October 2003 Archives
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Oct31
Got FoO
Got FoO is the coolest weblog design I have seen! -
Oct31
The Economist : How good is Google?
The Economist : How good is Google? "Craig Pisaris-Henderson...reckons that Google's operating margins on sites other than its own must be much worse than FindWhat.com's (23%) or Overture's (12%) because it has been wooing advertisers away from Overture by being more generous to webmasters." -
Oct31
Microsoft and Google: Partners or Rivals?
New York Times article today about Microsoft pursueing a buyout of Google. If I had $50 billion I would try to invest in Google too. If the deal goes through I wonder what will happen to Linux within Google. Dump your vi, we are a Visual Studio company now! -
Oct30
Does Your Code Think In Ink?
Does Your Code Think In Ink? If so, Microsoft and PC Magazine might pay you $15,000 or other prizes. -
Oct30
Networked alarm clock
Westinghouse has a new alarm clock coming out in mid-November. You can set it based on your calendar information, it runs on Windows CE .Net. $500 was the best price I found though. It would have been a lot easier for Microsoft to start with a SPOT alarm clock instead of a watch. I need a new alarm clock! -
Oct30
Logitech QuickCam Orbit
Logitech has a sweet new webcam with a built-in mic and automatic face-tracking technology. I want one, but then again I never use the QuickCam Express I have now.
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Oct29
I really like the
I really like the work of William Adolphe Bouguereau. Good lighting, expressions, and realism.
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Oct29
Napster 2.0.6.1
I just downloaded the new Napster software. I search for "acoustic" yields 132 results. One of the things I like about iTunes, and what I end up buying, is the tracks I usually do not find on an album. I like the live, exclusive, and acoustic tracks in good quality formats. So far Napster has not come through with anything other than the standard album fare. I still have my 5 free downloads, so I will try out the full process. -
Oct29
Fortune : Is Office 2003 worth the upgrade?
Peter Lewis of Fortune reviews Office 2003, comparing it to the car market. I am still waiting on my new Office 2003 Professional packages to arrive. "[T]he fact is that, for the vast majority of humans on the planet, Office 2003 does not qualify for ?must have? status. There are dozens if not hundreds of improvements, but with a few exceptions ? mainly of interest to large corporations with thousands of employees ? they fall into the nicer cupholder, satellite radio, and optional navigation system category." -
Oct28
The DaVinci Institute - Top 10 Inventions in Money Technology
The DaVinci Institute lists their top 10 inventions in money technology. -
Oct28
1990 Ancestry Map
State of Minnesota has a website graphically detailing the ancestory groups of Minnesota as well as the entire United States as reported in the 1990 U.S. Census. It is interesting to take a look at U.S. Irish. -
Oct28
Google Looks for Book Content
Google is building its own searchable book library with pointers to publisher maintained sites instead of an internal source like Amazon's solution.
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Oct28
KFC Makes Its Case for Health
Today's New York Times profiles KFC's new advertising campaign promoting fried chicken as healthy eating. From one of the ads: "The secret's out. One Original Recipe chicken breast has just 11 grams of carbs and packs 40 grams of protein. So if you're going low-carb, high-protein, go KFC." -
Oct28
PublicRadioFan.com
PublicRadioFan.com indexes public radio programs' audio feeds. -
Oct27
The new car senses
Car manufacturers are starting to pay attention to fine tuning the roar of an engine or the smell of its interior, according to today's New York Times. -
Oct27
Longhorn Developer Center
Longhorn Developer Center is now live. -
Oct27
Aeron wheelchair
There is now an Aeron wheelchair.
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Oct27
Fox News Threatened to Sue The Simpsons
Fox News Threatened to Sue The Simpsons over their parody of the cable news channel. -
Oct26
RFID tracking school children
Enterprise Charter School in Buffalo, New York has started using radio frequency ID tags to scan their students. If this had happened to me while I was in school I would have invented a way around it so it should be interesting to see how it all turns out. """ The charter school's 422 students wear small plastic cards around their necks that have their photograph, name and grade printed on them, and include an embedded RFID chip. As the children enter the school, they approach a kiosk where a reader activates the chip's signal and displays their photograph. The students touch their picture, and the time of their entry into the building is recorded in a database. A school staffer oversees the check-in process. """ -
Oct24
BBC News : How spammers are targeting blogs
Bill Thompson of BBC News writes about flyblogging: spamming weblog comments. -
Oct24
Ask Yahoo! : How do I start my own blog?
