Latest activity

Sep 8, 2008

I like the expandable text boxes...

For those of you with extremely short attention spans & already bored with it - apply a new skin to your GC here: http://elitehudson.com/XChromeP5.zi

Right click in the browser header and access the task manager; I like how Google keeps geeks entertained with the "Stats for nerds" links in the task manager window.

For developers, or those curious, right click on a web page and select "Inspect element" to view HTML, CSS and other dev. element properties.

Cool stuff throughout - its only a rough draft at this point. I can't even image what they have in store for subsequent releases...

Sep 8, 2008

I've used Chrome since it was released on my xp computer at work and on my vista computer at home. I still use it, if that means anything about 50/50 (mainly because I still don't know how I feel about it). FYI, you have to enable the home icon in the preferences. Here are my pros and cons.

The good:
- Speed? I don't notice it being so much faster. Maybe a little, but I really can't tell.
- Memory usage!! Uses almost 2.5x less memory than Firefox, IE, or Safari. Very good for older/low mem computers.
- I like how the status bar shows up when it does so you can see what's going on, then disappears when it's blank.
- vertical spacing - how the tabs are near the top, almost in the title bar. Very small titlebar, vista style.
- the ability to drag tabs into a new window, and then back in one it came from again (but who really puts it back in huh?)
-I can copy and past correctly from the browser into excel (I hate how you can't do that w/ firefox).

The bad:
- right click doesn't work w/ google docs, and other weird things w/ it sometimes.
- When I go to download on certain sites, the downloads don't start.
- I've had an error close the whole browser, and not just the tab like it's supposed to do.
- To check if there is an update (so far as I've found out) you have to go to the tools->About. Then it says if a new update is available or not. It would be nice if it just told you.
- If you just type in the address bar it will take you to the web page instead of pulling up the search results.
- Extensions/Themes. There's always hope right?

Anyways, Chrome is a very good browser, I wish that I could use it exclusively (mainly google docs, and downloads sometimes). I would love to see some mozilla type add-ons and themes for it. It will be tough to win firefox users (like me).

esietsma · Sep 8, 2008

Uh, no Google Toolbar!! This was the biggest con (besides the slow speed) for me. I don't want to have to type in google each time I want to search. Or let it guess or go to a new page and click on most visited site google. Try googling "Google Toolbar + Chrome" and you get a million sites saying the same thing...where's the toolbar?

Sep 7, 2008

First off, no Mac version yet. Come on Google, get there.

Although I am sure future updates will improve upon it, the bookmarking features are incredibly sparse. I'm a very happy Firefox 3.0 user, I love most Google apps, but i'm not switching to a new browser unless it makes a better case than this!

Sep 6, 2008

I am a huge fan of Google, and I downloaded Chrome the day it was released. I was initially impressed by how clean it looked (like Chip). But then I found it to run somewhere between slow, and ridiculously slow. I am sure that it will be killer with an update, or two. I am going to stick to Firefox, for the time being.

Those of you who think it runs fast: what operating system(s) are you using? Maybe it is my crappy Vista...

Sep 6, 2008

@Chip

the chrome v8 js engine is not faster than the one that will be in ff3.1

New Firefox JavaScript engine is faster than Chrome's V8

Mozilla CTO and JavaScript creator Brendan Eich has posted the results of …

arstechnica.com

Chip Grueter · Sep 6, 2008

It definitely has define pros and cons.

My Pros:
- Extremely light and a very short top section make it perfect for mobile browsing. As netbooks become more popular, I suspect people will really start to appreciate how little vertical resolution it takes up.
- The speed at which it computes JavaScript is amazing. There are things I've always wanted to implement on our site, but because IE and FF can really hang on complex JS, we couldn't release these features. However, if they can now adobt Chrome's engine, the web will change forever (for better or worse, yet to be determined).
- Incognito mode - interesting addition - Google's cookies are immune to this though.
- GZip works faster than any other browser I've tested.
- When you click on the address bar, the whole thing is selected so you can just start typing. You don't have to double click like in FF or TRIPLE click like in safari.
- All websites seem to load real fast.
- If one tab hangs, it doesn't kill the rest.

My Cons:
- Having it phone home every time you type anything into the address bar.
- There's no Home button at the top by default.
- It's would be tough to move away from FF and all the important extensions I've grown to love.
- It's based on WebKit (the html renderer Safari uses) and therefore about 75% of the websites you visit are going to have alignment issues.
- It scrolls funny when using a mousewheel.
- There's no way to disable JS.
- Anyone can install it on their computer, there's no way to lock it out as an Admin.

