There goes privacy

Sort of a White Pages directory on steroids.

Try some noteables names. Google Satellite them.

Overexposed:
Paris Hilton is there.

Talk too much:
Jay Leno. Oprah Winfrey

Wealthy
Warren Buffett, Bill Gates,

Bloggers
Mark Cuban, Robert Scoble

Disclaimer: These addresses are probably for Rob Scoble, the sanitation engineer and Billy Gates, the plumber.

John Travolta's House in Jumbolair

"When you own an airplane, the biggest problem is finding a reason to use it."
http://www.jumbolair.com/

I'm sure I would find something to do with my time. Vegas maybe?
Google Sightseeing - The Las Vegas strip
3600 S. Las Vegas Blvd.
http://www.bellagio.com

Interesting that Google Maps Satellite doesn't have Ocala, Fla.

Sorry Warren

A top insurance company as the new Enron?

An accounting probe at AIG worries Wall Street, and involves some of America's richest men.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0401/p03s01-usju.html

Yeah, so I bought BRKB (Berkshire Hathaway) a couple of months ago. Just 1 share (!) but since everything I buy seems to go down, I had apologized in advance to the world's second richest man, since I'm a big fan of his.

Looks like this self-fulfilling prophecy stuff seems to keep coming back to haunt me.

I also bought Hemosol (HMSL) a couple of years ago.

Right after this: But Hemolink didn't work. Last March, Hemosol announced that another Phase 2/3 trial had shown the product caused "certain adverse events" in cardiac patients

I'm guessing that means they gave their blood supplement to some people, and they had heart attacks, but adverse events could even mean their hair fell out or something...

I am still in the stock unfortunately. Reading Yahoo's Message Boards on that one is like a soap opera, with everyone thinking the company will cure cancer or something 'next week'. Maybe I can go acquire a pipe off of that $90 million dollar plant down the road or something.

http://noblood.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-1285.html

If anyone wants to give me some cash to invest for them, it may be a good idea. I would make a good short-seller. As my friend said to me last week when I asked him about buying more Hemosol, "don't try and catch a falling knife."

How to Start a Startup How to Start a Startup

paulgraham.com/start.html
track this site | 3 links

[via blogdex - the weblog diffusion index]

Microsoft (MSFT) 2004 Annual Report

I'm looking at getting Microsoft (MSFT) into my portfolio in the next year, against my better judgement. Since I use Microsoft products daily, and do not see that changing anytime soon, I figure everyone else is in the same boat. And this Genuine Windows thing, and Halo 2, (and 3 and 4) can only mean increasing revenues. The stock is supposed to be really diluted and not a good value, but is Google @ $200 any better?

I just hope that they stop diversifying into every possible niche, and just improve some of the products they have. Likewise for Google, stay out of the desktop space. Though I think Google has more to worry about than Microsoft in the long haul. But who knows...

This AR reads like a glossary of computer terms but there are some financials in there under the marketing hype. $16 bil in the bank is nice.

Growth - 87, Loss - 54. Is the tech bubble back again?

Word frequencies for Microsoft 2004 Annual Report:

929 in 395 our 379 we 303 fiscal 297 as 264 on 242 revenue 236 from 220 million 214 with 205 stock 203 other 195 or 188 microsoft 181 software 168 products 155 operating 148 business 140 income 127 billion 125 services 123 value 114 an 114 have 113 windows 111 at 109 server 106 related 104 information 101 based 97 year 95 which 92 was 90 will 90 june 88 segment 87 new 87 growth 87 not 84 market 84 these 84 sales 82 development 81 such 80 also 80 product 79 msn 79 costs 78 cash 75 increase 74 years 73 investments 70 including 70 customers 70 significant 69 financial 69 fair 68 tax 67 certain 66 primarily 64 net 62 over 62 accounting 61 all 61 equity 61 compensation 61 under 60 through 60 due 60 options 59 total 59 than 59 common 59 were 57 system 57 share 57 investment

57 period 56 office 55 applications 55 solutions 55 assets 54 xbox 54 millions 54 been 54 s 54 may 54 marketing 54 loss 54 include 53 licensing 53 their 53 securities 52 more 52 systems 51 has 51 time 51 employee 50 cost 50 amount 50 shares 49 us 49 pc 49 price 48 future 48 losses 47 operations 47 support 47 expenses 46 per 46 technology 46 management 46 u 45 during 44 program 44 tools 44 believe 44 expense

43 devices 43 quarter 42 one 42 inc 41 mobile 41 basis 41 sfas 41 taxes 40 provide 40 approximately 40 statements 39 worker 39 if 39 includes 39 could 39 recognized 39 gains 38 available 38 online 38 home 38 foreign 37 research 37 use 37 security 37 internet 37 note 37 risk 36 increased 36 no 36 awards 35 earnings 35 any 35 performance 35 changes 35 term 34 property 34 number 34 option 34 interest 34 recorded 33 each 33 entertainment 33 employees 33 client 33 expect 32 advertising 32 ended 32 end 32 transfer 31 access 31 current 31 states 31 percentage 30 hardware 30 offset 30 estimated 30 result 30 licenses 30 purchase 30 agreement 30 rate 30 court 29 help 29 when 29 small 29 platform 29 lower

29 customer 29 its 29 businesses 29 exchange 29 factors 29 rates 29 amounts 28 programs 28 games 28 average 28 recognition 28 follows 28 included 28 it 28 elements 28 liabilities 27 addition 27 designed 27 against 27 embedded 27 enterprise 27 agreements 27 dividend 27 those 27 sun 27 unearned 26 legal 26 used 26 dec 26 paid 26 prior 26 generally 26 arrangements 26 settlement 25 web 25 open 25 plan 25 subject 25 impact 25 segments 25 unit 25 many 25 derivative

Berkshire Hathaway 2004 Annual Report now available

I am a big follower of Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and the rest of the Berkshire Hathaway organization. Buffet is the second (probaby first) wealthiest man in the world. He is also one of the cheapest, according to his family and friends. How else do you get to be the wealthiest man in the world, without spending any of your own money? The secret, as Donald Trump and others know, is OPM (Other People's Money). No matter how much money you have, other people have more.

Late last year I purchased and still hold my first stock in BRKB, the fractional investment version of BRKA, Berkshire Hathaway Holdings. I bought one share (!) in my RRSP just so I could get access to the Annual General Meeting sometime in my lifetime, since it sounds like an interesting event, and I am lacking in the green stuff. And since the stock market is just a big pyramid scam anyway, I figured I would get "suckered" by the best of them, being Berkshire.

I'm going to try and get the stock signed over to me and get a paper copy to hang somewhere. Hey, the thing cost me almost $3,000 US! May as well use it as an art investment since I'll probably never sell it. I could not get a mortgage to cover the BRKA stock, now trading at $89,300/share.

101 Reasons to Own the World's Greatest Investment

Last year I bought a biography on Charlie Munger, "Damn Right!". Bought a couple Buffet books, including "The Warren Buffet Way". Joined the Yahoo Berkshire Hathaway group. Subscribed to Forbes watchlist for Buffet. Downloaded every PDF & document related to Buffet, Munger, Graham, Tweedy, and a bunch of others related to Berkshire & value investing.

So, to continue to obsess, I am currently going over the 2004 Annual Report & Shareholder's Letter. Here's some of the top words used in the AR. Note that loss and losses were used 190 & 160 times respectively, while gains and gain were used 72 & 39 times respectively. This may prove my theory that any stock I buy usually goes down. Sorry Warren.

