc.) This is just one of many cities to adopt our platform officially, and we’re excited to bring on many more as the new year approaches.

If you’d like to download the CitySourced application for your city, you can do so here (it’s completely free!) – http://itunes.apple.com/app/citysourced/id336854714

And if you have any issues that come up, please don’t hesitate to email them to me.

Enjoy the app, and have a very safe and happy holiday!

My father-in-law (and all his generosity) splurged this year by treating the men of the family to an outdoor fishing expedition to Kodiak, Alaska. I’ve got way too many photos and video, and I’m working on getting them organized right now. But here’s a sneak peek at what went on for 10 days. Enjoy!

Dolly Varden

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 4

This year my brother invited us to watch fireworks from high atop his office building – the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in Downtown San Diego. From the 33rd floor we could see both shows going on at the San Diego Bay, and we could also see the Coronado show off in the distance. It was great to spend some time with my family and friends – Ryan (younger brother), Cynthia, Gavin & Aiden; Garon (older brother) & Janet; and Mom & Will. My wife was in Portland rehearsing for the American Idol Tour, so I came down with my FreedomSpeaks business partner Kurt Daradics. All in all it was a great time. Cynthia made some incredible brownies for everyone – they were delish. Garon took some incredible photos, and I was able to get him to send me some of them. Enjoy!

Photo by Garon Kiesel

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 7

For  millions, or tens of millions who watch American Idol only on television the Idols Live tour is an afterthought to the game.

So I was walking down the hallway that leads to my condo entrance the other day and I saw something that really irked me. Beside every door was a brand new, two inch thick yellow pages directory. I may be on a rant here, but isn’t this the worst kind of waste possible? Who actually uses one of these things now anyway? I just throw the thing in the trash (err, recylcing bin) when I get mine. And it seems like the company could do much better by investing all that money (think about the paper, ink, delivery service, etc.) in their online presence. That is where everyone goes nowadays to look up things like a plumber or a florist. Has the Yellow Pages heard of this new fangled contraption called the world wide web? It really is quite swell. My recommendation to the YP is to spend your money elsewhere, and save a few million trees while you’re at it.

In fact, I’d recommned an experiment. Instead of dropping off your antiquated books at every doorstep, make a big drop at the grocery stores in a neighboorhood. Give them out for free, and I bet the big pile will still be a big pile at the end of a couple weeks. Oh, and to anyone who advertises in that big yellow book. You’re wasting your money. I type in “florist, sherman oaks, ca” in google to find my nearest florist. Me and hundreds of millions of my closests friends.

That’s my rant. I’m done. Enjoy!

My wife and I have been wanting to get out of our condo and move into a house with a nice big back yard for our dog, Gus. We found a great house, and we got the keys on Saturday. Moving day was yesterday (everything but our home offices as there’s no internet at the new house), and even with movers, the day was an absolute drag. A serious shout out must go out to Angela’s parents, who helped out every step of the way. Now we’re moved, but it’s still not over. We get to spend all of this week unpacking the boxes! Next week it will be time to move the offices. Oh, the joy of life. I won’t complain though (even though I think I just did). I am extremely grateful that I have a solid roof over my head! Summer is almost officially here, so a BBQ will definitely be in order. I’m going to go get my grilling apron on just to get into the spirit of things.