If you’re at the computer as much as I am, you know how important it is to use a mouse that’s comfortable to use. That’s why I want to tell you about an ergonomic mouse that I’ve been using for a few months now. It’s called the Wow-Pen Joy and it’s SO comfortable.

I reviewed one of its siblings last year. It’s called the Wow-Pen Eco, which is a small pen-like device that works very well. I still use it when I travel with my laptop.

Where the Eco is designed to be held like a pen (it even includes a scroll wheel), the Wow-Pen Joy is made to fit your hand very comfortably in an open-handed position. (Check out the photo to see what I mean.) To describe it another way, think about the way your hand rests next to your leg when you’re standing. If you were to “freeze” your hand in that position and place it on your desk, that’s what it would look like while holding this mouse. Like I said: a very natural position.

It’s optical and compatible with Windows and Macs. It has five buttons: your standard left and right buttons, a scroll wheel that doubles as a middle button, and two other buttons to the left of the device that you operate with your thumb. These two come in very handy when browsing forward and backward while surfing the Web.

You might call this a “vertical” mouse though comparing it to other models I’ve seen, I think the Joy is designed to fit a person’s hand more naturally. For years I’d wear something called a “mouse mitt”, which is a fingerless glove that had a cushion covering my wrist. But with the Wow-Pen Joy, my hand is positioned in such a way that it’s laying on the right side of my hand, which keeps the pressure off my wrist. I no longer use the glove.

It weighs practically nothing — about 4.6 oz and that’s with the USB cable. And you know how you sometimes have to pick your mouse up to get your cursor where you need it to be? Well, you might think that with this unusually shaped mouse that it might be a problem. Nope. It’s very easy to pick up with a simple squeeze of your thumb and index finger.

Whatever your choice of mouse, make darn sure it’s not causing you problems like carpal tunnel syndrome. For me, this mouse is something I’m going to be using for a long time.

I’ve signed up to a few lists. I’m sure some of you have too. You know, the ones that promise great deals or exclusive content? Some deliver on their promises while others are a case study in how not to communicate to readers. This has caused to me wonder what the best approach is when trying to inform your audience or persuade them to buy something you may be promoting.

Don’t Tick Me Off!

So what kind of sales approach do you find appealing to you, as the recipient? What kind really ticks you off and makes you want to unsubscribe in a New York minute?

For me, my biggest gripe has to do with the ones that go on for miles and miles explaining how wonderful the product they’re selling is. Really? If something is so wonderful, so Earth-shattering, shouldn’t they be able to list off its features and let the product speak for itself? I mean, if so much effort has to be put into selling something, wouldn’t that make you suspicious? It does me.

“I have the power to raise the price,
and I’m not afraid to use it!”

And what about the ones that warn you that the price will go up every x number of minutes, so act now! I completely understand that there should be a call to action. I also find it acceptable to include a sense of urgency in the message; that’s Marketing 101.

But seriously — if the product is worth $10, $20 or whatever right now, then why wouldn’t it be worth that much in the next 30 minutes or even the next day? It’s not the value of the product that’s increasing, it’s the seller who is more interested in making a buck from you than he is with providing you a product that can serve you well.

A large portion of the relationship you build when you subscribe to something relies on trust. Without trust, there’s not much reason to do business with someone. Would you continue to do business at a grocery store if their products were always low quality? Would you continue to eat at a restaurant if the service was bad? I know I wouldn’t and it’s no different than online business relationships.

What are your thoughts?

How many organizations have you come across that have the color of the skin of its members in the name of that organization? Or maybe it included their ethnicity? Or maybe their sexual preference?

I’ll bet that of the ones that came to mind, not one of them had “white”, or “American”, or “straight” in their names. Am I right? Yet we see more often than not names like:

• The Organization of Black Airline Pilots Inc.
• Chicago Chinese Computing Professional Association
• Gay & Lesbians Alliance Against Defamation
• Association for the Advancement of Mexican-Americans

These are all real organizations. They all have the best interests of their members at heart. But they’re also telling everyone outside of their organizations that other people come second. True, they won’t tell that to your face, but the whole purpose of their existence is to provide a benefit of some sort to their members based on their skin color, ethnicity/nationality, or sexual preference.

