Author: Kent

Reader, writer, arithmeticer. Proprietor of Newsome.Org, a tech, music and life blog.

Evening Reading: 9/9/07

Here are 12 Things to do with Coca Cola.  Drinking it is not mentioned.  Randy Morin isn’t a big Coke fan either.  Mike went cold turkey.  I quit sodas cold turkey about 15 years ago.  Went without for about 6 years.  Then I got hooked on Schweppes raspberry ginger ale.  Then back to water for about 5 years.  About 3 years ago, I fell off the water wagon for Snapple Diet Peach Tea.  Like any good junkie, I graduated up to Diet Dr. Pepper, where I sit today.  At some point, it will be cold turkey again.  Rinse.  Repeat.

People seemed to like the kite video.  Here’s a pretty amazing hand shadow show.

TechCrunch has a preview of Delicious 2.0.  All I want is the ability to delete “for” links.  That should take about 30 seconds of coding.

The Positivity Blog has 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People.  I think it’s a really good list.  The biggest reason people in my business are ineffective is the failure to be accessible to the client and keep the client informed.  Not returning that call or email is never, ever the right decision.

Steve Spalding on how to save blogging from itself.  Nail, meet Mr. Hammer:

We jump on every trend, ride every wave, link bait, lambast, lie and kowtow all in hopes that it will drive up our CPM. Everyone needs to make a living, and I am the last person to tell anyone how to do it but I will say that this egotistical sense that we are on some noble quest to save the written word is a load of bull hockey that we need to stop buying into.

Steve has some solutions to ponder as well.  Great post.

Speaking of trying to make money, Twitter seems to be embracing the spam – er – commercial tweet.  Spam on Twitter.  Spitter.

This deserves a post of its own, but I want to point to it right away.  Susan Getgood on kids and social networks.  My two oldest kids, and all of their friends, are absolutely crazy about Webkinz.  The family computer is in my study, and I have watched them play in Webkinz World quite a bit.  Yes, it is sitting in front of a computer, but also yes, my kids who didn’t know a mouse from a monitor 2 years ago are now more computer literate than 75% of my adult friends.  There’s no way they would have allowed me to teach them in 3 years the computer-related stuff they learned via Webkinz in 6 months.  Like any tool, the secret is in moderation.  But I’m a Webkinz fan- of both the experience and the brilliant marketing plan.

TDavid had a thoughtful response to my anti-video blogging post.  TDavid is a smart dude, and when he addresses a topic, I pay attention.  That’s the sort of authority that matters to me- not the faux Technorati kind.

Why do developers feel the need to be sneaky to get their stuff on your computer?  It’s one thing when some company you’ve never heard of quasi-spams your address book.  Newsome’s Axiom:  sign up for more than 3 social networks and, by definition, you are not concerned about privacy.  It’s something else altogether when Microsoft does it.  I really like Live Writer.  I have bashed a lot of people, some of them my friends, for stupidly saying that Google anything is ever going to displace Office.  I have long ago written off and uninstalled Real Player for trying to take over my computer.  Microsoft should know better.

Claus has a good look at the new Live Writer version. Rick Mahn has a Live Writer wishlist.

Ayelet has a good read on effectively using social networks.  She has good, specific advice.  Not just intoxicated fluff like most social network posts.  Dave and Mike, when we pick an EELS guest from my blogroll, Ayelet is my first choice.  She’d be a great guest, and we’d break our own time zone record.

Blinding me with tennis: Brad Feld quotes Thomas Dolby in a post about tennis.  Now that’s what I call range.

Don Dodge has the best primer on network neutrality I’ve read yet.

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Latest Podcast: The Extraordinary Everyday Lives Show #033

eels

Show number 033 of The Extraordinary Everyday Lives Show is up.  EELS is Dave Wallace and Mike Seyfang‘s podcast.  I recently joined them as a co-host.

Naked Biff, of Naked Yak fame, joined us for this show. The four of us talked about talk about Biff’s company, Naked, a start-up company working on a new open messaging service. The conversation about Naked’s open messaging service led to a discussion about social networking, the need for user-defined flexibility between openness and privacy, the need for trust in the social networking space, methods to bring business to networking as a business enhancement, and the focus on content over platform.