1215 in 420 as 325 we 276 on 275 berkshire 270 at 265 our 264 from 243 other 240 or 220 with 205 million 197 have 190 loss 185 value 185 will 170 an 168 earnings 164 not 162 insurance 162 year 160 losses 157 financial 157 december 154 berkshire’s 145 business 144 businesses 136 company 135 which 128 i 127 its 122 these 120 was 119 net 119 billion 114 reinsurance 113 over 111 stock 110 it 106 but 103 contracts 101 years 101 securities 97 investment 96 were 96 assets 96 interest 93 amounts 91 may 90 consolidated 90 such 89 income 88 about 88 their 86 statements 86 has 86 cash 85 common 85 when 84 all 84 would 82 market 81 s 80 under 79 tax 78 than 78 cost 78 if 76 share 76 you 76 investments 75 finance 75 equity 75 no 75 liabilities 74 products 74 reserves 73 they 73 class 72 gains 71 general 70 underwriting 69 results 68 u 68 based 67 management 67 accounting 66 millions 66 claims 64 one 64 more 64 property 63 due 62 during 62 each 61 been 61 shares 61 operations 61 certain 60 premiums 60 fair 59 claim 57 subsidiaries 57 sales 56 capital 56 notes 56 expenses 55 significant 55 deferred 54 reporting 54 increase 54 us 54 also 54 expected

54 approximately 53 casualty 53 continued 52 through 52 had 52 time 52 policies 52 amount 52 changes 51 rate 50 included 50 midamerican 49 hathaway 49 can 48 taxes 48 increased 48 any 48 balance 48 revenues 48 group 47 reported 47 last 47 total 46 long 46 period 46 foreign 45 re 45 shareholders 45 do 45 new 45 who 44 pre 44 term 44 estimated 43 after 43 price 43 geico 43 estimates 42 per 42 control 42 costs 42 however 42 future 42 only 41 basis 41 acquisition 41 charlie 41 including 41 well 41 those 41 date 41 upon 40 some 40 because 40 earned 39 gain 39 case 39 related 39 operating 39 adjustment 39 annual 38 most 38 b 38 life 38 prior 38 totaled 37 risk 37 both 37 companies 37 end 37 current 37 goodwill 36 inc 36 should 36 non 36 follows 36 rates 36 issued 36 reserve 35 into 35 now 35 what 35 many 35 prices 35 obligations

34 information 34 two 33 average 33 directors 33 internal 33 first 33 subject 33 payable 33 risks 32 respect 32 there 32 additional 32 currency 32 borrowings 31 table 31 my 31 though 31 debt 31 primarily 31 acquired 31 services 31 clayton 31 charges 30 activities 30 sold 30 intrinsic 30 far 30 make 30 acquisitions 30 large 30 up 30 result 30 liability 29 include 29 board 29 corporate 29 since 29 excess 29 purchase 29 method 29 even 29 fixed 29 ultimate 29 quarter 28 past 28 p 28 own 28 them 28 three 28 states 28 data 28 loans 27 report 27 before 27 used 27 primary 27 so 27 company’s 27 paid 27 generally 27 policy 27 written 27 held 27 below 27 unpaid 26 made 26 beginning 26 credit 26 his 26 available 26 dollars 26 ibnr 26 trading 26 addition 26 amortization 25 following 25 required 25 several 25 very 25 low 25 dollar 25 service 25 exchange 25 values 25 retroactive

Word frequency calculator

My First PC

Warren Buffett blogs (sort of)

Found this one on www.blogdex.com

This is a great capture of what the sage of Omaha has to offer in terms of advice for living. I just wish he had confirmed my formula for stock picking is correct. sucker = born every minute.

I like this person's blog visit statistics to date. Sort of skewed.


VISITS
Total
9,014

Average Per Day
1,208

Average Visit Length
1:50

Last Hour
47

Today
237

This Week
8,453

And I thought Ray Parker Jr. only did stuff like this...

Huey Lewis sued Parker for plagiarizing the medley to his song "I Want A New Drug" on this. They settled out of court and agreed not to talk about the case in public. In 2001, Lewis talked about the case in public when he revealed that Parker paid to settle the suit on an episode of VH1's Behind The Music. Parker then sued Lewis for violating the terms of their agreement.

Not sure if Nickelback is going to go after themselves any time soon.

How NOT to do a Band Reunion Show

Saw this VH1 band reunion show a couple of days ago, and I was a bit interested to find out just 'where are they now'. It was on Information Society - I had a few (1) of their tapes in the '80s (yeah, I bought the remix tape too I think) and their 1-hit wonder song Pure Energy (I want to know) was really cool. I think it was the drums that did it. Or maybe Spock.

Where did they get the host of that show anyway?

Anyway, they had a 'band reunion' with what was supposed to be 4 members of the famous-era band members. Unfortunately their lead singer didn't show up! (Gets better!) They really should have just called it a day....

http://www.insoc.org/texts/BandReunion.HTML

http://www.insoc.org/texts/BRMail01.HTML

http://www.insoc.org/texts/BRMail02.HTML

http://www.insoc.org/texts/BRMail03.HTML

http://www.insoc.org/texts/BRMail04.HTML

http://www.insoc.org/texts/BRMail05.HTML

http://www.insoc.org/texts/BRMail06.HTML

Hilarious! Kurt, let me know when you and the band are really going to get together to do a show in Toronto, Canada, or at least when & where you're showing off the car next. http://www.insoc.org/Car.HTML

Update: Link to VH1 Message board http://www.vh1.com/interact/boards/main.jhtml/bands_reunited/ViewThread?tID=675513&mID=3561763&offset=0&index=21

What's That Song - Awesome Flash quiz

This seems to have a ton of bands available to pick from. Lotsa good timewasting.

I want this job

Says Jeff Jarvis, author of the blog BuzzMachine, and president and creative director of newspaper publisher Advance Publications' Internet division: "There should be someone at every company whose job is to put into Google and blog search engines the name of the company or the brand, followed by the word 'sucks,' just to see what customers are saying."

Forbes mentions blogs in their Jan '05 issue.

Chernobyl photos - a scenic drive through glowing Ukraine

Phenomenal. This is a good case for solar power right here.




This lady biker decides to take a pictoral tour through the Chernobyl wilderness.

600 years from now it will be safe to do this, but why wait...

Google Remote Desktop Search - uh oh...

Didn't take long for this one to come out.

If someone was to figure out a way to install this remotely, it could very easily give everyone in the world access to your search results remotely. Kinda freaky.

Time to remove Google desktop search for awhile... I can't wait until Cisco & Microsoft team up for their network detection tool. Would probably make it easier to hack both platforms in one exploit.

Gmail Drive Letter

This adds a 'Gmail Drive' to your My Computer section in Windows Explorer.

Can't get much better than this - though the filename is only 40 chars or less. Wonder how this works through proxies?

Guess other people found World Wind too...

Access forbidden!
You don't have permission to access the requested directory.

The onearth WMS server has been restricted to NASA only due to overload. We are working on server improvements and will have the server open again for public access as soon as possible.

The other cause is that you tried to access a page accessible only by JPL personnel (for JPL business only).

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.

Error 403
onearth.jpl.nasa.gov
Wed Oct 6 04:10:14 2004
Apache

The World Is Yours

NASA's using .NET to build some amazing software.

I was blown away by Microsoft Mappoint's ability to zoom out to space and zoom into a thumbtack showing my address. NASA World Wind is better (when it works). I can see my house now. :) It's around a 250MB download, and it recommends 2GB disk space, but it pretty much gives you your own weather channel builder, satellite image browser, terrain mapper, etc.

Some guys I went to high school with were trying to map the world with C++ but it kept crashing the top computer in the school at the time - a 486/33 DX. Wonder if they're working for NASA now?

Virgin's in Space

Now this is a bit much.

First Sir Richard Branson starts up a hugely popular record company and then goes off in all directions, hitting the wireless market, the airlines, and now space flight. Hey, if the Concorde was only $30,000 this is a steal at $250,000.

Virgin & Microsoft - Gold Partners in Space Flight.

