Amazon.com - One-Stop Internet Shopping

For homework #8 (a litle bit late), I'd like to talk about my use of the following site: Amazon.com. I chose the site because it's very well-known, and because I've had repeatedly positive results when I've purchased items from the site. The site's useful information includes:

- editor reviews
- customer reviews
- links to similar products
- etc

The site obtains editor reviews by hiring editors to write them. Customers always have the option of reviewing a product they're looking at. Amazon also keeps track of what other items people buy along with the one you're viewing to come up with similar items.

By breaking up the content under multiple headings, Amazon keeps the information from becoming overwhelming.

A competing website would be Barnes&Noble.com, though they offer a more limited selection of items. However, Barnes & Noble has a better selection and information set in regards to their primary product: books.

Thanks, Liz!

A quick thank you to Liz for posting a link to my blog on hers! Yeah, homework #6!

Google Analytics

For another CS103 HW assignment we needed to looked at our Google Analytics report on the traffic in our blogs. Mine's pretty non-existent:

Date Range	Visits	Page Views
9/05/06-10/10/06	0	0

See? Oh well, this isn't my main blog - my real ones *gasp* an LJ. Though I like blogger's interface a lot more. C'est la vi... actually, c'est ma vie.

They Rule, Across the Street & in Las Vegas

For the 4th CS103 homework we needed to choose 2 companies from http://theyrule.net/ and see the path of "fat cats" that connected their boards of directors. I chose Harrah's Entertainment & McDonald's.

I picked Harrah's because I'm thinking about going back to Las Vegas for my spring break, and I picked McDonald's because I just picked up a sausage biscuit for breakfast. Deep reasoning, I know.

When I put the two in, there's a simple enough path - bascially it's a friend of a friend of a friend. In addition, the director attached to McDonald's and the director attached to Harrah's each had two other boards on which they sat. So, if Vegas wants to do a promotion through McDonald's via some shady corporate dealings, they just need to talk to their friend at Bank of New York Co. and then have that person talk to their McDonald's friend when they're both sitting at a Motorola meeting. How conspiratorial!

We also had to choose some bookmarks to add to and find in the Ning group for our class. Here's what I added:



I chose these links to bookmark from other people:

1. Overhead in New York
2. 43 Things

Enjoy!

Oh, and here:

All I've got's your seed on my face
All those babies went to waste...

(I really like the new Scissor Sisters album... for being so freakin' weird.)

About Creative Commons

For homework three in my CS103 class, I added the Creative Commons "I don't like to share" license. Essentially:

- You cannot edit or add to anything I post here
- You cannot commercially distribute this material
- To share it, credit must be given to me

Considering I've only posted for homework assignments, though, I'm not too worried. Though pretty soon I may launch a second blog as a story-writing project I'm considering. We'll see...

In the meantime: "Cth-WHO, Lou?" - Me

Fulfilling Homework 2

It'll be exciting to do some posting in this when I'm not under the clock :-D

In the meantime, I need to pick up some items to round out my apartment's empty space... here are my top two kitchen items:

"The Ex" Knifeholder
Hugging Salt & Pepper Shakers

In the near future, I'll jump on here and explain the following...

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." - Walden

This is only a test...

Testing... BRING ON THE PINK ROBOTS!

Actual content to follow soon...