Ask Yahoo! : How do I start my own blog? -
Oct23
Google considers online IPO auction
Google considers online IPO auction "Google executives, led by George Reyes, chief financial officer, met a number of leading investment bankers last week to sound them out about an IPO. The meetings marked the start of a process that is likely to lead to a stock market listing by about March next year, a person familiar with the IPO said." -
Oct23
HP Tablet PC
Check out the HP Tablet PC on the table in front of George W. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chr�tien during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting on October 21. Bankok Post has a full story on the HP sponsorship of the event and the special voting software provided by Microsoft.
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Oct23
In Berlin they have porno karaoke
In Berlin some clubs have started showing porn and allowing patrons to add their own soundtrack. Fun idea!
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Oct23
Amazon.com: Search Inside the Book
Amazon.com has a new service allowing you to search the full text of over 120,000 books! -
Oct23
NY Times reviews Apple's OS X 10.3 Panther
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Oct23
Acer : Tablet PC fees hard to swallow
Acer President Wang Chen-tang recently commented about why Acer's Tablet PCs account for only 5% or its notebook sales. It's due to the price of the OS. "The cost of a tablet PC is $200 (7,000 Taiwan dollars) more than its notebook counterpart. Of this difference, the hardware cost is only between $30 and $60. The majority of the difference comes from the OS license" -
Oct22
eWeek : Microsoft Opens Windows Source Code to Its MVPs
eWeek : Microsoft Opens Windows Source Code to Its MVPs Microsoft is giving its Most Valued Professionals access to the more than 100 million aggregate lines of Windows source code. -
Oct22
Computerworld: Free hot spots pay dividends
An article in Computerworld finds that free hot spots pay dividends. For Schlotzsky's Delis "Wi-Fi service brings in more than $100,000 per year per outlet in return for an investment of about $8,000 per restaurant for wireless infrastructure." That's for a T1 connection too! -
Oct21
Microsoft Office 2003
Microsoft Office 2003 is now available. I have already ordered my upgrades and I eagerly await the chance to upgrade and develop.
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Oct20
Career Anchors
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Oct20
Knowledge @ Wharton : A View From the Developing World
Knowledge @ Wharton article details some specifics about outsourcing to developing nations: specifically India. "According to a NASSCOM-Hewitt Associates survey, the average salary of a call center worker in India is $180 a month. This is five times the country�s per capita income. For a fresh college graduate, a call center job pays about 2.5 times as much as other job openings." -
Oct20
Sexual identity hard wired into our genes
A recent article in Molecular Brain Research claims to identify 54 genes in mice that determine our sexual differences. The study discounts the idea of homosexuality or transgendered persons facing a choice and favors gene determination.
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Oct20
RollingStone.com: News: Carlton Goes Dark on New LP
According to Rolling Stone Vanessa Carlton's new album will be "goth." ""I'm twenty-three now, and I think I'm more evolved, more secure in who I am. I'm beyond the diary-confessional chapter of my writing." Should be interesting at least. I saw Vanessa play 3 times last year and I was always pumped to see her play Rolling Stones' Paint It Black. -
Oct19
Microsoft Longhorn to cost as much as man on moon project, Gates says
Bill Gates claims that developing Longhorn will cost as much as the first moon mission. Wow. -
Oct19
BBCi - The Big Read
BBCi - The Big Read. Which is the best loved book in Britain? -
Oct19
FeedDemon 1.0 RC1
The first release candidate of FeedDemon is now available. -
Oct17
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad OIC speech
There has been a lot of press today over a speech given by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at the opening of the tenth session of the Islamic Summit Conference. The Prime Minister's office has the full speech available online. While the world media has focused on Dr. Mahathir Mohamad's comments regarding the Jews, in a larger context his speech is about the power of the Islamic world today and the abilities each of them know they are capable of. He uses the issue of Palestine as an world problem to unify his group and something that can be solved in unison. Most everyone feels hard done by, but it is tough to step back, gather your thoughts, and reapproach your problems. -
Oct17
First iTunes album purchase
I just purchased Sarah McLachlan's Live Acoustic EP 2003 from the iTunes Store. It is an iTunes exclusive, but not listed anywhere on her discography. -
Oct17
Maya Personal Learning Edition
Maya Personal Learning Edition, version 5, is now available for free. -
Oct16
My first online music track purchase
I just bought Miles Davis So What from the iTunes Music Store. Also available as a free MP3 download from Miles Davis' Web site. -
Oct16
Apple iTunes for Windows
Today I downloaded the new Apple iTunes for Windows 4.1.0.52. I have used the OS X version a few times on a friend's PowerBook, but this is my first time testing all of its different features. I use Windows Media Player 9 daily.
