Vista and Office

Office is growing at 20%, Vista at 2%. Odd.

XP shook off a bad rep. No such luck for Vista.

Alice Cooper - Samsung ad

Alice Cooper Samsung ad... pretty cool. He even bites a puppy :)

Five simple things to do to stay sane

Here is one view on five simple things to do to stay sane. Worth a shot. I noticed "Listen to Alice Cooper" and watch "Army of Darkness" were not on the list, but perhaps those are just givens.

Buckypaper

While I am still a tad fuzzy on all the implications, the buckypaper thing looks like it will be something of significance down the road.

Still, "buckypaper"? Just not the type of name that a possible replacement for steel should have.

"He had nerves of buckypaper"

"Here are your Pittsburgh Buckypaperers!!!"

"You are a magnet and I am buckypaper"

An open letter to the Chicago Cubs

As a life long, Ralph Garr was under-rated, the shorts were not THAT bad White Sox fan, I usually take great delight in the failings and soul crushing results annually produced by the Chicago Cubs.

I was perplexed this year, when after a particularly spectacular collapse, the amount of joy I felt was remarkably lower. I almost felt empathy.

Let's not get crazy... I did say ALMOST.

A friend (well "friend" might be a tad strong - she is Cubs fan) of mine sent me her thoughts on this year. I found it to be a great read, and with her permission, I now share....

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CHICAGO CUBS

Dear Sweet Lou and the team ~

You brought your 2008 season to a humiliating end on Saturday, being swept by the much-inferior Dodgers you brought up as another one of the kick-in-the-gut experiences to which yours fans have become accustomed … 1984, 1989, 1998, 2003, 2007 … and that's just in my lifetime. As a lifelong Cubs fan, I am forlorn. Heartbroken. Depressed. What's more, I'm mad ... and I've decided I want a refund.

I was at opening day this year, and I was at the NLDS Game 2 ~ so I opened and closed the season with the Cubs. I went to at least nine games, bought at least 30 beers, ordered new gear, used lots of gas getting to Wrigley … worse yet, I lost hours and hours of my life to this season, not just in person at games, but watching on TV, listening to the radio, reading websites ~ not to mention the 3 of my measly 10 vacation days last week alone for the NLDS … Finally, I invested my heart and a significant portion of my liver in hopeful love for this winning 2008 team … and what did I get as a return on my investment? An ulcer and another year of taunts from St. Louis fans. So I want it back. I WANT IT ALL BACK!

Let me know how you're going to make this right. I'll be sitting here nursing my wounds, making plans for all those days I'd blocked out to watch the NLCS and (just maybe) the World Series, and secretly counting down the days until opening day 2009. 182 … 181 …

Sincerely,

Jenny

Searching

Ask.com has recently upgraded their search features. Since along with Google, the have opted for the "tons-o-white space and a search box" interface, the differences reside in the quality of results and little interface goodies each works in.

I really have never had Ask.com in the mix for my personal searching. My model is usually Google, then Clusty, then Yahoo.

Tried out their new stuff - was interesting.

3-D camera

Fujifilm is offering a 3-D camera. I assume the glasses will run extra.

VP debate online tool kit

Some options to blend in some online action during the debates. Given the track records of both participants, might be a lot to chatter about during the VP debate... the Gaffer vs. the Rambler.

20 Dumbest TV Shows

While I am shocked at the omission of anything Tyra Banks touches, these are 20 dumb TV shows. How did I miss "Hole in the Wall"? That one seemed to out dumb the rest.

Size of the planets

A picture (OK, web video) is worth a thousand words... the relative size of the planets.

How ya feeling now, Zaphod?

Web history

OK, this is old (covering 1995-2005), but I just came across it and it is a spiffy visual way to hit on the highs and lows of 10 years of Internet history.

Oh gee, since we are back in 2005, might as well share this as well.

White Sox magic number

I need some diversion after two brutal Bear games.

6 recommendations for measuring blogs

Often times success is in the eye of the beholder regarding blogs. Nice post here on some reasonable techniques to determine how well your blog is working.

Thanks to Jeff for pointing this out to me.

History of the Joker

Batman's Joker has been portrayed by quite the range of performers... Cesar Romero, Larry Storch, Mark Hamill... oh and those Jack and Heath guys....

White Sox and Cubs trivia

Some fun facts on the good guys (White Sox) and bad guys (Cubs). Thanks to Rod for sharing this with me

Test your tech knowledge

Pretty good quiz to find out how (1) geeky (2) plugged in (3) all knowing (4) probably geeky you are.

Palin for President

The other Palin. Not a political statement, just a nice use of Python clips.

