Giving a whole new meaning to server farm... Obvious point of the day: technology changes many things. That's never more clear than in this story on CNN.com about the use of technology on farms. How is that people on farms get branded as "hicks" when they've got cooler technology than half the folks in this country? Sounds like city cousin might want to pay attention to what country cousin's been up to. K-E-W-L, cool!  ¶ 8:53 PM 1 comments

  Help those impacted by tsunami in Southeast Asia The Red Cross is accepting donations for the International Response Fund to help those impacted by the tsunamis that hit Southeast Asia on Sunday. If you can help, please do.  ¶ 1:21 PM 0 comments

  Truth is stranger than fiction...science fiction, that is. Uh...damn. This is straight out of some Star Trek episode. Or, maybe the Twilight Zone. A 55-year-old woman in Virginia just gave birth to her daughter's triplets. Seriously. So she is both the grandmother and the birth mother of the kids. Grandma advises her daughter to love them unconditionally. Which coming from a 55-year-old who just gave birth to her kid's triplets sets the bar mighty high, I think.  ¶ 6:29 PM 0 comments

  A brief message from our sponsors...in China By the way, most of this stuff is written using w.bloggar, a program out of Brazil, written by a guy named Marcelo Cabral. It's a wonderful tool, and turns my blogging provider into the best content management system I've ever used. Seriously. People like Interwoven and VIgnette could learn a thing or two about inline editing from this thing. So, anyway, now I'm using a blogging tool from Brazil, and a text editor from South Korea (the excellent EditPlus) to keep my site up-to-date. The EU forced Microsoft to change Windows. If you buy an IBM laptop next year, it will be from China. Is it just me, or is the U.S. fading a bit in the technology cosmos? I don't want to sound too provincial here. It's not necessarily a bad thing. All those unemployed programmers may get their jobs back in a few years when China, Brazil, and India start outsourcing to the U.S. for cheaper labor.  ¶ 6:15 PM 0 comments

  Stores? We don't need no stinkin' stores... So, it appears that the holiday shopping season wasn't all that cheery, according to this news.com article. The really interesting trend is that consumers apparently don't like doing the online thing as much, though, because they're less likely to get the impulse buy for themselves while shopping. I guess it's better to give and receive, eh?  ¶ 6:02 PM 0 comments

  Um... huh? This one I don't get. This guy on MacNewsWorld is talking about the price of Macs vs. the price of PCs. I think he's nuts. Here's why:
I just took my PowerBook G4 (about 2,800 bucks, plus $380 for AppleCare) back to the Apple store. A very sad day, indeed. However, I've replaced it with a Dell Inspiron 9200, complete with a 17" screen, 1 GB RAM, an 80 gig drive, 3 years support, Bluetooth, Wifi, DVD burning, and an upgraded battery for a bit over $2,700. And they throw in a printer (though they do make you buy the cable). Maybe the processors don't compare. I honestly don't know, and frankly, I don't care. I couldn't percieve any difference in the operating speed between them. If the Mac's processor is faster, and it could be, I don't see it in the types of things I do, like spreadsheets, email, basic photo editing, and updating my web site.

Now here's the kicker. I own Photoshop, Office, Dreamweaver, and Quicken for the PC already. That's probably another grand worth of software. Additionally, I use a couple of really cool text editors for doing HTML. The best text editor I could find for the Mac (the excellent BBEdit), costs $180. Whereas the two that I like best on Windows, EditPlus and HTML-Kit, are $30 and free, respectively. I can use Firefox on both, iTunes on both, Office on both, vi on both, Perl on both (vi and Perl at the terminal shell on the Mac). They're both excellent machines. For people who don't have a legacy on PCs (and the software that goes with it), I'd easily recommend the Mac. I may yet break down and buy an eMac to satisfy my Mac jones. If you want to argue which provides the greater value, I might get onboard. But to compare Macs to PCs and conclude, out of hand, that the Mac costs less is simply a fiction.
  ¶ 7:31 PM 1 comments

  More on the Mac situation OK, I've caved. After spending the better part of the last two days really getting to know my PowerBook, I broke down, went to dell.com and ordered an Inspiron 9200. It's also got a 17" screen, 1GB of memory, DVD-R (all flavors), an 80GB hard drive. It's also about $600 less money and it will run all of my existing softward and I don't have to learn how to do everything I know how to do all over again. Oh, and they throw in a printer for free.

