Blog Posts

September 2009

• 2009-09-18

  Interesting further commentary on Intuit purchase of Mint

  I wrote about the Mint/Intuit deal the other day. Being an avid user, I had mixed feelings about this development. I came across this good post about the transaction, which puts a decidedly negative spin on it: “Mint was a key leader of the next generation of game changers. And now it’s property of Intuit — the poster-child for the last generation. What a loss. Is that the best the next generation can do? Become part of the old generation? How about kicking the shit out of the old guys? What ever happened to that?” (from [The Next Generation Bends Over]...

  Read more →

  #business
• 2009-09-16

  Upcoming Web Innovators Group meeting

  Just found out that the WebInno group is back in session after a summer hiatus. This is one of the best open meetings for techies and entrepreneurs to meet and talk and see each other’s stuff. Here’s the official blurb: “The Web Innovators Group (WebInno) is comprised of people engaged in internet and mobile innovation in the Boston area. We aim to support entrepreneurs, visionaries, and creative thinkers in the field by holding events which foster community interaction.

  Our regular meetings provide a forum for entrepreneurs from self-funded/early-stage startups to present new services to their peers, as well as an opportunity for...

  Read more →

  #places #business
• 2009-09-15

  Mint being acquired by Intuit: Good or Bad?

  I am a fairly avid fan of Mint.com. So it’s with mixed emotions that I read that Mint is being acquired by Intuit. Intuit is a bigger, better known, and so in theory, more reliable vendor for something that is quickly becoming mission critical for me. But on the other hand, Intuit’s software has become uglier and harder to use over time. I tried Quicken Online, twice, and found it to be far inferior to Mint. We shall see. By the way, why do aquired companies insist on saying something like: “What’s not going to change: Mint.com will stay the way you like it: free, easy-to-use and constantly improving.” (this was from their email to users.) It’s never really true, and it worries me because it shows the naivete or dishonesty of the writer.

  

  #business
• 2009-09-14

  [geeky] Odd stuff I’ve learned setting up a new Mac

  I’ve been in the process of setting up a new computer and in the process, as is expected, discovering long lost files and stuff that is easier or harder to move over. I thought I would capture some of the tidbits because there might be something useful here for you

  To set the scene, this is a new Mac Pro (the tower, Intel, 64bit, running Snow Leopard) replacing an old Power Mac (the old tower, PowerPC, 32bit, running Leopard.) You can stop now if you’re a PC. To the untrained eye, these computers are exactly the same inside and out. But wait.

  Based on past experiences (with all computers) I decided not to let the automated process ‘move over’ the stuff from the Old to the New computer. Ins...

  Read more →

  #computing
• 2009-09-11

  Scott Kirsner wants to put Albert Einstein on a box of wheaties

  This is actually a pretty cool idea! Here’s a quote from Scott’s post: “I’d like to see a Wheaties box featuring Sally Ride, the first American woman in space (who also happened to be an astrophysicist and Stanford PhD); Internet pioneers Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf; the great primatologist Jane Goodall…” (from: Dear General Mills)

  

  #science
• 2009-09-09

  Sunlight Foundation’s Apps for America

  Sunlight Foundation is a very cool organization that I’ve been close to. They are involved with many efforts to further government transparency and accountability, often using technology, but not only. Recently they ran their second competition looking for interesting and useful applications and tools to be built using or leveraging data published by government.

  It’s a clever model: offer $10,000 or so to a winner who creates and submits the most interesting entry. Give applicants encouragement, publicity and assistance. I have to believe that this creates a groundswell of energy and hacking that furthers the foundations goals and uses the prize money in a highly leveraged way.

  *““By setti...

  Read more →

  #politics #programming
• 2009-09-08

  From Andrew Sullivan: My Take On The Healthcare Debate

  I agree with this point from the post My Take On The Healthcare Debate from Daily Dish (Andrew Sullivan): "If you have to strip out of a bill a mere conversation with seniors about powers-of-attorney for end-of-life decisions, you are not interested in a serious conversation about curtailing healthcare costs."

  #politics
• 2009-09-08

  [GEEKY] Best 24″ Flat Panel Display for a Mac Pro?

  I was looking at the Apple LED Cinema Display 24” which, of course, looks gorgeous in the store. But it’s a little expensive ($899, which I was willing to eat.) Looking at the customer comments, they are glowing, as expected. But there are many that say that the display suffers from a very short (and specialized) video chord. Not sure how short is short, but one said “2 inches” (can’t be right) and the other one said it didn’t reach the floor from a normal height desk. The other negative that I saw, which is no surprise, is that the built in speakers are so-so. So I am wavering.

  I’d like to find some options for a nice 24″ flatpanel with built in microphone and camera. Any suggestions?

  

  #computing
• 2009-09-08

  DC Lingo – from my notebook

  More stuff that I learned at Transparency camp. Every city has their own way of talking. In New York, I guess you talk about wall street and finance and so on. In L.A. you talk about movies and moviestars. In D.C. you talk about all things politics. (In Boston you talk about the Red Sox 🙂

  The President’s limousine, is known as “The Beast“

  You’ve heard the expression: “It’s easier to apologize than to ask permission.” In DC it’s “Proceed until apprehended.”

  You mark yourself as an out-of-towner if you don’t know what CQ stands for.