Chrome

Have you tried Google's new browser Chrome? It is different, but I think I like it - plus, FINALLY, training that speaks to me. Worth spending some time with.

Old school video game commericals

12 of them. Fun.

Upgraders beware

Here are five insane computer upgrades you should avoid. At least according to this source. Sad part is, I have done or contemplated several of these over time.

Election map

Sure feels like we will have yet another late night to see how the Presidential election goes this year. This online election map looks promising,. You can drill down to the state, and then county level. Might be worth bookmarking is you are inclined to watch results flow in.

Surprised to see Chicago had not already voted... twice :)

7 lamest super heros

Black Condor, the Whizzer, the Red Bee.... who is the worst super hero ever? Here is a point of view.

ALice Cooper shakes the world

OK, only California shook, and Alice was not responsible, but he did catch it on video.

Pluto revisited

Pluto may get a second chance to be considered a planet once more. I hope the other planets aren't just trying to get his hopes up.

In Wii We Trust

Interesting study that seems to indicate that practicing with a Wiimote actually improved surgeons' preformance.

I used to think the Wiimote was the hands down (no pun intended) winner in redefining human/machine interaction.

Then Surface comes along, and cool games on the iTouch/iPhone like Dizzy Bee. Game on :)

REVIEW: Along Came a Spider - Alice Cooper

I am a complete Alice Cooper mark and would be hard pressed not to like anything he does. With that out of the way, my review of his latest work... "Along Came a Spider"....

At the end of the day, I really like this album. Probably Alice's best constructed concept work. There are hints of humor, but by and large this is pretty dark stuff. Every song is from the point of view of "Spider"... a serial killer... a pretty unpleasant one at that (not that there are exactly LIKABLE ones of course).

I could have used a break by means of a song sung from some other point a view - a victim, passerby, family member, Mayor McCheese, etc... 11 tracks of quality time with Spider can be somewhat of a bleak journey.

Alice has gone dark before (Brutal Planet, Dragontown), but always allowed us to come up for air by providing some comic relief ("Its the little things" on the former, "Disgraceland" on the latter).

Most of the first half of the album features a healthy dose of the snarling guitars and/or snarling Alice we have all come to know and love. Then things get quirky and some strange broadway/Lennon-esque/stadium anthem hybrids emerge.

Bottom line -- this album rocks, features Alice's WAY underrated wordplay, and is interesting.

We don't get that a lot anymore. Buy it. Help get Alice back on the charts. He deserves it.

Song comments....

1. "Prologue / I Know Where You Live" - 4:21
   
   I remember a review of the Who's "Its Hard" in Rolling Stone that said when fans first hear the "Just a girl, just a girl, just a girl" in Athena, they will be in Who Heaven. Well, when Alices kicks this song off with "I like to watch from my car"... Alice Heaven - totally.
   
   
2. "Vengeance Is Mine" - 4:26
   
   Slash appears on this song with the expected killer guitar results
   
   
3. "Wake The Dead" - 3:53
   
   "Send me a redhead, send me a brunette, send a blond to me. When I unwind, I'm colorblind, they're all the same to me".
   
   Ozzy Osbourne co-wrote and play harmonic on this track. Probably my favorite track.
   
   
4. "Catch Me If You Can" - 3:15
   
   Meh
   
   
5. "(In Touch With) Your Feminine Side" - 3:16
   
   "Its your world, but its my street".... sweet :)
   
   
6. "Wrapped In Silk" - 4:17
   
   The creepy apex of the story arc. The song seems to fight off a dual possession by AC/DC and Whitesnake during the chorus. Successfully. Eventually.
   
   
7. "Killed By Love" - 3:34
   
   Ballad. 'nuff said. OK actually.
   
   
8. "I'm Hungry" - 3:58
   
   I love 88% of this song. Problem is, I can't get past hearing Spinal Tap's "Hell Hole" each time the "I'm Hungry!!" chorus rolls by.
   
   
9. "The One That Got Away" - 3:21
   
   Only Alice would kick off a love song with "You look like you'd fit in the trunk of my car". That is why he is a national treasure.
   
   
10. "Salvation" - 4:36
    
    Complex. Good. Not real Alice-y though -- it has moments that sound like the wrap up of an Andrew Lloyd Webber project. And Webber is the anti-Alice. Somewhat.
    
    
11. "I Am The Spider / Epilogue" - 5:21
    
    Welcome back Steven. We have missed you.
    

AT&T get cloudy

AT&T enters the hyped up world of cloud computing. Several options out there now, no silver bullet.

