LiveJournal robots.txt bug

I submitted a support request for a bug at my LiveJournal which I never use anyways:

In my "My Account" > Privacy, I've unchecked "Minimize your journal's inclusion in search engine" & clicked the button "Save" & read http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=50&q=robots&lang= to be sure, but my http://richardc020.livejournal.com/robots.txt still reads

User-Agent: * Disallow: /

thus the crawler/agent "TechnoratiBot/8.1" (see http://technorati.com/robots-faq/) can't view my LiveJournal thus I can't claim that blog at my Technorati account. I need my http://richardc020.livejournal.com/robots.txt to allow the crawler/agent "TechnoratiBot/8.1" & ask how that'll be done.

RichardChen.com Todo List

• website content
• no photo gallery, see my Flickr
• 1st Pg: Career
• purpose: take Personal Statement from my resume
• Portfiolo - emulate CarbonMade.com
• US EPA work
• 5 screenshots from Hewitt.com
• 10 screenshots from Scholastic.com
• http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/home.jsp
• http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3750708
• http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/classmags.jsp?srcId=72
• http://teacher.scholastic.com/newteacher/index.htm
• http://www.scholastic.com/thehungergames/index.htm
• http://www.scholastic.com/administrator/index.asp
• http://edproductsupport.scholastic.com/ts/home
• http://src.scholastic.com/
• http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/press_corps/index.asp
• cite my coding designs from designers Joe Minkiewicz http://www.joeminkiewicz.com/
• personal code samples - note to self: my site itself is a code sample
• Contact Me
• purpose: contact me, because I'm social
• [current list of social networking sites]
• IM: AIM, Y!M, MSN, GTalk, ICQ
• VOIP: Skype
• email: [email]
• add QR code; generate a barcode (resulting image, alternative result)
• blog: my xanga
• Travel
• purpose: general travel reference for self&others
• map with clickable hotspots for future travel: list of places I've been
• same pg has box of Frequently Requested Links taken from my Google Chrome Bookmarks
• past travels on map; or take from existing travel maps on my Facebook profile's 2 apps which do the same
• travel blog
• Principles
• Design
• inspiration I like:
• News Magazine Theme 640
• WhiteHouse
• Revolution Code Blue
• Elements of SEO
• Mimbo2
• cram max content into 1 screen
• Coding
• ajax library is GWT or jQuery
• as many data objects as possible

Reasons I blog

I've a new list of reasons I blog.

• publicize content especially to GoogleBot for permanent storage
• publically ventilate
• publically embarass something or someone

Those are the new reasons. Private thoughts are now kept private. These reasons are evolutions of prior reasons I blogged.

Facebook Unfriend

A public record of who's unfriended me or hidden their profile from Unfriend Spy. * indicates I unfriended. I keep it public so people know who's & update this post.

unknown

• Cindy Chan - was never going to see her again plus is a horrible communicator

2012-01-30

• Charles Kunz - I don't want bitter, dim-mooded, angry people in my life to infect others in my life, so he had to go
• Ashlee Deon - unfortunate but I'll never see her again, figured she moved back to Indiana

2012-01-26

• Mackenzie Medwin - temporary profile hiding
• Aimee Shaw - her loss, not mine
• Mandy Luk - who hid her profile as is typical for a damaged girl like her; no loss there

2012-01-04

• Angel Mari Bautista - didn't know this girl in real life as she randomly added me, as reclusive as the only mutual friend, Christina Yuen
• unknown
• unknown
• unknown
• Heather Sullivan - must have been her hiding from the world

2012-12-03 ... so many lame people have to take their profiles off Facebook to fight addiction? lame indeed

• Anthony Galsim - temporary profile hiding
• unknown
• Cami Plum
• Danny Chu
• Abby Lindemann - app is buggy? friend is still a friend
• Hannah Helmy - app is buggy? friend is still a friend
• Safra Altman - app is buggy? friend is still a friend
• Belinda Chang - app is buggy? friend is still a friend
• unknown

2011-11-15

• Lisa Thong - didn't know her anyways
• Vinod Laxminarayan - app is buggy? friend is still a friend
• Jess Yu - app is buggy? friend is still a friend

2011-11-12

• Ivy Lin - she was irrespondent for months so deleted her, chase her at her Ivy Lin blog
• Klotilda Lazaj-Murrin - app is buggy? friend is still a friend

