Sometimes I get a kick out of reading all the spam that gets posted in my blog.  It generally comes through as comments and you can see an example here:

I’m wondering how this is even effective.  Does anyone in their right mind actually follow these links and even more, do they actually sign up for the service?!?  And why in the world do they make ZERO sense.  It’s like “hey if you’re interested in learning more about nuclear atomic warheads why don’t you play a quick game of backgammon”?

I guess these type of comments can slip through spam filters and in the meantime I’ll continue to enjoy their complete randomness.

Over the past year I’ve received quite a few emails from friends linking me to the Pandora site.  If you’re into music at all then YOU HAVE TO CHECK THIS OUT.  Pandora was inspired from the Music Genome Project and its’a brilliant concept.  You basically enter an artist or song name and you’ll be presented with a list of similar songs from various artists.  The songs are then played like your own personal radio station.  These are streamed to your computer using Adobe’s Flash technology.

You can tell Pandora whether or not you like the song it has chosen for you and I’m assuming it gets smarter each time you provide feedback.  I was highly amazed at how accurate the results were and only a few times did I have to tell it I didn’t like a certain song.  If you like a song you can by the album from Amazon or the song from iTunes.

The best thing about Pandora is that it’s completely free, although you can purchase an add-free subscription.  I remember reading that you can have up to 100 stations programmed.  Each artist or song you enter gets created as a station in the Pandora player.  Now I can’t wait to get this going on my Windows Mobile device.  When will we see the WiFi enabled iPod?!?

Every now and then I like to post screen captures from my 8125. I found a great utility for taking screen captures that are saved to bitmap files. It’s called Pocket Screen Capture and is completely free. It runs on a timer so that you can prep the screen before taking the shot. The image is saved to the /temp directory and can then be easily transferred to your desktop. You can see sample of a screen capture from my device below.

I spend a decent amount of my spare time marketing Jamie’s PolkaDachs business on-line.  If you’ve done any on-line marketing over the past ten years then you know the space has changed drastically.  Nowadays small businesses can tie into Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Overture services.  These are both pay-per-click advertising models, which helps drive more targeted traffic to your site for a small fee.

Then there’s Froogle, which is completely free.  Froogle is like Google for shopping.  I’ve been working to keep the PolkaDachs product line up to date in Froogle’s index.  You have to update it at least once a month to keep your listing from being removed.  Right now we have almost 50 products listed and I’m working to get the thumbnail images up to date.
At any rate, if you’re doing any sort of on-line marketing for your business then I would highly recommend Froogle (assuming you’re selling a product).  It’s too cheap to pass up!

I posted a while back about my Cingular 8125. It’s an amazing device and has everything you could possibly need to work on the go. Now T-Mobile subscribers have access to the same device, although it has a little different form factor. The TMO version is known as the MDA.

One of the biggest physical differences I’ve noticed is the keyboard. At any rate, you can pick one up from Amazon.com. If you’re thinking about getting a Windows Mobile device then this is the one you want to consider. The screen resolution is incredible and all the software on the device makes you feel like you’re carrying a desktop in your pocket.