Is e-mail dead?

Not according to this article.

Seems to me the "big three" in asynchronous text communications are e-mail, texting, and IM. Also seems like IM and texting get more of a volume pass than e-mail - tons of IMs just don't carry the stress factor of an inbox with 100 unread messages. Also seems like you are held less accountable to responding to texting and IMs - a good thing since all of these comminication buckets are overflowing.

Of course any long standing readers of this blog are aware that the solution to all e-mail problems has already been provided.

I guess at the end of the day, it will come down to where is the most reasonable place to find person "B" in "A" to "B" conversations, for me that is seem my e-mail inbox.

For now.

My hatred keeps me warm

Ok. Fine.

I have had several "friends" ask me if I have seen the following JC Penny commercial:

A young boy is opening a Christmas present -- it is a doll. He is surrounded by many other things pink and frilly. You see his frown deepen as the doll is revealed. It appears to be the end of a harrowing unwrapping session.

Then it cuts to a shot where he is writing a letter to Santa. Which says:

"Dear Santa Kelly is a boys name too."


Well har har hardy har.

Boys CAN be named Kelly. It is actually quite a manly name. Look it up - its meaning is warrior. Can't get more manly than that.

If you research more, you might also discover that it is further refined as female/princess warrior, but I strongly encourage you to stop before then. Once you see it means warrior, walk away immediately - with new found respect for the burly nature that is Kelly.

Remember:

Pat = what you do to a puppy's head
Matt = what you wipe your feet on
Bob = what wood does in water
Mark = a scuff on your shoe
Kent = a sissy location in England
John = well you know
Robin = now THERE is a girls name, as well as a tiny bird
Jamie = means Jamie I guess, but it is the baby sister of Robin in my book
Nick = a chip of a china plate
Art = art

Kelly = WARRIOR

(just found a no so great quality online version of this commercial here.)
(now a good quality one - oh joy)

Stop blocking?

A Canadian study suggests business and marketing leaders believe social media is replacing traditional media.

46% of them said social media is more important than TV, radio, newspapers and magazines.

85% believe it has become a vital element in communication.

66% don’t think employees should be using it at work.

Go figure.

This information, and much more insight on this topic can be found here.

X-wing rocket launch...

... and subsequent BOOM!

Someone had a tad too much time on their hands, but very cool.

You might want to watch this this version to see what REALLY happened.

Geekware

If you want to prove to the universe that you are 110% geek, have I got the laptop for you.

I figure I'll go the Horde route.

Middle Ages Tech Support

This appears and disappears from YouTube ona semi-regular basis. Ring true to me. So, while it is out there - enjoy Middle Age Tech Support

The trap for the quest for the better mouse

Yoda-like title, eh? The Microsoft Surface interface seems very cool. I would place it above the Wii as the most significantly different human/computer interaction method that has a chance to catch on.

RSS feed coming soon...

www.abevigoda.com

Virtually worthless

Some folks are looking into options to better connect different virtual worlds. The theory, I guess, is the need for some to travel from WoW to Second Life to Kaneva, etc...

Seems like a reach.

My vote would be to get webpages working the same across browsers ahead of this noble effort. I know, that is crazy talk... have html work the same across systems and browsers??? No IE tab in FireFox???

Well... yeah, I thought that was the plan to start with.

Facing Mecca from space

No answers, just questions. The challenges of a Muslim in orbit.

On this day in 1979... Pac-Man arrives

The grand-daddy of video games, Pac-Man made it's way to America's shores on Oct. 10, 1979.

A few years later, we counted the days until we could shell out around $60 (1980s dollars!!) for the Atari 2600 version. Without a doubt the WORST translation on the game possible. The "Pac-Man" looked more like a lumbering, mutated, pixelated stop sign. This remains my ultimate moment of buyer's remorse.

It would have been moved to second place in my big mistakes list if I had not bailed at the last moment in purchasing the red LED 3-D Nintendo thingie - that looked just a bit too much like the result of an unholy union between a sniper rifle and a Viewmaster.

New link added

Way more design skills and likely deeper insight than found here, can be found here... JamieFike.com

Plasma screens around the world sigh in relief

Nintendo now packages the Wii with remote holders that reduce the likelihood that the control leaves your hand like a white boxy shuriken.

Will even send these (for free!!) to early adopters.

Life is good

Cubs swept, Bears beat the Pack... all in all a good weekend :)

Prove you are human

Nope, not a fringe Dune post, just a cool Captcha tshirt.

Sony unveils the world's first OLED television

OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology seems pretty cool. Thinner, brighter display... less power... more "green"

But OLED degrades over time, I guess you would call that monitor rot :)

Me likey

Me likey very much.

