Branding Fresno Business

The Fresno Convention & Visitors Bureau recently released a PDF booklet defining Fresno's brand platform. It doesn't create specific logos or taglines (which would make all Fresno businesses look the same) but rather gives a number of broad categories and descriptors. These phrases and concepts can help organizations develop a brand strategy that will help the overall Fresno brand become more cohesive, as well as focus the efforts of an organization so it is less likely to portray something that will conflict with other Fresno branding attempts.

The booklet includes definition of branding, the Fresno brand platform, a workbook section, and a case study.

The concept I think can be very useful, and hopefully will have the desired effects on branding in Fresno and branding of Fresno. I guess only time will tell if organizations will actually employ this smartly.

Via Creative Fresno (PDF booklet linked at bottom of that page)

My New Phone

If you've been following this blog for a while, you will know that I've been interested in the new phones that HTC has been coming out with. I finally took the plunge and bought one, putting my total lifetime cellphone ownership at 4 (2 Nokia and 2 HTC).

My new phone is the HTC Touch Diamond2.



So far my experience with the phone has been exceptional. The biggest change with this phone from my previous phone (HTC Touch) is the severe lack of Windows Mobile interface. HTC has done a good job at masking a lot of the non-finger friendly Windows Mobile features. My stylus is almost completely unnecessary now (although I do sometimes still like to use it). The new TouchFlo 3D is slick looking and quite user friendly. The other very noticeable feature of this phone is the WVGA screen. At a respectable 3.2" the screen packs a whopping 384 000 pixels (480 x 800). The resolution is so good that I almost can't make out any pixelation at all. It really is a sight to behold.

Some of the other notable things is the G-Sensor (accelerometer), ambient light sensor, zoom bar at the bottom of the screen, GPS, 5MP camera on back and VGA camera on front, FM Radio, & WiFi 802.11 b/g.

It's definitely a big step up from my old phone and it has a lot of fancy new features. I haven't even tried them all out yet, but so far I'm really happy with my purchase.

Good News to Report

As you may have noticed (hopefully) I haven't posted in a while. I recently moved, and due to the move I transferred over my DSL to my new place. Unfortunately AT&T is on a slightly different schedule than I am, and 3 weeks after moving my Internet is finally working today!

I guess its not that they maliciously wanted me to be without Internet access for 3 weeks, none of the two phone jacks in my new apartment were even getting a dial tone. They sent out a few technicians and got the problem resolved. It's just I haven't been 3 weeks without Internet access in years. I know, I'm spoiled, but I use the Internet quite a bit.

I did want to blog about my experience with AT&T tech support.

A majority of the people I talked with on the phone at AT&T were friendly. I think my biggest complaint is the hold times. I spent at least 2.5 hours on hold throughout all my calls, and was switched literally back and forth and back to different departments a number of times. As well, its unfortunate that I was unable to have a technician come out while I wasn't home, and that meant a little longer wait to get a time that would work for both myself and a technician.

Overall, I think I will stay with AT&T, and might even upgrade to their fiber-optic/U-Verse package in the future. One of the good things that came out of this ordeal is I now have the direct toll-free phone number for DSL-line connectivity/strength issues.

Potential Terrorism in London

I read this post at Boing Boing and realized I am a part of these statistics.

I was in fact stopped by two officers of the Metropolitan Police in London back in February of 2008. I was walking around the British Museum waiting for a friend, and was asked to take off my jacket and open my backpack.

The officers were very nice, and we had some good conversation about where I was from, etc. It was a little distressing though, because I had literally gotten off the plane after a trans-atlantic flight, took the tube and walked a good 3 or 4 miles through London to get to the British Museum and I was pretty tired.

Fortunately I am not a terrorist, and I was able to go on my merry way.

How I Met Your Mother - S04E22

SPOILER ALERT - The following blog post contains a SPOILER.

If you had a chance to watch How I Met Your Mother on CBS last night you might be wondering some of the same things I am.