It was a fun show.  Listen or download here.

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Newsome.Org Friday Night Music Video Hootenanny (Volume 2)

Volume 2 starts off with one of the best covers I have ever heard.  Next comes a live one from 1966 by the greatest piano player who ever lived.  A great America (the band) number and some very fine (for at least 2 reasons) Mazzy Star are next.  Followed by Billy Swan (from 1975), Blue Rodeo and some live Pogues.  An awesome cover of Hotel California (in Spanish, no less) wraps up tonight’s hootenanny.

2007 Fantasy Football Draft

We held our fantasy football draft last night for our league’s 5th season.  Here’s the draft update from 2005, which has a summary of our rules (the only material change since then being that we now allow teams to spend up to 150 points in salary cap, with a luxury tax of $7 per point for each point over 100).  My draft was so bad last year, I didn’t even write about it.  I had to pull off two blockbuster trades around the middle of the season to put things right.

mrLast year, after 4 years of being the best team in the league during the regular season and then choking horribly in the playoffs, I managed to switch it up.  I had a less than mediocre 7-6 regular season record, but rolled through the playoffs to my first league championship.  The trophy hangs on my wall for a year, and I used my $1500 in winnings to invest in a stock that’s currently up 35%- which gives me more opportunity to irritate my colleagues every other lunch or so.  All in all a good year.

But this is a new year.  Here’s the skinny on this year’s draft.

Through one of my trades last year, I got Laurence Maroney and Ronnie Brown at low salaries.  I franchised both of them.  I designated Marc Bulger, Javon Walker and Antonio Gates as my match players.  I matched the first two, but Gates went for 40 or so- too rich for my blood, so I let him go.  I covered a little by getting Tony Gonzales for a much lower salary.  Here’s my entire roster (again, it’s a 10-team league, 14 roster spots and we had to draft a rookie).

QB: Marc Bulger, Brady Quinn (R).
RB: Laurence Maroney, Ronnie Brown, Chester Taylor, Fred Taylor
WR: Larry Fitzgerald, Javon Walker, Plaxico Burress, Donte Stallworth, Santana Moss
TE: Tony Gonzales
K: Neil Rackers
Defense: Ravens

Each week we start 1 QB, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 1 Defense, 1 K and, if we want to, a coach (+10 for a win, -5 for a loss).  I generally don’t start a coach, preferring the have an extra bench slot to bank players.

All in all, I think it’s a pretty good, but not great, team.  I need to trade some of my average WRs for a bookend to go with Fitzgerald.

The drama began early when some of the other owners hurriedly voted in a rule change placing the rookie draft in front of the regular draft, which is not the way the detailed league rules were written, when they realized I was going to bid up some rookies during the regular draft.  That messed up my Calvin Johnson plan, but such is life.

Here are my predictions for the league.

North Division:

Hawkeyes (lower overall salary):  Paid a boatload for Chad Johnson.  A pretty solid team, particularly for the price.  Howard won’t win, but he’ll be competitive.

Prostates (lower overall salary):  Last year Emmett went long on Bears.  This year it’s the Steelers.  He matched away Marques Colston (who was my targeted bookend for Fitzgerald) from me.  My pick for the cellar in the North.

Longhorns (high overall salary):  Earl is a past league winner.  Good team, with Steve Smith and Terrell Owens at WR, Vince Young and Tony Romo at QB.  If one of Floyd’s RBs gets hurt, Earl will battle Goober for the North.

Capacitators (high overall salary):  Floyd franchised both LT and Shaun Alexander for a total of 89 points.  He rode them to a championship a couple of years ago.  But if one of them gets hurt, he’s toast.

Young Guns (medium overall salary):  Goober has Steven Jackson at a very low salary.   That allowed him to pay a ton for Peyton Manning.  He also has Rudi Johnson and pretty decent WRs.  The favorite in the North.