Now I’ll make a subtle switch:

• The Organization of White Airline Pilots Inc.
• Chicago Americans Computing Professional Association
• Heterosexual Alliance Against Defamation
• Association for the Advancement of Americans

What’s coming to mind? How about these:

• Club for White Men
• Americans for Border Protection
• Straight Men & Women Association

Striking any nerves yet? Are those last three causing you to think they’re racist somehow, or hate people from other nations, or hate gays and lesbians? I’m guessing that more people would think those things than not, and that’s what disturbs me.

What do you think?

Do you think the pendulum has swung to the other end of the spectrum? Has it gotten to the point where the special interest groups now cry foul if you do nothing more than copy their methodology yet simply change the name to show your own interest?

What about groups like these:

• The Home Buyers Association
• Association of Journalistic Standards
• Opera House Renovators
• Doctors Without Borders
• Friends for Deaf Children

Granted, some I made up, but even so, they all demonstrate a commonality based on characteristics that are devoid of controversy when you take them at face value. They can benefit their members while simultaneously benefiting those they’re focusing on.

So Doctors Without Borders benefits its members by providing the means for doctors to do good for others, while benefiting those they make healthy. The Association of Journalistic Standards (something I made up) could give their members the gratification of knowing they’re setting quality standards and procedures for writing in the media, while benefiting audiences everywhere who will read or listen to what is written or said in the media.

I long for the day when we can stop isolating ourselves from one another and simply live as one.

I was eating a burger I had purchased from a fast-food restaurant, Wendy’s, last week. As I was eating it, I was reading the cup my soda came in. On the side it said, “Your deserve a download with your burger.” which was encouraging me to download a free music file from Rhapsody.

At first, that struck me as an odd statement because of all the burgers I’ve eaten, it never occurred to me that to make my burger more satisfying I needed a music download. At times I’ve reconsidered my choice in sodas, perhaps I should have gotten a shake instead. But I don’t recall ever saying to myself, “You know what this burger needs? A music download!”

Stay with me. I’m leading up to something.

Then I pondered the use of the term, “deserve”. Really? I deserve a download? Who is Wendy’s to tell me what I, a perfect stranger, deserves?

As I scarfed down the rest of my meal so that I could get back to work, this whole idea of being told I deserved something stuck with me the rest of the day.

Of course, it wasn’t really about me deserving something. It was more about one company, Wendy’s, trying to influence my behavior by making me think I was entitled to something. This behavior would eventually (hopefully) lead to a sale.

I haven’t downloaded the music, but I’ll make an educated guess that it will involve me giving my personal information to Rhapsod and face some junk mail in my future. Or maybe it would ask me to enter my credit card information for a free trial of which I might forget to cancel and be charged for something. It doesn’t matter; these are just guesses anyway. But I’ve seen enough free things in my life to get an idea.

This whole idea of being told we deserve something for nothing, this feeling of entitlement is what I think plagues our society today. In fact, I think it’s the reason we see many people act so selfishly these days. I’m not saying that Wendy’s is at the root of all evil, but it’s the message they and others are delivering that are causing our wounds to fester.

Someone sues someone else because they feel offended. “Well, by golly, I deserve to be treated better, so I’ll show you!” A candidate running for office feels they deserve to be the winner, so they’re going to make sure everyone else running against him looks bad whether they have to lie or not.

No matter if what we hear or see is true or not, we’ll eventually believe it to some degree or at least that’s what advertisers are betting on. We’d like to think that whatever makes it between our ears is true, and indeed I’m optimistic enough to think that it is. But, I for one, will stop to examine what information I’m being fed to keep from becoming an automaton acting on someone else’s will. I encourage others to do the same.

What do you think? Is advertising going too far?

You may have heard in the news about an illegal immigrant who was hiding in a church in Chicago to avoid being deported. Oh! Did I type that out loud? I meant to say she was claiming sanctuary in a church in Chicago. Gosh, I almost made it sound like she actually was being wrongfully accused and hiding from the bad guys.

Oh wait, she IS the “bad guy”.

Her name? Elvira Arellano. What she does for a living? Comes to the U.S. illegally and claims that she has a right to stay here and demand she not be treated like a criminal. Hmm, I wonder if that job comes with a good dental plan. Probably, because it’s paid for by American citizens I’m sure.

Anyhoo, she was finally deported back to Mexico choosing to leave her 8-year-old son behind. Immigration activists (notice they don’t call themselves ILLEGAL immigration activists) are crying foul saying that they’re saddened and yet angry at the same time. “How dare they arrest this woman?” asks a confused man.