Sep 6, 2008

It is fast!

Sep 18, 2008

Gale,
good to hear from you as well!
Tell Mike I said Hello!

Sep 16, 2008

Its good to know you are staying busy, at least.

Congrats on you upcoming wedding. I'll pass all this info on for you.

Sep 13, 2008

Gail!
How in the world did you run across this?
Small world I guess!

Sep 12, 2008

Hey Brian,
Great interview. You haven't lost that wonderful sense of humor I see. Best of luck on your upcoming wedding and all of your future endeavors.
Gail

Sep 4, 2008

@ Susan
good to hear from you!
Hope all is well up north, is your hubby still flying those jets?

Sep 4, 2008

Hi Brian,
It was great to read your interview and hear that you are doing well. Best wishes for the end of September!
Susan

Sep 2, 2008

my motor has been hitting on about three cylinders lately but I am about to start riding regular again, this house thing has been a drain. The trans Atlantic bicycle trail runs right by new house so if you ever decide to ride cross country make sure you stop in and say hello. Cycling and internet sales go hand to hand....it's all about the pain and suffering...

Sep 2, 2008

Brian, thanks again for doing our Reader Spotlight. I had no idea you were into cycling. If you're ever in Maryland let's get together for a road course.

Sep 2, 2008

thanks for the good wishes on the wedding, hopefully the marriage works out as well. Tell Christine, geographically speaking we are closer to Hollywood...

I hope everyone else had a great labor day weekend!
time to start working on September now can't wait to see those incentives and what Toyota does to answer the employee pricing campaign of G.M.
Could be a good month for buyers if they want to save some money.

Aug 31, 2008

You can't have Christine

Alex Snyder · Aug 31, 2008

1. Where do you work and what is the URL for your dealership(s). Feel free to list multiple URL's.

Swope Toyota in world famous Elizabethtown Ky. I say world famous because they filmed the movie "Elizabethtown" here. I was busy that day so they had Orlando Bloom fill in for me

The site I am responsible for is http://www.swopetoyota.com

Our affiliate sites include: swopeauto.com and swope.com

2. How did you get into the Automotive Business?

After finishing my enlistment in the U.S. Army as a Combat Engineer (can you believe they let me play with explosives?) I was working for a local construction company and I noticed that the guys having all the fun and making all the money worked in the sales department <for that construction company>. I applied for a job in the sales department and I was told I needed to have some sales experience. I thought that the Automotive industry would be a great place to get some sales experience and help build my resume for that particular job. That was three Dealerships and eleven years ago!

What are you currently driving, and if you could have any other car what would that be?

I sold my Celica and my suv doesn't start worth a T, so I will have to plead the 5th on this one... However a better question for me would be what do I ride? I currently have a Trek 2300 road bike, KHS XC 604, Trek 6700 hardtail mountain bike and parts from many others including a snapped frame from my Giant NRS made out of carbon fiber that you see in the pics below (if anyone reading this has some connections at Giant shoot me an email, I can't seem to get any help on the warranty side of things). If I had my pick of any car and not have to worry about money constraints I would probably go with a tricked out Supra similar to the one pictured.

4. What are you currently working on? What's your big push?

On the business side of things I would like to expand my auto actions in my current ILM with some compelling home brewed videos and take our email campaigns to the next level. So much to do so little time!

On the personal side of things I would like to finish remodeling my new home and get it ready for my wedding at the end of September. Yes after being single for 33 years I am making the plunge.

5. How would you rate the relationship between your Internet efforts and the traditional dealership departments on a scale of 1 to 10? If you answered anything less than 10, what would you like to do to improve those relationships?

In the car business you can never rate yourself a ten because there is always room to improve and challenges to overcome. The area I would like to see more improvement, or awareness, would be in utilizing our tools and technology throughout the dealership to help close deals. Our website has a ton of information that can be accessed with a few clicks of the mouse, we have software that can help educate consumers on our very competitive market pricing and we have a ILM that can send out E brochures, videos and customer surveys. Many of our salespeople find these tools very valuable and recognize the ease of use, others not so
much.

6. If you had a limitless budget, how would you structure your department?

I would hire Christine Robertson to star in my videos! You're doing a great job Christine! I told Alex the processing fees video is excellent.