To be fair, the Mac is an awesome machine. It made me excited about a new computer for the first time in a really, really long time. I think I drove my wife near to nuts going on about how unbelievably cool the DVD burner is (it really, really is). Still, convention seems to have won out for now. Time will tell.  ¶ 3:41 AM 0 comments

  So sad... Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. A day late. I got the best present in the world for Christmas yesterday. A shiny, brand-spanking new, Apple PowerBook G4 (17" model, thank you very much). Just what I wanted, what I'd asked for, what I'd pleaded like a child to get. I love it. It's the coolest computer I've ever owned. Here's the bad part: it's probably going back. Why, you might ask? Because, despite my unbridled passion for it, despite its glorious 17" screen, despite its oh so satisfying keboard, and the fact that it runs everything I need it to, I can't use it. Not that it's not user-friendly. It's very user friendly. It's just that its version of user-friendlyness is different (better) than that of the four Windows computers I use every day between work and home. I spend way too much time using computers that don't work like this to learn to use it as efficiently as I run all my other computers. For instance, I'm married to the keyboard and rarely use a mouse. The PowerBook is the most most mouse-centric computer I've ever used (yeah, I know, duh!). I can't figure out a how to do many of the things that I do using the keyboard on Windows. It's not that they can't be done. I'm just too lazy to figure it out. The payoff of its power and elegance isn't sufficiently greater than the computers I'm used to to justify the time I'll spend learning how to use it. And that, unfortunately, is the problem Apple faces in getting customers to move from Windows to its platform.

Maybe I'm in the minority on this. Maybe this is only a problem for so-called "power users." But I don't think so. To me, it's just like the situation with alternate keyboard layouts. For instance, the Dvorak keyboard is definitely faster than the QWERTY keyboard, yet no one switches. Why? Same reason that I think I need to send this wonderful computer back. The benefits of switching simply don't outweigh the costs it entails. And for all of us, that's a real bummer. Especially me.   ¶ 8:38 AM 0 comments

  Maybe the second chink? Or not. So, Microsoft got slapped around a bit by the EU, eh? Is this the beginning of the end? Not according to this opinion piece about the EU ruling. Or is it? I'm pretty sure we haven't heard the last of this, and may not have a clear picture for years. Still, it should make for pretty decent theater, I guess.  ¶ 8:42 PM 0 comments

  Score one for the upstart... Not sure where they're getting their data, but Boost Marketing says that Firefox has siezed further market share from Internet Explorer. Who says the browser wars are over? OK, well, everybody. Still, this is pretty impressive given how firmly entrenched IE has been for the last four years. Perhaps, the first chink in Microsoft's armor?  ¶ 8:36 PM 0 comments

  Phishing? Searching for Worms? Good way to spend a summer... Good way to kill the Internet, too, unfortunately. PCWorld has this story about a worm that was trying to use Google to find servers it could propogate itself to. The folks behind these attacks really unnerve me. Their motivations are pretty unclear, given that they're not really benefiting directly. Are they a bunch of kids just getting their jollies, or are they practicing for some more serious attack? I've never been a huge fan of legislation, but the penalties for these sorts of things need to be more severe and more consistent around the globe, while developers need to be more diligent in securing their code against this sort of nonsense. While the Internet currently represents a fairly minor percentage of the world economy, its growth could fuel economic benefits for countries and people around the world for years to come. Some unknown party mucking it up for kicks should be kicked back, and hard, for all of our sakes.   ¶ 6:45 PM 0 comments

  Wal-mart vs. Microsoft? Is it just me or is it interesting that Wal-mart offers computers for sale running Linux. The latest one is a $500 laptop running Linspire at Wal-mart.com. The deep discounter clearly doesn't care whether it's selling Wintel boxes or something else, so long as they can advertise the lowest priced product. This could get interesting, given that Wal-mart generally has taken a very conservative approach to introducing technology to its customers.   ¶ 1:31 AM 0 comments

  I'm back. What do you mean, you didn't know I was gone? OK, so my lousy hosting company finally got the issue resolved. Apparently, someone fat-fingered something in the DNS entry during a server move. Lovely. It's amazing how reliant we have become on things that can be screwed up by one little typo. Our livelihoods are increasingly dependent on people not making a mistake like that. Seems kind of scary, doesn't it? As Martin Gore put it, people are people. Is that a Good Thing?  ¶ 2:55 PM 0 comments