Associated Press
Virgin to Launch Commercial Space Flights
Monday September 27, 8:54 am ET
Virgin's Branson Says Company Plans to Launch Commercial Space Flights Over the Next Few Years

LONDON (AP) -- British entrepreneur Richard Branson said Monday that his company plans to launch commercial space flights over the next few years.
Branson's Virgin transport, entertainment and communications group has signed an agreement with pioneering aviation designer Burt Rutan to build an aircraft based on Rutan's SpaceShipOne vessel, Branson said.

SpaceShipOne cracked the barrier to manned commercial space flight in June by flying 328,491 feet, or about 62 miles, above Earth -- about 400 feet above the distance scientists widely consider to be the boundary of space. The flight lasted 90 minutes.
SpaceShipOne's effort was bankrolled by billionaire Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen.
Virgin said its agreement to license technology from Allen's company, Mohave Aerospace Ventures, could be worth up to $25 million over the next 15 years, depending on the number of spaceships built by Virgin.
The company said it planned to begin construction of the first vessel, VSS Enterprise, next year, and would invest about $108 million in spaceships and ground infrastructure for the venture.
"Virgin has been in talks with Paul Allen and Bert throughout this year and in the early hours of Saturday signed a historical deal to license SpaceShipOne's technology to build the world's first private spaceship to go into commercial operating service," Branson told a news conference.
The new service will be called Virgin Galactic and expects to fly 3,000 new astronauts in its first five years. Fares will start at $208,000 for a suborbital flight, including three days' training.
Branson said the business would "allow every country in the world to have their own astronauts rather than the privileged few."
"Virgin Galactic will be run as a business, but a business with the sole purpose of making space travel more and more affordable," Branson said.
"Those privileged space pioneers who can afford to take our first flights will not only have the most awesome experience of their lives, but by stepping up to the plate first they will bring the dream of space travel for many millions closer to reality."
Virgin Group, which began as a record label, operates several airlines -- British-based Virgin Atlantic and budget carriers Virgin Express in Europe and Virgin Blue in Australia -- and plans to launch a low-budget U.S. carrier next year.

Chia Reef

Grow your own Coral Reef in 3 easy steps.

1. Place electrical wires.
2. Charge wires.
3. Add water and coral.

This is really incredible. When I visited Hanauma Bay in Hawaii for my first snorkeling experience, what I really noticed was the grey sea bottom. All of the coral had died because of people stepping on it. Just by touching the coral with our feet, nothing else would grow on it.

Now, with a bit of electrical and some new seed, we can regrow the sea floor with Super Coral and bring back all life with it. Amazing.

Brown, an Australian who settled in this fishing village of 8,000 people in 1992 and a co-owner of the cottages, said that within days of receiving their first jolts of electricity, the bars grew a white limestone film. This covering provides the necessary substrate for coral growth.

The grids were then seeded with small fragments of live coral, which begin to grow "between five and 10 times faster than normal, with much brighter colors and more resilience to hot weather and pollution," said a co-owner of the Taman Sari Cottages, an American who goes by the single name Naryana.

Future Fantasy Gadget: Soundwave MP3 Player

Future Fantasy Gadget: Soundwave MP3 Player

The premise is simple. Someone needs to purchase the rights to use the image of Soundwave, the evil Decepticon Transformer, from Hasbro. Then make a hard disk-based MP3 player out of Soundwave (slightly smaller than the original Transformer toy, though, for portability) that actually transforms. Then sell the individual transforming cassette Transformers (Casseticons, was it?) as individual USB flash-based MP3 players that can be placed inside the larger Soundwave unit to extend its library.

Yeah, and how about Optimus Prime as a remote control for your TV, or Voltron as a blender for your kitchen?

Transformers are big on e-Bay right now. Check out this one for $1300 bucks.

Software That Lasts 200 Years

The structure and culture of a typical prepackaged software company is not attuned to the long-term needs of society for software that is part of its infrastructure. This essay discusses the ecosystem needed for development that better meets those needs.

I have not heard of a software development environment being called an ecosystem before, however it is an interesting concept. Shallow ponds could be considered small software companies, with each company having it's own lilypads of silo'ed groups working on ideas. Every once and awhile someone would hop from lilypad to lilypad, trying different roles & working with other people in the company. Sometimes they would miss a leap and fall in the water, other times they would make the separate lilypad's grow, until there is no water left to fall into.

The shallow pond concept could relate to many things. If you are a corner variety store you are in a shallow pond. If you are a Wal-Mart you are an ocean, or a Northern Snakehead invading all ponds, depending on your perspective..

The knowledge, with the weekend catch, that there is more than one fish in the Crofton pond is what is keeping biologists awake at night.

"Our biggest fear is that there are more than one and they'll reproduce," said Lunsford.

Sounds like a line straight out of Aliens. "She'll breed. You'll die."

A second fear, based on the fish's ability to breathe out of water and travel across land, is that the snakehead could leave the pond and travel the 75 feet (23 meters) or so to the Little Patuxent River, and from there invade the state's river system.

I always got a kick out of that image; this big ugly snakehead fish chasing stray dogs and cats around our neighbourhoods before jumping back in the local river.

Not sure what I'm getting at here but the essay is a good read if you are interested in that kind of stuff. Some of the highlights:

We need to start thinking about software in a way more like how we think about building bridges, dams, and sewers.

The problem with this concept is that only government should then be building software, since it will cost so bloody much.

The most successful prepackaged software applications have been those that may be inexpensively customized to meet the needs of users by developers with less and less computer skills, most desirably by the users themselves, or that form a base on which other prepackaged or custom software are built.

Simplicity is key. If somebody doesn't understand something or has to make an effort to understand it, they usually leave it alone until someone more curious picks it up and starts talking about it again, and then they will want it. People actually run away whenever something new and different shows up at their door. Change is dangerous in the minds of many.

The software itself may be available with no or little charge, but the organization is set up so that support of various sorts is provided by the company which has special knowledge of, and access to, the product. Again, there is a culture of obsolescence, to keep customers upgrading to new versions and paying for maintenance.

This is kind of like the story about how the Cadillac got its fins, and how the environment got laid to waste over the culture of obsolescence.

As part of this, buyers must get used to funding projects in advance. This is already the case in many areas, and the addition of cooperative funding with others can lower the costs or increase the scope of potential projects. Buyer funding lowers the requirement for potential "big hits" to incentivize development.

I like this idea the most of all. Warren Buffett's business model and many others is successfully based on the idea of gathering capital in advance, using part of the money to grow the business and then diversifying into larger growth-potential investments, not necessarily in the same industry.

A prepaid software plan sounds like a plan to me. If someone has already been paid they have the necessary capital to grow and prosper. If someone is constantly collecting payments they are getting the short end of the stick.

Warren Buffet's quote goes something like this:

"How do you tell the difference between a wealthy man and a poor man. The poor man signs the front of a cheque, the wealthy man signs the back"

911 Commission Indexed and Categorized

Vivisimo, a top-rated search engine that competes with Google for being #1, has some really cool indexing functionality that displays 'clustered results'. Clustered Results provide related terms & # of results, with drilldowns into a tree'd display.

There's a plugin for Firefox too.

It has indexed the 911 Commission Report as part of its service.

Another product they offer is a massive indexing of a company's databases, intranets, filesystems, etc.

There are some great demos for the medical industry here.

Plus you can search various Open Source repositories (Sourceforge, Freshmeat) which provides some amazing results.

How about Microsoft's Patent Portfolio (is double-click in there somewhere?)

Maybe RBC Financial for some good stock tips?

Definately a bookmark candidate.

The International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna

World's Appetite for Tuna Threatens Supply

Sat Jul 17,10:16 PM ET

By MORT ROSENBLUM, AP Special Correspondent

<>FAVIGNANA, Italy - Over thousands of springtimes, as far back as Homer's Odyssey, the fishermen of Favignana have battled giant bluefin tuna lured into vast chambers of intricate netting. This year, the nets were empty.