Per instructions on Bob and Tom

Mike Birbiglia is skinny and hilarious

The free stuff keeps coming

IBM's a free word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program

http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=198BFAE:731607879F340201D3FE05778A
1ABDFEEFF29049075316B4

Google adds a presentations application to Apps

http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=198BFB1:731607879F340201D3FE05778A
1ABDFEEFF29049075316B4

Fast and Bulbous

Capt. Beefheart's story in comic form. Pretty cool.

Fixing e-mail

Nice idea on addressing e-mail overload. Gee, I wonder if there is even a better way.

3-D sans glasses

Interesting article on virtual worlds. Still argue my Wii was a business expense.

Wi fi coming to your city....

NOT for a very long time. Problems abound.

Great Pyramid 2.0

Not sure which is stranger, the fact that someone is considering building a new great pyramid, or that it would be located in Germany.

Das Pyramid just does not roll off the tongue.

101 - Web 2.0 for business

Nicely done communication of web 2.o business uses in plain language.

Foulballguy

New pics added to the Foulballguy website.

OK, some are not new, but our shiftless web team finally got to them.

Also the maps of FBG world domination are also updated.

101 - SOA

Nice high level overview of Service Oriented Architecture, in less than 3 minutes (after the annoying ad).

Plenty of other good stuff on this site as well.

Make your mark maties

Please mark your calendars now… National Talk Like A Pirate Day is September 19.

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/worklife/08/27/woman.pirate/index.html

Thanks to Jenny for the heads up!

Bill Gates goes to college

OK, it is old, but if you have not seen Bill Gates and Napoleon Dynamite together, you should.

Oh for the good old days of Microsoft Bob.

Brand protection gone bad

Sometimes, even if you are right, it ain't right... for example, the Red Cross debate

StarOffice

StarOffice is now part of Google's "Google Pack" offering.

Now sure how this blends with the whole Google Apps thing - not at all is my first guess. I downloaded my first copy of StarOffice on a 28.8 modem connection and enjoyed all that an hour plus download had to offer.

I love broadband. Nice reminder why.

101 - BitTorrent

Nice, tidy BitTorrent overview from Wired.

Redmond Ink

For the geek who has everything, a Blue Screen of Death tattoo.

Sponge Ed

So... here is the blending of Spongebob and Iron Maiden's Eddie.

Different.

What would be stranger? Charlie Brown blended with Freddie Kruger? Smurfs and Nancy Grace?

Space ranging

I had mentioned Photosynth in my blog in the past.

I was struggling to see a "killer app" for this. Not sure the following example is it... but it is way cool if you are into NASA at all... Space World

Baseball map

Very cool map that summarizes baseball fan alignment. I wish the White Sox territory was larger, but can't really argue with it.

10 worst Sci-Fi shows ever

Stroll down memory lane and see how many of these Sci Fi clunkers you recall. Pretty good list (I had totally blotted Quark from my memory), but what about:

1. The Planet of the Apes series
2. The Star Wars holiday show
3. Mork and Mindy (kinda Sci Fi????)
   

Mmmmmmm.... bacon-y

BaconSalt.... because everything should taste like bacon (the candy of meats!).

Well, this is different

I know Kirby. Kirby and I have taken on many challenges together (on several game platforms). Kirby is NO hater!!!

Kirby vandalized

101 - RSS in plain English

Just as good as the wiki overview, here is an explanation of RSS that is clear, simple and engaging.

Avatar vs. reality

Real people and the avatar counterparts. Pretty spooky.

Mutli-player musing

Pretty interesting take on blending business and MMORPG.

Regardless, I remain convinced the future of interviewing lie in This Spartan Life

Simpsonize me

Cool movie tie in for the Simpsons. Convert yourself to your Simpson alter ego.

For example...

I tell tell just by lookng at 'em

Test your ability to prejudge and paint with a broad brush.

Neat little site where you guess political affiliation by looking at someone's photo.

Two Actuaries and an Underwriter walk into a bar...

Insurance humor. Niche market. Slightly above the pun in the hierarchy of funny.

Well, so much for my Capt. EO spreadsheet :(

Surprisingly, e-mail is not an ideal tool to render in a "second life-y" way.

Maybe they should have tried implementing virtual email in a virtual world via a virtual console.

Web apps

Nice little recap of several handy web apps.

iPhone,,,, will it blend?

Let's find out.

Seems so wrong, doesn't it?

First Litigation

First avatar to avatar lawsuit in Second Life. Not shocking. It is over an item called a "SexGen" bed... more disturbing, but even less surprising.

Hype

In a post iPhone arrival world, here is Crave's list of the most hyped tech launches.