  I hate my hosting company I'm mostly writing this as a test to see if I can still post, since it appears that my hosting company (and possibly soon-to-be-former hosting company) has knocked me off the Internet. Grrrr! Insert appropriate swear words here. I've posted multiple messages to their support forum, but haven't gotten any response yet. More to follow.  ¶ 5:44 PM 0 comments

  Just in from the People Smarter Than Me Dept. Clearly, that could be a lot of people. Ah, well. Really solid piece by Adam Penenberg, listing his Media Wish List for 2005. I'm not familiar with Penenberg's writing, but I think he's onto something here. He takes bloggers to task for not doing more to break news, and has some great suggestions about what to do with the FCC. I'll shut up now and let you read him, since, unlike me, he knows what he's doing.
  ¶ 8:12 PM 0 comments

  See, I told you they were still suing people... The RIAA, in their infinite wisdom, files 754 new file-swapping suits. They've now got almost 8,000 suits pending. And they still complain about swapping hurting profits? You don't think legal fees have anything to do with it, do you?  ¶ 6:31 PM 0 comments

  Maybe they'll have an awards show... According to CNET, iTunes hits 200 million download mark. Again, why is the music industry still suing people over this stuff. Get on board, man. There's a whole new way to market music and you are fast being shoved aside.
  ¶ 6:29 PM 0 comments

  Google wins. Who else does?

In a huge development, a federal judge ruled that Google's use of trademarks for keywords is legal. Obviously, this is an enormous victory for Google, given how much of its revenue comes from its AdWords program. Of course, the question is whether this benefits anyone besides Google. And actually, I'm pretty sure its a Good Thing, overall. Here's why.

Right now, the Web is still a little bit like the Wild Wild West, where law is largely a matter of interpretation. Maybe more like the 1890's Old West, than the 1870's Old West, with finer things and a bit more culture, but still kind of rough around the edges. And that's OK. These open questions provide opportunity. They provide areas for companies to exploit where they can find whole new products and services and entirely new ways to market them. Sure, you may get the renegade who purposefully goes for the unethical and damaging, but most companies are looking for legitimate ways to serve the needs of customers. Let's be honest about this. Most of the people who are buying these trademarked words are actually selling something that may be valuable to consumers. For instance, when I do a search for Geico (the folks who sued Google in the first place), most of the results are either about insurance or the news story about Geico suing Google. Yes, there is one clown who's gaming the system. He'll go away eventually when there's no benefit to him. And in the meantime, Geico's competitors, and the customers they're trying to serve, get more choices. Once fences go up on the open range, they're much tougher to take down. Let these horses run and let the market sort it out.

  ¶ 6:49 AM 0 comments

  Hey, if the Red Sox can do it... This has nothing to do with what I usually write about, but my favorite baseball team, the Mets, have signed Pedro Martinez to a whopping deal. I want to be excited about it, I really do. The problem can be summed up very simply: Mo Vaughn. Oh, and Cliff Floyd. And Mike Cameron wasn't so hot, either. The Mets could sign Carlos Beltran right now and he'd probably go down with a persistent hangnail or something. Ah, well. Just another fifteen years or so and we can look forward to them signing David Ortiz.  ¶ 10:39 PM 0 comments

  Reagan was right: Trust, but verify There seems to be a lot of buzz regarding Google's intent to search books from major university libraries. I think that Scott Rosenberg has a point, clearly. Here's a question, though. Salon is public company that allows access to their content for those who either a.) pay a subscription fee, or b.) agree to watch incredibly intrusive ads for things such as vodka and wireless service (a dangerous combination if ever there were). I'm not saying we should all just blithely trust Google to keep access to the information free for the masses. I am saying that what's new about that? There isn't a company that should be trusted implicitly, because companies tend to be greedy, and greed is supposed to be evil, if you agree with the Bible and all that. I'm OK with that. We live in a (roughly) capitalist society and should expect our companies to be greedy so that their stock prices go up so that our 401(k)'s can appreciate so that we can all retire in comfort to someplace warmer than it is here today in peace. So embrace Google for being untrustworthy. It's the trustworthy ones you've got to watch out for the most.  ¶ 8:06 AM 0 comments

  Exploring blogging as a social movement San Jose Mercury News tech guy Dan Gillmor is leaving the to work on a "citizen-journalism project", according to, um, Dan Gillmor. Putting aside my usual bad jokes, Dan Gillmor provided great insights into Silicon Valley for the last decade and helped a lot of people, including me, understand the way the tech world works just a little bit better. I wish him all the best.



