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10/24/2006 Joining TechnoratiDecided to join Technorati and see what the fuss is about.Technorati Profile 8/23/2006 The Big Picture - Visual Data Representation
I was reading an article about Wikipedia on CNET when I saw they had something called the Big Picture that provides a visual representation of how this article is related to a host of different articles. I've seen similar things for music and in the Visual Thesaurus, but hadn't seen it implemented on a news site before. Very cool! It's powered by a tech called Live Plasma. Is it a gimmick or a valuable discoverability and relationship identifying tool for the visually minded. Time will tell. 8/21/2006 The Return of Kozmo? Oh yeah, I loved Kozmo back in the day - who wouldn't love receiving ice cream, DVDs and dinner in under an hour? It's like combining the DVD search functionality of Netflix with the immediacy of a local Blockbuster (but with better food). If BB had really wanted to save their business, they should have gone in this direction instead of trying to beat Netflix at its own game. I always thought Kozmo would have been a viable dot.com if it had just been managed better. Lo and behold a couple of ex-Kozmo execs have decided to give it another try with MaxDelivery. Right now they're only servicing NYC, but if you want them to branch out to your neck of the woods, visit the web-site and input your zip code. Let them know that you want MaXDelivery NOW! Will it contribute to couch-potato-ism and the overall decline of American society - probably, but what a way to go!Windows Live WriterThanks to my buddy Steve (aka Vidguy) for turning me onto Windows Live Writer. A handy little tool for blogging and creating some nice layouts. It definitely make Blogging easier! If you're someone who blogs regularly on Windows Live Spaces, definitely check it out! 2/18/2006 Wow! This stuff really works!OK I have to admit that like most busy folks, when I first heard about Linked In - I thought, "Oh great, another one of those social networking sites a la Friendster & Orkut that's just another big waste of time." However, I have to admit that this shit really works. Shortly after I left Microsoft I updated my Plaxo information (another great service!) and my Linked In entries in the hopes that people wouldn't completely forget me during my sabbatical.
Lo and behold, a couple of months later I got a few ticklers, completely unsolicited - one was to become a founder for a gaming start-up and the other to do some part-time consulting. I was pleasantly surprised, and explained I might be available in a few months to do stuff, but for now needed some downtime.
So in January I actually started doing some consulting for FrogHop - a tech start-up focused on extending data and game-play from online PCs and consoles out to mobile devices. (yeah I know, right up my alley right?) As part of my efforts to support my client, I figured it would be helpful to reactivate my Linked In network and make sure all my info and contacts were up to date. Once again as part of that process, I received 3 more job/project opportunities - some of them very interesting indeed.
I attribute this to a couple of things - one is that it's unfortunately very true that "out of sight, out of mind." And if you manage Linked In carefully, it helps you stay "In Mind." Secondly and perhaps more importantly, Linked In trades on trust - which as the Internet continues to grow, becomes an increasingly precious commodity. Linked in uses the "six degrees of separation" model to connect a wide-range of people together, and ALSO enable your own contacts to provide personal endorsements for your work. This is incredibly powerful - I'm a firm believer in the power of personal referrals and if one of my trusted contacts vouches for you - that says volumes. The site even lets you post an online resume with endorsements embedded in it, and links back to the people who endorse you. All of the employment inquiries I've received have been unsolicited - can you imagine what might happen if I were to list myself as actively job-seeking? 2/10/2006 FlashForward ConferenceAs part of my on-going love affair with Flash, I just signed up for the Flash Forward conference this month. According to my instructor, this is the mecca of all things Flash, and after reviewing the conference track I found a couple of gems that were impossible to resist:
If any of you crazy guys are attending this and want to hook up, drop me a line! 2/7/2006 New Toy - Toshiba Tablet PC (Day 1)Well, I'm actually starting to do a little consulting work on the side (more on that later) plus I've long been coveting one of these for digital sketching. The Toshiba Satellite R-10 is a little heavier than I would have liked (6 lbs) but it does have a DVD-R drive built in - which is always good for those long plane trips. Lastly it uses one of the new Intel Extreme on-board graphics chips, which can play WoW. So far I've been impressed w/ the hand-writing recognition, and it comes with a 15-day graphics program called Alias Sketch, which seems promising. GAH! I'm an RSS Feed Junky!RSS Feeds are basically streams of data (usually headlines) that come from most popular web-sites and blogs. Thanks to Steve for pointing me to Bloglines, which makes it way too easy to subscribe to, aggregate and manage these feeds. This must have been what it was like for CNN junkies in the 80's. It's push technology that actually works.