This is awful. I really enjoy eating sushi, and Tuna hand rolls are my favourite. Looks like I'm going back to california rolls.

There is some more troubling information if we dig deeper here.

Japan and China seem to be the most prolific consumers and subsidizers of fish, which explains the trend of all these sushi restaurants opening up around here. What impressed me the most is the fact that Japan will pay up to $150,000 for one bluenose tuna. That is probably worth the cost of chartering a boat for a month to search for a couple of them, if you could get the right licenses. No wonder organized crime has gotten into this game.

The chicken of the sea are not happy.

Book Napster Spyware?

Dummies guide to shooting self in foot: Publishers dream of limiting resale of books

While Cory Doctorow and David Weinberger are lighting up the internet (cosmos 1, 2)
with their principled pleas to Microsoft on the perils of DRM - a group
of publishers are talking up trying to chisel away the first sale doctrine which allows you to resell the books you buy.



This is an interesting concept. Amazon.ca & .com let you list
your entire library for resale online for no cost other than sales
comissions. You need to reply to any sales within 3 days to
be valid, and that's it. A great way of getting rid of those
books you've already read.



You can also do the same with CDs, not sure if you can on Amazon yet
though. I met a couple of university students awhile back who
ended up taking this concept and creating Deja-Vu discs, a used-CD
music store with tons of high-quality material and guarantees on
quality. They ended up picking up a new Nissan 300ZX in their
first year I think.



Can you do the same with MP3s or Itunes you purchase? Resell them for 1/2 price, or compile an album and resell it?



My latest thing has been picking up books from garage sales.
Where else can you find brand new hardcovers for $1 or less?



One problem with this addiction is lack of space and shelves.
Another is lack of time to read all this stuff. Finally there's
keeping track of your books.



Here's one solution. Bibliophil.org



I haven't really explored this site yet, however it looks
promising. This is sort of like a file-sharing system for
books. You have a buddy list and your entire collection of books
online, which can be loaned, traded, or sold fairly easily.



One scary thing about this is the privacy concerns.



Since I'm a garage sale addict, I have noticed that you can judge a
book by its cover, and an owner by their books. Generally I can
tell almost immediately what interests, occupations, and training a
book owner has, simply by looking at 3 or 4 titles in their boxes of
books. It is really amazing.



Imagine profiling people based on their book lists. Marketing to
them based on their interests. Taking the idea of Chapters or
Indigo Rewards to the next level.



Sounds alot like Google GMail to me.



A couple books I'm reading right now:



Golf for Dummies

The New Investment Frontier II

The Discipline of Market Leaders

How the Cadillac Got its Fins

Trump's The Art of the Deal

Speaking of Copyright Infringement

The RIAA, scourge of the United States, attacker of the commoners and protector of all artists rights and freedoms, has spread to Canada via CRIA.

Yay to the artists!
Boo to the bootleggerz and those evil grandmotherz and teenagerz downloading MP3z!

I am going to pick on Jann Arden tonight for lack of a better target. Nothing personal Jann. You seem to be a brilliant lady with deep emotions, and have a liking for dogs like I do, so I hope you understand that this is my opinion and nothing else.  

In a statement released by CRIA, Arden said she was "heartbroken" over the charges. "Touring is an incredibly important part of my career as a singer/songwriter. It's my job and it's how I connect with people," the musician noted. "Something special was taken from me and my audience."

C'mon Ms. Arden. I saw your concert a few years ago in Niagara Falls on New Years. You're a very talented person, and an amazing singer, but I don't think I'd buy your CD, even though you're getting a ton of stars at HMV Amazon. GM or Chrysler or Microsoft might buy it to advertise their cars though, and they seem to have a few more dollars in the bank than I do right now, plus maybe it will make me buy their car instead of the Nissan I'm driving around.   You can reach a much larger audience via television, books, and radio than concerts, though it's much cooler seeing you in person and wigging water bottles at bands during those festivals at Molson Park in Barrie.  Maybe you can sell USB keychains with your concert footage at the concert itself and avoid these pesky bootleggers.

My friend and I just paid $150 to Ticketmaster, $100 for dinner, gas & parking, $50 for drinks for us and our significant others, and got soaked in the rain waiting in line to see the Barenaked Ladies open for The Nits last Wednesday at The Mod Club.  $75/person isn't that bad I guess, though in the end all I have my memory of the event, and my memory is none too good lately, plus my fiancee and I are trying to pay for a wedding and really can't afford it. My good friend did pay for dinner and two of the tickets so it really only cost my fiancee and I $55.00 each.  It did made us all happy to go there though, and for $55.00 it was well worth the price of happiness and having a good time, and I will reinvest myself in this venture in the future for the four of us again.

I probably won't buy the Nits Album or the Barenaked Ladies album for awhile, but I would definately pickup the concert DVD when it's available, my friend and my fiancee will probably buy the BNKL albums if they don't already have them, and the people we talk to will know who The Nits are and how amazing the Barenaked Ladies concert was. 

The Nits are a really inspiring and eclectic band, and I can see where BNKL got their ideas and music influences from.  The two bands were nearly identical in the way they presented themselves.  It was great to see the torch being passed down through two generations of music.  I wonder who The Nits inspiration was?

The Mod Club is a venue owned by the former frontman for Platinum Blonde and is a great one.  It was one of the best concerts I have ever been to, and I have been to more than a few.  An acoustic set, intimate and interactive, with around 300 people there.  I found out about this one on The Barenaked Ladies blog since there wasn't much media hype about this. I will try and post some of my camera phone photos once my moblog is up and running.  They are really bad quality and may tick off the Barenaked Ladies and their label to no end but I am a fan now so hey... it's worth it to me.  If it shows up in HMV I will buy the DVD.  If it shows up on e-Bay I will buy the bootleg.

But wait.

I just found out I could have waited a day and got some Barenaked Ladies concert footage for free on MSNBC since they played The Today Show in New York at Rockefeller Plaza.  (Maybe not, since I'm using Firefox and the service only supports Internet Explorer browsers...)  Oops, am I bootlegging that link?  Sorry MSNBC & BNKL.

If I could find your concert that I attended on e-Bay I may just go ahead and pick it up though. There were a few artists I liked there and your set was really good, plus maybe my stupid big head was sticking out in front of the camera. If it's crappy quality I lose out, and if the artist doesn't make any money you lose out, and this guy wins. In this case, it is my stupidity for not going to HMV and paying $55 for your high-quality concert DVD, it is your stupidity for not tracking down this bootlegger yourself via your fan base or your record label or your lawyers or e-Bay and suing him in civil court to get your property back, and it is his advantage he gets to feed his family and support his elegant jet setting lifestyle from the proceeds of crime.

Maybe I am not taking this problem from the right angle, but just my $0.02, which is probably how much you made from your record label anyway, so I feel kind of bad for saying the above. Sorry Jann.

Wait a minute, do you have my concert DVD or video I can buy from you at HMV?
This link doesn't let me find one.  Do you have any DVD's or video's for sale? 
Not on E-Bay, the largest e-commerce site in the world with over $70,000,000,000 billion million dollars in transactions every quarter and growing.  You don't even have any bootlegs on there.  Great job on that one, you had better send a thank you card to your lawyers and RIAA/CRIA.

Guess I have to go back to that flea market in Hamilton, or that used CD store in Kingston, or that fan web site in Germany to track down this amazing concert I saw that you haven't published yet. As usual, most of the media hyped this local bust of this concert video bootlegger, without divulging the fact that he was a one-legged disabled man with two children selling his videos on eBay and at flea markets to support his family. (Of course I read this in a left-wing newspaper today so I don't really believe it, or should I?)

