Monthly Archives: June 2008

Louisiana Political Reform?

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I titled this blog post, Louisiana Political Reform?  Maybe it should have been, “Business as Usual in Louisiana”

I usually try to stay away from blogging about politics, but something is happening in Louisiana that just infuriates me, so feel free to skip this blog post if you aren’t interested in politics…

The Baton Rouge paper, The Advocate posted this story today. The entire story is at this link: http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/21045634.html

I will just include a bit of the story with my comments at the end of this post:
Jindal still won’t stop pay raise
by Michelle Millhollon

Gov. Bobby Jindal admitted Tuesday that he blundered in allowing legislators to pass a bill that would more than double their base pay.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” he said during a news conference outside the Governor’s Mansion.

However, Jindal said he still plans to allow the pay raise to become law.

Vetoing the bill would give legislators a reason to reverse his initiatives, including changes to the state’s ethics laws, he said.

“Everybody knows it would be in my own self-interest politically to veto this bill,” he said. “I’d probably be the most popular governor in modern polling history if I did that.”

Jindal said he will be more proactive in the future.

“Going forward, we’re certainly going to keep a much tighter rein on the Legislature in future sessions,” Jindal said.

My thoughts:

I’ve learned my lesson, actually lessons also:
1) Not to trust what Bobby Jindal promises.  They carry NO weight with me now.

2) He might say he cares for the State, but if he doesn’t veto this raise, what he says are only words and those words are meaningless.

3) I will NOT vote or SUPPORT Bobby in the next election or in any other candidacy or ticket he might be on in the future.  What an embarrassment to our State.

Observation: Bobby Jindal was suppose to be the reform governor for the State of Louisiana. Six months into his “reform,” the law makers make a raid on the treasury and he HAS the power to stop them, but choses not to stop them.  Sounds like the kind of reform we really need, huh?

I don’t normally leave my comments open, but I will for a while on this topic, so feel free to share your opinion.

E-mail Bobby and let him know what you think!

What’s in a Name?

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If you know much about me, you know that I have a part time web service company (providing hosting, domain registration, design, and programming).  One common question I am often asked is “what is a good web site name.”

Here is a short list of suggestions.  If you want to search to see what domains are available, I recommend searching (but not buying) from www.enomcentral.com.  Why not buy from them? I am a reseller for them and actually sell my names a little cheaper.  If you are interested, contact me and we’ll talk. I really don’t mean for this blog post to be a sales pitch.  What do I mean by “safe?” I’ve “heard” but not ever “confirmed” that some web registration sites “snap up” good names when you search for them and don’t buy them.  One report I read of this recently was from none other that Network Solutions, one of the companies that has been the longest in this business!

Here are 4 quick suggestions:

1)  Meaningful name – The name should reflect the content that is on the site.  You wouldn’t use a name like “dogsforyou.com” if all you sold were cats.  Yes, this is the “duh, I already knew that” suggestion, but needed to be made anyway.

2)  Short – Shorter is BETTER, in my opinion.  Remember, your domain name will be part of your e-mail address, so if it is something like:  www.thisisareallylongdomainnamethatiamusing.com then your e-mail will be myname@thisisareallylongdomainnamethatiamusing.com — see what I mean?

3) Easy to spell – My business name is Innovative Bits, LLC. I learned quickly that no one can spell Innovative correctly.  Rather sad.  Why did I not use ibits.com? It was already taken and was currently being used, so I registered innovativebits.com

4) .com over .net, .biz, etc — Why?  As I mentioned, I wanted ibits.com, but it was taken.  When .biz was added as an option, I quickly snatched it up.  .biz is actually also for businesses (.com stand for “company, .biz, business).  The problem then?  Not enough people have heard about the .biz and it confuses people when they hear it… “how do you spell that?  .b-i-z?” Because of the “.com” boom in the 90’s, everyone thinks of .com first.

A bonus suggestion… it is ok to have multiple names, but I would use one as a primary and have everything else redirect or “mirror” the current site.  Example: I still have “www.innovativebits.com” but I use “ibits.biz” on everything.

Give me a Shot of Spice!

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Most of my friends know that I love to cook and that I do most of the cooking in our household. Jennifer likes to bake and she is a great baker… I can bake, but it is not my favorite form of cooking.

I recently saw this item on one of the websites I waste too much of my time on and thought it was pretty cleaver and that I should share it with your.

It is a one handed spice dispenser called SpiceShot by Chef’n. It dispenses a ¼ of a teaspoon with each click. Amazon sells it for about $8.00 which isn’t bad, although I would only buy a few of them for my most used spices, instead of one for each of my spices.

Buy it at Amazon!

Donuts Anyone?

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Almost every one loves donuts, but we all know those fried sinful creations are not very healthy for us.  With this pan, however, they can be a little better for us, by baking instead of frying.  The bottom allows the donuts to be popped out, so they still look “pretty.”

Buy it from Amazon