South Division:

Buckeyes (high overall salary) : Barney has Larry Johnson and Frank Gore for next to nothing in salary.  He also has both Reggie Wayne and Marvin Harrison at WR.  Carson Palmer at QB.  Antonio Gates at TE.  Maybe the best fantasy football team ever assembled.  If he doesn’t win this year, it will be an Appalachian State level upset.

Whackjobs (lowest overall salary):  Just to prove how frugal he is, Andy ended up with a salary cap way under 100.  Of course the minimum entry fee bought him 100 points.  So basically he paid for cap he didn’t use.  The only team that pays no luxury tax.  He has a good player or two, but basically he’s a spectator this year.

NYSE (medium overall salary):  Because of (a) the rules change coup I talked about above and (b) utterly insane early drafting by other owners, Alchris Lallodavis got Calvin Johnson at the 4th pick in the rookie draft.  Unbelievable.  Alchris had some roster problems that worked against him, but he still put together a decent team.  In 2 years when he has the best WR in football at 11 points, it will all seem worth it.

CBB (replaced the Wolverines in the league 2 years ago; new owner this year) (medium overall salary):  I thought this dude was having a bad draft while it was going on, but when I saw his roster later, I realized I was wrong.  He put together a good, reasonably priced team, led by Tom Brady and Joseph Addai.  Will be in the hunt, but is no match for the juggernaut Buckeyes.

Ramblers (high overall salary):  As mentioned above, pretty good team.  Weak bench, and great potential to start the wrong 2nd WR.  I think I’ll make the playoffs, but I’ll get creamed by the Buckeyes in the playoffs.

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Evening Reading: 9/5/07

I don’t really care that there are new iPods.  It doesn’t make me happy or interested.  It doesn’t make me angry or turn me off.  It lies at the perfect center of my apathy.

I think Facebook making profiles public has a lot to do with Facebook trying to generate more traffic and very little to do with knocking down walls and creating an autonomous collective of open and accessible content.  There is a reason why social networks maintain their walls.  It’s their attempt to keep their content from running away.  It’s a corral for the conscripted.

Hayden Shaughnessy on the Facebook vs Blog thing.  I completely agree that a lot of people overstate the depth of the friendship relationship within Facebook.  Shel Israel has also written thoughtfully about this.

Even famous cartoonists get crapped on once in a while.

You may be relieved or horrified to know that there may be money in meat goats.

Guy Kawasaki wants to know if you’re an egomaniac.

TDavid thinks there might be a Led Zeppelin reunion.  I’ve been hoping that would happen for years.  I’m about to get my 3rd wish.  Number 1 will never happen.  That leaves Led Zeppelin to break the tie.

A belated happy anniversary to Warner and his better half.

Earl Moore notes that redheads may be becoming extinct.  That’s sort of a bummer, since everyone knows a woman with red hair gets a +2 bonus.

I am very interested in the evolution of Rick Mahn’s reading list.  Hey Rick, how about more details on your speed reading process?  I could use a tool like that when slogging through my swivel feeds.  I find that when I am short on time or get too far behind in my reading, I make a split-second snap decision based on the title of a post about whether to read the first paragraph or not, to see if there’s something of interest there.  It is, to say the least, an inefficient and occasionally unrewarding way to read feeds.  It also drives home the importance of titles.

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Following, Lazily, in the Footsteps of Giants

In August of 2004, I built a mighty fine computer from the ground up.  It had everything I needed, and it served me well for three years.

But boy was it loud.  Jet engine loud.  A fanless video card and an insulated case didn’t achieve the level of quiet I was hoping for.  Turning the fans down helped a little, but if I wasn’t careful it would get really hot.  Sometimes spontaneous reboot hot.  So I cranked the fans back up and soldiered noisily along.

I used two internal hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration, and two removable SATA hard drives for music and video storage.  That worked OK, but in hindsight I should have used RAID 1.  Over time, I started feeling nervous about data loss.  A couple of months ago, I started to have hard drive and boot configuration issues.  I started thinking about a new computer.

