Posts from October 2004

Dr. Robert M. Nelson, senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, analyzed pictures of George W. Bush from the first presidential debate much like he would analyze photographs from Mars or Titan to determine surface features. After enhancement Nelson is confident Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate "consistent with the appearance of an electronic device worn in that manner." In fact, it's how we measure the depths of the craters on the moon or on Mars. We look at the angle of the light and the length of shadow they leave. In this case, that's...

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Tonight was the Technorati open house at their new offices near SBC Park. The event was catered and drew a large crowd. You can check out pictures from the event. There were many new Technorati employees I had not seen before, including Jason DeFillipo, who is currently working as a contractor for Technorati's new search functions. That's right, Technorati is not just phrase search any more. They have new boolean features and will show search results from not just the last week. The new features should be announced any day now. It will be interesting to see how their servers...

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Steven M. Cohen just launched Feedster Hacks to track tools and tricks using Feedster. It looks like the hacks site is hosted by Feedster although the site description makes it seem like a fan site with approval. Feedster Hacks running off a copy of Movable Type 3.1b given out in August. The current version of Movable Type is 3.121. Join the Six Apart Professional Network for a free five author license. Obviously not playing favorites with weblog platforms, Feedster uses the following software throughout its weblogs. TypePad for About FeedsterMovable Type for Feedster HacksSerendipity for Scott on Feedster and Story...

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Catherine Matusow of The Houston Press wrote a feature story about Matt Mullenweg and blogging in general. Matt also announces he has taken a job with CNET Networks in San Francisco. Congratulations Matt!...

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I just downloaded Mozilla Firefox 1.0 RC1 and noticed the new orange icon for Live Bookmarks. It looks like the broadcasting icon in iCal (pictured above)....

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I just finished reading the Morgan Stanley report on news syndication from analysts Mary Meeker and Brian Pitz. The report focuses a lot on Yahoo!'s moves into supporting RSS throughout the site, and what Yahoo!'s move to syndication means for publishers. Overall a good paper with busness arguements from a business-oriented source. Some interesting snippets from the 15-page report: While Google's search engine and advertising tools set the pace for new ways of searching information, we believe that Yahoo! may be setting the pace for new ways of serving information. Bold statement, but no other major player has embraced the...

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Oliver Breidenbach, Steve Dekorte, Steve Gehrman, Will Shipley, Brent Simmons, and Dan Wood participated in a panel discussion about how to run your own software business. Below is my summary. I also have audio of the entire session (44.1 MB MP3, 1:36:48) except for mentions of Omnigroup lawsuits that were removed at the request of Will Shipley. Time to market varied for different software vendors. It took Dan 6 months to develop Watson. It took Brent 10 months to develop NetNewsWire including learning Cocoa. It took Oliver 3 weeks to develop his first product and receive his first payment. The...

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Delicious Library received first place in the Mac OS X Innovators contest announced today. I have seen the software for months, but I got to play around with the software in-person today, and hear about the product's features from William Jon Shipley and Mike Matas. I have been waiting for this type of software for a long time. I am the type of user to update things I own in my Amazon account, rate them, and even leave a small description if anyone is interested in my collection. Now I will have the same information on a local store,...

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Sam Levin just gave a presentation titled "Messaging & Branding; After the Product is Developed, What's Next?" at the O'Reilly Mac OS X conference in Santa Clara. Below are quick notes from the session. I also recorded the session (21.1 MB MP3, 46:28). There are many Apple resources for developers and partners to tap into. ADC membership Apple Consultants membership Mac logo usage Mac Products Guide Mac OS X download ADC promotions Marketing 101: 20-25% of your total budget should be devoted to marketing. Data sheet. Example on Sam's iDisk. Press releases, targeting good press channels. Editorial/reviews/awards. Put review directly...

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Delphi announced XM MiFi, the first portable XM satellite radio. It will be out in December and cost $350. Five hours of batter, five hours of audio storage, six-line LCD, sports score ticker, clock, and alarm. $350 is steep, especially compared to the $125 I paid for my Roady2. The bundled accessory kit included with the MiFi is pretty extensive. The home and car kits usually cost $40 each, the remote control is a $20 accessory, and case and clip cost about $20 as well....

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