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We just got a sign for our office. Nice Picture from the Sony Ericsson T610. Not.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Friendster Fires Blogger
Apparently, Friendster just fired one of their employees for blogging about some changes to the architecture of the site. Funny, I thought her post was simply meant to say that Friendster was now working because they migrated from JSP to PHP. I don't think firing someone for telling people something they could easily figure out will do much to help them with the larger issue of what is their business.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Marathon
I think the most powerful part of any Olympics for me is the marathon competition. All of the other events have their drama and history, but the Marathon is timeless. A messenger running a great distance to relay the results of a battle and then collapses and dies. Every time this event takes place in the Olympics I think that it is truly a historical event that transcends the actual running.
Back in 2000, my wife and I completed the Honolulu Marathon. I am not ashamed of the pathetic time that I logged that day, which was something north of 6 hours which I could blame on an improperly cut toenail if you were to believe my excuses. More important to me than the time was the actual finish, which I viewed as a personal accomplishment much greater than my attendance at Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, The Rose Parade, getting good grades, etc.
On that day, I could really understand what it could be like to run 26 miles, deliver a message, and die.
Congratulations to Athens on a wonderful 2004 Olympics. I really enjoyed it.
Back in 2000, my wife and I completed the Honolulu Marathon. I am not ashamed of the pathetic time that I logged that day, which was something north of 6 hours which I could blame on an improperly cut toenail if you were to believe my excuses. More important to me than the time was the actual finish, which I viewed as a personal accomplishment much greater than my attendance at Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, The Rose Parade, getting good grades, etc.
On that day, I could really understand what it could be like to run 26 miles, deliver a message, and die.
Congratulations to Athens on a wonderful 2004 Olympics. I really enjoyed it.
Friday, August 27, 2004
YASN - Yet Another Social Network
I wrote about my first experiences with Social Networking Software a little while ago. An update is that I have continued to add people to LinkedIn, but don't really use any of the other ones. I still don't know what I am going to get by continuing with LinkedIn, but it feels like it could be useful.
Yesterday I read a post by Stowe Boyd about another post calling for a Social Networking Manifesto (which sort of reminded me of ChangeThis, but I digress). I really liked these articles and some others I have read in various places.
I know that there is a move to unify the pain of joining the various sites by people like the FOAF project and ShareID, but I still keep asking myself, "Where is the value, where is the utility?"
I guess we need to keep busy with what we are working on!
Yesterday I read a post by Stowe Boyd about another post calling for a Social Networking Manifesto (which sort of reminded me of ChangeThis, but I digress). I really liked these articles and some others I have read in various places.
I know that there is a move to unify the pain of joining the various sites by people like the FOAF project and ShareID, but I still keep asking myself, "Where is the value, where is the utility?"
I guess we need to keep busy with what we are working on!
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Mozilla
So a bad thing about RSS readers is that I am taking in so much information each day that I frequently see an article, do something, and then forget why I did it. Today I read something which got me to think I should download Mozilla, then I couldn't remember the source. Here I am 6 hours later and I rediscovered the article that prompted the download. Ok, so the browser is cool but I need to spend more time with it before I can give a real opinion. Any trend that shows a movement away from total Microsoft product domination is worth a little investment of time.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
ChangeThis
I like what they are doing here. If you are a fan of Tom Peter's like I am, you will find this interesting.
Monday, August 23, 2004
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Sunday, August 22, 2004
Los Angeles Subway
For 6 months last year I was consulting in Los Angeles with Echo Networks. I decided that the only way to go was to take Amtrak. Last week I was in LA for the day on business and decided to use my pathetic camera phone to snap these pics shown above of my trip.
Anyone who goes between SD and LA should consider the following:
Train between San Diego and Los Angeles.
From here you can either rent a car from Budget, or take the Red Line subway to the 7th street exit, and walk over to the Standard Hotel. They can arrange to have a rental car available for you in the morning.
It really is the only way to travel. A couple of hints, reserve the cheapest car at Budget. They are set up for excursion travel and many times I get a Town Car or a convertible Mustang for the price of a Hyundai. The other hint is that all the rooms at the Standard are great. I stayed last week for $99 and was instantly upgraded to a medium room. I love this hotel. The rooftop bar is a must see and it is almost always 'going off'.
Anyone who goes between SD and LA should consider the following:
Train between San Diego and Los Angeles.
From here you can either rent a car from Budget, or take the Red Line subway to the 7th street exit, and walk over to the Standard Hotel. They can arrange to have a rental car available for you in the morning.
It really is the only way to travel. A couple of hints, reserve the cheapest car at Budget. They are set up for excursion travel and many times I get a Town Car or a convertible Mustang for the price of a Hyundai. The other hint is that all the rooms at the Standard are great. I stayed last week for $99 and was instantly upgraded to a medium room. I love this hotel. The rooftop bar is a must see and it is almost always 'going off'.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
RSS Calendar
At MP3.com we had an amazing intranet that combined some home grown tools with some off the shelf tools. Sitting in our new offices, I really wish I had some of the amazing Gotham tools we had. Our friend Ian is creating an equivalent of Drop Box, which was an internal and external file distribution mechanism to overcome the size issues associated with mail gateways.