7. What is your favorite thing about the Internet side of this industry?

Before I explain my favorite thing I would like to explain how I ended up in this particular side of the industry. In 2003 I became the GM Buypower Manager at the GM Dealership I worked for, they decided they had to have someone deal with those pesky Internet shoppers. So I acquired a PC for my desk and a shiny new plaque that said Buypower Manager. Our effort was minimal in those days and we all hoped this Internet fad would end before we went crazy. I recently cleaned out my Yahoo! account that I used back then (yes I said Yahoo) and looked over some of the old emails. To make a long story short I wouldn't have purchased a car from myself back in my Buypower days. When I came to work at the Swope Family of Dealerships, they got wind of my previous position and decided to get serious about Digital Shoppers. The old website was axed to get on-board with Dealer.com and I got an Internet Lead Management tool. I have no idea how I survived without an ILM tool to track my contacts and leads. I am sure many of you remember the days of tracking down quotes in outlook and bcc'ing with mail merge codes..let me tell you that is not fun.

My favorite thing about this side of the industry is the technology that moves business along at quantum speeds, I like to look at E-Comm as the "special ops" of the industry, we get to play with all the latest and greatest technology not unlike special ops units in the military. I enjoy watching this thing grow, not everything can be measured by sold units, I love tracking the growth of our unique visitors to the site and seeing what campaign draws attention.

8. What is your favorite thing about Dealer Refresh?

My favorite thing about Dealer Refresh lies in the name; a place to refresh when technology goes bad. Yes, this business can get quite stressful at times, and not very many folks around the dealership have experience in dealing with the frustration that comes with trying to build rapport via emails when the consumer won't pick up the darn phone or your pics won't batch image upload correctly. Dealer Refresh is a place to refresh your thinking with new ideas that have worked for other Dealers or maybe someone sees a flaw in your process that you might have overlooked, and sometimes it feels good to just have a laugh or two about something that happened in the Ecomm world and refresh your train of thought. Dealer Refresh is a place that the new school ideology of the auto biz shines and the many contributors of Dealer Refresh realize that by sharing and improving the overall Ecomm experience for web shoppers that we will all prosper.

9. Brian, you're in the process of building a full studio for used car photographs - how did
that get started and how tough has it been getting it done?

Well I guess at this point in the game it has reached the unclassified level so I can go ahead and unveil operation IPIG (Internet Pictures Initiative Group)

We're located in Elizabethtown Ky. (population 24,000) not exactly a huge metro area and we have folks that visit our store because of our marketing efforts online. We always strive to accommodate and serve our customers the best way possible and decided it was unfair for folks driving from a 100 miles away or more to make that decision without great high quality images. We had a strong need and desire to upgrade our photos so we could represent our vehicles online without any distractions or shadows. Our goal was not for brochure quality images but for images with great pictorial information that a web shopper can use to decide to visit our location or even purchase the car without a visit to our physical location.

IPIG was a group formed by Carl Swope our President and included many key individuals of our Auto Group; Susan Gifford our Marketing Director, Steve Phillips, Terry Constance, Andrew Sunkel, Ryan Callison, Ryan Hodges and myself did much of the research in house. The actual renovation of the old dusty garage that had been used for much of nothing except collecting junk into a magnificent photo studio to serve our customers was completed by Steve Phillips and Terry Constance. We had some issues that we had to overcome such as limited space to maneuver the vehicles that we were photographing, correct lighting with low ceilings, building inspectors (not fun) and the list goes on. In the end I think we could have improved in some areas but I have been very impressed with the test images we have shot so far. The pic below is not the finished product, we still have some lighting issues to work out but we should be shooting full time by mid-September.

10. What do you do outside of work?

In case you haven't figured it out I like cycling and outdoor activities.

Start of Wild on Waverly mountain bike race 2007. Yes Waverly Hills has a mountain bike trail, just don't get lost!

This is at the end of the race, notice the pale look to my skin and the confusion in my eyes? In the cycling world that is known as blowing up, the fuel tanks are empty.

Dealer Refresh wants to thank Brian for his support and contributions. That's one hell of an undertaking you've got going on with that photo studio - we can't wait to see the final results! Good luck with wedding too.

Aug 29, 2008

Audrey definitely did a great job with the book! I learned a lot from it, and her research also did an excellent job of connecting some dots for me....as I'm sure it did for a few other Snyders.

Jeff - thanks for posting about "We All Win", and I'm glad you are enjoying all the pictures (something Jeff told me in an email).