As cloud computing joins the world of over-used and ill-defined terms (web 2.0, social networking, mash-ups, Beatlemania, etc.), I did come across this helpful tidbit in the article

RedMonk analyst James Governor asserted that services without features such as an API, or that require installing software, are not clouds.

Complete privacy does not exist

At least according to Google. This article provides some interesting food for thought on privacy and whether it does, or does not, extend to the range of your camera from a public (or not so public) street.

The Smoking Gun is not a source I cite often, but they had the goods on this topic. Plus you can check out our nation's finest in mugshot form if so inclined.

Liquid Nitrogen Into A Swimming Pool

Looks pretty fun :)

Space suits over the years

Of little value, but interesting... check out the evolution of spaceware over the years.

Mesh is free

Microsoft's cloud-ish document sharing environment, Mesh, is now free (assuming you have a Live id). Probably need to try it out.

If fonts were people

Very funny video of fonts as people.

Sad that I find this humorous upon further reflection.

Legos

Never had much of a need to understand the inner workings of a Lego factory, but ended up being an interesting view.

Civil War Facebook page uncovered

Who knew waybackmachine went, well waaaaaay back. Just entered checked our Facebook circa 1860s and look at what I found.

OK, I lied, but a cute page none the less.

Defining social media marketing

One of my biggest frustrations (outside of the White Sox not being able to open up a larger lead in the AL Central) is the variety of ways social networking, social computing, web 2.0, etc. are defined.

Good post here offering several cuts at a definition of "social media marketing", a link to an article with more opinion, and a request for readers to offer their defitiions.

Camp Closure seems so far away :)

YouTube ordered to turn over data

While anonymity is assured - there is interest in all YouTube viewership data. Seems to me like that will be a bit of a job to review.

Alie Coopers new album - July 29!!

Looks like it will be well worth the wait!!

States I hate

OK, I don't hate them, but they sure don't like me :(

I was reviewing my blog traffic. Now, I am at peace with the fact that I am not exactly a high traffic destination, but I notice several states were providing NO monthly traffic. I looked deeper and I am sad to say the following states have opted out for THE WHOLE YEAR:

Nevada, Idaho, BOTH Dakotas, Mississippi, and West Virgina

At least I am winning the big states... NY, Texas, California, and Illinois all have been pretty kind to me.

BTW - love Google analytics :)

Word art

Not the cheesy work art in a major word processor... but real word art can be found here:

www.wordle.net

Fun stuff. Here is one way a very cool Capt. Beefheart song turns out.

Thanks to Jeff for sharing.

Enterprise success with Web 2.0

Short, decent write-up on Best Buy's success with social computing.

Yahoo, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Best Buy all seem to be making progress in actually using web 2.0 capabilities. Others you would point out?

Wall-e

Disney did a pretty nice job with the site to support their last movie release. Simple fun, but fun none the less...

Wall-e

Creative business cards

Great post showing 42 clever business card designs, with links to other posted in the past. Some creative thinking here!

One year of iPhone

Not for me personally unfortunately, but one year on the market. I did score an iTouch awhile back, and I love the wifi. But here is a nice read reflecting back on the iPhone itself.

Lists on Blender

While I often disagree with the rankings/selections, there are few better time wasters than the music-related lists on blender.com.

I really enjoyed the Dastardly Villains list, including the Jabba-esque Lou Pearlman.

Social Networking fatigue

Downright funny look at social networking. Friendster seems to get the IE treatment. Surprised it didn't end with a link to FirstLife.

Thanks to Joe for sharing.

YouTube Warp

Just when I thought YouTube could not grow into a larger time gobbler for me, I stumbled on to this crafty Flash-based interface... Warp. Even spiffier than OS/2 Warp.

Productive time, I will miss ye.

A cautionary tale

I have continued to warn to the idea of my data being stored in the cloud. Gone would be the days of backup and hard drive upgrades. Then stories like this come along and I begin to re-ponder.

Tornado

Same caveat as last time, but this was pretty amazing....

Not good

Not good at all.

Million rounds per minute crowd control

Check out this nifty little accessory for the iRobot. Trying to figure out what makes me the most twitchy...

1. The manufacturer is described as a "troubled electronic gun producer"
2. This thing fires a million rounds a minute
3. "Crowd control" and "border control" are listed as a potential uses
4. There are defense trade shows
   

Mars lander

Very pleased that this was a lander and not a crasher. Pretty good info on Nasa and the University of Arizona site if you want to keep track.

Weezer part two

Actually more of a prequel.. a Barenaked Ladies video done with the same theme, some common players...

Weezer's "Pork and Beans"

First this crew got famous on YouTube, then most of them were killed off in a recent South Park episode, now they hang with Weezer. Looks like new media and mash-ups gives folks multiple installments of their 15 minutes of fame....