The piece that I have been missing the most for coordinating dispersed people is the calendaring tool we used called Ctime. Someone told me Oracle bought the company, and since we are a startup, no thanks for the Oracle licensing fees that I can only imagine. That's why I was really happy when I heard about RSS Calendar. Not only is this cool because it is a free (for now) web available calendaring tool, but it also is a great application of using RSS for purposes other than reading blogs, or reading blogs from my phone. I am certain that there are going to be tons of cool RSS / Webservices concepts that come out in the next year.
The piece that I have been missing the most for coordinating dispersed people is the calendaring tool we used called Ctime. Someone told me Oracle bought the company, and since we are a startup, no thanks for the Oracle licensing fees that I can only imagine. That's why I was really happy when I heard about RSS Calendar. Not only is this cool because it is a free (for now) web available calendaring tool, but it also is a great application of using RSS for purposes other than reading blogs, or reading blogs from my phone. I am certain that there are going to be tons of cool RSS / Webservices concepts that come out in the next year.
User Generated Content: Wikipedia
What is a wiki? I don't remember who it was that told me about wikipedia, but I have got to say that this may be one of the coolest forms of user generated content. I can't find the quote, but if I am correct, wikipedia has on average, like 5 to 10 times the number of articles of traditional encyclopedias. To me it is one of the most powerful examples of creating a context, and then allowing users to create their own narrative, although unlike some other examples I have cited, this is less narrative or entertainment, and lots more about knowledge and information sharing.
Friday, August 13, 2004
ebay
Yesterday I bought my first item on ebay. It was a propaganda art poster for our office. I could see how eBay could become a problem for people.....
Thursday, August 12, 2004
XP SP2 - Couldn't wait
XP SP2 - I am sitting here typing on my cell while waiting for my computer to install the monster upgrade.
I hope it works. :-)
I hope it works. :-)
What I am playing now
NCAA 2005 - The hands down best sporting game on a console device ever created is EA Sports NCAA football. The 2005 version keeps building on what I discovered last year to be the best re-creation of football that I have ever seen. Forget Madden, this is the real deal. On nights when I am to tired to update the project plan or work on research, its me and my opponent for a little four quarter combat.
Vans Warped Tour CD 2004 - For a fresh view on the state of punk/rock/emo music, I always find this annual compilation to be a good refresher course on what is vital to skater/surfer/hipster kids that isn't hip hop. Some of my favorites included on this years CD are Alkaline Trio, Thursday, Coheed and Cambria, NOFX, Flogging Molly, From Autumn to Ashes, and Fear Before the March of Flames. Definitely not for everyone, but if Led Zeppelin has got you down, try something new.
Vans Warped Tour CD 2004 - For a fresh view on the state of punk/rock/emo music, I always find this annual compilation to be a good refresher course on what is vital to skater/surfer/hipster kids that isn't hip hop. Some of my favorites included on this years CD are Alkaline Trio, Thursday, Coheed and Cambria, NOFX, Flogging Molly, From Autumn to Ashes, and Fear Before the March of Flames. Definitely not for everyone, but if Led Zeppelin has got you down, try something new.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Bluetooth Keyboard
Its hard to escape your roots. When I was in high school I was a super geek, doing assembly language programming on the TRS-80, the Commodore Pet, and the Apple II. Ok, so assembly was more about trying to trick out the computer beyond what you could do with BASIC, but the Z-80 and 6502 were fun to screw around with.
Over the last couple of days I have been spending some time doing some serious research on J2ME implementations on handsets and PDA's. Specifically looking at RSS readers and 'moblog' tools. I hate that word. Part of the research has involved loading a variety of applications onto my handset using Bluetooth. I can't continue to rave about this enough, I am a huge Bluetooth fan.
Working on the handsets I get so excited to see the app come across, but then I am back typing on a numeric keypad and I can't seem to get beyond how slow it is. This mobile keypad is the answer to my prayers. I will be buying this at the end of the month when it comes out. If I can use this to type into my handset, the spontaneous nature of moblogging seems as promising as I think it is.
Over the last couple of days I have been spending some time doing some serious research on J2ME implementations on handsets and PDA's. Specifically looking at RSS readers and 'moblog' tools. I hate that word. Part of the research has involved loading a variety of applications onto my handset using Bluetooth. I can't continue to rave about this enough, I am a huge Bluetooth fan.
Working on the handsets I get so excited to see the app come across, but then I am back typing on a numeric keypad and I can't seem to get beyond how slow it is. This mobile keypad is the answer to my prayers. I will be buying this at the end of the month when it comes out. If I can use this to type into my handset, the spontaneous nature of moblogging seems as promising as I think it is.
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