Audrey - you rock, but you already knew that

Brian in Etown - yes, I've received statements somewhat like that from my grandfather. However, he has an amazing way of turning it into a valuable lesson instead of a lecture.

brianV - I do come from an amazing family. My grandparents are certainly the leaders of the pack, and their commitment to an ideology that goes through quite a few generations has made us who we all are today. It sounds corny, but they're definitely my heroes!

Aug 29, 2008

Nice work Audrey!

Very enjoyable story. It is great to hear the positive impact that the Snyder's have had on the Virginia Beach area. They are true pioneers in the industry and it shows in everything they do. Something to be proud of Alex!

Aug 29, 2008

Audrey great book and very well researched it has lots of pictures and cartoons so even I can understand it ...LOL
By the way if you reference Alex's post back on growing a internet department I can hear the conversation now. "Alex I had to sell Toyota's when my PMA was a naval base in the 1960's, now what was that problem you were having with the website?"
Checkered Flag didn't exactly start with pocket aces back in the day but by thinking outside of the industry (where have I heard that before?) they were able to adapt and overcome.
The book isn't all praise either they even highlight some of the mistakes they made through the years and in some way I think this book signifies a renewed commitment to their customer base. (that last part is just a hunch)

Aug 29, 2008

Thank you, Jeff, for spotlighting "We All Win" on DealerRefresh ... it is truly appreciated. Something that I think makes this story relevant to DealerRefresh readers (besides the fascinating insights into where Alex Snyder came from - hah, hah) is that while it's about Checkered Flag, it really could be the story of many auto groups around the nation ... because quite a few of them started and grew exactly the same way -- from one humble location to what they are now, years later. As with Checkered Flag, it took guts, a tremendous amount of hard work, and resolve even through tough times. And even during hard times, Checkered Flag and these other dealers continued to support local charities, keep people employed, and keep going. It's the American dream and it's inspiring ... but the public and even many in the industry don't know this story. I think if they did, it would go a long way toward putting the humanizing and positive image on the car business that is the goal of the DealerRefresh community. Again, truly appreciate the post! Audrey Knoth

bpulseadmin · Aug 25, 2008

iPhone Users Can Now Access KBB Pricing, Video Reviews, Dealer Price Quotes. IRVINE, Calif., August 26, 2008 /PRNewswire/

Kelley Blue Book’s www.kbb.com, the leading provider of new car and used car information, today announces the launch of its Web site optimized for iPhone users. The free, feature-rich mobile site provides iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPod Touch users access to Kelley Blue Book’s top-rated Web site, www.kbb.com, to obtain new and used vehicle information. In addition, with the new kbb.com Web application, iPhone users will have the ability to view kbb.com videos, images, new car reviews and submit free dealer price quotes.

“Utilizing the kbb.com iPhone mobile Web site gives car shoppers an opportunity to quickly view reliable and trusted vehicle information from just about anywhere,” said Andy Lapin, director of architecture for Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com. “Whether the shopper is sitting at home or standing on the dealership lot, they can easily locate Kelley Blue Book’s new and used car information with a few simple stokes to ensure they are making the right choice and getting a great deal.”

All iPhone 3G, first generation iPhone and iPod Touch users can access Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com Web application. By locating the application through the Safari Web browser, users have the ability to bookmark the site and save it to their home-screen, making new- and used-car information readily available. If consumers would like to access the full kbb.com Web site, they also can do so by clicking a link available within the application.

iPhone users will be automatically directed to the optimized Web site when they access www.kbb.com from their iPhone.

About Kelley Blue Book
Since 1926, Kelley Blue Book, The Trusted Resource®, has provided vehicle buyers and sellers with the new and used vehicle information they need to accomplish their goals with confidence. The company’s top-rated Web site, www.kbb.com, provides the most up-to-date pricing and values, including the New Car Blue Book® Value, which reveals what people actually are paying for new cars. The company also reports vehicle pricing and values via products and services, including software products and the famous Blue Book® Official Guide. Kbb.com is rated the No. 1 automotive information Web site among both new and used vehicle shoppers, and half of online vehicle shoppers visit kbb.com. Kbb.com is a leading provider of new car prices, car reviews and news, used car blue book values, auto classifieds and car dealer locations. No other medium reaches more in-market vehicle shoppers than kbb.com.

Aug 26, 2008

hahaha... must breath...sides hurt...hahahaa...

Who ever created/produced that is super talented!

Latest activity

Latest activity

Filter