I’m busy writing up a JotSpot / Google piece, but since I am in the habit of coming up with silly post-acquisition names, how is this: Wireddit (WiReddit?).
Jotle? GoogSpot? Joogle? GSpot? JotSpot Acquired by Google
Posted on October 31, 2006 ·
So the rumors at the Office 2.0 Conference were true – JotSpot is now part of Google. (hat tip: Charlie)
This is huge, and I’ll post my first reaction soon – after breakfast. You gotta have your priorities right
Congrat’s to Joe and team! 
Update: See my longer post here. Btw, I’ve “stolen” the Joogle and GSpot names from Paul Kedrosky‘s blog.
Windows Vista is Officially 2.0 Compliant
Posted on October 30, 2006 ·
Windows Vista is now officially 2.0 compliant: it has rounded corners and the right colors. 
Btw, you can be 2.0 compliant, too: order your business cards here, like I did; rounded corners are a $20 upgrade. 
Joke apart, it’s really reassuring that the most important things are taken care of…
Update (10/31): Gee, am I glad I said it before TechCrunch 
Voting Machine Votes INSTEAD OF You in Florida
Posted on October 30, 2006 ·
Remember Chad from Florida? No, it’s not a friendly chap, it’s the hanging chad that became the symbol of everything that can go wrong with elections.
Now here we go again: the Miami Herald reports Glitches cited in early voting:
Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen — the final voting step.
Debra A. Reed voted with her boss on Wednesday at African-American Research Library and Cultural Center near Fort Lauderdale. Her vote went smoothly, but boss Gary Rudolf called her over to look at what was happening on his machine. He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.
Now, if I were cynical, I’d say, wow, the votes are skewed towards to Republicans – again. But I think we’d miss the bigger picture here: it’s all about user (voter) convenience. Why bother making a hard decision? The machine does it all for you. It votes INSTEAD OF you. How convenient
Update (10/31): Time magazine’s cover story: Can This Machine Be Trusted?
Other blogs on the subject:
- Diebold and Broward: Stealing the Election Starts Early
- MESS WITH TEXAS: State Rep Reports ES&S Touch-Screens Dropping Candidate Names, Flipping Straight Ticket Ballots from Democratic to Republican in San Antonio!
- Glitches cited in early voting
- Florida Diebold machines help you pick the right candidate
IBM’s Giant Brainchild
Posted on October 30, 2006 ·
IBM NORC – The Naval Ordnance Research Calculator. Should the embedded player not work, watch the video here.
Thanks to fellow Enterprise Irregular Thomas Otter for discovering this gem. Btw., his article is worth reading, too.
Downloading IE7 Was a Mistake
Posted on October 30, 2006 ·
I just started to write this post when the email from ZDNet arrived: Another IE 7 security flaw pops up . But that’s not what I want to write about. Another ZDNet piece, Is Firefox 2.0 a dud? prompted me to check out Internet Explorer 7. Not that I agree with the title, being part of the 76% using FireFox, according to the poll in the “dud” article.
Are you using Firefox 2.0?
- Yes (76%)
- No (12%)
- Not yet, but I plan to (12%)
Total Votes: 7,944
OK, let’s get started, download IE7. The download itself is simple and quick, let’s click on the file to install it. It wants to do the Genuine (Dis)Advantage Validation again, although this PC has been validated before – fine, so be it. Next it downloads the latest updates to IE7. WTF? It’s not like I bough a retail CD months ago, I’ve just downloaded the thingie from Microsoft this very moment! I should have the latest and greatest, but it’s updating for a looooooooong time. Then it installs for long minutes – I don’t know if it’s frozen, but I had enough trouble with failed Windows updates to know better than interrupt the process.
About 25 minutes later the damn thing tells me to restart the computer. After reboot, in just a bit less than half an hour total I have control of my PC again. I haven’t touched IE7 yet, but I’m already biased against it. I did not agree to half an hour of my time stolen. Any program that takes more than a few minutes to install should warn the user – otherwise it’s hijacking my computer and stealing my time, which it has not right to do. Microsoft just does not learn. 
Life Becoming Normal Again
Posted on October 29, 2006 ·
This is mostly a thank you note to the countless friends who commented here on the blog or emailed me wishing well to my Dad prior to his heart surgery. 
I can’t tell you how much it meant to me, and even more to my Dad, although he does not even know you…
He is now back home recovering after a successful surgery, and life is gradually returning to normal (?) – that means I will resume blogging soon.
Thanks again, everyone
How I’ll be a Star on MTV
Posted on October 27, 2006 ·
“I want my, I want my MTV
I want my, I want my MTV…”(Money For Nothing, Dire Straits)
The voicemail on my cellphone says:
This is …. from MTV Casting. Everybody liked you. The Director wants you to come back tomorrow noon and you’ll all be recorded individually. Please call me to confirm at 310-xxx-xxxx.
Wow… I’ll be a star! I’m really excited… but why does she call me Carla?
Oh, well … I won’t be the next star after all … just called the casting agent to let her know she reached the wrong number.
Tags: MTV, MTV Casting
Will Geeks Become an Endangered Species?
Posted on October 24, 2006 ·
We’ve long known laptops can cause male infertility when used right where the name suggests – i.e. right on your lap. That’s long before they started exploding left and right – simply by heating up the family jewels they can drastically reduce a man’s ability to reproduce. (Hm…is that why manufacturers switched to calling them notebooks?)
Now we find out extensive cellphone usage results in the same:
“Those who made calls on a mobile phone for more than four hours a day had the worst sperm counts and the poorest quality sperm, according to results released yest at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual meeting in New Orleans.”
The mechanism of the damage is not yet known:
“Doctors believe the damage could be caused by the electromagnetic radiation emitted by handsets or the heat they generate.”
Heat? Give me a break! I don’t know about you, but I either hold it to my ears or use a headset, but it’s never … you know .. down there. 
Anyway, true geeks have their laptops and cellphones permanently glued to them – if they become infertile, are geeks becoming an endangered species?
Update (10/30): Read the ZDNet story by David Berlind.
Update (1/4/08): Wow, I can’t believe this: Yossi Vardi uses my post in his TED presentation. 🙂 (It’s a 2 minutes 13 seconds)
Tags: endangered species, geeks, laptops, mobile phones, fertility, infertility, male fertility, scrotal temperature, sperm count
Wikis as Intranet + Extranet
Posted on October 22, 2006 ·
I’ve written about how wikis can become *the* Intranet, that is not only easy to access but easy to edit by everyone, in the organization. Instead of a one-way communication channel for Management to talk (down) to employees, the wiki becomes a living, breathing, participatory communication platform.
Now there’s a new case study of how a a customer of Atlassian’s Confluence wiki is using it for customer communication, by building their entire Extranet on Confluence.
The wiki has become the Intranet+Extranet.
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