Librarian of Fortune

woo-woo

I subscribe to a daily "note from the universe". Some days it's spot-on, some days it's too woo-woo for my taste. But today's was so pertinent, I'm reposting it here.  BTW, I've taken this approach and found it to really work. Focus on outcome, not actions.

It's easy, Mary Ellen, simply understand that your dream, the end result, is far bigger and more important than any of the steps you think you have to take. From a physical perspective, you simply can't know all that's involved. Your idea of the right steps may not be the best way for your dream to come true. They may even work against you.

With your end result clear, take every step that emotionally calls to you, but do not make any of them how your dream will come true. Trust the Universe to do its part, to pick the players and orchestrate the "hows," yet give it a pallet to choose from by passionately doing the things that feel right. Not attaching your hopes and expectations to these steps, only to the end, the dream, thy kingdom come.

Yahoo's personalized shortcuts

My March InfoTip looks at Yahoo's shortcuts -- both the "public" ones and ones you can create yourself. I now have two-keystroke access to a search I run weekly, the online directory of the Association of Independent Information Professionals, and a tool to get foreign exchange rates.

Dialog pricing

I've been using Dialog since 1978. Yes, 29 years. I've lived through all of Dialog's wild and crazy pricing changes, and wrote articles about each iteration, which attracted a fair bit of attention. (In fact, the CEO told his direct reports not to return any of my phone calls.)  For all the gory details, see:
"Dialog's DialUnits: a price increase in sheep's clothing" Searcher (September 1998) p. 56-65
"Dialog's DialUnits: There Is a Great Disturbance in the Force" Searcher (July/August 1999) p. 52-57
Dialog Pricing Redux: Deja Vu All Over Again" Searcher (March 2002)

For those of you who don't keep score, Dialog has two pricing schemes, both user-hostile. One of them bases your cost on connect time PLUS CPU processing time for some commands (e.g., Rank). The other one bases the cost entirely on CPU processing time. Irrational? you bet! Do I get paid more when I think harder? Don't I wish.

So, I run a search on Dialog today. I rank the results by author. I do this all the time; costs me around $8. This time, I typed   rank all au  instead of   rank au.  I got the same results, but the poor overworked CPU had to process more elements.

Result? I logged of to a bill of $17,334.78. (and another one for over $2K) Isn't it great that Dialog notified me of this charge?

Yes, I'll be calling Dialog first thing on Monday, but pricing schemes based on something as unauditable and unpredictable as CPU processing time is insane.

March 23 update:
After several phone conversations, my sales rep assured me that I'd be credited and that there were "16 people working on making sure this doesn't happen again." And I just got an email from Dialog customer service:

I have processed your credits in the amount of $20,217.77 and this credit will appear on your April 5th invoice.  Have a nice day.

Yep, just your everyday refund... $20K.

Can you pick up, please?

I know how wonderful voice mail is... I'm old enough to remember the days before answering machines. If you weren't home, well, the caller had to try back later. But it's gotten to the point where it's impossible to get a live human being on the phone.

I just listed a free desk on CraigsList. Got lots of responses. I called 10 people before I found someone who would answer the phone, so he got the desk.

I remember hearing that a business can set itself apart from its competitors by just answering the phone and responding to callers immediately. Now I see why.