Xavier Dao dot Com

Marriott Rewards Gold Elite Status Promotion: Typos on Website

xavier — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:27:49 +0000

I was sent a link to upgrade my Marriott Rewards to Gold Elite Status through a promotion this morning. The promotion was free, but after going to the website I’m not sure if anyone at Marriott uses spell check. See all the typos for “enrol” (instead of “enroll”). I can honestly say Marriott has great service for all the times and countries that I have used them. Not sure what happen to their web team with this typo. Maybe they should shuttle this through a QA team before publishing it to go live.

HP Selling Slate Tablet on Amazon

xavier — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:39:07 +0000

Amazon has a Google Adwords ad for HP Slate. When you actually go to the site, there is no HP Slate. It’s actually ads using Google’s Dynamic Keyword Insertion. Amazon, I’d start using negatives in your campaign.

The HP Slate is a tablet PC running Windows 7. The Slate is a competitor to the wildly popular Apple iPad. It is supposed to be running a 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor.

How to Get Free Wall Street Journal Access through USC Proxy (Active Students Only)

xavier — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:59:35 +0000

For all active USC students, you can get free access to Wall Street Journal. Here is how to do it.

1) Go to the USC libraries website.

2) Click on the eJournals tab.

3) You will be given a list of available Wall Street Journals. Click on one of the links to the Wall Street Journal that you want.

4) Then you’ll be given a proxy screen. Login to your USC account and you are good to go.

USC’s OCC2 Team Apex MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)

xavier — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:37:32 +0000

USC’s OCC2 Team Apex has MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) of the following: Xavier – ENTP, Naveen – ENTP, Matt – ENTJ, Yashar – ENTJ, Tim – INTJ, Dmitriy – INTJ / ENTJ. How OCC2 Team Apex will get along is anybody’s guess. From Wikipedia: “The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.” Xavier Dao’s MBTI can be found on this xavierdao.com MBTI post.

Xavier Dao Is ENTP MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)

xavier — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:28:54 +0000

According the the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test that Xavier Dao took via USC, Xavier’s MBTI is ENTP. More details, update to come.

Dell Bad Service Again: Cancels Order!

xavier — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:58:26 +0000

I placed an order for a Canon SD1200 digital camera from Dell.com yesterday thinking that it was a good deal. Today, I got an email from Dell saying that it was a price mistake and that they were canceling all orders. Why does Dell even list the mistake in the first place? They had it on their page for at least 3 hours! C’mon, stop exporting your Dell reps to India and the Philippines. This is a case of bad customer service with Dell sending me the following email below:

Making Firefox Your Default Browser

xavier — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:20:52 +0000

I recently got a question on how to make Firefox your default browser. There are 2 easy ways to do this. The first method involves using Firefox. You go to Tools –> Options.

Here you will see the options box pop up.

1) Click on the “Advanced” button

2) Then “General” tab

3) Then click on the “Always check to see if Firefox is the default browser on startup”

4) Click the “check now” button”.

This is how you select Mozilla Firefox as your default browser using the Firefox interface.

The other way to make Firefox your default browser is through your Windows XP computer settings. Go to “Control Panel” and click on “Add or Remove Programs”.

Next click on “Set Program Access and Defaults” and choose “custom”.

Drop the menu down:

1) Look for “Choose a default Web browser”

2) Click on the “Mozilla Firefox” radio button

3) Click “Ok” button.

And that’s how your make Mozilla Firefox your default browser.

Google vs Twitter: Michael Jackson’s Cardiac Arrest Death

xavier — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:23:43 +0000

Twitter is known as being a real-time search, while Google takes time to index new content. Michael Jackson’s cardiac arrest death can be used to illustrate this. Twitter is showing Michael Jackson as a trending topic.

Google Hot Trends does not even have Micheal Jackson’s death as a part of it’s top 100 hot search trends.

Is Google a has-been in real-time search? Or is Twitter now the next big thing in search?

Safeway’s Lucerne Milk Wrong Pricing

xavier — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:18:10 +0000

I recently went to Safeway in the South Bay area of San Francisco to buy milk. I noticed that the price of half a gallon (64 oz) was $1.99. If Safeway had done their math correctly, that translates to $.03 per ounce. They listed it at $.016 per ounce. Nice try, maybe next time. You’ll also notice that the gallon milk below is smashed. Don’t they bother removing damaged goods before stocking the item onto the shelf?

Google Adwords New Format with Product Listings

xavier — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:10:43 +0000

Google is testing new listings in their Adwords Sponsored Links section. When I did a search for “post lighting” on Google, I saw that Lamps Plus has “Show products from Lamps Plus for post lighting” link.

After you click on the “+” in the ad copy link, the listing expands to show you Lamps Plus products. I’m not sure if Google charges Lamps Plus as a “click” if you expand the listing.

If you click on the main ad copy landing page, you are directed to a page hosting the 3 different products. If you were to click on any of the links on the Lamps Plus product listing, you are directed to the Lamps Plus specific product page. That’s 3 different landing pages for a single ad. I wonder how this is priced for Lamps Plus. How are each of the clicks priced? When do you get the opportunity to get the “product links” in your ad? What is the limit on the number of ads that you can get within your main ad copy?