Dear Rackspace: You Pissed Me Off

October 31, 2008 | 7 Comments

Update: Rackspace got realistic about this situation and reduced my overages charge to 1/3 of the original amount. That’s much more fair. Overall it’s been a good relationship - there have been downs, but overall they have done well for me.

Dear Rackspace,

No need to split this $1,600 payment over 3 months, just send me the bill for the overages. Talk to your management and tell them it’s fucking bullshit too. And yes, word spreads. And yes, when I’m thinking about the next 2 servers needed for my startup, I will remember this.

I take responsibility for this — but I think you share equally in this. My expectations must be out-of-whack. When my bandwidth doubles on Sept 27 [roughly that day], I’d think you’d let me know, “Steve, wtf just happened — you’re using twice the bandwidth you have been using the past 6 months of being our customer.” This is managed services I’m paying for. I’m not asking you to wipe my ass, but tell me if my bandwidth or storage amounts go out of whack. Lesson learned, I’ll be checking bandwidth reports — but it was a simple thing to correct for me; I would have corrected it back on Sept 27, instead of having 800GB in overages at your RAPE RATE of $2/GB.

Pardon the fury in this email and the language — I’m typically composed and professional. But this is disgusting. As mentioned on the phone, I feel like when I have gone over on minutes with a cell phone and then they take full advantage of you [because you signed a contract at some ass-raping number]. You replied with, “yeah, but the cell phone company doesn’t alert you either” — well is that really the standard you want to uphold yourself to?

Amazon S3 offers the same bandwidth for $0.17/gb — I have now shifted things over to them, to ensure I don’t get above my bandwidth with you each month. Don’t you think that’s a bit fucked up? I shouldn’t have to do that, especially when I’m paying 3x what I normally would for a server — because I want your “managed” services (aka “take care of shit for me; alert me to problems”). We’ll see if Amazon has any other products that might work better for me — EC2, etc. You’re making me have to look at other companies now. I really hope you lose my thousands of dollars per year account because you are greedy.

If you charged me even $0.25/GB for that 800GB overage, I’d feel better. This was a mistake and will not happen again — if it does, I’ll shut the fuck up and pay my $2/GB.

Anyhow, I have no say here what so ever. You’re not willing to be reasonable on this 1st instance of a problem. So, bill me.

Not fanatical at all. Bad taste in my mouth — and unfortunately will likely tell everyone I know in the tech world about this distaste.

Regards,
Steve Poland

Posted by Steve Poland | Filed Under DearWTFChuck 

I’m a Mac, I’m a PC - Halloween Costumes Idea

October 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment

For all those late stragglers that need a Halloween costume — my buddy Rob and I pulled off the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” costumes last week. See the pic below. I got those 2 signs printed at Kinko’s for hardly anything - here’s a link to the PDF files for printing. I made the Mac one glossy and sexy, whereas the PC one was dull and boring. My buddy Rob was the Mac, and basically he’d question what I was doing — so I was the stunt man the whole night. He’d also throw little quirky things at me through the night. I just played an awkward guy a lot of the time — it was great meeting people I didn’t know and staying in character; complete awkwardness. Here are some ideas during the night:

  • In a setting of girls — PC says, “You girls should come home with me tonight”. Mac says, “Yeah, you really shouldn’t. Have to watch out for those viruses.”
  • As PC, I had “Airborne” on me — when I pulled it out, Mac would say, “PC, what you got there?” And I’d explain that it was my preventative attempt at fighting off viruses.
  • As PC, I’d start sneezing and coughing - Mac would ask what’s up, and I’d say I have a virus.
  • As PC, I’d be doing something, like bending down, or about to sip my drink, in a social setting — and then I’d just freeze for a few moments. Then snap out of it, “Had a system freeze right there”.
  • Windows blue screen of death — I had posterboard that said this and “An Illegal Operation Occurred”.
  • On the flipside of my “I’m a PC” card, it said “Windows is booting up…”
  • I thought a ‘kick me’ sign on my back would have been good — was trying to think of something better in relation to a PC, something dorky. “reBOOT me” might have been good.
  • Sometimes I’d fall to the floor in the fetal position, then awaken out of it and go back to what I was doing. That was a restart.
  • If we were doing shots or another drink, Mac might ask if I had done a virus scan on the glasses.
  • As PC, bring a deck of cards. Go in the corner and start playing Solitaire. Mac can then say, “PC, what are you doing? You’re at a party with tons of people, and you’re sitting in solidarity?!” PC - “I’m playing Solitaire, it’s one of America’s favorite past times on the PC”.
  • As PC, I had a briefcase that had all my props for the evening.

Any other ideas? I’m doing this costume again this coming Saturday.

Posted by Steve Poland | Filed Under Uncategorized 

Ideas for a better Hype Machine

October 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Hype MachineI see a lot of dupe tracks in hype machine — like on the ‘popular’ page right now, there’s 2 listings for the Kanye West vs Radiohead remix song [which is hot btw!].
this one has been favorite’d 29 times.
this one 12 times.
What if you started to group the same songs together — and maybe under the song listing, showed more links [blog posts] to that same track.  It matters to the user how many times a song has been favorite’d [to help us discover songs that people think are hot] — but I don’t care if that same track is favorite’d 29x for one posting, and 12x for another. I want to know it has 41x.
What about checking the MD5 hash of these mp3s from these sites? If they match, then they are for sure the same song/file — just posted different places on the web.
More ideas..
  • I’d love to comment on tracks. I know I can comment on the blog page, but as mentioned above, these tracks are posted all over the place. I don’t want to visit everyone’s blog post to see people’s comments. Plus, this gives you more UGC on your site. Make it easy to comment on the track on a search results page [or '/popular' page] — or on the individual track page. Use some javascript hide/show magic.