I get most of this list, but Gizmondo??? I much have been napping that month.

Consistency is good

3rd in a row of useless posts.

But, this is done with 2 gifs, not Flash, so I was impressed.

Boo!

Red Bull timewaster

241 feet was the best I could manage so far...

http://www.redbullflugtagusa.com/games#flugtag

Dramatic Chimpmunk

Thanks Karen.

Keep to the code

I continue to think the emergence of user generated content is a wonderful thing, but something that will require some sort of demarcation to let people know how vetted material is. I think this will be extremely important for internal business use of Web 2.0.

My first attempt was a classification scheme, but it was not all that fun.

Maybe thinking about content as a continuum from the Ten Commandments to the Pirate's Code would be a better angle. We all know the Code is more like guidelines anyway.

Content musings

1. Most content is relevant to some

2. Some content is relevant to most

3. Little content is relevant to all

Content producers believe their content is usually "3" and occasionally "2" -- while everyone else's content is lucky to be "1" on a good day

101 - Wikis explained

Good stuff...

13 Fantastic Free Wallpaper Images

Pretty nice wallpaper images.

VRML 2.0

Microsoft has an interesting approach in the labs right now trying to convert the 2-D world of your screen into a 3-D world of images. Kinda like the illegitimate offspring off Google Earth and Photoshop.

Pretty different.

Public Policy

Google has launched a public policy blog. Blogs seem like the absolute best and absolute worst place to vet these ideas. Worth watching.

Mooter

Interesting concept, so-so search results, cool logo and name... the search tool Mooter

Who do you think we are?

Ever wonder who you look like. Here is a pretty handy way to find out online.

Wis.dm

Have you checked out Wis.dm ? Pretty interesting social networking concept. Basically built on participants answering yes or no questions. No sure of the value, but pretty darn fun.

Simpsons Intro

I love the Simpsons and always look forward to how they handle their intro. One of my favorites....

A beheaded body can take 32 steps

No real value here, but the title caught my eye.

If at first you don't succeed....

post, post again.

http://www.thefamousguy.com/blog/

Timeless truth #124

And oldie, but a goodie...

PDFs... BAAAAAAAAAAAAAD

Cognito ergo google

So does using Google make you dumber or are you dumb not to use Google?

Linux car crashes

The Linux car crashed and finished dead last at the Indy 500.

The Vista car did not fair much better. The driver complained about the partially inflated tires that he had pit early to fill up the rest of the way, and difficultly in seeing the track through a blue screen.

Legless chihuahuas

First of all, my life is now complete since I have used "legless chihuahuas" as a title for a post.

Check out Google Hot Trends if you get a chance. Pretty cool stuff. Still a work in process though -- on May 21 results included “legless chihuahuas” at 25, and “legless chihuahua” at 36.

Cola 2.0

OK, now there is open source cola under a GNU Public license. Passions run amok.

60 elegant designs

One of my favorite design-focused sites posted their view of the 60 most elegant website designs.

Once I overcame the shock the foulballguy.com was not on the list (buy a freakin' tshirt!), I thought the list was pretty good.

All the sites fall into the emerging web 2.0-ish feel, which strikes me as a meld of Fisher Price and Microsoft clip art with a hard to explain dose of cool.

Not buying it

The Defense department has banned several social networking tools due to bandwidth concerns, not content concerns.

Riiiiiiiiight.

Blogging rules

Interesting read on the concept of regulating blogs. Covers the issues from both sides. I continue to struggle with the "right" to be anonymous. Free speech - I get. But accountability should also be there.

Let everyone be free to say whatever the want -- but have the courage to stand behind your words.

Boo DoD

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/pentagon-blocks-myspace-and-youtube/

For your reading pleasure

Clearly, FierceCIO would only publish material from insightful individuals.

Well, usually.

Today they were willing to include Jeff Grimshaw and me.

http://www.fiercecio.com/node/3760/#part2

IM traffic

There is a pretty cool layer you can add to Google Earth to watch realtime IM traffic. Not sure of the value, but a nice little time waster/mashup

Say Cheese

What did we EVER do without the Internet???

http://cheddarvision.tv/

Numbers game

Hang on past the first few slides on school hardware and you will see some very interesting numbers on China and India.

http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/fisch/didyouknow/didyouknow.wmv

Even Zaphod might feel a tad less significant after viewing this.

Mr. Grumpy

With a lead like...

There are a few things I have learned about the Internet since I first logged on to a chat board back in the late 1980s. It promotes anger far easier than it promotes tolerance.

As the public immigrated to the Internet from once productive lives, the real focus has been on the goofy, ridiculous and weird, not on the serious or the productive.

