Originally, I did not intend to write a blog post with as strong of a statement, but I think it is well deserved.  Denver Post simply sucks at listening to its readers.  Anyone who looks at comments on some of its poorly written online content can see and understand that the content of the newspaper is very poor.

I am not here to bash the newspaper, I just want to highlight that Denver Post needs to listen to its readers and start providing more useful and relevant content.

Here are some examples of very poorly written content.  Apparently, even after the bashing received by writing poor articles in Summer/Fall of 2009, Denver Post has yet to learn.  The JR Smith article was posted on January 28, 2010.  Maybe we should all write to the editor.

Source: Rent A Coder User/Reader Comment on AU Interactive Blog

I think that RAC (Rent A Coder) is `dead` for now. With rates so ridiculously low only providers with very little knowlege or no chances for a ‘real’ job will stay there.

Most of the projects on RAC are for $20-$100USD and the requirements are insane. Eg. $50 for designing a professional website, $400 for youtube and other big sites clones, etc.

On the other side, how “work” done on RAC looks? Like it was finished in 1990’s. Tables, no css, font tags, spaghetti coding, no object oriented programming, lack of any code structure, planning, comments, etc.

I’m not suprised. When you go for a job that pays $1/hour you certainly don’t have time nor skill to finish it properly. And you’ll do everything to do it fast so you’ll end up with $1.50 / hour. It’s still ridiculous, but more than $1 anyway. How insane should you be to devote time and skill to $1/hour projects when it’ll only lower your rate to a couple of cents / hour.

Let’s be honest that RAC promotes bad providers and cheap, crappy, insecure code. When you devote more time to do something right on RAC you get punished for your goodwill.

About a week ago, I received an email indicating that the Project Honey Pot had received its 1 billionth spam message.  This is quite incredible.  More importantly, the work they do helps us use our emails with less spam.  As such I just really want to thank the guys at Project Honey Pot.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU...

Project Honey Pot - What They Do...

Some of the data in the email is quite entertaining as well.  For example, apparently spammers take vacation also.  Spam volume drops significantly on Christmas day.  Read on!

It seems really unfortunate, but most website owners AND the website managers often do not seem to know that their websites have been hijacked by iFrame viruses.  Recently, while looking for some information on one of Mongolia's top computer science universities, I ran across this:

And because the owners probably do not have any idea of the virus, they are most certainly not aware that their websites are spreading the virus to other unsuspecting website visitors, thus further spreading the virus.

Earlier today, I received a special offer from Kempinski Hotel Khan Palace to hold New Year's Party at discount.  There was only one problem.  I couldn't read the offer (see image below).  This is actually quite a common problem in Mongolia.  As such, I advise Mongolian Marketing Managers and others to use special caution when using MONKEY (Mon-Key), an outdated Windows tool allowing Mongolians to type with Cyrillic characters.  In fact, I believe this tool should altogether just be banned!

I'm not picking on Kempinski Khan Palace at all.  Even my bankers at Khaan Bank have this issue as well.  In fact, we have this issue on pretty much 20-40% of communications I receive in Mongolian language.  Interestingly, I even heard there is a government requirement making people use MONKEY.  Outdated laws like these should be changed, if they are not already.

In the meantime, everyone, please use utmost caution and care.  If possible, do NOT use MONKEY.  Rather, just use the language tools that now come standard on Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

Today, I read about Universal's poster blunder for the movie "Couples Retreat".  Apparently, the marketers decided to remove the black couple for the UK movie posters.  Though it sounds extremely racist, the decision seems to be financial driven as black actors apparently do not perform as well at the international box office.

This happened even though the US version of the poster had the black couples included of course.  Here are the posters, first the UK version followed by the US version.

Michael Jordan & Dwayne Wade holding up the 25th Anniversary Air Jordan shoes

Dwayne Wade, a Finals MVP, a five-time All-Star, and one of the most accomplished and popular stars in the NBA, will be wearing Nike's 25th anniversary Air Jordan shoes for the debut.   Dwayne Wade is absolutely exstatic.  And, the move to bring Dwayne Wade into the Air Jordan lineup is probably another one of the best marketing moves in the athletic shoe industry for the Nike brand.