2011-11-05

• Christian Paunescu - didn't know him much anyways, cleaned himself out
• Veronica Cheng - app is buggy? friend is still a friend

2011-10-28

• Robin Weaver - app is buggy? friend is still a friend
• Keshine O'Young - app is buggy? friend is still a friend; also, 2nd time for this kid
• unknown
• Anne-Marie Sanocki - app is buggy? friend is still a friend

2011-10-27

• Anthony Galsim - app is buggy? friend is still a friend
• unknown

2011-10-24

• Tony Wang - app is buggy? friend is still a friend

2011-10-23

• Chitra Kalyanaraman - app is buggy? friend is still a friend

2011-10-22

• Ohad Benjamin Sternberg - app is buggy? friend is still a friend
• Keshine O'Young

2011-10-18

• Chantal Ko - will see her again anyways
• R.j. Do (Rich Do) - works for me!
• Kay Huang - will see her again anyways

2011-10-17

• Betty Chen - a 2nd time, I see

2011-10-15

• Nisha Gonsalves - app is buggy? friend is still a friend
• Betty Chen

How to Win Priceline Bidding for a Specific Chosen Hotel

I'll edit this post over time for clarity. This first draft is just to fulfill a question on my Facebook Wall as well as the dozens who've asked over the years. I also posted the below as a FlyerTalk post.

There're many tips at places including Priceline Hotel Bidding. I add just my own for how I get the specific hotel I want each time. This tactic is for that purpose thus doesn't work to serve other purposes which is typically "I want the cheapest for the best" which is a parent of my goal but not exactly my goal.

I won't type a description of how Priceline bidding works or what its many constraints are. Those are all over the web and so I'll assume you already know it or can Google for it. The one note I want to make that isn't said in many places is that Priceline has 2 sides

1. normal side whcih is like your usual Travelocity/Orbitz/CheapTickets/Expedia/whatever formerly LowerFares.com before they bought it and integrated it
2. bidding side marketed now as "Priceline Negotiator" formerly "Priceline Name Your Own Price" better knowing as "that bidding thing".

Here's an example of my bidding strategy.

• Run the Priceline hotel query for ORD and my dates and for the area closest to that conference I was attending, Elk Grove, and at 3-stars (not 3.5-stars but specifically 3-stars; star precision matters), the Westin Itasca is the lowest priced.
• See the Westin's address and map it and memorize where it is so that I can find it on the next map.
• In a separate browser window, input the same query then click to the bidding version of that query; typically you can click the side navbar ad "Name Your Own Price" or the header banner ad "Get A 4-Star Hotel at 3-Star Prices!"; there's no direct link so I can't give you one thus why I'm describing it plus no link would contain the query-specific details anyways.
• See that the hotel is in what the bidding side calls the neighborhood "Arlington Heights"; note that this is tricky as the hotel is on the normal side shown as being in the "Elk Grove" neighborhood, an example of how you need to bid selecting the neighborhoods where your desired hotel is which doesn't necesarily match up by name; I realize this means you may spend lots of time studying the map of the hotel (whether from its description page or Google Maps or however you do your mapping), trying to memorize the location then mentally finding it on the bidding side map but it's not that hard, really, just you need a good memory and a sense of maps
• I bid for the query: 3-stars, in the Arlington Heights neighborhood at 50% off the retail price that I saw on the normal side. You can get 60% off often, too, but all of the discounts are based on normal economics. For example, in LAS this past Aug 8-10, there was no amount of bidding I did over 30 bids that would yield any discount larger than 5% so as always, normal economics dictates the %age off. My using 50% off initially this time was more aggressive because I really wanted the Westin hotel & didn't feel like bidding for days, so I was willing to not start at 60% off.

Q&A (not in the FlyerTalk post)

Q: Why do you need to choose a certain hotel? Can't you just deal with any?
A: Because

• I get SPG Gold privileges on check-in which vary by property but

• I once tried a 2.5-star and it resulted in this review. I thus don't try anything lower than a 3-star. It sounds spoiled & that's not to say there aren't problems with the star system but 3 is enough margin to overcome most problems and exceptions.

  I need to be in a specific place. This time, it's to be near the airport for a 6am flight. I don't want to be far from the airport given such an early flight.