Joe Torre

I try and be diligent in keeping a clear separation from my employer and my personal blog. In the spirit of full disclosure, the video below is indeed from my employer, but I really enjoyed it and wanted to share.

BTW.. Joe Torre always reminded me of a more pleasant version of Jim Fergosi (low bar, I know)...

Mr. Lazy

Rather than cut and paste... I posted over here with some thoughts on privacy and Google Maps. While... OK, who am I kidding... IF you are there, might want to check out Lena West's post about the anti-social networking movement.

3-D space stuff

Nice overview of several interesting utilities to view space images.

101 - Zombies

The folks at commoncraft put out tons of useful overviews of technology topics. Their zombie work is clearly a departure, but fun and informative none the less. Thanks to Jenny for sharing.

Passage

If you are interested life rendered in big pixels... check Passage out.

World's first digital camera

Big, slow, and 0.01 megapixel image.

Björk's 3-D Video

Wanderlust, Björk's new 3-D video is pretty cool.

Of course you will need to scare up the old stylish red/blue 3-D glasses, but you KNOW you have a few lurking around your place. I won't give the final count of what I found here, but it does look like I could have a nice 3-D party sometime and few would need to BYO3DG.
For this video, I sported my vintage ones last used for watching Elvis Presto.

And speaking of Mr. Presto... here a 10 more Superbowl halftime horrors.

Smell you later

Learn all about the future of messaging with scents in the article that reads like April 1 material. This has bad idea written all over it. Favorite line of the article:

"scent technology is increasingly attractive."

Really. :)

Homer and friends

Homer Simpson, Mario, and Jessica Rabbit as "real" people. Interesting and creepy.

Funny commerical

As all of us should have learned in Marketing 101 -- never underestimate the humor in a cute baby monster eating people.

10 most important technologies you have never heard of

OK, I expect you have heard of several of these pervasive technologies, but perhaps you will have renewed appreciation :)

101 - Semantic Web

Pretty decent explaination of the "semantic web"

Plus a less visual, but also helpful, text overview of cloud computing

World's largest internet population is in...

... China. Go figure. And this is only with 16% of the population having access. Was also surprised to see the average % access worldwide is only 19% or so.

Apple's "Second Life" store

Apple is trying out the Second Life thing for a storefront.

I stick by the "just 'cuz you can, don't mean you should" credo. Maybe I just don't get it, but it annoys me when I am shadowed in real life be a "helpful" store clerk -- why would I want to upgrade to annoyed AND mildly creeped out online?

Shopping isn't something I want to "experience", I want to just do it - quick, easy, and avatar free.

Still, in terms of the grand mal misuse of virtualization, I will stick with this.

Name the robots....

Interesting challenge to see how many robots from TV and film you can identify... packaged as a geeky t-shirt.

Top 10 Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Interesting thoughts. I miss this guy.

Destroy all gadgets....

... well, at least some of them. Fun pics of gadgets being dusted - you can vote for your favorites.

Social media - en francais

Bonjour Facebook...

Cool chart - in French - but that is the international language... n'est pas?

Super Mario in 14kb of javascript!

Pretty amazing. Check out a very reasonable version of Super Mario coded in javascript - only requiring 14kb (35kb uncompressed).

Would take me twice as much code to create 1/10 of the functionality here

Bizzare history of phrases

Backstory for 10 common phrases. I could have lived happily without the "wrong end of the stick" explanation (2nd page).

Ewwww.

We have BOTH kind of ships...

... frozen AND abandoned

Online, free, Photoshop

Given my remarkably limited graphic skills, my circa 1950s version of Paintshop Pro meets most of my needs - and when it doesn't Picsa usually does.

Now there is a free (with 2 gigs of storage) online version of Photoshop out there. Perfect price for me to try out.

Ten worst job interview questions

Fun list of the ten worst job interview questions ever. Some sound vaguely familiar, but the whole "why did you take the pen?" one is news to me.

Argus, creature of 1,000 eyes...

... meet Mogulus, creature of 1,000 video feeds.


Pretty cool, thanks for sharing Dave.

Worst - online game - ever

And these bums CHEATED the White Sox out of an opening day victory to boot.

http://www.cleveland.com/snowball/

Patchwork nation

I am really impressed on how this site conveys a ton on information visually.

Also seems like a fairly nonpartisan analysis of voting blocks... our patchwork nation. A tad more nuanced than the standard red state / blue states thing.

Tracking delegates

Plenty of nifty delegate counters/trackers out there. There is USA Today's circle dominated version, the NY Times table approach, or CNN's slider-o-rama.