Not exactly the mastermind criminal portrayed in the media though.  He was selling his stuff at a Hamilton flea market for heaven's sake!  I do like these lines though:

Record and CD shows are common throughout Ontario. Catering to collectors, the shows specialize in used records and memorabilia. Most vendors are legitimate.

There were 48 vendors at the June 13 show, but plainclothes RCMP found only four selling bootlegs. One was caught burning a bootleg DVD for sale to a plainclothes Mountie. Two others voluntarily handed over their products to the RCMP after being warned. One other grabbed his computer and fled. RCMP Corporal Michele Paradis said
their investigation is continuing.

Is he worthy of months of investigations and judicial proceedings in the Canadian legal system for destroying the cash flow of these hundreds of uber-popular artists and their labels? Could it be that was what Jann was talking about when she said she was heartbroken, or was it the fact that he is a disabled man trying to support his family?

I do agree with Jann on this one though:

In England, a London bootlegger was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in jail yesterday for creating counterfeit CDs of artists like Oasis, the Beatles, Eminem and Madonna. The court was told Mark Purseglove, 33, pocketed £15 million (about $36 million Cdn.) between
1991 and 2002, using illicit recordings made by sound engineers and concert-goers.

That guy made $3.2 mil/year CDN, which is like $1.2 mil/year US.  I'm sure he wasn't hanging around at some scuzzy flea market in Hamilton, he was actually schmoozing the underpaid roadies in the bands.

After he was caught by Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman recording a Rolling Stones concert in 1992, the musicians pursued him through the High Court and he was put under a "perpetual restraining order" to halt his activities.

Now Mick and Bill are amazing businessmen.  That's how you get the job done.

Maybe it would make more sense for the artists rather than the criminal justice system or the RIAA/CRIA to take control of things like these. Make it a civil violation for first-time offenders. Seize all his assets from 'crime' and make the perpetrator work for a record label or an artist he stole from as a cheaply-paid intern, paid the same price as it would cost to house him in jail. Hey, indentured servitude sounds good! I'm sure the Rolling Stones could use someone to wash their yacht in the Caymans, or clean Mick's house in St. Maarten after he rents it out to the rich and famous.  Maybe Virgin Record's Richard Branson would like his airlines cleaned on a daily basis.  Sounds like pretty fitting and demeaning punishment to me, and much more productive than sticking him in a taxpayer funded cell so I have to pay for his bootlegging your concert footage.

Hey, he's a bootlegger, he's probably got good recording skills! Have the police or a designated civil appointee mail the artists back their bootlegs at his expense. At least then they could profit from these copyright infringements if they wanted to, or at least see a cool concert that they played 10 years ago but never thought was recorded, or redub it and offer good-quality bootlegs to their fans for $5 on their web sites, or get some free tapes in the mail so they could erase them and tape episodes of Friends on.

I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 a couple weeks ago.  Great movie, though Michael Moore is totally one-sided he gets his point across.  I think the moral of the movie was never trust the media, never trust politicians, only trust in yourself and empower yourself to know more.  I have to read Michael Moore's blog some more to get a better idea, and also the opposing sides of Mooreexposed.com and I guess I could buy a Time Magazine now that he is on the cover.

Here is an interesting link about Saudi Arabia's legal system.  How about deafening one ear of the copyright infringer.  That would probably violate some Amnesty International agreement, but might be an effective deterrent for copyright infringers over there, plus they couldn't tell if their bootlegs are working or not. The US Military already has the technology to do this to fishes in the sea.  James Taylor tells me so.

Here's another Frank Zappa bootleg on eBay. Go get 'em RIAA!

You can donate to our wedding account to your left if you would like, Jann.  I'm trying to sell some stuff on e-Bay myself to make some extra cash too, since I heard this was the easiest way to earn money on the internet.  Hope I don't get busted for selling unlicensed Batman or Simpsons memorabilia I found at a yard sale or an auction or in my basement, or infringing royalty rights for that old Mini-Pops record my fiancee picked up.  I wonder if James Taylor is selling anything on eBay?  He has some interesting links.

Jann Arden's blog is here

My friend's legitimate Indie Pop music site, www.poppolar.com  is here.

My Disclaimer: I do not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, even though it is pretty much accurate from what I can see from Google™.

Make More Mistakes

Eric Sink's articles are always an interesting read. Eric's company created SourceGear Vault, a source control system that is worlds better than the MS alternatives out there right now.

I blogged his article from last year, Make More Mistakes, awhile ago from Robert Scoble's blog.

I really like this comment. It embodies my attitude right now, so he must have read the same books I am now reading.

Sometimes you have to ignore the naysayers. If you know the odds are in your favor, you can go back and take the same risk again, even if people think you're crazy.

Craziness reminds me of quite a few entrepreneurs I have worked with and for. His lessons learned are great. Here's a few:

Be careful about fixed-bid projects.
Be careful about using bleeding-edge technologies.
Small ISVs should do software and stay out of real estate.
Investors don't like low-margin business models.
A market with no competition ain't.
The negative connotations of the word "middleman" are often deserved.
All contracts must be reviewed by an attorney. No exceptions.
Cash is supposed to flow from your customers to you, never the other way around.
Small ISVs should build apps, not platforms.

His new Hazards of Hiring article linked above is even better.

1. Hire After the Need, Not Before
2. Realize That Hiring Is All About Probabilities
3. Know the Law
4. Make Sure To Get a Variety of Opinions
5. Look for Self-Awareness
6. Hire Developers, Not Programmers
7. Education Is Good
8. But Too Much Education Is a Yellow Light
9. Look At the Code
10. The Very Best

Sorry for scraping so much of your articles Eric. Imitiation is the best form of flattery I guess. (or copyright infringement depending on how you look at it)

MP3 Blogs

One of my friends asked me where to get MP3s. The new underground way is now blogs. (well, it's not so underground now - see post)

I like reading Yahoo Most Emailed & Yahoo Most Viewed to see what the top news is that people are talking about or reading.

From a blog perspective, it would be interesting to be able to find some metrics sites on blogs, to be able to see what really are the most read and emailed blogs out there.

Mine would definately be in the bottom 99.985%. Let me go check my counter to see if it has gone up yet.

Google IPO info

This is an interesting read, even if it is an SEC filing. Google should be a neat IPO to follow. My thoughts are it will go in high and then tank when MS releases MSN Search. Just a prediction, do not hold me to anything!!!

Excerpts...



DON’T BE EVIL




Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.




Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating. We also display advertising, which we work hard to make relevant, and we label it clearly. This is similar to a newspaper, where the advertisements are clear and the articles are not influenced by the advertisers’ payments. We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and research, not only to the information people pay for you to see.



MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE



We aspire to make Google an institution that makes the world a better place. With our products, Google connects people and information all around the world for free. We are adding other powerful services such as Gmail that provides an efficient one gigabyte Gmail account for free. By releasing services for free, we hope to help bridge the digital divide. AdWords connects users and advertisers efficiently, helping both. AdSense helps fund a huge variety of online web sites and enables authors who could not otherwise publish. Last year we created Google Grants—a growing program in which hundreds of non-profits addressing issues, including the environment, poverty and human rights, receive free advertising. And now, we are in the process of establishing the Google Foundation. We intend to contribute significant resources to the foundation, including employee time and approximately 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form. We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION




Google is not a conventional company. Eric, Sergey and I intend to operate Google differently, applying the values it has developed as a private company to its future as a public company. Our mission and business description are available in the rest of the prospectus; we encourage you to carefully read this information. We will optimize for the long term rather than trying to produce smooth earnings for each quarter. We will support selected high-risk, high-reward projects and manage our portfolio of projects. We will run the company collaboratively with Eric, our CEO, as a team of three. We are conscious of our duty as fiduciaries for our shareholders, and we will fulfill those responsibilities. We will continue to attract creative, committed new employees, and we will welcome support from new shareholders. We will live up to our “don’t be evil” principle by keeping user trust and not accepting payment for search results. We have a dual-class structure that is biased toward stability and independence and that requires investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me.



