Dec 2005 ... tagging comment

I found this comment on the del.icio.us blog, on the post where Joshua announced the acquisition by Yahoo:

"Joshua, Congratulations! Yahoo sure does get tagging I see.

Posted by: Michael Arrington | Dec 9, 2005 1:58:14 PM"


Who really does "get" tagging though? Has tagging been monetized yet? Or is it just a feature of the web that we're all cuddly with now, a year an a half later?

Finding out...about

I hit the links this morning when I should have gone golfing. That rain we had has let up and my roofers are up top shingling away. Anyway, I came across a statement I thought I'd share on a widely Dugg article about Google and a recent whoopsie it had with personalized homepages, "Google scrambles to restore deleted homepages."

The part I want to share has really nothing to do with the story. It's the editor's note that followed: "Editor's Note - This story is a perfect example of how we learn about new features in software and technology during our workday. We've always seen the personalized homepage option inside of Google, but never bothered to play around with it until we started writing this story. We made a brand spanking new Google page in about 3 minutes, complete with Tom's Hardware Guide, Engadget and Digg feeds. We also included a Gmail feed."

Enjoy yourself

April 2007

Dear Jerome,

As Grandpa G always said First, "enjoy yourself, it's later than you think" Second, "Health, good health is wealth." I feel this year has been prosperous for us all!

I love your ideas for your kitchen and how you have followed through with your ideas.

Happy Easter, son, much love,

Mom

When's the next rocket out of this dump?

Sweet. I'm packing my bags. X marks the spot.

clipped from www.cnn.com Scientists find most Earth-like planet yet WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- European astronomers have spotted what they say is the most Earth-like planet yet outside our solar system, with balmy temperatures that could support water and, potentially, life. They have not directly seen the planet, orbiting a red dwarf star called Gliese 581. But measurements of the star suggest that a planet not much larger than the Earth is pulling on it, the researchers say in a letter to the editor of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. "Its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky, like our Earth, or covered with oceans," Udry said in a telephone interview. "Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial life," Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University in France, said in a statement.

Memories of Youth

I had a bunch of Griffey cards. I think I have that Upper Deck one. Jason's comments remind me of a ton of things from my youth that influenced my eye for design. (And a ton of things that led my professional career away from it.) I'll post some images at some point.

clipped from www.kottke.org Ben says: My first thought was "Griffey, he's still just a couple of years into the majors," and then I realized it's been 18 years! Probably has a lot to do with my hording his rookie cards back in '89 and then losing interest in the whole baseball card thing a year later. » by Ben on Apr 25, 2007 at 12:35 PM clipped from www.kottke.org jkottke says: Yeah, the only reason I even noticed his home run total at all is that 1989 Upper Deck card of his, which card is burned into my brain as a highlight of my youth and, come to think of it, the first bit of graphic design I remember noticing/studying/coveting. » by jkottke on Apr 25, 2007 at 12:44 PM

I may read this book.

I heard about this book, oh, a couple three weeks ago. I put it on my back burner and it has since stewed itself into what seems to be a tasty little morsel. I may even buy the ebook.

clipped from www.amazon.com

RSS to the rescue!

I love RSS since syndication is the shiznit. My father-in-law loves to get his news straight from Italian and Spanish sources, and when he's home he's got his bookmarks, but when he wanted to get his daily fix at our house, he spent too much time hunting for the sites. (He doesn't know about delicious...) Anyway, I tried to tell him about feeds and feed readers, but as soon as I started, I realized my defining vocabularly was too technical. I may as well have been speaking Greek, although he might have understood that!

So I was glad to see this today....

Click To Play

There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don't. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don't know where to start.

I think the production value could have been better (have you seen those UPS ads?!) but beggars can't be choosers. I'll stick this in front of him then get him onto Google Reader.

Yet people still claim it's a dumb idea...

Kinda like blogging is when it first "came out." Twitter rocks and these guys figured it out. They got something up and out there that people are using. People are using it in ways no one thought of - so it can't be so dumb after all.

clipped from www.nytimes.com From Many Tweets, One Loud Voice on the Internet Jack Dorsey, left, and Biz Stone of Obvious, the 10-person start-up in San Francisco that created the Twitter messaging service. Regular users of the service are called twitterers.