  ¶ 7:44 AM 0 comments

  Sure, but what do you think the nipple ring would go for? CNET notes that the scene of Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" is up for auction. Insert your favorite breast joke her. I'm fresh out.

  ¶ 11:41 PM 0 comments

  Yeah, but Bill Gates has a lot more money... Another CNET reference. This one says that security research suggests Linux has fewer flaws
They say that "four years of research by a code-analysis firm finds that the latest open-source OS beats commercial software for quality." What in the world took them four years?!? I've got a Linux installation running on a (poorly) home-built AMD that requires fewer reboots and less TLC than my P4 laptop running XP (which, I admit, is where I churn out these things I thinks every day or so). What Linux needs to be viable as a desktop is to be easy enough for my sister to use. My folks can't use XP either, so I can't use that as a baseline.


  ¶ 2:18 AM 0 comments

  So where would the viruses live? CNET has a story about Microsoft testing subscription Outlook. I don't know where to begin with this one. Is the goal to lower support costs for companies by letting Microsoft be the one to ignore user needs when Outlook blows up?  ¶ 10:31 PM 0 comments

  Hey, here's an idea... screw your customers! In a note titled The Dirty Little Secret About eStatement Adoption, Forrester Research notes that "eStatement adoption has more than tripled in the past year, with 26% of online households now receiving one or more eStatements from their financial providers." They continue with "The only problem is that 97% of eStatement adopters continue to receive a paper statement. Firms must wean customers from their addiction to paper by offering a printable statement in PDF format, automatically turning off paper statements for eStatement adopters, and charging customers who request a paper statement via snail mail." OK, here's an idea: how about you actually provide your best customers the statement that makes the most sense for them? For instance, I don't get eStatements for many of my accounts for two reasons: one, I forget to check each month; and two, yeah, I need more email. Charging customers for something they currently receive for free is a bad idea. Note all the ATM providers that are now getting out of charging fees to people who are in their network. Why? Because it's good customer service. And consumers actually seem to prefer that. Weird, huh?

  ¶ 10:27 PM 0 comments

  'Cause, you know, those .tv and .info domains are taking off... ICANN board votes to begin talks on two new top-level domains. Big deal. This feels like it's just one more place for those of us with websites (or who manage corporate ones) that we have to register our brands. Oy. This is a good thing, why?  ¶ 8:32 PM 0 comments

  From the "My Dad can beat up your Dad" Dept. The Supreme Court will review whether peer-to-peer providers are liable for illegal file sharing on their networks. Look, I believe artists are getting screwed by people stealing their music. I can't, however, imagine that the Supreme Court is going to rule that a technology is inherently illegal, especially when there's a fair bit of precedent regarding the legitimate utility of technologies that could be used for illegal purposes (see the VCR and audiotape for instance). Ultimately, the record industry needs to acknowledge that the game is over and that they need to examine these as promotional tools to grow awareness for a larger set of artists with smaller audiences for each.
  ¶ 7:50 PM 0 comments

  Also, they recommend frat boys stop drinking so much... Penn State is jumping on the 'ditch IE' bandwagon. I'm really curious to see if this actually amounts to anything. I think it's going to take a corporation, and a big one at that, switching their managed desktops to one of the alternatives before this gathers any momentum. Still, Redmond has to be paying attention to this stuff. Eventually consumers may start asking questions and then it's anyone's game. Though I wouldn't bank on it just yet.
  ¶ 1:42 PM 0 comments

  Going to the chapel, and we're gonna get... no signal? Apparently Sprint and Nextel are looking to get hitched. A deeper read of this article certainly makes Cingular look like the obvious winner. Sprint and Nextel use very different technologies and, more importantly, have very different cultures. Everyone I know with a Nextel phone generally takes a "cold, dead hands" approach to it, and wouldn't readily give up the two-way radio feature without something much, much cooler to replace it. I'm not sure what it's going to take for all the wireless players to focus on their networks and fix the whole dropped call nonsense, but I doubt rampant consolidation is it. Especially one that looks as forced as this seems to.
  ¶ 1:31 PM 0 comments

  Perhaps it was on April 3rd from 11:45 to 11:49? OK, I just read Wil Wheaton's latest entry talking about how funny John Tesh was on VH1's My Coolest Years: The Geeks. Willie, man, are you kidding me? When, ever, has John frickin' Tesh, ever been cool?!?

