http://atulpatel.com Ideas, thoughts, experiences, and rants with a hint of randomness Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:30:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en When opening a new TD Ameritrade account, I was asked to choose four security questions and provide the answers to them. I don't even know the answers to 98% of them. You better go study up on your elementary school yearbooks before opening an account somewhere! And, ... http://atulpatel.com/2008/07/15/security-questions-where-was-the-company-christmas-party-held-in-2005/ It's been a while since I envisioned a simpler web site for consumers to identify the best checking, savings, and money market rates at local, national, and online financial institutions. Back when my brother sent me a link to join ING Direct, years ago, I wasn't really that ... http://atulpatel.com/2008/07/15/bankaroundcom-bank-like-you-shop/ Now that I'm reading The Four Hour Work Week, I've been in the mode of increasing the efficiency of my day-to-day life. My current focus is managing receipts.  While shopping this weekend, I asked cashiers at various retailers, such as Macy's and Barnes & Nobles, if they would accept ... http://atulpatel.com/2008/07/14/organizing-receipts-neatreceipts/ Today, I was searching for "Cancun vacation homes" on Google, but then switched my search to just "vacation homes".  What was very interesting is that although my second search excluded the word "Cancun", the Sponsored Links on the right still showed Cancun-related vacation homes, as though the search terms persisted ... http://atulpatel.com/2008/07/11/googles-common-sense/ I'm finally checking back in, and hopefully blogging again more frequently. That means, of course, more frequently than once in 9 months. I've been busy with several projects, and have been learning a tremendous amount about advertising and monetization across all the mediums -- Internet, video, and mobile. ... http://atulpatel.com/2008/07/04/checking-back-in/ Today we will hear about Facebook's new ad network, SocialAds, which will one-up behavioral targeting by utilizing data supplied by its users to target advertising. Given the FTC claims that the Internet advertising industry does not have the capacity to self-regulate itself with regard to privacy, what will they ... http://atulpatel.com/2007/11/06/facebook-is-a-conspiracy-and-google-does-no-evil/ I still do not know what to think of the Do-Not-Track list concept presented by nine privacy organizations to the FTC today. As we browse the Internet, HTTP cookies are placed in our computers to track our actions -- where we are now (current site), where were we before ... http://atulpatel.com/2007/10/31/do-not-track-list/ My next post will be regarding the new concepts around the Do Not Track list. To help some make sense of the meaning behind Internet tracking and behavioral targeting, I help explain it below. For a lot of people, this stuff is common knowledge. For the others, ... http://atulpatel.com/2007/10/31/how-internet-cookies-work/ After listening to John Doerr's TED presentation, my mind started to think "green" thoughts. Along with the lights on at the local corporate building and the amount of plastic bags used to pack your groceries, it's time to look inside the home. CNN published a story on the ... http://atulpatel.com/2007/10/30/power-waste-adds-up/ I was chatting with my father today and he's been watching the news about Microsoft's $240M (1.6%) stake in Facebook. My father has taught me a lot, and he is well in-tuned with the big businesses he invests in, among them Costco, Best Buy, Boeing, and, important to this ... http://atulpatel.com/2007/10/24/what-is-facebook-anyway/