In this letter we have explained our thinking on why Google is better off going public. We have talked about our IPO auction method and our desire for stability and access for all investors. We have discussed our goal to have investors who determine a rational price and invest for the long term only if they can buy at that price. Finally, we have discussed our desire to create an ideal working environment that will ultimately drive the success of Google by retaining and attracting talented Googlers.



We have tried hard to anticipate your questions. It will be difficult for us to respond to them given legal constraints during our offering process. We look forward to a long and hopefully prosperous relationship with you, our new investors. We wrote this letter to help you understand our company.

Other People's Money and Garage Sales

For a couple of months now, I have been reading the assortment of books (mostly business and investment books) I have acquired from garage sales in the Toronto area. It is really amazing how many books people will buy for $50 or more, and never even crack the spine on them.

A few of the books I read talk about the concept of OPM (Other People's Money) and it is a great concept. Consider this:

Someone buys a book (say Java 2 for Dummies) for $50 bucks.
They sell it to a used book store for ($5)
The used book store sells it for ($10)
Someone else sells it at a garage sale for $1. (or in my case $0.25)
I buy it from them.

I just used other people's money to purchase a $50 book for $0.25. Not a bad deal, eh? What happens when I sell that book to a used book store for $5 and repeat the cycle? What about taking all these books and putting your entire library on Amazon.com.

No wonder books are one of the top selling items on the internet.

Buying Swampland on the Moon

The original Moonland Registry, which sold novelty deeds as an affiliate of the Lunar Embassy, has been discontinued following the arrest and conviction of its operator, Lisa Fulkerson, of Chatham, Ontario (Canada), on a variety of criminal charges, including fraud.

Too bad there's no waterfront property on the moon.

I found this site when looking for cheap land under $50k. www.dignam.com gives you a free catalog of land across Canada for under $50K, which you can drop on your credit card if you like. Please comment if you have heard of this one or if you get some good deals.

What I'm really interested in is land in Brazil. Fortaleza is one of the nicest places I have been to, with mountains, sand dunes, oceans, beaches, and civilization and lack of it. Try this beachfront property if you're interested in purchasing something that you need to see a satellite photo of to comprehend the size. All for 400K in Euros (about 650K CDN)

How about building the first golf course in the state there... sounds like a good idea to me.

Bugs and Microsoft

This is really interesting. Microsoft is exposing all of the bugs and feature requests they get from customers in the new Visual Studio and .NET realtime on this site. I have worked with Microsoft support in the past and they are mostly very thorough in their findings. I wonder if the same will happen with this site.

All of a sudden the customer has instant access to the company and in full public view can publish their problems and suggestions, and trail through how Microsoft responds to these problems or suggestions.

I sent a suggestion off to Heinz so that their customers will stop bending forks when opening the new ketchup squeeze bottles. I did ask for a few things in return for implementing my million-dollar idea (a tour of the plant, some ketchup, etc.) but was interested to get the following response:

Our Company does not solicit ideas, product or packaging concepts, recipes, or other submissions from outside sources. Rather, we rely on the creativity and analysis of our employees, including internal research and development, marketing, and advertising groups, combined with contracted external agencies.


Well, I could be an external agency. Contract me! :)

Seriously though, a business should listen to its customers, as they will probably end up having the potential of being a far more valuable resource than the employees of a company or a contracted company that is boxed in by the requirements of the contract rather than free-thinking.

Then again, listening to your customers may get you this.

Read this before Fox cracks down on it.

Thinking of Firefox again

Mark from the SQL Team @ MS blogs about Firefox (well, indirectly anyway).

Do you remember the movie Firefox? (Okay, that came out in 1982, before some of you were even born, but at the time I was a Clint Eastwood fan and into military aircraft, so back off!) The key to the movie is that the jet (codenamed Firefox) has a neural connection and the pilot controls things like firing armament by thinking the command. Of course, it being the 1980s, the bad guys we were stealing the plane from were the Russians (or probably more accurately Soviet Union) so Clint had to THINK in Russian.

What if you could just think at the computer and it would do what you said to, just like an arm or a leg?

Anyway, the purpose of his blurb is recapped:
So, what language do you think in? Is it the same one that you're currently being paid to use? If not, you are not as efficient as you could be. And your code may be horribly inefficient, too.

I asked my friend this one time, since he is Brazillian and speaks Portugese, what language he thinks in. I think he said English, but since he speaks at least 5 languages now, including German and SQL, I am not too sure.

read more here

wiki wiki whack!

Something just whacked me upside the head. I have been using OneNote off and on for awhile now (mostly off until it becomes a little less rigid and a little more drag-n-drop).

One of the good things about OneNote is its ability to search notes, and to be the central repository for all those little .txt notepad files that end up everywhere.

One of the bad things is there was no import or export tools.

There is an import tool now. Haven't seen any XML export tools yet but it can't be that hard. If you can get it in, you should be able to spit it out.

What about an RSS feed directly from your OneNote software, to Sharepoint? Does anyone know if this exists?

Another good thing about OneNote is that it is a great tool for gathering requirements from meetings. This lends it to the Wiki model of hyperlinking the entire document with helpful information, and group collaboration, maybe with Sharepoint Portal Services.

Hmm... Sort of like team blogging to create an encyclopedia of the project and it's requirements...
http://journals.tuxreports.com/lch/archives/000203.html

xTreme Programming

A great place to track down every possible resource and piece of software related to fast, effective programming.

Includes acceptance testing software, unit testing software, and the methodologies and practices around xtreme programming.

Hit with new worm?

The Korgo L and P variants are highlighted today for unpatched MS04-011 workstations or servers. The author continues to improve the worm capabilities with each release.

Files in your Mozilla profile directory

A great description of the personally-identifiable information stored in your web browser, relating to Firefox and Mozilla. That's a lot of stuff to sync up. Also good for backup, another good application for my previous sync-yourself idea. How about you have backup/restore information stored remotely with your most critical files? Another good application with FTP Sync. Now how about versioning too....

I just thought of another idea here, how about using your internet habits as a reflection of your personality? Based on what you look at on the internet, this is the personality profile that you fit into. Sort of like SQL Profiler & Query Optimizer for real life. Geeky but probably useful.

I wonder why they have Portugese as a second option there? Any ideas? Is Mozilla the browser of Brazil?

Firefox extensions warning

Just a warning to do not go crazy with the Firefox extensions & themes available out there.

Here is how to uninstall extensions when the software won't load.

(Hey it's still version 0.9. It's still better than Netscape 6 or IE 6.2)

Share files between friends and family

clevercactus share is a private and secure environment to share files with people you know. It is simple and easy to use, it is free for individual users, educational institutions, and non-profit corporations, and it runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Groove is the business alternative to this.

You can also try this DIY method with your ISP's FTP account, or a 3rd-party account using FTPSync.

Here is an awesome idea for an all-encompassing file synchronization tool. All applications should share your preferences on the internet, so that when you login to your PC, your mobile, or your laptop, or a friend's PC, it instantly recognizes who you are and sets up your desktop the way you like.

The tool should synchronize your mail, bookmarks, contacts, links, music playlists, start menu, buddy lists, ftp, saved games, etc. etc.

It should allow you to right-click on an application in the start menu and select Synch Preferences, or right click on the start menu and select Synchronize All Applications.

You should have a management tool to synchronize all preferences and setup locations for files and preferences to be synchronized.

There should be an autodiscovery of common preference locations and updates via a web service, to make it easier for the non-tech person to figure out how to do this.

Maybe I should start this project up on sourceforge.net

I still want to get my Sync Up Your Car idea going. Having my stereo stolen every few months is a bit frustrating, and it would help if the only thing in there was a removable face with a USB connector. You can't steal something that's not there.