I'm sorry. I really, really am. I don't usually like to go for the cheap laugh. Waitaminnit! Who am I kidding? Of course I go for the cheap laugh.

I stopped watching VH1 a few years back when I realized that 'Behind the Music' was the story of every guy in every band I ever knew. Y'know, start from nowhere, find fame and fortune, blow it all on blow or hookers, end up being profiled as another jackass that started from nowhere, blew it all to hell, and ended up, essentially, nowhere. Exactly like the guys I knew. Except for the fame and fortune part.

So, what does any of this have to do with "technology, society and culture, and..."? Actually, more than I thought when I started this post. It's interesting to me how a former child star can find fame, and at least a little fortune, talking about whatever interests him. David Weinberger is supposed to have said, "In the blogosphere, everyone’s famous for 15 people." And really, isn't that what I'm doing too? Just trying to find my 15 minutes, or my 15 people, or maybe 3 people for 5 minutes each? What's to prevent anyone, anywhere from finding their little slice of fame, fortune, notoriety? Even if it's just to a little slice of the world?

Marketers talk about differentiation and finding attributes that can be owned in the minds of consumers. Blogs are all about differentiation. If marketers are correct, blogs are the ideal way to connect to a target audience. The people who manage to get their blogs in front of their audience most effectively will be the media sensations of the future. Well, a very small sensation anyway.
  ¶ 10:50 AM 0 comments

  Windows 2095, anyone? Now here's a surprise: Microsoft crowed for the last couple years about a product that isn't remotely ready for primetime. Tasty eats in Gates-ville, apparently. Crow, that is. Their new estimate for when WinFS will be available in a shipping product is somewhere into the next decade. Given the number of folks still on NT 4.0, Microsoft is probably looking well into the future to get most of their users over to the new filesystem. Seems to me that the Linux folks, or Apple, or PalmSource, or Symbian (you get the point) should be able to come up with a viable alternative to the PC-centric, Windows-dominated platform by then, no?  ¶ 9:04 AM 0 comments

  Here comes the Sun king. And there he goes... Either Scott McNealy's an idiot or we're all in a world (wide web) of trouble. I worry about my mom and my kids on the Internet. Now I've got to worry about the CEO of major technology companies? I'm not too worried about people falling for some goofy hoax, but we've grown accustomed to trusting our media. Well, not CBS, but, y'know, real media. Like the web. Oh, dear God. What's a poor boy to do?
  ¶ 9:48 PM 0 comments

  Now if only I could remember where I put my keys. A new search from Google offers suggestions of things that you may be looking for. It automatically attempts to populate the search field based on what you're typing. To avoid privacy concerns, it's not based on individual search patterns. Not uncool, actually. Is it just me, or does Google sometimes remind you of the kid who always got the answers right in school? Now they're just showing off.



  ¶ 6:51 PM 0 comments

  Maybe they'll outsource development to Aramonk... Well, IBM has succeeded in selling off its PC business. "End of an era" would sound appropriate if only Dell hadn't ended it for them years ago. Still, the Thinkpads with built-in biometrics are pretty cool machines. What's really amazing is that Lenovo gets to use the name for 5 years and how little they paid for it. Old Tom Watson can't be too pleased with that. I'm not sure selling off the good products and keeping the (in my experience) crummy services is a good long-term strategy.
  ¶ 3:04 AM 0 comments

  What other business would be upset about this? Can you imagine any other business that would actually mind if you took a substance that enhanced your performance? No wonder baseball isn't moving more quickly on this.


  ¶ 2:56 AM 0 comments

  Does this mean I can copyright my bookmark file? Financial Times has a good piece on the silliness of potential copyright laws applying to databases. What happens when all the data's taken? I may have to copyright my email address book and charge royalties to spammers who contact those folks. Say, that's not a bad idea...
  ¶ 2:51 AM 0 comments

  Umm... yeah... this probably isn't good. ABC News in NYC has a story about laptops causing infertility. Now they tell me. I probably could have avoided that surgery.  ¶ 2:42 AM 0 comments

  Awards shows must adjust to changing times Does anyone care about the Grammy Awards any longer? Where are the awards for MP3 artists? How come there's no Billboard or Soundscan tracking the popularity of shared files? If, indeed, the music industry is suffering from the popularity of downloading and file-sharing, someone ought to step up and show which artists benefit from the greater exposure file-sharing theoretically provides.

  ¶ 2:32 AM 0 comments