How dare they? Excuse me (ahem), but she committed a crime coming here 10 years ago. Hellooooo. And doesn’t her leaving her son here, who is a U.S. citizen, say anything about her? Of course it does; it says she knows he’d have a better life here than Mexico. If she truly felt wronged, then she would have taken her son with her. Nope, this is about the squeaky wheel think it deserves ALL the grease.

Pardon my sarcasm, but to get serious about this, where did our society lose its sense of justice? Not the kind that defends criminals, but the kind that actually says what’s right and wrong.

Is it that we have it so good that we’ve run out of things to complain about? Do we have to make stuff up and fool ourselves into thinking we’re being productive when in reality we’re really just slowing destroying our culture, our sense of right and wrong?

And what is Elvira going to do next? Why she’s going to lobby Mexican government organizations and officials, undoubtedly to prepare a major offensive against the big bad U.S. government for making a better life here than elsewhere. Hey, I’m not saying we have it perfect here, by any means, but is it too much to ask to have this type of person to look at the numbers? I don’t see a long line going out of the country.

Stupidity is a disease and it must be stopped in our lifetime.

Inspired by My Way.

[tags]illegal immigration,law,government[/tags]

I found this video a while back while browsing. The message is clear: America has gone too far to accommodate other people’s languages in its own country.

The one time that I have been out of the country, I appreciated the translations to my language when it came to signs, like the kind you would find in airports. But those are public places. I wouldn’t dream of demanding someone speak my language while in their homeland. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right?

So why do immigrants think they should expect special treatment in my country?

[tags]videos,America,language[/tags]

This makes me angry. A Jacksonville, Florida man, Colin Bruley, took heroic measures to save a woman’s life. His reward? Getting fired from his job.

Bruley worked as a leasing agent for an apartment complex. Late one evening, he awoke to the sound of gunfire nearby and screaming. He grabbed his 12-gauge shotgun and ran out the door to see what was the matter.

He found one of the residents lying down with a bloody leg, to which he immediately tended to.

The victim and her sister praised him for his help. But what did management do? They said he was in violation of company policy: brandishing a weapon on company property and failing to report the incident afterwards.

Excuse me?

It astonishes me every time I hear of such ignorance. This is a perfect example of people refusing to think for themselves and doing the right thing. Instead, they smell “lawsuits” in the air and make themselves feel productive by doing something. And if that something has been written down somewhere, then certainly they’re doing the right thing. Right? Wrong.

Hey, here’s an idea for management: instead of applying a policy that clearly wasn’t meant to cover such an incident (fitting a square peg into a round hole), why not put some common sense effort into your actions?

Have we really sunk this low? Has common sense actually been substituted by playing it safe?

Hey, I’m all for planning ahead — I am, after all, a project manager by trade. But I know from experience that you plan for the unknown. You have a contingency plan for when things go astray. And if your contingencies don’t apply, then darnit you think of something that will!

When policy after policy is created, we run the risk of saying, “Hey we don’t have to think anymore because we’ve already done it.” Not so. Policies are important, but not to the extent that we remove ourselves from responsibility and stop being thinkers.

[tags]responsibility,common sense,heroes[/tags]

I’ve been meaning to branch out a little with my writing. When I found out about Problogger’s group writing contest, I saw this as an opportunity to do just that.

As I grow older, I continue to wonder how things have gotten so out of hand in our American society. I’m not talking about the war on terror or how the world has come to view this country. I’m talking about the absence of justice within its borders. Where are the values we once held so dear?

As children we had youth to blame for our ignorance. Even though we may have been vaguely aware of the issues of the day, we did so on the sidelines and left it to mom and dad to handle. Fast forward to today, some adults still hold tight to that ignorance and blame others for their shortcomings, and leave it to the courts to handle.

Many factors come into play that cause “ripples” to flow through our society. As they collide with one another, they compound the problem and turn into waves. I equate these waves to sympathies for the devil because if people weren’t so sympathetic to his wishes, the world would be a better place. Oh, they don’t see that they’re being sympathetic, but their actions have the same affect, nonetheless.

These are five things I think give him reason to look up to us and smile:

That’s illegal, not immigration in general.

You want to live in my country? Okay, just…do it…legally, thanks.

It’s the soft approach (if you can call it an approach at all) that the American government has taken with illegal immigration that has encouraged a feeling of security with said immigrants. Millions of illegals and their sympathizers are marching saying they’re not criminals, why they have rights too, how they’re so mistreated.

Stop, you’re making me cry.

