Archives for July 2005

King George (Bush) gets his way

Posted on July 26, 2005 ·

King George (Bush) gets his way after all… Senate does not

confirm his nominee? So what? Who cares about the Senate

anyway? That’s what a recess appointment is for … and we’re stuck with Bolton till January 2007.

Senators, Congressmen, go home, enjoy your vacation, don’t even

come back… you’re not needed. Down with Democracy, Long Live

King George!

Update (7/28) – A very relevant story on 115.org.

Update (7/29) It’s happening soon.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Humor, Senate, Congress, Bush, Democracy

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Filed Under: Humor, Politics ·

Rubik’s Cube Solver

Posted on July 25, 2005 ·

Rubik’s Cube Solver cute little app to solve the decades-old puzzle invented by a fellow Hungarian.

Rubik’s pocket cube

Originally uploaded by Petromyzon.

Technorati Tags: Rubik, Rubik’s Cube, Puzzles, Software, Hungarian

Filed Under: Software ·

MSN’s Apple-free Virtual Earth

Posted on July 25, 2005 ·

Lot of buzz about MSN’s Virtual Earth today … Jeremy Wright gives it the thumbs up over Google Maps – althought I think it’s a bit of unfair comparison, Google Earth is certainly a more comparable product.

Isn’t it funny how the whole world talks about these two only, Google and MS, when there’s another very similar product downloadable from none other but the NASA? (hm.. does it say something about the difference between Government and Private sector?)

As I wrote before, Patrick was the first one to publish a four-way visual comparison.

There may be more in the name than we thought … “Virtual Earth” meaning “the Earth as Microsoft would like to see it” – some folks report to The Register that Microsoft’s Earth Deleted Apple HQ.
Take a look at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters from Google and MSN’s rival map sites. Both sites offer aerial photos alongside maps. MSN’s version is here and Google’s is here.

The Search is on … who else did not make it to Bill’s New World?

The Register also notes that the twin towers of the World Trade Center are still there in all their pre-9/11 glory.

Update at 11:10am, 7/25: now we know who else did not make it. “Hey, Sun and Oracle are gone too, and at Google’s address, there’s just a charred hole” reports Siliconvalley.com.

Technorati Tags: Virtual Earth, MSN, MSN Virtual Earth, Google Earth, Google Moon, Mapping, Apple, NASA

Filed Under: Business, Humor, Personal Productivity, Software ·

MSN Virtual Earth – US only, Google flying to the Moon :-)

Posted on July 24, 2005 ·

The Novelty of Google Earth hasn’t worn off yet, and now we have a contender: MSN Virtual Earth... well, sort of … as long as the Earth is limited to the US – while Google’s world includes the Moon 🙂

If you clicked on the Virtual Earth link above, and got to nowhere, that’s quite understandable, according to Steve Rubel and confirmed by “The” Scoble, MS made the site available pre-launch, for testing purposes.

Apparently the few hours it was up were enough for Rick to test-ride and compare it to Google Earth. What really blew me away though was Patrick’s visual comparison of four products, including one from the NASA.

Update (7/31) Rick’s new review here.

Technorati Tags: Virtual Earth, MSN, MSN Virtual Earth, Google Earth, Google Moon, Mapping

Filed Under: Humor, Software, Technology ·

Innovation and Customer Service

Posted on July 24, 2005 ·

Ever started to comment on someone else’s blog only to get so carried away that you felt you had t make it a full-blown post? Well, it just happened to me.

Vinnie Mirchandani writes about how Hertz is using innovation to provide superior Customer Service. This prompted me to comment on the contrast of great Hertz service vs. a very poor experience I had with Avis:

On of Hertz’s early innovations Vinnie mentions, the Map-printing Kiosk proved to be a lifesaver when as a Consultant new to the US I flew around a lot every week – it gave me the security of arriving to unknown places in the middle of the night and finding my hotel without ever getting lost. This was in the early 90’s.

In fact we often take such conveniences for granted, assuming they are “industry standard” … not quite.

Fast forward to last year, when I flew to Boston for an interview – the company’s standard agency was Avis, so they booked me there … fine .. or so I thought.

After a horribly delayed flight I arrived at the Avis lot around 4am, trying to get directions to my hotel in Suburbia, a good 30 miles away. Wow, no Kiosk!!! (???). Well, you’d think the clerk can help you (like they do at Hertz). Apparently they are not supposed to, for liability reasons (???) – or so they say.

Oh, well, GPS will help – except the system I reserved was not in the car; the crew at the station had trouble first finding the key to the locker where they keep the GPS units ( a lousy Motorola phone), then they had no clue how to operate it. We ended up reading the user manual together, and I was faster in deciphering it than they were.

After this it should have come as no surprise when I was caught at the gate – apparently the paperwork and the car did not match, they parked the wrong car in the assigned lot. (Need I say this was the car the station manager and I spent 30 minutes in, trying to get the GPS installed?) Well, back to the office, station manager trying to call the gate, they don’t answer… he ended up running to the gate and order the guard to let me (finally) leave, saying he’ll fix the paperwork afterwards…

All in all, I spent 50 minutes at the Avis lot, despite being the only customer there.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, Customer Disservice, Avis, Hertz

Filed Under: Business, Customer Service, Technology ·

Has Blogging Peaked?

Posted on July 23, 2005 ·

The Always-On Innovation Summit just devoted it’s last session to the Blogosphere, but some “brand name” bloggers, like Jeremy Zawodny are already predicting blogging would peak soon … others are wondering if it already has.

I don’t believe either. Blogging may soon not be the “hot, new thing” ( in fact I am sure it no longer is, by the time I jump in on something, how could it be new …)

Those of us that find Blogging a good way of self-expression will likely not abandon it.

Others blog as a from of ongoing career-management – get your name known, “become a brand” (thanks, tompeters!).
If you want to be “in” some Entrepreneurial circles, better be a blogger… just look at what Joe Kraus says about his hiring criteria.

That leaves the commercial crowd – blogging for $$$. Blogging networks grow like mushrooms, their content is often not determined by the author’s desire to communicate but by what areas help maximize ad revenue. Don’t get me wrong: many of these networks actually provide high-quality information… but with some others, content is secondary, just an excuse to display ads.

I expect to see a spectacular hypergrowth- peak-crash-burn cycle in this segment. The barrier of entry is low, and I suspect this will be just like the day-trading phenomenon: with news like Jason Calacanis hitting $1M or “ProBlogger” Darren’s record Adsense check sooner or later many in corporate America will see blogging as a way to get out of the cubicle and make easy money, then … well, we know what happened to daytraders.
Few will make a decent profit, most will burn, the real beneficieries will be, just like with daytrading, the platform/infractsructure/tool providers. I wrote about one extreme example here.

When the $$ crowd is gone, blogging will be back to what it’s meant to be: a way of self-expression, communication, professional/social networking, exchange of ideas. Which is perfectly right with me.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Blogs, Marketing, Weblogs, Daytrading, Social Networking, Business Networking, Software, Social Software