Memory Leak

What I thought started out as a parody of all of the Apple iCrap, went it a very funny direction. Hilarious.

The world of politics is being impacted by viral nature of Web 2.0. This past week, a non authorized pro-Barak Obama video hit YouTube and quickly picked up 100,000 hits in two days. The video is a mix up of the classic “1984″ Apple ad that has Hilary Clinton playing the role of “Big Brother”. There are even interesting subtle updates to the ad which includes the woman throwing the hammer wearing an iPod. Obama’s campaign claims it had nothing to do with the video.

We don’t know much about the author but we do know that the new mechanisms of Web 2.0 (I hate that term) will have a profound impact on the upcoming elections. I’m sure that we’ll see more examples like this in the coming months.

I downloaded Google Notebook a few months back and only got around to using it recently.

Google Notebook makes web research of all kinds – from planning a vacation to researching a school paper to buying a car – easier and more efficient by enabling you to clip and gather information even while you’re browsing the web. And since Google Notebook lives in your browser, you won’t be left with a scattered collection of notes, Word docs, and browser bookmarks to sort through; all your web findings will be gathering into one organized, easy accessible location that you can access from any computer.

I must say that I find it very useful and use it quite a bit while researching on the web or just noting interesting things I see. Specifically, I like that 1) all the data is stored centrally so that I can get my data from any computer even when I clip from different browsers and 2) there is a convenient Firefox plug in for quick access. I highly recommend it.

Let’s take a time out from business and technology. Eric Clapton was at the HP Pavilion this past Sunday and what an amazing show. It’s was a evening of hot chops and cool blues. The setlist was the following (Thank you Where’s Eric):

01. Tell The Truth
02. Key To The Highway
03. Got to Get Better in A Little While
04. Little Wing
05. Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad

Sit Down Set
06. Driftin’ (EC Solo)
07. Outside Woman Blues
08. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out
09. Running On Faith

10. Motherless Children
11. Little Queen of Spades
12. Further On Up The Road
13. Wonderful Tonight
14. Layla

Encore
15. Cocaine
16. Crossroads (with Robert Cray)

I snapped a couple of shots below.

In this month’s Business 2.0, there is an article about an innovative new company tackling the age old problem to folks that dye their hair. Betty Beauty is introducing the first safe color specially formulated for the hair down there. The articles describes how the co-founder thought of the idea while observing patrons of a hair salon walk out with little bags of the hair coloring so that they can keep the “up stairs” the same color as the “down stairs”. I’m brining up this company for a number of reasons:

1. It’s an amazing example of founding a company on simple life observations. There are start up ideas all around us. We just need to pay attention.
2. Reminded me a of “Blue Ocean” strategy. Insteading of trying to take on the “bloody” hair coloring market, it’s tackling a space with probably no competitors.
3. I never knew that it was important to have “safe coloring” for the hair down there. I’m scared now.
4. I wanted to post a blog with as many references to the hair down there without actually saying what is it.

It was announced today that Microsoft will aquire TellMe networks. Most interestingly, I have read that it could fetch 800+ million dollars which would represent the 4th largest acquisition in the history of Microsoft. Whoa! Microsoft is busting into the voice platform business in a big way. I remember playing with the technology back in 2000 and it was hot stuff back then. I’m very curious to see what Microsoft does with the technology and how (if) it changes our general user experience with the operating system. This could have very interesting impact across the Microsoft products.

REDMOND, Wash. – March 14, 2007 - Microsoft Corp. today announced it will acquire Tellme Networks, Inc., a leading provider of voice services for everyday life, including nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search. Microsoft and Tellme share a vision around the potential of speech as a way to enable access to information, locate other people and enhance business processes, any time and from any device. Combining Tellme’s talented people and expertise in high-volume voice services with Microsoft’s platform, resources and worldwide customer reach will inspire new and innovative solutions.