Mildly disturbing that each one has different current counts - one would have thought we would have nailed this voting thing down by now. Well, except in Florida, not sure they will ever get it figured out.

Social media in politics

The web 2.o angle on Hillary vs. Barack

Social media in corporations

This was handy. The Social Media Workshop has just a ton of presentations offering different insights into business use of.. you guessed it... social media :)

Some pretty good stuff here.

Hubris

Old hubris, but hubris none the less....

Progressive

Google Sky

Probably my least favorite Google offering to date - Google Sky. I like how they cleverly carried forward some of the Google Maps navigation concepts to very different content, but slower and clunkier than what we usually get from this crew.

Better web development

It is worth at least skimming this article summarizing 10 handy sites to improve your web development.

I have always been an Alertbox fan. Now, a consistent follower of all the guidance they provide... not so much.

Graphic movies

I try to post examples I come across where graphics are used creatively to convey concepts (like the baseball map).

While Minard's work remains the king of the hill for me, this movie one is pretty cool.

No Street View for you!

Fort Sam Houston was available on the street view of Google Maps. The Pentagon complained. Google removed. Not sure I completely understand why a 100% publicly available line of sight had to be expunged - particularly since you can get this off the Fort's website - but no one asked :)

Sports conference meltdowns

Playoffs?? Practice?? Bobby Knight. Nice recap of some of past high energy moments in sports press conferences.

Gary Gygax 1938-2008

Thanks to this man I stayed up WAY to late with several like minded friends during high school summer vacations. Thanks Gary.

Top ten websites you never heard of....

... actually, I expect you have heard of a couple of these, but still a nice list from Fast Company.

Websites in 1996... oh my

Take a look back at what the state of the art was for websites in 1996. Does not seem all that long ago... until you view a few of these beauties.

Nanotechnology

Pretty cool video on some of the potential of nanotechnology

A history of evil

Not sure exactly why Elvis is part of the chain of evil shown here (now, Yanni, that WOULD speak to me), but a clever little animation....

Web / Desktop blurrage

Google Gears, Prism, Silverlight, and now AIR from Adobe. The blurring of the web verses the desktop continues. Widgets, gadgets, portlets, applettes... kinda boggles my mind.

I am hopeful the most approachable solution (e.g. the one that lets the broadest audience use and understand) wins the day, but no clue where that will emerge from.

The market at work though. A good thing.

Mashing up Facebook and MySpace

Have not used it much, but came across Sociagami - a tool to blend your Facebook and MySpace profiles. Seems to be at least moderately useful.

And Pat, your were right, my enthusiasm has already ebbed for marumushi.com's newsmap

Career changing cartoons

Apparently, some management does not hold Dilbert in high regard and will even fire the poor soul who posts the wrong one on a bulletin board.

In order to support the free market, I feel it is important to note the while Dilbert is a very reliable source of career-ending material, other options exist. Came across this fine site with a the ever popular "Crap boss" category.

Enjoy - but don't blame me.

Vista and XP

Good read on the whole why people hate Vista and want to keep XP

I lack the passion of many on this topic, but it is interesting to listen to those who do have strong feelings. There is probably some Democratic primary parallel here ("Vista can only win caucus states - it is sooooooo unfair" or something like that) , but I can't seem to frame up a good one.

Keeping up on the news

I keep trying to find the easiest way to complete a quick scan of news articles. iGoogle, Feedburner, Digg, and Google News Alerts all have their positives... but I am laaaaaaaazy and I want it reeeeeeeeeal easy.

Since I am easy distracted by shiny objects and favor graphical solutions to complex problems, I think I might have found a keeper... marumushi.com's newsmap.

Thanks to Cheryl for sharing.

Online reputation help

Good read on services some companies are offering to help you manage your online reputation. Thanks to Joe for sharing.

Some interesting approaches here. Sometimes they try and load up a bunch of non-offensive links to push offending content down a few pages... sometimes they try and get the offending content taken down. The former seems like modified Google Bombing, the later faces the challenge of overcoming the amazing half life online content seems to have.

(I am proud to say a 10 year old comment I wish I had never typed- but was retained for public viewing via an AOL chat transcript - seems to have FINALLY washed away.)

Ultimately, I think these companies can help, but not totally solve this problem. Maybe the French have a some ideas here. I reccomend you do Google search on "French Military Victories" to see what they might have to offer on tweaking search results. I am sure the first result in the results will offer great insight.

Wired Multimedia fun

I always enjoy the material Wired puts out in their multimedia section. Two recent fun ones...

Cheesy Star Trek creatures

Spore - looks like Maxis is gonna have a winner here!