Then, as fate would have it, both of my computer gurus, Ed Bott and Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, bought and/or started to build new computers.  Both based on the Intel Intel Core 2 Q6600 chip.  Quad core, 2.4GHz.  Hmmm.

This past weekend, I had more boot configuration problem.  I can fix just about any computer problem, but when I spend too much time fixing something that ought to just work, I get irritable and frustrated.  Call it the Car Rule.  Application of the Car Rule to my loud, boot-challenged computer mandated- mandated I tell ya – that I get a new one.

I didn’t want to wait for the parts to arrive, and I was a little worried that if I built one from scratch I might end up with another jet engine sounding box.  So I did it the lazy way.

Image (1) hp.jpg for post 3488I bought an HP Pavilion m8150n.  I switched out the video card in favor of a GeForce 8600 GT card, for the dual DVI outputs (I am a devout believer in the dual monitor efficiency advantage).  I added an HP personal media removable hard drive (which slides into the slot to the left of the HP logo in the picture) to give me a almost a terabyte of storage, and to allow for hassle free back up.

Presto, I have a new computer that works like a charm.  And it’s very quiet.  As I type this, the only sound I hear is from the fan inside my AV cabinet 10 feet behind me.  The computer at my feet is virtually silent.

It wasn’t the cheapest way to go, but for a little over $1700 I have a new, quiet computer.

Now, about that fan in my AV cabinet…

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Stepping Off the Treadmill

Jane! Get me off this crazy thing!
– George Jetson

Louis Gray has a very good read on the Technorati authority system, which for the two of you who don’t already know, tabulates the number of links from unique blogs (i.e., only one link from each blog counts) over a 180 day period and uses that number as an approximation of your authority within the blogosphere.  This system, while flawed, is presumably an attempt to address what Ken Jennings was talking about yesterday when analyzing the semi-final of the Grand Slam game show he seems to be in the process of winning:

Clearly, it’s hard to come back from any deficit whatsoever in Grand Slam. Players are just checking out of the games too early. Not intentionally, but the mysterious human brain must just be better at algebra and anagrams when it knows it has the confidence of a little time cushion. (I’m reminded of those studies showing that girls do just as well as boys on math problems when they get an empowering lecture first, or that minority students do worse on standardized tests when they even have to write their name or identify their race at the top of the page. Confidence gets those cerebral juices flowing.) This is a problem as a contestant; it’s an even bigger problem if you’re a network exec. What good is your split-second lightning format if one player always ends up winning by a full minute or two?

The game is simple and elegant as it is, but I wonder if it doesn’t need to be tweaked somehow so that early-round wins have less effect on the overall final-round clock.

The idea behind the Technorati system is to keep the blog rankings fresh, so that those of us not at the top of blogger’s hill will feel like we still have a chance.  It’s Technorati’s way of giving us that confidence booster.  The thing is, though, it doesn’t work.

gj Unless Technorati takes Louis’s advice to heart and resets the link counts every day, which certainly would result in a few more Appalachian State-like upsets, those bloggers with the mindshare and the momentum will always get more links than those of us without it, whether the measurement period is a few days or a month of Sundays.  Lots of folks would have us believe that every 180 days is a new game with the promise of a road victory over the incumbent A-Listers in front of their 109,000 fans.  But just like Ken Jennings is very, very likely to beat all comers in games of knowledge and intelligence, those who currently have the links, and the reputation that, rightly or wrongly, follows all that attention, are going to get more links and claim more “authority” under the Technorati system.  Some will point to the occasional statistical anomaly, but mathematically, it’s true.

Leaving aside the age old question about popularity as a stand-in for authority, what’s to be done about it?

That’s a really hard question, because, generally speaking, those who claim links don’t matter are the ones who either have more than they can handle (to paraphrase Raising Arizona) or who claim to embrace self-imposed isolation as a protest against the whole links as societal affirmation thing.  Other than a general feeling that links do matter, I don’t have a wholly satisfactory answer.

