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  • 1 min read

First Class/Anachronism

On a lark, I used my frequent flyer miles to fly First Class on American Airlines today, heading out to the O'Reily ETech Conference. I hadn't done it in quite a while. It felt so 'eighties' to me - faux luxury dining in a tin can at 40,000 feet:

" Mr. Salas, would you like a drink before take-off? Mr. Salas, what would you like for dinner tonight? Spinach and Cheese Pasta or Chicken Kiev?"
…I am handed a heated towlette to wipe my weary brow… " Mr. Salas, is there anything I can do for you? Mr. Salas, what would you like to drink before dinner?" …I get a nice bowl of mixed nuts, heated! And my diet-coke… …Dinner is served. Linnen napkin, nice salad with capers and vinnigraite… " Mr Salas, white or red wine with dinner? Mr Salas, is there anything else I can do for you? Mr. Salas can I take that for you?"

It's just a little bit too subservient for my taste. But at least the legroom is excellent, even though the silverware was plastic.

  • 1 min read

[ETECH] A9 as a search portal – Amazon defines “Searchlets”

Jeff Bezos talked about a new feature of A9 which allows the basic A9 Search Page to be extended by anyone, using what I am calling "Searchlets." Here's an explanation… If you've looked at A9 you've seen the various "vertical " result regions that you can ask for - there are a handful built in, including for example the yellow pages result which shows you photographs of the establishments identified. A9 is now providing an API allowing anyone to extend this with their own, specialized search result engine - a cute pun on "vertical." Here's how you choose from a collection. What they are letting users do is to add "searchlets" to the A9 "Search portal." This is a very interesting move - both for the clever insight of making it extensible and for the strategic questions it raises, for example:

  • Will Amazon "unbundle " their own core search verticals?

  • Can anyone build a search portal providing this same API?

  • What does this mean to Amazon and A9?

  • What does it mean to Google and Yahoo?

Think about this: if A9's cool Yellow Pages search (which includes the images) was available as a "searchlet" and Google allows the user to add tabs using the A9 Searchlet API, then what happens?

  • 1 min read

[ETECH] Reasonableness

A memorable quote (from George Bernard Shaw)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man."

  • 1 min read

Rosie O’Donnell has a blog

Another sign that "something big" is going on here. It seems like not a day passes but that there's another article in either the Boston Globe or the New York Times about some aspect of blogging. Latest example, Need Some New Luster? Try Rosie O'Donnell's Method: Create It by the Blogful.

"Ms. O'Donnell's Web log, "formerlyrosie," began appearing late last month and is described as at the top of the page as "The unedited rantings of a fat 42-year-old menopausal ex-talk show host married mother of four."

Not that I am a fan one way or another, but, who would have thunk!

  • 1 min read

Switcher’s Log, Part 5: Man does this machine scream.

For those who are following this narrative, this is a continuing narrative of my experiences after having switched from Windows XP to Mac OS X. One of my big concerns before switching to Mac was that it was going to be sloooooow. Of course this is an unfair comparison, between:

  • a 2GHz Pentium on a 2 year old Dell with 1 Gig of Memory and

  • a brand new G5, 1.8 GHz x 2 (dual processor), with 2 Gigabytes of memory.

But you wouldn't believe the rumors and legends out there about Macs being slow, or the fact that you can't compare a Pentium MHz to a G5 MHz… I was worried : perhaps the Mac OS was slower or different; and anyway would it actually be able to take advantage of the dual CPU for day to day use? The bottom line: it screams! Builds are fast, opening apps is fast, moving windows around is fast, Ripping CDs is really fast. It's really fast!

  • 1 min read

[BlogBridge] Screencast tutorials, so far

There are two very brief audio-visual overviews of 'cool' BlogBridge features.

  • BlogStarz feature: in this brief screencast I introduce and explain a handy way to rate which feeds you find most useful, and at the same time benefit from the experience of other users.

  • Automatic highlighting in articles:In this brief screencast, I show how BlogBridge will highlight words and phrases in green (link to a feed I am already following), red (link to a feed that is new to me) or blue (specific words or phrases which are interesting to me.)

Let me know what you think. Useful? Does it work with your browser on your platform?

  • 1 min read

This is not a religious blog

I thought this was an interesting article even though I don 't agree with it:

"There is no reason for believing that any sort of gods exist and quite good reason for believing that they do not exist and never have. It has all been a gigantic waste of time and a waste of life. It would be a joke of cosmic proportions if it weren't so tragic."

  • 2 min read

I love Microsoft too, but I can’t hold my tongue

Dave Winer points to Kevin Shofield's defense of an "unfair, infamous post saying that Microsoft can't ship software anymore." Scoble links to the thread, without comment (which is understandable, not wanting to be too partisan.) In my opinion, and agreeing with Kevin, Microsoft actually shows an absolutely amazing ability to develop, test, and deliver software of mind boggling complexity to a huge user base. They run unbelievably large scale beta tests, they support remarkable variety of hardware and software configurations, being run by every possible kind of customer, geography and user. IMHO there is no other organization on the planet that has this capability. Ok? But I have to take issue, in a big way , with this claim in Kevin's post: " Other Microsoft products, like Money and Encarta, ship on an annual basis and hit those deadlines like clockwork." As many users of Microsoft Money will attest, the annual, clockwork releases are a farce to extract more cash out of people (like me) who fall into the trap of buying the upgrade. Why do I keep falling into that trap myself? I really rely on Microsoft Money. I run my life on it. After receiving enough reminders that there's a new version out with bug fixes and new features I finally decide to go for it, and almost always regret it. It's called the triumph of hope over experience … Invariably there are very minor feature improvements, and often new horrible, data corrupting bugs. It's shameful. I bet the Microsoft Money team is tiny, which is why it is the most profitable, percentage wise, product Microsoft has.

  • 1 min read

I read Dowbrigade for the articles

Do you know Dowbrigade? An almost always interesting blog, intellectually stimulating and thought provoking. Check it out! Wait, read more closely. There's good stuff there:

"This story has almost everything we look for in a good blog posting. It features an innovative use of one of our favorite technologies, libraries and librarians, and a money-saving move by a public institution. Everything, that is, except an opportunity to feature a little artfully exposed flesh. So we decided to exercise a little creative licence, at the end of the story.."

What I want to know is where is Michael's secret stash of iPod photographs?