  Originally posted on Mar 03, 2009. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.

  #politics #life
• 2009-09-05

  Insightful (and not positive) article about Barack Obama

  Peggy Noonan is always a favorite of mine. Here’s another good op-ed piece, and this time, showing that I am fair and balanced, it’s not positive about Barack Obama and contains some useful insights 🙂 “They are all now busy planning and strategizing his congressional address on health care [Pito: which will happen later this week]. It will be hard to pull off well. The president will be talking, essentially, to three groups: the political elites of both parties and the media, his supporters on the ground, and highly informed citizens who are already either for or against the plan but want to hear, ponder and form an opinion on the speech.” (from Peggy Noonan)

  

  #politics
• 2009-09-03

  [GEEKY] RSS is about as dead as XML or 120V AC

  I’ve seen a couple of “RSS is dead” headlines in the last few days, and even though I am on vacation I couldn’t resist a quick post. Googling, I see it’s actually something that has been floating around for a few months. My 2 cents: RSS is so thoroughly part of the plumbing now, there’s no way it’s gonna die. All kinds of applications, web sites, humongous services are totally reliant on RSS, it’s just that you don’t see it anymore. Sort of like XML is everywhere and of course, at least here in the USA, 120V AC, electricity, is.

  

August 2009

• 2009-08-22

  Health Care Stories from the U.K.

  Sure, one isolated story doesn’t prove anything, but then our health care debate often seems to be carried on the basis of isolated stories, so here’s an article about the British Health Care system that I came across this morning. From that article: ...

  Read more →

  #politics #life
• 2009-08-21

  Op-ed in Mass High Tech about ResourceMatcher.org

  Gavin Murphy (of Annkissam) and I have been talking about the implementation of an idea that has been floating around the philanthropic community for a while, which is leveraging the web to create kind of a match making service where grass roots community projects who need people, equipment, expertise or money can be matched up with individuals and organizations who have indicated their willingness to offer those. We recently were asked by Mass High Tech if we wanted to write an op-ed about the project, and it just came out today. The purpo...

  Read more →

  #business
• 2009-08-18

  Canada’s cellphone rates among the highest, USA even higher!

  Did you think you pay a lot for cellphone coverage? An article in the Globe and Mail about cellphone rates states that while Canada’s cellphone rates are really high compared to other countries, the USA pays even more: “In each category, however, services in Canada rated less expensive than those in the United States, which ranked most expensive in low and medium usage and sixth most expensive in the high-use category.” (from The Globe and Mail)

  cellphone, costs, canada

• 2009-08-17

  Insightful tying together of the Health Care “debate”, Woodstock, Kennedy and Mad Men

  Check out this insightful editorial in Sunday’s New York by Frank Rich. I thought it was really good. Here’s an excerpt: ...

  Read more →

  #politics
• 2009-08-11

  [Random Geek Thought] Human DoS

  It strikes me that the way speakers are being shouted down at these (now) famous town hall meetings on health care reform is a form on human ‘denial of service’ attack. They are taking advantage of a permitted communication (asking a question) to totally shut down a service (the speaker) by overwhelming the service with communications, thereby denying service to others in the audience.

  By doing it ‘loudly’ they end up denying service further by drowning out legitimate requests, by noise and intimidation.

  Just a random geek thought…

  #politics
• 2009-08-10

  More weapons of civic mass destruction

  A while ago I wrote about weapons of civic mass destruction. I think it is very disturbing to see and hear the way Town Hall meetings being disrupted by enraged people aggressively questioning speakers in public forums. It’s not about agreeing with one side or another. But a community or a society or a nation fundamentally rests on basic conventions of civility and human interaction, and I am not sure exactly where it leaves us when those go out the window. I don’t know really w...

  Read more →

  #politics
• 2009-08-07

  Cambridge (Mass) on Forbes Top 10 list

  Pretty cool report via Boston Globe, but see my minor complaint about it at the end: “Hold all that gloom and doom about Massachusetts as a state with little to offer young folks. According to Forbes.com, the second-best place in the country for young college grads is none other than Cambridge, or more specifically the Cambridge-Newton-Framingham area, which ranks behind only San Jose among metro areas with over 1 million people.” (from Boston Globe)

  It’s actually quite interesting to see the underlying detail of how the study was conducted, w...

  Read more →

  #places

July 2009

• 2009-07-24

  Apple Store Tax Funny Business?

  A friend of mine pointed out that for some reason when he ordered is (wonderful) iPhone 3GS, the Apple Store charged the wrong amount for sales tax. In Massachusetts, we are lucky enough to pay 5% sales tax.Actually this is going up in a few days to 6.25%.

  

  Anyway, I hadn’t reviewed my bill from the Apple Store, but, wouldn’t you know, the error shows up in my bill!

  If you look at the little screen shot of my bill, indeed, this does not look like a 5% tax to me!

  What do you think? 9.8%! Who do I call?

  #computing
• 2009-07-22

  Bank Of America advises me to save $NaN

  This is just a little funny. I use Bank of America, and lately whenever I go onto the web site, they are pushing me to try their “IRA Calculator” which is supposed, I think, to tell me how much I should be saving.

  Look at the screen capture…

  Bank of America’s advice: NaN