I recently discovered the the New York Times Reader while listening to Leo Laporte’s podcast on my drive home from work. It’s a very cool newspaper reader built on Windows Presentation Foundation. Surprisingly, the user experience is terrific and made me think that I could actually read a newspaper online. Since its built on the new .Net 3.0 runtime, it took a bit of time to download and install but after that it runs quite nicely. The text was easy to read and it surprising seemed like I was reading an actual newspaper. It probably works really well on a tablet PC.

For a limited time, the tool is offered for free but its very clear that they will be charging for the service soon. The following letter pops up when you register:

Dear Times Reader Beta Testers,

We want to thank you for your input during this free beta period. You and your fellow beta testers have been a great help in the development of Times Reader.

This note is to let you know that the beta period will be ending in two weeks. Times Reader will launch as a subscription service on March 27. It will cost $14.95 a month or $165 a year and will include access to TimesSelect and Premium Crosswords. Times Reader will be free to home delivery subscribers, including 7-day, weekend, Sunday only, weekday only, Book Review only, Large Type Weekly subscribers, and those who receive the special education rate.

Now, even though I liked the tool I don’t think I liked it enough to pay $14.95 a month. I would still prefer Google News, Slashdot, Digg and a random assortment of good blogs.

This afternoon I was having an exit interview with an engineer on my team leaving the company. He is a very talented engineer and I’m very disappointed to see him go. Now, during the meeting my phone fell out of my pants and I heard my wife’s voice on the other line. I seriously thought I had hit the call button in my pants and dialed my wife by mistake. My pants make more phone calls than I do. My wife and I exchange salutations and then she tries to explaine to me that she flushed her car keys down the toilet. My immediate out loud response was,

“You droppe d your keys in the toilet? What? Then you flushed the toilet? Why did you do that? Did you go #1 or #2?”

The poor engineer sitting there probably didn’t know what hit him. In reality, all the timing was right just like on of those physics projects where one thing bumps the next thing in succession. She stood up, autoflushed, keys dropped and right at the “chug chug” of the toilet, the keys hit the bottom of the bowl. “Nothing but net”. In my mind, like a Scrubs episode, I had pictured the keys sitting like a sword in the dirt (Ala Brave Heart). My wife looking and saying, “We can get another set”. Flush!

Lesson learned, “The autoflush is not your friend.” For anyone who works in the San Ramon sewage treatment facility, its a BMW key and a house key. Let me know if you find them.

The other day I was having lunch with a few friends of mine and stumbled upon an interesting conversation. One person had mentioned that every Thursday night he gets together with several other VP and Directory level software engineering managers to play World of Warcraft. Amazingly, he also says that he has connected with other software “power players” through World of Warcraft. Really? Is World of Warcraft becoming the next business networking tool like golf?

For those of you that don’t know, World of Warcraft is massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It is considered one of the most successful MMORPG’s ever created. There are over 8 million users world wide and some of them are using it as a networking tool. Can you imagine being in a business dinner and saying, “I have a Level 59 Undead Warlock on the Doomhammer server. Let’s get together Saturday, we can kill a few humans and I’ll tell you about my idea over TeamSpeak.” Crazy. I would still prefer to chase after that little white ball rather than kill humans together online.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a 51 Orc Hunter on Doomhammer which I play from time to time.

/laugh

Well, it’s finally happened. I’m throwing my hat into the ring and starting a blog. If you asked me six months ago, I would have laughed at you and said “Blogs are dumb and why would I add to already full internet! There’s no room!” I’m not sure what happened but I found myself reading more and more blogs. The information I found on blogs became just as useful as the articles I would read on any major website. Then it hit me. One mans garbage is another man’s treasure. The crap I’m dribbling out could someday become useful for someone. For example, with this blog entry it could someday be used in a term paper titles, “When Blogging Jumped The Shark”.

Let’s see what happens. I give it 3 – 6 months before I get bored and jump to the next thing. Maybe I’ll start a podcast or something. In the meantime, I hope to fill this blog with at much crap and I can think of in the areas of technology, business, entrepreneurship, family and humor.