With the upcoming spin-off of Chrysler from DaimlerChrysler, we will surely see less of the chairman of the parent company, Dr. Dieter Zetsche. A brilliant engineer and executive in his own right, he led the merger and now divestiture of the German and American automakers.

Most Americans first saw the chairman in TV commercials, referred to as Dr. Z, as well as his own animated Web site, Ask Dr. Z. I have to admit, when I first saw this, I thought it was a joke – would you expect someone in his role to be doing sketch comedy, or be an animated character? But a little research found this to be true. The ad campaign did not prove to be that successful and was short-lived.

The Web site remains, however, as of this posting, so check it out while you can.

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Do you have a MyBlogLog account? It wasn’t until shortly after I started this blog that I created one. For me, MyBlogLog is a community and a way of connecting myself to bloggers – learning of others and informing others of my own. Others I am sure have other definitions, but the increased traffic to my site as I traverse MyBlogLog proves my point.

I was unable to make the SOBcon conference this past weekend here in Chicago due to a prior commitment, but there have been plenty written on it. One announcement came from the new community manager of MyBlogLog, which is now owned by Yahoo! Fellow Chicago blogger and Internet analyst David Dalka was at SOBcon and reported that MyBlogLog will be rebranding, getting a redesign and other features which will seek to expand its market. Yahoo! is also seeking input and suggestions, which is also welcome to hear.

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If you own a Palm Treo 680, or any other model, you may want to check the CD that came with your device and make sure that it works. If so, make a backup copy of your CD and keep it in a safe place, as you won’t be able to get a replacement copy.

Every year I completely rebuild my PC – stripping off all files and reinstalling Windows and all software individually. I do this because I need to, as my machine starts chugging to a crawl and this complete refresh allows me to use a clean and fast running PC. One of the first programs I installed was the Palm Desktop and sync software, necessary for moving files from my Treo to my PC and synchronizing all calendar and contact information. When I put in the CD for the Palm Desktop that came with my Treo, my PC couldn’t read it. Shocked, I tried it on a number of other PCs at the office, and none could read it. I then went to the Palm Web site and downloaded a copy of the Palm Desktop and installed it, synced and had all of my data in place, or so I thought.

The version of the Palm Desktop that came on the CD is a more advanced version that what I could get online, and upon further check I could not even download this advanced version from their Web site! I first discovered this as media files – photos and videos – that I took with the camera function of the Treo were not on my PC after a sync.

I then went back to Palm’s Web site and submitted a help request to have them send me a new CD, and they responded that they do not have replacement CDs, told me to download and install the less advanced version and acknowledged that it would not sync media files. The message concluded that they wanted to be sure this issue was resolved, they would be sending me a satisfaction survey, and that I was not allowed to post their response on any public forum.

So I responded that this was unacceptable, and that I am awaiting a replacement CD. I am being courteous and not posting their verbatim message, and of course I have yet to receive the survey. In the meantime, does anyone out there have a Treo 680 and may have a CD for it that they could copy from me? Of course, I would be willing to bet that doing so violates the license of the software, but this violation is nothing compared to what Palm has done to me.

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This morning I participated in a dynamic discussion for the first meeting of likemind.chi. What is likemind you ask? I asked myself the same question when I heard about it, and this video by the founders of likemind explains it well.

And as I am the closest one to the meeting spot at Intelligencia Coffee on Randolph and Wabash, I was there late, however I was one of the last to leave. I met some interesting people and as we sipped our coffee, we exchanged ideas on branding, blogging and swag.

How I heard about this event is almost as interesting. The blog of one of my clients was mentioned on the PSFK blog. After finding this blog interesting, I started reading its feed and heard about Likemind, as it was started by one of the people of PSFK. A sequence of events that had a fantastic result.

And to think that people were meeting today all over the world with the same common goal.

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If you have ordered something online or posted a comment to a blog, you have seen captcha. It was originally developed as a method prevent robots from automatically submitting forms on a Web site by requiring a person to visually view text in an image and enter its value in the form, something a robot should not be able to do.

Where it has a noble purpose to prevent bogus information going to a Web site owner, it is a roadblock to someone who is visually impaired using a form. And as you can see from the example I grabbed from a Chicago-based Web site, it can be hard for those who do not have any visual impediments to decipher.

I made a decision to not use captcha on The Hot Iron or on Dunkirk Systems’ Web site. I do have logic in the forms to try to thwart bogus submissions, but they still get through. Comment moderation is enabled on this blog, requiring me to approve a message. Where this slows down legitimate comments from going live, not to mention more work on my part, it provides a better user experience for you the reader. This I value more than deleting a few offers for pills and watches.

As for the Web site I took this captcha example from... their privacy policy and Web site copy did not make it clear what was to be done with the information submitted using the form, so it was another strike against be using it.

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