My Swivel Feeds experiment has certainly taught me that there are a lot of really talented and interesting people out there blogging away in relative obscurity while other less talented writers, many of whom post regurgitated versions of the same thing in some cross linking, sleep-inducing dance of the who cares, continue to rack up links and reader counts.  I’ve certainly tried to bring attention to some relatively undiscovered gems, but it’s an inefficient process at best.  The obscure leading the obscure further into obscurity.  Or something like that.

I suppose the best approach is, as always, to take the middle ground.  Links do matter and should be encouraged, but conversations and the friendships that develop around them are also important.  There are 10-15 bloggers, maybe more, who I have over time come to view as friends (not the Facebook kind, but the real kind).  I can tell when a new person has joined that group because I always check their feeds daily, even when I don’t have time to read all my feeds.  If I get secretly irritated at you when you haven’t posted in a day or two, that means you have transcended the blogosphere and become important to me on a personal level.  That is the sort of authority that matters.  Not so much the number of links from unique blogs.  It’s not a perfect answer, but given the variables involved, I think it’s the best one we have.

The blogosphere is imperfect and uneven.  Like life.  There’s only so much we can do to change either one.  But like life, the way to improve the quality of the experience is first and foremost to avoid buying into a system designed for the betterment of a few to the detriment of many.  Drop out of the rat race.  Step off of the Technorati treadmill.

And, in their place, align yourself with good and interesting people.  Not as a clique, but as a community.  An open gathering of those with shared passions and goals.

Good friends made for good reasons makes the trip easier, safer, more fun.

And sometimes together you can actually make a difference.

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Solving the 401 Error: Windows Live Writer & Remotely Hosted Blogger Blogs

I finally figured out why I couldn’t get Windows Live Writer to recognize my blog.

If your blog is remotely hosted (meaning on your server), you have to add this in the head area of your template:

<meta content=”blogger” name=”generator”/>

After that it works like a charm.

Too bad it took me about two hours to figure that out…

 

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Evening Reading: 9/1/07

Many thanks to Ayelet for picking Newsome.Org as one of her 5 Blog Day Picks!

CD Baby is now selling DRM-free digital downloads.  Several of my musician buddies sell their CDs via CD Baby.  It looks like you have to buy the entire record, as opposed to individual songs, but this is still a good development.  Check out Deadwood, by my old buddy Mark Barker.  Good stuff.

Amazon, who would own the digital music download market if they hadn’t been deeply asleep at the switch, is about to start selling digital music too.

Photoshop College:  60 Advanced Photoshop Tutorials.

Nero, the only CD burning software that has a place on my computer, will release its new version 8 next month.  I hope it can avoid the siren-like call of the bloat monster.

Jeff Balke has a great and accurate post on the Houston music scene.  It’s been downhill for me since the Ale House went yuppie and got torn down.

InstaBloke on blogging myths.  My take in one of the worst sentences ever written:  You probably should post every day, but I don’t ’cause it’s hard, yet quality is probably better than quantity unless you’re trying to be like old media, in which case an Engadget-like posting tempo is probably better, yet it doesn’t really matter if you don’t post a lot or have a niche because good writing, unlike this sentence, is what will turn your visitors into readers, particularly if you write posts like Will Truman and not stupid elitist bullshit like Andrew Keen,  but don’t just comment on the news because there are better looking and higher paid people on TV who do that better than you can, however, if you are only trying to be yourself, there’s no need to fake it, so it doesn’t matter if you can or not, and it’s definitely not OK to make money any way you can.

Here’s another Simpson’s intro- this time Star Wars style.

I agree.  This is what the web was meant for.  Here are a couple of names I generously came up with for my friends’ kids, neither of whom saw the obvious beauty in them.  Bambi Lee Gunderson,  Jesus Earl MacLuckie.

Stowe Boyd sits in my corner of the video blogging debate.

Sometimes you have to slay a purple monster to get to the truth.  Here’s an amazing post and really neat story by Rory Blyth.  I hope we get updates.

The Struggling Writer found a cool Atari label maker.  Speaking of Atari… (WARNING: Very Explicit).  I remember the outrage (and deservedly so) over Custer’s Revenge.  I had no idea there was a cottage industry making that sort of game for the Atari 2600.

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