The Raging Tech

Letters from Manuel

This morning I received an e-mail that said the following:

Manuel quiere que seas su amigo(a) en hi5.

He creado un perfil de hi5 y quisiera añadirte como un amigo, para que podamos compartir fotos y empezar a construir nuestra red. ¡Pero primero es necesario que te unas a hi5! Una vez que participes en el sitio, tendrás la oportunidad de crear un perfil, compartir imágenes, y encontrar muchos más amigos.

Gracias,
Manuel

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Wow.  Manuel wants something, and it sounds important. I recognized a few words: amigos, fotos, red. He must want photos of a red friend. I’m not sure what else he wants, but it sure is nice to have friends.

I wrote Manuel back:

Dear Manuel,

I can appreciate that you’d like photos of a red friend. Or maybe you wanted photos that would make a friend turn red. In either case, I think you’ve turned to the right guy. Unfortunately, my Spanish is very limited, and I’m not sure the phrases I know will come in handy in this situation. I mean, after all, donde’ estas el bano? Es la verdad! Donde’ estas la salade de atun, Manuel?! Que? Queso? Que Queso? No quiero queso, Manuel! Y El Pollo Diablo! Aye, Dios Mio!

As you can see, speaking Spanish only serves to infuriate me, so I will atempt no further. If you wish to remain friends with me, Manuel, you’ll have to learn some English. I fear if we do not break this language barrier, our relationship will become strained and I’ve only just met you. I can see that you are also friends with Luisa Fernanda, Yeliandra, Carmen, Marilu, Hermes, and Nena, and I’m sure that they’re all very nice people. Maybe we can all get together sometime and hang out.

Your Semi-Monolingual Friend,

The Raging Tech

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Tags: Culture, e-mail, humor

Make Your Site “Sticky” with Zookoda

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Tags: Blog, email, newsletter, subscription, Zookoda

Entrepreneurs: You Can’t Wear Every Hat

The hard part of owning your own business is that you feel constantly compelled to keep your finger on the pulse of your business and a ready eye on every aspect of it. Not just being careful or cautious or even wise, but to the degree where it counts as obsession. Micro-managing will eventually cause you to completely pull your hair out. You may think that you just can’t afford to have other people do important parts of your business.

Ultimately though, what’s worth more? Your time, or making sure that you’re the one who does everything? You can’t be both salesman and boss and system administrator at the same time. One thing you might try is outsourcing your company’s e-mail solution. A 3rd Party could store, maintain, and filter spam from your business Microsoft Exchange e-mail.

AppRiver is a company that provides secure, 3rd Party simple but powerful e-mail solutions for businesses since April 2002. Their customers enjoy a robust e-mail security solution and the convenience of a Novell spam filter to keep them safe from scams and viruses. Their administration interface is also straight-forward and easy to use, so clients can customize their solution to meet their needs, managing as little or as much as they want.

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