I’m off to Chicago to pick up my next restoration project ! I’m thankful that Carl has volunteered to do some of the driving - he just realized the weather is going to suck so the “fun” factor either just went way up or way down, depending on what you decide is “fun”.
I did a [...]

For those not familiar with Tabblo, it has a number of great capabilities for the creative individual. I was first introduced to it to view a series of video essays creating by a talented group of individuals (artists really).
I see this announcement as yet another “community space” being gobbled up by big corporation. It follows [...]

I opted to give Google’s SketchUp a try. When it is first installed and started, it has the typical “helpful tips” popup. More often than not, I either disable this or I leave it running for a few instances and read one tip each time I start the program. The SketchUp tips were really helpful [...]

I just discovered a really cool feature of Firefox 2 - I call it Click2Search. (Firefox should take my idea as they just call it “Searching the Web for Words Selected in a Web Page” … BORING!)
Anyway, from the documentation …
Firefox allows you to search the web for words you select within web page:
1. [...]

Here is one I’ve been waiting / expecting to see … 
Google Acquires Marratech For Web Conferencing
March was an exciting and dynamic month given announcements at VoiceCon from leading vendors in the unified communications market, the TellMe acquisition by Microsoft and the WebEx acquisition by Cisco.
So Google getting into the web conferencing market certainly makes April interesting. … [...]

The following news scares me something wicked …
Google’s ambition to maximize the personal information it holds on users is so great that the search engine envisages a day when it can tell people what jobs to take and how they might spend their days off.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was [...]

The world of corporate information and social networking are not just on a collision path, their already traded paint once or twice.
I think there are some interesting differences - and thus challenged - to social networking and social software in business settings. One of the obvious requirements is often “professionalism”. This takes on two facets [...]

Internet dating has taken a strange but perhaps more optimized twist. Today’s dating scene is tough - at least once you’ve gotten out of the target rich environment of college. A lot of people start developing relationships through email. But, some people are just good writers. What happens when the writing stops and the talking [...]

I will start by saying, “I like what Google offers”. *BUT* I’m not sure I can accept the cost to personal privacy. (And the more I write about “Goolge” and “privacy” the less likely they’d ever offer me a job <snicker>)
A recent 6 month investigation by Research International concluded …
… the decision to place [...]

When Zen was very young, I started socializing her - with other dogs, people, places - you name it ! Somewhere along the way, I got connected with a group of Pug owners who got together every few weeks on a Sunday to let them all play together for an hour or so. This [...]

Carl Tyler of Epilio recently wrote, “How big is small?” referring to the definition of small and medium businesses (SMB).
This is an interesting question given that large established companies often have very different definitions. Microsoft, who makes the bulk of its revenue from consumers, markets SMB as 25-500 computer seats. Whereas IBM, who makes the [...]

The latest version of Google Earth has also added a flight simulator (albeit without a lot of fanfare). I finally have an excuse … uhm … I mean reason, to download and install the software. You can get the user guide online.

Anyone who hasn’t woken up to Google’s plans to take over the world, needs to start reading a bit more. The latest “launch” has happened with Google making simple slide presentations over the web a “no brainer”. 
The presentation can be shared with everyone and any viewer can follow the presenter or take control of the presentation. [...]

I’ve read a bunch of hype and speculation on a “Google Phone” and most of the sites are focused on how cool it might be or how it will be better than the iPhone, etc. A Computerworld article is probably closer to the truth - “Google wants your attention” (and the advertising dollars that [...]

A ComputerWorld article covers Google’s recent discussion and presentation of "Android", it’s mobile phone operating system.
Dave Burke, an engineering manager in Google Inc.’s mobile team, made some points that concern me.
Android will be different … because it is open source. [but] to have its own flavor of Java"

YUCK. I’ve been dealing with a [...]

I have become a personal disaster recovery zealot. I’m like the former smoker railing against smokers - so I’ll try not to preach too much.
When I used Windows on all of my machines, I did the occasional random image backup. To be honest, these occurred about once every 3 to 6 months. Not good. When [...]

I again was blog surfing this morning and came across a post about sharing items from your blog reader - at least if that blog reader is Google Reader.
Google Reader has some quirky features but one thing is does well is keep your blog reading in check across multiple machines. I tend to have at [...]

Back in the 1990’s there was this idea of “network computers” - computers that did nothing without their connection to the network. The idea fizzled. Now we are on the verge of the “web computer”. Same idea but with better timing.
The emergence of Amazon S2 & AWS , Force.com, Facebook, and Google Apps & [...]

At MacWorld 2007, Steve Jobs announced “Time Machine” which heralding in an easy to use, consumer focused solution for backing up your computer Mac with Leopard. However, it was not for everyone. It assumed the backup device - a USB connected hard drive was always plugged in which is fine for a desktop computer but [...]

Today, Sun announced its intent to acquire MySQL AB. This is a very interested announcement for a number of reasons.
I’ve been curious when MySQL would be acquired. I have read a number of accounts that it would not happen and MySQL AB would rather go public. I bought most of the arguments in favor of [...]

theSalmonFarm.org has blatantly ripped off an idea from Google - “switching the lights off”. When I launched Google search this morning, I was greeted to a predominantly black screen. I had to know why so I read the little disclaimer. They were promoting “Earth Hour“. Good thing they did as I nearly forgot about [...]

I really like the Firefox feature that lets me select some text and then (right-click) search in Google for the text. I find myself mistakenly trying it in all my applications - email, instant message chats, documentation, etc. I finally had to find some way of getting this functionality everywhere.
I am currently trying [...]

I talk about the farmhouse construction ad nauseam. One comment (other than “SHUT UP”) that has been repeated, is “you could not build this place without the internet”. I’d agree, at least in so much as to say I would not be able to do as much of the work myself and with the [...]

GeoEye-1 will deliver higher resolution images and a much faster rate. U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency gets first dibs at the images but Google gets exclusive on-line rights after that. Oh, and if you were curious, there will be a GeoEye-2 a bit later on.
Credit: Vandenberg Air Force Base Media