  • Let me “favorite” artists. Or go out to my last.fm account, pull down all the artists I’ve listened to in the past, and start doing like a “google alerts” email to me daily that shows some new tracks by those artists on Hype Machine. [maybe old tracks will appear that people post on their blogs, but i already have -- maybe i'll not like this]. Or maybe a page on your site that’s like my own personal radio — and shows the latest mp3s that have posted for artists that I like.

  • There are 2 embed codes on each track page; you should have a Flash widget embed that plays the song right through it — and also of course links to more songs on hype machine, etc.  Also, have a link next to each track on a results page [or '/popular' page] that says ’share’ and then opens up right there links for me to copy the embed codes].

What ideas do you have for a better Hype Machine? Post in the comments…

Posted by Steve Poland | Filed Under Ideas 

Techies rejoice online to help low-income Americans get to the polls on Nov 4

October 8, 2008 | 2 Comments

The title of this post is a lie — but it’s my hope.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that the majority of the smartest technical minds in the USA are Democrats and supporting Obama. If we were to even just look at Twitter, John McCain has 2,500 followers, while Obama has 88,000 followers.

The low-income population could swing any presidential vote to the Democrats, if only they were to get out and vote. But most poor don’t have a means to get to the voting booth or aren’t educated enough on political issues to vote, or they simply just don’t care (and don’t think their vote will matter anyhow).

Everyone that’s an American should be voting. This is a democracy. I’m surprised that the tech-savvy Democratic supporters haven’t joined together in an effort to get more individuals to the polls on November 4, 2008. People could be offering to carpool individuals. Or setup buses that drive individuals to the voting booths that day. Maybe a non-biased “crib sheet” is provided to these typical non-voters that lists the candidates and their views on different issues; maybe the crib sheet facts are approved by both candidates. Maybe free bagels or other inexpensive food is provided to voters as an incentive to vote — whether they vote Republican or Democrat.

Where is the open-source led movement for setting up this national network of volunteers online that ensures flyers are posted around cities (informing the poor of this day), buses setup with pickup points, bagels donated (or purchased) from local bakeries, temporary childcare facilities possibly setup while voters vote, etc.

I’m shocked a collective of tech minds hasn’t stepped up to make this happen. I’d think Obama would be all about financially supporting this effort, even if anonymously.

Of course, we don’t want these ignorant voters necessarily coming out.

Posted by Steve Poland | Filed Under Ideas, Uncategorized 

Web 2.0 Innovation enters Deadpool

October 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment

This was a post I started writing April 25 of this year, I never finished it, but thought I’d post it now.

Alternative title to this post: Web 2.0 Dust Settles. Enterprises wondering how do we now use this stuff in our businesses?

This year’s Web 2.0 Expo (in SF) had a completely different vibe than last year’s event. The innovation in Web 2.0 is in the deadpool. That’s obviously not all true, but for an entrepreneur/innovator like me, the crazy chaotic mess of innovation has gone through its’ whirlwind and settled down a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, I still feel we’re at the very beginning of innovation, but you all know it’s not as whack as it was in the early days of TechCrunch. Mobile will bring us a ton of new early-day TechCrunch craziness in the coming years. (In fact, I’m shocked no one has stepped up with a blog that is the early-day TechCrunch blog for Mobile applications/startups)

I’ll be honest, this past year has been much of a yawner for me in “Web 2.0″. What was interesting at Web2Expo was Enterprise — but not in terms of Enterprise-specific applications. Enterprises sent many representatives to the conference and they were all collectively saying, “OK, you entrepreneurs/innovators have screwed around enough — and you found some things that don’t work, and found others that do work. Now how do we integrate those things that do work into our own businesses to increase profits and maximize efficiencies?”

And as Allen Stern and I just discussed, Enterprises = Money. If the Web 2.0 companies that are left standing can learn how to adapt their businesses in someway to Enterprises, they’ll be tapping into some large pools of capital.

Posted by Steve Poland | Filed Under analysis 

Google Image Search - Sponsored Link spotted in the wild!

October 3, 2008 | 8 Comments

I was just doing an image search using Google Images and saw a sponsored image result. I don’t even think the everyday person has access to doing this kind of advertisement with Google AdWords:

Posted by Steve Poland | Filed Under Uncategorized 

Do you know a LAMP/PHP freelancer? Recommend them to me (for their sake)

October 2, 2008 | 2 Comments

OK, for my sake too. I’m looking for someone that’s a rockstar PHP/LAMP champ — and a Javascript champ too. I’m looking to pay for now — but I really want to find someone that I can have a long-term business relationship with. I’m looking for my programming soul-mate.

Anyhow, please forward this post to anyone you know that might be interested in some freelance work. I’m looking for someone that’s passionate, hungry, smart, and wanting to learn more. Email me via my contact form, or do an ‘@stp’ twitter reply to me.

P.S. I know I’ve been gone way too long from blogging, maybe someday I shall return. For now, I’m busy on a few projects. The ideas still flow though and I’m always open to giving input to anyone that wants a raw opinion on anything they’re working on - just hit me by email via my contact form.

Posted by Steve Poland | Filed Under Uncategorized