A good idea would be to embed the technology into the dashboard. I would buy something with Digital Rights Management just so I could find out when it was plugged into somebody else's car. Then I would sic my dog on them.

What could you do if you had a USB connector in your car? How about dial-up or wireless internet? Maybe Bluetooth-enabled cars?

7 Habits for Business Success

7 Habits for the Business Success of an Entrepreneur:

Plan Thoroughly
Get Organized Before You Get Started
Find the Right People
Delegate Wisely
Inspect What You Expect
Measure What Gets Done
Keep People Informed

Microsoft Skills and Drills

By completing a Microsoft Skills Assessment, you will receive a Personalized Learning Plan to help you understand if you are ready to implement specific business solutions. Your Personalized Learning Plan will include the Microsoft Official Curriculum courses, Microsoft Press books, and Microsoft TechNet resources that will help you with your preparation.

Great site for MS Certification practice.

Firefox Review - setting the world on fire

Popup Blocking
Tabbed Browsing
Smarter Search
Privacy and Security
Hassle-Free Downloading
Fits Like a Glove
S M L XL XXL XXXL
Setup's a Snap
A Developer's Best Friend

Firefox has got to be one of the most exciting pieces of software I have used in a long time. An open-source, embeddable web browser from Mozilla, Firefox is the latest release from a company which touts its product as "The Future of the Browser". And it's free.

Currently a 4.7MB download available here, Firefox is a very streamlined piece of software. It is refreshing to see the bloatware of Netscape disappear with the release of this product.

First install took less than a minute, and after a couple of uses I decided to switch browsers. (of course I am still typing this in IE - more about that later) Choose the custom config and get the Web Developer Toolbar, a revolutionary add-on that every person who has to deal with web pages will want.

The Web Developer Toolbar allows you to change the way pages are viewed on-the-fly. Some of the more interesting features:

• Display image dimensions


• Find broken images


• Zoom in/out


• Hide images or make them invisible


• View Speed Report


• Show Comments


• Custom-sized browsers


• CSS/HTML/Standards Validator


• Link Checker


• View Response Headers


• View Cookies

....Catching breath....

• Display Form Details


• Show Passwords


• View Form Information


• Outline Table Cells

There's really no point in listing them all, just download it.

Be wary of plugins. The main reason I am using Internet Explorer right now is the fact that I tried every plugin out there and one of them pooched the installation really nicely. If this happens to you, there is some documentation about running the tool with the firefox.exe -p switch, and creating a new profile.

That got me back up and running nicely. Speaking of extensions, there are quite a few and sure to be hundreds of these additional plugins for Firefox in the next few days. There is a tool to synchronize your bookmarks via FTP. An RSS Reader. A notepad. An ad-blocker. A DOM inspector. A Google Bar. (There's actually a few Google bars). A utility to search University web sites from A-Z. A tool to .... you get the idea.

Skins have become a big thing since WinAmp and this is no different. There are a few Themes available out there and more to come, which make the tool look uber-cool.

There is a Download Manager, with a cleanup option, and an extension for moving different downloads to alternate paths.

The tabbed-browsing piece has been available for awhile. It is still great. Forget scrolling through the taskbar to find the IE window with the 3 letters that may contain the window you are looking for.

Auto-open a folder of your favourites. How about opening up all your favourites at the same time, in the same window.

The GUI still has some bugs to iron out (click customize on the toolbar and see), and the install bailed when importing my IE History, but it doesn't matter. This is 0.9, and still much better than alot of 2.0-shipped software out there.

This will be the next killer-app if things go right for Mozilla. Once they get a few more blogging extensions in there, a media-player, integration with E-bay, Paypal, Amazon, and GMail, and some weather & traffic applets, streaming audio, and .... wait.

Nevermind. A 4MB download is enough for now.

Introducing the Visual Basic .NET Power Pack Get the Visual Basic Power Pack, a collection of custom controls that provides enhanced user interface elements to client based applications.

[via MSDN Just Published]

DIY Action Figures

This is really cool. Do it yourself Action Figures.

Sure, they're like $500 bucks but what an awesome gift. Voice recordings too?!?

I think I'm like the 11'th person to sign up as an affiliate so maybe this is a ground-floor opportunity.

Check these out:
Pink Dress for Action Figure
Embarass your villain action figure by dressing it with this lovely pink dress. This dress fits all of the Herobuilders.com action figures.

Hip-Hop Outfit
Get this cool outfit for your action figure. Includes white sleeveless t-shirt & cargo shorts (available in black, beige, or blue).

check it out here

Scoble is using Firefox.  The browser wars are back again.

Mozilla leader says Microsoft doesn't care

Ars Technica interviews Mozilla.com's Scott Collins.

"Microsoft is a juggernaut, a terrible enemy to have. Terrible because they just don't care, they don't have to care — it's like the mosquito on the elephant. So, no, I don't think having Microsoft as an enemy or having them come out ahead of us made us hungrier. For some people, that's probably true, but I think people are driven by their own individual motivations."

Well, you can say a lot of things about us, but saying we don't care? Not in my experience. Every Microsoft employee I meet cares deeply about what they are doing. I wish I could give Scott a tour of campus. Heck, Scott, just watch the videos I've been putting up on Channel9. Are those the voices of people who don't care about what they do?

And, I know quite a few of the people on the IE team. They are not happy at all that I'm using Firefox. Whenever I have lunch or a meeting with someone on the IE team they ask me "how can we get you back?"

Is that the sentiment of people who don't care about what they are doing?

[via Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]

Mozilla Project Officially Releases Firefox 0.9 _xeno_ writes "The last release candidate was apparently good enough, because Mozilla Firefox 0.9 has now been officially released. New features since 0.8 are, ...

Lots of good stuff out there today.  Tuesday is supposed to be the most productive day of the week.  Too bad it's Wednesday.

I installed Firefox 0.9 and it bailed on importing my Internet History.  It sort of reminds me of Opera without the bloat (if you can believe that).  Netscape went from being the piggiest browser on the planet to starting over from scratch.   There's a good one in the comments on this site about Netscape suing MS a couple of years ago: dude anything that microsoft does is legal. they're the o.j. of software companies.  I wonder what they will do to compete with Netscape reborn.

Here's a good one about How to Become as Rich as Bill Gates. I don't want to get to that level, but if someone can shoot me $800K I'll have my 5 year plan complete.  The first $1M is the hardest, so I figure I should leave a bit left to work for if my Paypal account fills up before then.

Toronto's Daily Dose of Imagery has some wild photo shots of the Big Smoke (or smokeless now, there's a lot more people standing outside bars in T.O.) and I guess they've branched out to the suburbs now.

the chair

25 second exposure of a very dark room in whitby's abandoned psychiatric hospital.

http://infiltration.org/usufruct/index.rdf - A cool site on the hobby of Infiltration - scoping out places you really shouldn't go and do anyway.

Index Creation Guidelines Index Creation Guidelines for SQL Server can be pretty sparse. Usually there are a couple, clustered index for ranges, nonclustered, etc. Leo Peysakhovich has taken some time to write down his guidelines based on his experience for creating indexes and the rational for doing so. He's also taken a few minutes to look at which indexes NOT to create, something that might be worth knowing..

 

How about same-day delivery?

This will help my Ebay Auction shipping costs.

Teleportation breakthrough made

By Paul Rincon
BBC News Online science staff


In the past, teleportation has only been possible with particles of light Image: Rainer Blatt Scientists have performed successful teleportation on atoms for the first time, the journal Nature reports.

Crazy. We are at the beginning of a new era here. I read about some flying car last week (not sure if that was real or not) and now this.

Web vs. Windows

Joel on Software has a gynormous amount to say about software.

My feelings about Web apps pretty much match his, though I disagree with some of the things he says can't be done well with them. (Look at Flash, sort of a desktop plugin I guess but blurring the line).