When I mentioned to other people that I had downloaded iTunes for Windows and was playing around with it their assumption was that I was buying music with the software. Interesting what features have been getting the most publicity.
iTunes automatically located the Music in the My Music folder of My Documents. When I tried to add an additional folder to my library, unmapped network drives were not an option and there was no space for me to specify the exact location of the folder of interest. (i.e. \\motherlode )
I ripped a few albums in 128kbps AAC. About 4.3 MB for a 4:30 song. iTunes uses the CDDB database for its album information, which is inferior to Windows Media Player?s database in my opinion. Why? Because when I insert a CD into Media Player it pulls up detailed album information and even the cover art. Lyricists change from song to song, and the individual track information is very interesting. There is no special field to place lyrics, but I decided to enter some into the general comments area of a track.
My entire music library is saved as an XML file. Very cool. Here is the Apple DTD if you are interested.
More to come later as I install iTunes at home, purchase a track or two, try out the radio stations, and have it index my tens of gigabytes worth of WMA, AAC, and MP3 files.
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Oct16
R.E.M.'s high tech concert tools
CNN Headline News details some of the behind-the-scenes magic of an R.E.M. show. Tablet PCs, wireless Internet, and R.E.M. -
Oct16
Experience Visual Studio .NET Free Online
Microsoft has an online version of Visual Studio .NET 2003 running on a full-featured Windows Server 2003 hosted online. Three hours to play around. -
Oct14
Wynalda goes off
Wow. Eric Wynalda let it all out in this week's column. "Bocanegra has been so much better than every other defender in MLS, it's sick." "April Heinrichs' position needs to be reevaluated. She has lost the Olympics and lost the World Cup. Anywhere else in the world she'd be fired and looking for a college job right now. I can tell you what was wrong with the team ? it is run by four individuals who have nothing to do with the coaching staff." -
Oct14
SPAWN.COM >> NEWS >> JIMI HENDRIX IMMORTALIZED BY MCFARLANE TOYS
McFarlane Toys will release a Jimi Hendrix collectible figure next month. -
Oct13
Agents of Creation
Intelligent agents can be utilized by individuals to carry out a well defined goal on their behalf, as introduced in a recent Economist article. -
Oct13
Bit Torrent concerts
Sharing the Groove is a message board for the exchange of full concerts in audio and/or video. Radiohead, Grateful Dead, John Mayer, Led Zeppelin. Good variety. -
Oct13
Tablets in the Alias briefing room
Last night on Alias I noticed the computers in the briefing room were HP Tablets with docking stations. I have not been able to find any screen captures for confirmation. -
Oct10
Soulseek
Soulseek is an ad-free, spyware-free, just plain free file sharing application. -
Oct10
Book Promotion Tours on $0 a Day
Wired News article about book promotion tours which take place in the blogosphere at no cost. -
Oct10
Editor's Note - Picture This
Smithsonian Magazine has a amateur photography contest. Catgeories are Americana, The Natural World, People, The Arts, Travel. -
Oct09
Kate Isenberg
Tonight I saw an acoustic rock performance by Kate Isenberg. -
Oct09
Ghettopoly Board game - Stolen Property Fencing Game
Ghettopoly is Monopoly with a ghetto twist. Currently sold by Urban Outfitters and online. -
Oct08
Microsoft Dissatisfaction Running High, Users Contemplate Switch
Internet Week asked its readers if they "seriously plan to dump Microsoft software." Only 28% of respondents described themselves as satisfied Microsoft customers. I want Microsoft to drop legacy support with Longhorn. Launch a Virtual PC version of a legacy app if you need to, similar to OS X. Scoble mentions how manager performance is tied to users loving Microsoft. You will piss a lot of people off by forcing them to upgrade, but it's best for everyone. -
