"Pay Attention or Unplug"

I was standing in line at the supermarket, last week. Some dude in front of me was standing there Twittering. It was his turn to put his groceries on the belt, and he just kept on Twittering!

I wanted to yell at him to pay the hell attention! That there is absolutely not one reason in this world why he had to Twitter in line at the grocery store!

It made me wonder what all these yahoos would do if everyone had to unplug for just one, solid week. What if everything stopped? And, I mean no cell phone calls, no texting, no computers, no iPods, iPhones, et al.

“Gee, you mean the way we used to live?”

Yeah - the way we USED to live. I imagine, at the end of a week, the mental hospitals would be full. Right now, those same mental patients are out on the streets!

They're killing themselves - and others - as they text, or talk on the phone, while driving. They're causing irreparable damage in situations where they think all they need is information on a computer - no hard copies necessary.

They're standing right in the middle of the aisles in the stores gossiping or asking someone, “Now, what did I come in here for,” on cell phones.

Sooner or later, someone doing that is going to get it right in the kidney with my umbrella! I have honestly considered getting a cane just to deal with these idiots.

Ever notice how they're always right in the middle of the aisles - with their big-ass baskets - rather than on their own side? They don't even know which side is theirs.

They seem to truly believe they have a right to block the entire world while they try to find out what kind of cereal their kid wants, rather than making a damn list, in the first place!

Well, gee, I'm getting on a roll. Guess I'd better stop before I take on “sexting.” You do not want to get me started on that!

"Are We Oblivious?"

I was on a rampage a while back about people who don't fact check their information. They just gleefully pass it along to their lists if it happens to be something they'd like to believe.

Later, I started wondering ... Why should we have to check everything we hear or read? That's absolutely sad!

Yet, it's the way of our world, today. At least in the USA, people are so caught up in their rage and racism (which is, more often than not, one and the same, whether they want to admit it, or not), they can't see what's right in front of them.

These people don't seem to see what they're doing to humanity. We're backsliding, people. We're turning into nothing but a planet of the apes with Blackberries.

Apparently, many folks only read what they want to believe - what supports their own beliefs. Now, this is normal - to a point. But, when we stop educating ourselves just to convince ourselves we're right about something, we're headed downhill.

But, the worst part is the behavior we accept as “normal.” When did we stop demanding truth from the media? When did we start accepting unacceptable behavior from media personalities, congressional members, the pharmaceutical, insurance, banking and other professions?

How did this happen? It didn't happen overnight. It's taken years of preparation to get people in this country to such a point of blindness and acceptance. The blindness comes from focusing on the hatreds rather than on what's actually happening.

I get mad at stupidity, not people's heritage, culture, color, religious or political beliefs. What I can't stand is the waste of such fine organs as brains wasted on morons who won't use them.

Maybe, just maybe, if more people paid attention and demanded better ... we wouldn't be about to implode.

"The Babies Went Berserk!"

The day began at 5 AM with loud thunder rolling in. It settled down to stay for a while and was responsible for the ducklings turning into a giant PITA.

They experienced their first thunderstorm. After a heat index of 110+ for nearly two weeks, they were quite excited to play in the cooler rain.

I guess it got their adrenalin going. When the storm passed, they started running around, back and forth, storming my patio, demanding this and that, until I was ready to make duck soup!

Not only did they run, they flew around willy-nilly. Have I told you they fly? Well, when 20 BIG ducks take wing, it sounds as if they're raising the whole building to take with them. You'd think you were living on an Air Base.

Of course, I'm sure it hasn't helped that I've spoiled them rotten. I have a bad habit of doing that. But, they aren't teeny, tiny, adorable little ducklings any more - they're HUGE ducks! And, they're LOUD when they start demanding.

That was just the beginning of the day, but I'll spare you the sorry details of the rest.

Second Edition

Second Editions of “Beat Web Thieves at Their Own Game!” have been delivered, the affiliates are all set up to take over sales to the general public, and maybe I can draw a deep breath, this week.

To use the term of the Late, Great, Joe Robson, I was “gobsmacked” at the success of our private launch to my readers, only! Next to The MASTER COURSE, I think we can call this a “Best-seller.”

I'm so glad so many of you took advantage of the opportunity to grab it at its lowest price. I know how much help it will be to you, both now and in the future.

If you missed it, you can still grab it at a VERY reasonable price while it's in its public launch:

Get it Here!

After I feel we've offered it at a public launch price long enough, the price will take a giant leap.

Have a fantastic week, and ... Keep on Keepin' On!

     jl

Join me on Twitter - twitter.com/jlscott_iCop

"Browser Hell"

To set the stage ... Buyers of my new ebook were sent an email to pick up their free copy of the Second Edition. I issued a user name and password to download it. Several people wrote and told me they absolutely could NOT make the download work.

I had reminded them to copy and paste the words in to be sure they were correct - and to be sure there were no spaces before, or after, the words. I suppose it's possible the server was overloaded since I sent so many Second Edition emails at once.

I was pulling my hair out, since every time I tried, everything worked fine. Finally, one of our members wrote:

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Hi jl,

I discovered the problem.

When you put the cursor in the user name or password box, the text "user name” or “password" disappears. But, when you right click to paste, the text reappears and even though your pasted text is in the box, it does not work.

You have to put cursor in box and press Control V. Works fine.

Don Shickle
www.ShickleEnterprises.com
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So, one lesson is: when entering user names and passwords to download a product, remember to use Control V rather than right-clicking the mouse to paste.

I discussed it with Chuck (my iCop Hosting partner and techie). Then, we started asking what browsers some of those who had trouble were using. Yep - you guessed it! As far as we went, we found Internet Explorer (IE) was used in every problem case. Mostly IE 8.

For 11 years, I've tried to convince folks NOT to use IE! Over those years, the reasons have varied. But, the bottom line is - those who use it have the most problems - of all kinds.

Part of the time, the user's security is set WAY too high. No one believes in security more than I, but after a certain point, it's all redundant. You're either secure - or you're not.

And, after all that, you're probably NOT. You can pick up viruses and junk with IE, you won't get with other browsers. Then, you can't download something you BOUGHT! Sheeeez!

Other times, it simply can't do the job, and/or it takes your choices away from you. It's similar to AOL for being proprietary - and full of nonsense.

Mozilla has ALWAYS made the best browsers! I even figured that out for myself soon after I stopped using AOL, back in the Stone Age.

Now, as of July 2010, Firefox is used by 31% of users. And IE is only being used by 51%. Praise the Lord! I do NOT like some of Firefox's add-ons. But, others are cool, and some are fabulous!