... I am pretty sure this guy needs some decaf.

Read his full grumpiness.

Ed Wood would be proud

Here is a rogues gallery of lame technology mascots. Fairly comprehensive except for the glaring omission of MicroSoft's Bob. The last mascot in the gallery (the bunny in the space helmet) by Plan 9 from Bell Labs is my favorite. Named Glenda... Ed Wood would indeed be proud.

http://www.wired.com/culture/design/multimedia/2007/04/gallery_mascots

Two days in a row of useless stuff

Of equal or lessor value than the GPS post. But a stupid kind of fun....

http://monster.namedecoder.com

Kinda funny

Playing off our big brother fears

http://www.sat-gps-locate.com/

Go figure

You would think that the growth of authoritative (news sites) and non-authoritative (blogs, wikis) information sources - coupled with easier ways to stay on top of them (RSS, Google start page) - would make it easier to know "the truth" about events.

But instead I keep getting this

What are you looking at?

At last... a professional league I have a shot at... Pro Staredown-ing

Amiga memories

Just came across this great look back at the top Amiga games. Wonderful list (Beast and Another World completely rocked!!), but they omitted TV Sports Basketball, Rocket Ranger, a pretty good submarine simulation that I can't recall the specific name.

My first computer was an Amiga 500 with 512K RAM. Then I went BIG TIME and got an Amiga 2000 with 3 Meg of RAM. I loved Deluxe Paint as the graphics package. And the Sonix music package. And multitasking just to be cool.

Sigh.

Apple sell its 100 Millionth iPod

Hmmm. That is A LOT of iPods.

Pretty sure we will sell our 100 millionth t-shirt on www.foulballguy.com shortly before the sun burns out.

Like 5 minutes before.

Tops.

Google Maps mashups made easy

Since I washed out when I was playing with Google's APIs for Maps... this is welcome news.

I am at peace with being demoted to a lower level geek status.

Vaderpalooza

Three, for the price of one:

1. Darth Vader meets Hello Kitty

2. Chad Vader - Episode 7



3. An oldie, but a goodie - Triumph the Insult Comic at a Star Wars meet and greet.

"Spoiler? You will die alone."

They forget the USB rotary dial

One of the better April Fool's items this year.. the Apple iPhone will NOT be cordless.

Apollo musings

Adobe's Apollo is an interesting concept. AJAX and dhtml narrowed the gap between installed and browser-based applications quite a bit - Apollo looks to blur the line differently.

Flash seems to be a major element here and Flash has always been the Swiss army knife of software - you can do so much with it - good idea or not.

It will be good to watch and see what kind of legs Apollo develops. And then to see it Google apps follows suit.

There is always a bigger fish

While I liked the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's version of this a bit better, this is an amazing Flash thingie that puts you in to scale with the universe.

Hint... you are smaller than Pluto.

http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng/feelnikon/discovery/universcale/index_f.htm

Best logo ever

Well, maybe not the best ever, but pretty darn clever....

http://www.electricsheepcompany.com/

Vote 2.0

So, is THIS going to be the election cycle where YouTube politics and MySpace politics end up having a true, lasting impact?

The whole 1984 Apple ad mash up with Clinton/Obama was pretty darn clever. I wonder what ad will show up next for Dems or the GOP

There is probably something with the current Mac/PC commercials and Clinton/Obama again... (one is getting charisma installed, the other comes with it...)

#31 for Alice

Alice Cooper's 31st album will be released in May! Titled "Along Came a Spider" he promises it, and the tour, will be "full Alice Cooper".

Who could ask for more :)

McBlog

I continue to think McDonald's "Open for Discussion" is a good example of a large organization making a heartfelt attempt to blog meaningfully. They just improved their blog (grew Iconistan, simplified).

Worth watching.

Video Onion

I love the Onion. I waste a lot of time on YouTube. Well, combine them, and I am in big trouble :)

My My Space

Interested in setting up your own social networking site? Ning may be the ticket.

Even if it is not, you gotta admit, Ning is a pretty sweet name :)

Time waster #3,432

Of no value at all, but if you are familiar with the "force push" featured in Star Wars... worth a chuckle. If not, I would pass on this if I were you :)

And the Sears Tower wins with 1000 dead people voting

Be sure to stop by and cast your vote for the New 7 Wonders of the World. Not sure of the electoral process involved setting the original list, but I am sure half of Florida got confused and voted for Pat Buchanan.

Cool digital radio

Most importantly... the volume goes to 11. You know, one more than usual.

Public service announcement

Secure those home wireless networks.