Oct08
For Schwarzenegger, the Last Piece of a Master Plan
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Oct07
Sony PSX
Sony's new entertainment console, the PSX, looks pretty sweet. I wonder why they still license TiVo and even Windows XP Media Center Edition with all of their GigaPocket technology in place. -
Oct07
The New Yorker: Fact
Very thorough history in the New Yorker on suicide and the Golden Gate Bridge. Most people have no idea what a suicide barrier would look like. I imagine it would be under the bridge and a net to catch people within a jump range of 10 feet or so. No big deal, there is always construction out there anyways and some sort of safety net for the workers. -
Oct07
Bush Cheney 2004 Blog
The George W. Bush reelection campaign now has an official blog. There are specific RSS feeds on the economy and national security as well. -
Oct06
DepicT!
DepicT has a short film by Tony Roche : How to Tell When a Relationship is Over. My favorite bit is "You Find the Other Person Annoying." -
Oct06
Marriage Protection Week, 2003
The White House has a press release stating the week of October 12 through October 18, 2003, as Marriage Protection Week. Is a society, and therefore a country, and better off through the institution of marriage? Are Rosie O'Donnell's adopted children less well off for their adoption into a lesbian household? The definition of a family should make for an interesting debate topic in the 2004 Presidental campaign. -
Oct06
Forbes.com: Creating A Killer Product
Forbes has a book excerpt on creating a killer product. What is your true competition? I like the Theodore Levitt quote : "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole." -
Oct06
USATODAY.com - Worker blogs raise some company concerns
A very short article in today's USA Today about worker blogs. Scoble is the only quote. -
Oct06
Google search counter
Google has Frequent started experimenting with a search counter for individual users. It is cookie based and limited to small sample at the moment. -
Oct03
FEC Disclosure Reports - Filer ID P00003392
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Oct03
FEC Disclosure Reports - Filer ID P00003392
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Oct02
Boobiethon 2003
Robyn started the latest Boobiethon to raise money for charities. Veronika received $359 to run the Chicago Pets Are Worth Saving event. The rest of the money goes towards the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. I think more breast cancer fundraisers should promote themselves as fans of preserving the breasts we love. She has already raised about $1700 in a little over a day! -
Oct02
O'Reilly.com Spidering Hacks
O'Reilly.com now has a page in English describing Spidering Hacks. -
Oct02
Bill Joy in Fortune magazine
Fortune's Brent Schlender interviews Bill Joy. "I'd really like to go and do something that's more like Java�that starts from a clean sheet and that isn't required by its compatibility with something else to be so complicated. Unfortunately, too few people get to do that in our industry." -
Oct02
The new HP Tablet PC
Rumor is that HP will announce a new line of Tablet PCs on October 13. The 1GHz Pentium M is part number DQ871A#ABA. I want one! One of my biggest complaints with the TC1000 is its lack of any GPU handling. Rendering a PDF page in Adobe Reader seems to take forever. The NVIDIA GeForce 4 Go 420 should help with that. I like my Compact Flash slot because my camera uses CF and I can take my memory from my camera and place it right in my Tablet with no add-ons. Maybe HP will have a trade-up version for all of its early adopters...one can hope! -
Oct01
Hot-Spot Evangelist
Apple is hiring a Hot-Spot Evangelist in the UK. My favorite part : "Understanding and experience of implementing Microsoft Windows networks. Mac OS X knowledge a bonus, but not required."