New York's Grand Central 100 years ago...nearly

Kottke pointed this one out. Shorpy is a great site. Gotta dig into it more often...

clipped from www.shorpy.com Crowd outside Grand Central Station, returning from summer vacations. September 8, 1908. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection.

Range Hood 60% done

Last week Nicole contacted Sam Ostroff of Salmon Studios to finish off our hood's ducting. Sam happens to live up the street from us and works adjacent to the Stone Soup Concrete guys. Very convenient! Here's where we are so far...Sam will enclose the ductwork and match the JennAir chimney style ductwork.

Mobile Web coming to a tiny screen near you...June 1?

Well, with the carriers sitting in the way of getting cell phone users on the web (overpriced data plans, horrible navigation, horrible terms for small innovators trying to get services on the decks, etc.) Apple will be the first company to make a grab at a healthy percentage of those 223 million cellphone toters in the USA. Google and Yahoo won't be far behind with their own spin on services (linked to a specific device or not). Microsoft...well, they've got the Zune. Give them some time they'll have a Zune phone, I guess. Harder to say with them.

Google gets most of this recent NYTimes piece:

clipped from www.nytimes.com “It wouldn’t be surprising if they offer a co-branded phone configured for easy access to Google services,” said Charles Golvin, principal analyst at Forrester Research. That would help to ensure that Google’s services are not frozen out by future alliances between rivals like Microsoft and carriers or handset makers. For now, searching the Web on a cellphone, which requires a modern phone with a data service plan, is far from being a mainstream activity. In February, fewer than nine million cellphone users in the United States conducted Web searches, according to the research firm Telephia. About 233 million Americans had cellphones at the end of last year, according to CTIA, a wireless industry group. “There is a pent-up demand for mobile search that didn’t really exist with the PC,” said Greg Sterling of the research firm Sterling Market Intelligence. “And competition is really starting to create some innovation.”

Chat enabled spreadsheets...new cubicle standard

Now if only it was massage enabled...

clipped from blogs.zoho.com Inter-application Chat in Zoho Raju Vegesna  April 19, 2007 01: 43 pm     We recently announced Zoho Chat integration with Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet and Zoho Mail. This means, if you are collaborating with other users on a document or spreadsheet, you can chat with the other users right within these applications (thanks to Zoho Chat). If you start a chat session in one application, you can now continue the same chat session across applications in Zoho. This works with Zoho Writer, Sheet and Mail currently. Once chat is integrated into other applications, this feature will flow. Here are few screens of the same chat session in different applications. Posted to General   Permalink  Trackback  Add to Del.icio.us  Digg it  Post Comment

That's the end of it

M walks into the kitchen: "Dad, I've got an ant. I squashed him. Here."
Hands me a building block. A flattened ant is attached.
Flicking the carcass off the block, I hand the block back. "Looks like you got him."
Taking the block, "Yeah. He was trying to get up on my blocks. I guess that will be the end of it."
She promptly turned and went back to playing blocks.

Presentations coming this summer to google

Official Google Blog: We're expecting

This was nice to hear. And from Sam Schillace too. Mr. Writely! I've always wanted a simpler presentation application. When you have to take a class or spend 8 hours a day with software to get great results day-in and day-out, something's wrong.

I hope they keep it simple. Don't you?

I'd be amazed if Google could hire hackers who've not been influenced by 37signals. Simple is the new way to get things done. Especially on the web.

Kenny Outgunned

Erin, remarking on Kenny's Xmas gift pack that arrived in the mail for her:

"Kenny, you gave me the best gifts you can give on Christmas: laughter and warmth. Laughter because your shit was funny. And warmth because I burned everything."

Random colors and playthings

Aren't these eggs nice? The camera actually got the colors right.



On a different topic, but still as colorful: Maddy got her Homestarrunner figure set. Gramma was on hand for the initial playfest. They all accompanied us to dinner. Except Strongbad, who got left behind. He was working on some email...