You are criminals (you broke the law getting here), you have no rights in our country (save for the basic human rights everyone deserves), and you have definitely not been mistreated with all the freebies you’ve been leeching off of hard-working Americans who have to pay more still to get what you get for free.

Show a little respect for yourself, for your children, and just do the right thing by going to the back of the line.

And stop expecting to have everything translated. We speak English here.

A woman in Florida is facing two years in prison because she had her young child stand up to a bully in school. No one was harmed, but come on! Two years? A man steals a woman’s purse and gets a lengthy sentence, but another one sells drugs to kids and gets a lesser sentence. Good grief!

The justice system has been turned upside down. Outrageous sentences for minor offenses. Mild sentences for horrendous crimes. Make the punishment fit the crime. Why is that so difficult?

Another notch in the devil’s belt is this little gem. Everyone has gotten so wound up about offending others that not only are they willing to bend over backwards and then some to accommodate them, but people are willing to jump down someone’s throat if you so much as look at them cross-eyed.

Come on! No one has a right not to be offended. It will happen and while I agree it may be painful/embarrassing/difficult at times, I can assure you it will pass and you won’t need someone to sue to see you through to the next day. Get a little tougher, please.

When kids get hurt, they run to their mommies. When adults get hurt, they run to their lawyers. It doesn’t matter if the adult is the one to blame in the first place. They’ve been hurt, darnit, and by golly someone’s going to pay for that!

Why? Whatever happened to just standing up and saying, “I screwed up! I shouldn’t have been blow-drying my hair while taking a shower, I know, but I was running late to work and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

The gene that’s responsible for making us feel responsible has somehow been given a shot of novacaine. Instead of taking responsibility, we’ve chosen to pay lawyers large sums of money to distract us from doing the right thing because hey: it’s all about winning, right? I take that back. It’s about winning and making sure others lose.

Did I miss a memo somewhere along my life? You know the one that everyone else seems to be referring to. I think it goes something like this:

I, [state your name] hereby promise to follow this code of conduct. I’m going to:

1. be the winner (and make sure you know you’re the loser)
2. be right (even though I’m not)
3. prove that you’re wrong (even though you may be right)
4. gloat (your pain is my gain)
5. ignore your needs (because if I don’t, then that means time away from me paying attention to my needs)
6. scream the loudest (because even though I may be wrong, the squeakiest wheel gets the grease)
7. make sure to pull you down with me (because taking blame is a heavy load to bear and I need your help carrying it)
8. call you names and make you look bad (which will somehow make me look good)
9. count my money and count/spend yours for you
10. I’m tired of waiting for what I want so I’ve decided I’m entitled to it, therefore you should give it to me because it now sounds more important

Seriously, does any of this sound familiar? Surely it must be obvious to even the most casual observer that something’s not right with the way things are today.

It has been said that “the devil is in the details.” Well, there are a lot of details he’s been in lately. And as long as people continue to give in to his interests, continue to take the easy way or runaway from responsibility instead of facing the challenge head-on, we’re only encouraging him and things won’t get any better.

I welcome your comments.

[tags]politics,illegal immigration,justice,injustice,entitlement,politically correct,selfishness,accountability[/tags]

I just heard on the radio that the community of Virginia Tech honored the students killed in the massacre last week by placing 33 stones as a memorial.

Yes, 33. They included the killer. Gimme a break!

A representative mentioned that they had a strong sense of community there and they felt it was not their place to remove the 33rd stone.

Sounds like they need to check the expiration date on their medication. You don’t honor a killer. What have we come to?

[tags]killer,virgina tech,students,massacre,memorial[/tags]

Okay, what is it about this latest round of spam attacks? The ones with all the Chinese characters?

Gmail is known for doing a pretty good job at isolating spam before it rests in your inbox, but I’m getting this stuff by the droves everyday. (Note to Gmail: I don’t speak Chinese, so I’m fine if you just want to bypass the spam folder and have those messages go straight to the trash.)

What’s more confusing is that I take precautions by not posting my email address everywhere I turn.

To this day I still don’t see the value in getting into such a business. Clearly, this must be a profitable one to get into, but even so, how does one sleep at night knowing they’re annoying the heck out of everyone?

UPDATE: a friend of mine, Tammara, reminded me of another very annoying form of spam called comment spam, the kind bloggers have to trudge through just about as often as you might get email spam. I’m going to post a review of a couple of my favorite plugins that can help make mincemeat out of this kind of spam.

[tags]spam,Gmail[/tags]