Woof

One of the better dog-penned blogs out there...

http://spinonedog.blogspot.com/

... "dog-penned"... heh, heh, heh

First life?

A different, and certainly reasonable, perspective on Second Life...

GET A FIRST LIFE!

Too funny. Thanks to Jeff for pointing this gem out.

Clusty and Wii

Now that is a subject line I never would have imagined typing a few years ago.

Looks like one of my favorite search tools, Clusty, is now "Wii friendly". Not exactly sure what that means, but I fully intend to use this lack of understanding as an excuse to pursue getting a Wii at home.

Caveman fun

OK, so this is just brazen marketing by their web folks, but a nice/fun little environment.

Cavemans Crib

(and mildly disturbing too)

101 - Teaching the machine

Thanks to Blake for making me aware of this insightful web 2.o video....

Wikimania

While Steven Colbert continues to torment wikipedia from time to time (as evidenced by his locked page), I wonder how this bad boy fits into the picture...

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page . (thanks Robyn)

Sort of wikipedia meet The Onion. Hours of enjoyment, seconds of value :)

Check out the McDonald's entry... pretty funny.

Don't mess with the 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox has issued subpoenas to find out who is uploading some of their content.

YouTube has itself been protected by the safe-harbor provision and as the article states, this provision does nothing to shield the individual uploaders, whose boats are kept outside the harbor, subject to wind, waves, and pirates.

Most people think the worst that can happen is your YouTube content is taken down and maybe your account is suspended. Looks like there might be more to it in some situations.

Imagine the poor soul in the big house who has to explain to his cell mate that he is in for uploading "A Very Special Brady Christmas".

Disco Alice

Can hardly wait for this year's theme for Alice Cooper's Golf event. Disco Alice was kinda scary.

Oh, and... DA BEARS!!!!!!!!!!!

Web 2.0 winners and losers

Some good and bad Web 2.0 company activities.

The Museum of Unworkable Devices

A museum celebrating fascinating devices that don't work.

Missing a link to www.foulballguy.com, but otherwise a keeper.

Text book untruth

This article on how the Israeli army takes a dim view on D&D players is a great example of how something that has no basis in fact can live for years as non-fiction.

Seems like if the story is funny enough, actual facts are not overly important.

P.S. I was a chaotic evil thief in my D&D days and frequently turned on my buddies. Shocking, huh?

e-voting

Interesting article on electronic voting. What I found most interesting is the software company claims their source code can not be reviewed because it is trade secret.

Hmmm. My coding days are fairly distant, but let me try and reverse engineer their code...

IF {vote is for person A} THEN {add 1 to vote total for person A}
IF {vote is for person B} THEN {add 1 to vote total for person B}
IF {no vote} THEN {go to next ballot}

Hope I didn't let the cat out of the bag here

Alice

Ms. Spears, Donald, and Rosie get the headlines... but Alice Cooper is the one doing newsworthy things.

Seek and ye shall find.... nothing

VERY dismaying article that asserts:

In a survey of 1,000 middle managers at large companies in the U.S. and U.K., Accenture found that managers spend as long as two hours a day searching for information and more than half of the data they find has no value to them.

Kinda makes you wonder exactly what you are getting out of those managers :) To further drive this point home (also from the article):

Just less than half -- 42 percent -- of those surveyed said that they accidentally use the wrong information at least once a week.

Yikes Robot

If this is the most human-like robot developed to date, I HIGHLY recommended we keep trying.

Creeps me out on several levels :)

How I spent New Year's Day

About six months ago my niece bought a laptop (with a little advice from her uncle). In early October it began to REALLY slow down at start-up and even clicking a desktop icon was a major time commitment.

So, I offered to look at it over Thanksgiving and did my traditional trouble shooting process:

1. Run PC Pitstop
   
2. Check for spyware
3. Defrag
4. Reboot and hope it is a good karma day

Well, round one made it a little better, but over Christmas it was brought to my attention that the "slowness" remained. It had. Drat.

So on January 1 with the aid of CPU-Z and PC Pit Stop again (and 17 reboots at last count), I was eventually guided to discover DMA was not enabled on her hard drive anymore. Finally! A reason why the laptop could from fast to slow and NOT be motherboard related.

A few more Google searches got me to winhelp.com's DMA info and fix. And wonder of wonders, all is well and MySpace, Sims 2, and IMs galore are whistling through the laptop.

Also learned the "Always On" power profile can help make sure your laptop CPU is running at top speed.

So, why share this thrilling tale? Many others had shared similar tales of woe and their experiences - good and bad. These helped lead me to the promised land of a fixed problem. Maybe some other uncle will be out there some day searching for a solution to a similar problem and this posting will help.