I have been working with web sites pretty much since the early '90's, and building web apps for Business Intelligence (great oxymoron) for at least 8 years. It is very tiresome to implement 'workarounds' to fix code that doesn't work in a customer's version 3 IE browser, but at least we aren't dealing with DLL hell here.

Quoting Joel:
Web Applications are easier to deploy because there's no installation involved. Installing a web application means typing a URL in the address bar. Today I installed Google's new email application by typing Alt+D, gmail, Ctrl+Enter. There are far fewer compatibility problems and problems coexisting with other software. Every user of your product is using the same version so you never have to support a mix of old versions. You can use any programming environment you want because you only have to get it up and running on your own server. Your application is automatically available at virtually every reasonable computer on the planet. Your customers' data, too, is automatically available at virtually every reasonable computer on the planet.

But there's a price to pay in the smoothness of the user interface. Here are a few examples of things you can't really do well in a web application:

1. Create a fast drawing program
2. Build a real-time spell checker with wavy red underlines
3. Warn users that they are going to lose their work if they hit the close box of the browser
4. Update a small part of the display based on a change that the user makes without a full roundtrip to the server
5. Create a fast keyboard-driven interface that doesn't require the mouse
6. Let people continue working when they are not connected to the Internet

These are not all big issues. Some of them will be solved very soon by witty Javascript developers. Two new web applications, Gmail and Oddpost, both email apps, do a really decent job of working around or completely solving some of these issues. And users don't seem to care about the little UI glitches and slowness of web interfaces. Almost all the normal people I know are perfectly happy with web-based email, for some reason, no matter how much I try to convince them that the rich client is, uh, richer.

So the Web user interface is about 80% there, and even without new web browsers we can probably get 95% there. This is Good Enough for most people and it's certainly good enough for developers, who have voted to develop almost every significant new application as a web application.

Which means, suddenly, Microsoft's API doesn't matter so much. Web applications don't require Windows.

Well, they will in the next version, from what I'm reading online. Watch out Google.

Speaking of web apps that DO require windows, checkout Dave's Toolbar It actually uses javascript to display an all-powerful search box in your taskbar. I haven't even tapped into the usefulness of that one yet.

And for something totally off topic, the Top 11 80's Cartoon Villains.

$375 and all the software in the fridge

Microsoft has an ISV package for MS Partners - $375USD for an MSDN subscription.

Microsoft Empower for ISVs offers the following benefits:

Up to five (5) software licenses (for internal use):
Microsoft Windows® XP or Windows 2000 Professional
Microsoft Office XP (Premium or Developer Edition) or Microsoft Office 2003 Editions
One (1) software license and up to five (5) Client Access Licenses (CALs) for:
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server (Standard or Advanced Edition) or Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 (Standard or Enterprise Edition)
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server (Standard or Enterprise Edition) or Microsoft Exchange 2003 Server (Standard or Enterprise Edition)
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Get it here if you have a small business and don't already have this.

Another cool toy - 3D GPS

ala Grand Theft Auto Vice City, the best game ever.

Testing .NET apps

Peter Provost has started a petition to include unit testing in VS 2005. Just download Nunit.

Unit Testing support should be included with all versions of Visual Studio 2005 and not just with Team System.

Wesley's blog

Wil Wheaton has a blog. After I saw him last week on the Xbox G4TV Halo Championship show I wondered whatever happened to that guy. Guess I know, and will never ask again.

Just wish he wore a red shirt on the last episode of STTNG. :)

William Shatner: Now men, we are about to go on a very dangerous mission. It is highly likely that one of you will die.
The crew that will go with me are Spock, McCoy and Ensign Ricky.
Ensign Ricky: Aw crap

And IBM's bigger brother - that monitor doesn't look too portable

Downsizing Never Looked So Good
By Lauren Simonds
June 11, 2004

OqO - A Windows XP 1 GHZ Transmeta 20GB the size of an Altoids can

OqO

This mini-computer is pretty cool, runs xp! Designed to replace pda's, laptops and smartphones...

Their email is so swamped right now and they are not returning requests for quotations. Their support site is 'Under Construction'

Last count in the free Hub magazine article I saw says they had over 10,000 orders @ $2.5k USD and it doesn't even come out until Aug/Sept.

MSNBC Article

This will definately replace my tape walkman.

Stack Full Error Part 1

I didn't realize people could talk so much. There are over 1+ million blogs out there and at last count I must have subscribed to most of them, or at least within 2 degrees of separation. This has caused some serious lagtime in my RSS Reader, RSS Bandit, otherwise a great tool that I'll keep for day-to-day reads since it can easily synch with my laptop. My problem is when I added all the MSDN feeds for pretty much everyone in the company that has a feed. I think MS employees are mandated to post at least once a day, and if that's in relation to their bonuses, they are going to be big this year. My other problem is when I added all the Blogrolls. A Blog Roll is a list of all the subscriptions a person has. If Robert Scoble had all his subscribed feeds printed out for a day, I am sure we could climb our way to Mars. The Scobleizer's bonus should be at the top of the pool, since he also works for MS. After 1 week I'm kind of happy with the fact that this has happened, since now I know the limitations of a couple of the readers out there, and I can stop reading this stuff for a bit. If anyone knows of a self-help group for this stuff please let me know. There's a couple guys in a similar predicament who seem to have solved this issue. Let's give it a try.

Microsoft TechEd 2004 Powerpoints

If you are a SQL DBA like me, this stuff is gold. Not sure when I'm going to get the time to scour all of this.

You can also find some MIT Courseware if you search Google or Teoma. MIT for free - I'm in.

Also, Microsoft has a site called MSDNAA that gives you all the free training you need for .NET and other MS tools.

There is way too much going on in the blogging world right now. Scobleizer's blog has given me enough to read for the rest of my life, and there doesn't seem to be any way of catching up.

Speaking of geeks, check out Napolean Dynamite. Saw a free preview last night, friggin' hilarious. Also, after a popcorn box leaked Becel all over my new Dockers I got some more free movie passes, and my dry cleaning done for the week. I dragged the popcorn box over the Customer Service desk to illustrate how disgustingly greasy it was. Worked well!

Challenge?!? Double-deuce?!? Strong Bad has been the highlight of Monday's for awhile. One of the most-viewed sites on the 'net, Homestar needs to get his own movie soon.

Good blogging

The Marquee de Sells blog has some interesting stuff. Chris is the Content Strategist for MS Longhorn dev web site.

How about tracking your web site using Simcity instead of just charts and graphs. Here's what Chris has to say about this one.

VisitorVille maps your real-time web site data to a SimCity-like environment that you can use to see where folks are going on your site and how they're navigating from one place to another. It does the other web traffic kinds of analysis, too, but the ability to watch your visitors in real-time looks pretty darn cool. This is the kind of thing that Longhorn should be good at enabling.

Like the self-promotion thing but he's right - I have been working with various tools from vendors such as MS, Kana/Broadbase, Marketwave/Accrue, NetIQ, etc. and this one takes the cake for cool-factor. Hope it will support X-box in the next version.

Sort of reminds me of the feeling I got when I first saw that Analyzer tool that came with Site Server. Kinda makes your stomach drop when you're zooming around all the links.

Great Quotes that may come true

"The world will only need five computers"
attributed to Thomas J. Watson, IBM

"640 kilobytes is all the memory you will ever need"
attributed to Bill Gates, Microsoft

"There is absolutely no need for a computer in the home"
attributed to Ken Olsen, DEC (once a leading minicomputer manufacturer)

1. What if all the computers in the world become connected. Are they now one?
2. What if each computer in the world only had 640k and they were all connected. Isn't that all you need?
3. What if you had an appliance in your home that talked to this computer. No more need for a computer in your home.

The grid is an interesting concept. (What is the Matrix??)

Software Development

This man seems to be on top of things here, when it comes to the software development process.