When Ted left the apartment and grabbed for his yellow umbrella I thought this might be the episode where he meets his wife. I was a little surprised/disappointed when the woman who they showed at the end was Stella.

I am pretty sure that Stella is not the "Mother" they have showed what the kids would have looked like if Stella was the mother, and they were both blonde and obviously not the same kids we see every week on the couch. As well, I'm sure Stella would have seen Ted's yellow umbrella and noticed it as her umbrella when she spent all the time at his place that she did.

My guess is that Stella will simply be acting as an intermediary to introduce Ted to his future wife.

If you watch HIMYM regularly, or just want to weigh in, what do you think?

Bike To Work Day

As I was driving home today from work on CA-41 I saw one of the big light boards had a message flashing. I could tell it wasn't an amber alert, so I was at least glad about that. As I got closer though, I saw it said "Bike to Work Day" and then "Share the Road". I thought, that's pretty awesome. They are advertising bike to work day on the freeways, maybe some people will be more inclined to bike to work today.

I then thought, "wait... it's bike to work day today? How come I didn't hear about this sooner?" Then I thought, "what are they doing advertising that today on the freeway, during the afternoon rush hour? Isn't it a bit late to convince people to ride their bikes to work when they are already on their way home?"

Turns out that Bike to Work Day does not happen until next week on Friday. Would it be too much to ask for a date or at least a website to find out when the day is exactly?

Chipotle Mexican Grill

I have discovered over the last year or so that I have a new favorite (fast food) restaurant. Chipotle Mexican Grill is delicious and I find that I love it more and more every time I eat it. It makes it even sweeter that we have 2 Chipotles here in Fresno (area) now with the addition of the Sierra Vista Mall Chipotle in Clovis.

Here is my normal order, which of course I do not limit myself to, but enjoy this on a regular basis.

Chicken burrito with black beans, medium corn salsa, cheese, sour cream, lettuce.

The reason I get this normally is because I love it so much, not because I'm afraid to try other things or thing the other things won't be good, but because I'd be missing out on that.

As a note, Chipotle recently changed their logo/branding (Via Brand New)

Low Carbon Fuel Standard

You may have heard of California's recent move to a "Low Carbon Fuel Standard".

If you want to find out a bit about the effects this may have on the state, check out this post from the California High Speed Rail Blog.

While this is a perspective from the mass/public transit side of the debate, I think it still has a lot of merit. We saw a big increase in public transit use here in California after the last rise in the price of gasoline. This move by the government of California seems to be a focused and concerted effort to help reduce our dependence on oil.

I do hope mass/public transit becomes more popular here in California, and especially in Fresno. If this LCFS is the answer then so be it.

WM6 Outlook Issue

In an attempt to help others that may have run into the same situation I'd like to describe an issue I recently resolved.

I was having trouble with my SMTP outgoing mail with Outlook from my Windows Mobile 6.1 device. I could receive my Gmail messages without a problem, but any time I tried to send a message through Outlook I would get an error telling me to check my connection and/or my settings. It is strange because nothing had really changed on my phone to adjust settings or anything.

I double checked my settings to make sure they were correct, and they were. I was also obviously connected to the Internet because I would be receiving messages in my inbox.

All I had to do to resolve this problem was delete my Gmail account in Outlook and go through the steps found here to set up my account again.

It's a fairly easy fix, so hopefully you found this useful if you ran into the same problem.

DTV Fresno Update

The DTV Transition has been pushed back to June 12th here in the US and there are plenty of commercials and advertisements to let everyone know what's happening. One of them gave me a good idea to re-autoprogram my TV to pick up any new digital channels that may have started since the autoprogram.

Sure enough I found a few new channels. Channels 43.1-43.5 aren't new channels, but they are new on the digital spectrum here in Fresno.

KGMC
Azteca
KSDI
KJEO
KJKZ

These channels all appear to be owned and/or operated by Cocola Broadcasting Companies.

Not sure how often I will be watching these channels, but one bright spot is KJEO. In the past they have broadcast CFL games, which is the only chance I have to watch CFL games. Now that its in digital it will come in a lot more clearly.