Recently in Technology Category

You know, I've had it way up to my eyeballs with the kids down in Mountain View. You know the ones. Yes, they write a lot of checks for some potentially useful purposes, but please. Isn't everyone sick of crap like this from the fawning media?

Everyone wants to work at Google. It’s a money machine with a stock price bouncing around $700. The employees are brilliant and free organic meals are served every day.

Blech. That would be Fortune's Wendy Tanaka, planting a wet sloppy one on Eric & Company.

But just when I might be drawn into a swirling pit of despair, Fake Steve is there to pull me back from the edge. A tidbit:

Worse yet the article goes on to portray Google as a place where kids sit in meetings answering email on laptops instead of paying attention and where everyone has such a severe case of Attention Deficit Disorder that "there are no two-year plans. Its product road maps look ahead only four or five months at most. And, Mr. Schmidt says, the only plans `anybody believes in go through the end of this quarter.'"

No long-range planning? Really? Cool! It's a whole new paradigm! Get Chris Anderson from Wired on the phone right away. Or Scoble. There's a book in this for sure. Radical Velocity: How Google Succeeds Without Planning. Or this one: Totally Random: How to Accelerate Your Business Using Pure, Dumb Luck.

Ahhh....

I finally succumbed to both a bit of peer pressure and a bigger sense that I'm in danger of being out of the loop, technology trend-wise: I signed up for Facebook. I can't say I completely understand its purpose in the big picture, but I'm after setting up my initial page, I'm a little bit intrigued. It's irresistible to start searching for friends, acquaintances, and even "ex'es."

I've been confused about Facebook versus MySpace for a while now, so this morning I actually did a search on that topic. One of the key distinguishing features appears to be that Facebook has opened up its platform to application development. We've even talked about taking advantage of this for OpenEco. I'm a big fan of "open-ness" (yes, the Sun Kool-aid is very tasty), since it seems to spark a lot of creativity (among other virtues).

Feels good to learn new things :)

Fake Steve has a pointer to this 10 year old article on 101 ways to save Apple. It's a hoot to see which ones of these suggestions Apple ignored (good thing), and which ones hit pretty close to the mark when predicting the ingredients of Apple's resurrection.

My vote for most laughably wrong suggestion:
59. Invest heavily in Newton technology

Best suggestions:
10. Get a great image campaign.
50. Give Steve Jobs as much authority as he wants in new product development.
8. Buy a song. (well, they didn't actually do it in the way Wired suggested, but...)

One of the joys of my current on-line existence is the Fake Steve Jobs blog. The reasons behind my infatuation? Here's one.

So, so wrong yet so, so right.

You are, once again, Microsoft's bitch.

Matt Morford once again hits it out of the park. Step away from the skanky win box and get some hot, sweet Mac lovin'...

Ha! Produce computer lovers unite. Looks like Best Buy is reconsidering their 1998 decision to stop selling Apple computers. Of course, there's no way their cavernous locations can even approach the cool factor of the average, let alone above average Apple temple. However, putting Macs next to the average Evil Empire machines is a fabulous way to show the masses the error of their ways. And that's just aesthetics!

Yes, I'm an Apple Head. Gotta problem wit dat?

Alright. So I'm camped out in the Alaska waiting area at San Jose airport, waiting on a delayed flight to see my bud, Northwest Babe. Although this is one of the smallest, meanest, least interesting waiting areas I've ever spent time in (and I've seen some doosies, believe me), I have managed to score what amounts to a study carrol with a power outlet and a cheap day-pass wireless network. Yes, the entire vacinity reeks of Togo's pastrami (nauseating after a couple of hours), but there's a power outlet!!! I can surf and recharge my iPod :)

Too bad Apple doesn't make a cell phone. The Nokia really clashes with all this white, gleaming technology.

Sam - let's call our interviewee Sam, it's suitably anonymous - lives in a three-bedroom semi-detached house in London, drives a vintage Jaguar and runs his own company. But "it's not not all rock and roll and big money", says Sam. What isn't? Spamming websites and blogs with text to pump up the search engine rankings of sites pushing PPC (pills, porn and casinos), that's what.

A pox on Sam and all his ilk . . .

Hey! Google! If you're so smart, figure out how to shut these guys down.

If this blog looks a little weird right now, it's because I've just been migrated to a new host and MT version. Still working to get the style sheets spruced up again. Thanks for your patience.

OK. So this Friday we're having a talk at work by Brewster Kahle, co-founder of The Internet Archive. When we booked him, I kind of took a gander at the site, but didn't really spend much time on it.

A couple of days ago, I got the urge to have some new Dead music, and knew that my friend, Dave, used something he'd called "eTree." So, I Googled up "Grateful Dead shows download" and looked in the results for "eTree." Clicked over, bagged a very cool show, was a happy camper.

So today, I decide to go over and find another show (it's addictive), and I take a good look at the page. There, up in the corner, is the logo for the Internet Archive.

Major duh, Lori.

Any-hoo, this site is so unbelievably cool, so chock-full of free, fab data, I'm beside myself. Down the rabbit hole I go, eating up my remaining gigabytes. I've already started looking at external drives to hold more data. Life's good.