I'm reminded of those sci-fi movies where the telepath's powers come online and they find themselves overwhelmed by everyone's thoughts around them. The pure amount of data is insane, but there are such juicy gems to be found that it's hard to resist. Trying to keep on top of all the feeds is about as futile as that guy who tried to get "smarter" by reading the entire encyclopedia. For the mystically minded of you, maybe this is what its like to experience an Aleph - that heightened state of consciousness that allows you to experience reality from multiple perspectives simultaneously.
At the very least it'll be a source of great quotes, cocktail party small-talk ... and I possibly might learn a thing or two. Way waaaaay too easy to spend too much of my time feed surfing. With this tool, curiosity could literally kill the cat. 8/13/2005 Safe ComputingWe all know we should do it - it's probably the #1 procrastinated thing for PC users everywhere. But when the shit hits the fan, boy do you sure wish you'd done it. We are of course talking about basic PC Hygiene and Back-Up. Who wants to worry about this stuff when you've got games to play or sites to surf? Still as more of our lives become digital, making sure our photos, videos, address books etc stay safe and secure becomes more important than ever. Fortunately, Bill Gates & co. realize this and believe it or not there are many companies putting out good products to keep your PC running, you just have to use them.
You brush your teeth everyday don't you? (if you don't, I don't want to know). Well now that are programs to basically do the same thing for your PC, and do it automatically while you're sleeping. Here's what I'm currently using and I'm very happy with it:
Retrospect BackUpI googled around for references on Back-Up software and strategies, and found very little useful information. However, based on my personal experience, here's what I'd recommend to you. Firstly, mass storage has become so cheap these days that a 200 GB external hard-drive can be had for under $200. I bought a Maxtor Firewire drive at Costco, and it came with a copy of Retrospect Express backup software. Every 2 days at 4AM, Retrospect automatically backs-up the contents of my entire hard-drive to this external hard-drive, uncompressed and unencrypted. Therefore in the cases of minor emergencies and deletions, I can quickly recover. Takes about an hour.
However this is only the first line of defense - what about a catastrophic data loss from something that takes out both my PC and the external hard-drive, like a fire? For this I resolved to do a monthly back-up of my essential files, basically the contents of My Documents. Retrospect has a cool technology that tracks changes to your files, so that you only have to do a full back-up of your files once, and then subsequent back-ups are only of the files that have changed since your original full back-up. This is really useful for conserving the number of discs you use for back-up. In my case, I wanted to back-up via my DVD-R, and had to upgrade from the Express to the Profesional version to get that support.
Lastly, Retrospect comes with a Disaster Recovery wizard that walks you through creating a set of discs for you to fall back on in case of the worst. I'll be taking these and my DVD back-ups and putting them off-site in our safety deposit box at the bank. Norton Anti-VirusFor almost as long as there have been PC's there have been viruses - and Norton has been duking it out with them all those years. Now combined with Live Update, which downloads new virus signatures on an almost daily basis, Norton Anti-Virus fights a never-ending battle against the ass-clowns who would clog, cripple and commandeer your PC.Microsoft AntiSpywareYep Spyware has become both prevalent and insidious. It gets downloaded in the background and tracks where you go, or worse, what you type. Don't think it could happen to you? My friend had her identity stolen by Spyware that got downloaded from a Yahoo Merchant. Microsoft AntiSpyware is in beta now, and you can download it for free. It's constantly updating itself and is very mindful of the activity on your PC. Download it here.
Windows UpdateThis ones's a no-brainer. It ships with the last few versions of Windows. Configure it to download and install updates in the background. This makes sure you get the latest security fixes to Windows as soon as they come out. I've never had a problem with it. Worst case if you do, just use System Restore (also in Windows) to roll your system back to before the last update.
Hope folks find this info useful. |
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